Peter Sheridan
WEDNESDAY, January 20, 2021, dawns bright and cold in Washington, D C, the day scheduled for the inauguration of the new President of the United States. But the streets are deserted outside the US Capitol building where up to a million people were expected to gather. The benches are empty of dignitaries. The Lincoln Bible is locked away in a vault.
Instead of standing on the dais at noon to swear in the new President, the Chief Justice is buried under reams of legal paperwork in his Supreme Court chambers.
Outside the courthouse a crowd of 250,000 people shout in angry protest: warring factions clashing with flying fists and placards as soldiers and tanks struggle to keep them apart.
Less than three miles away inside the White House sits Donald Trump, defeated in the November presidential election – but refusing to leave.
This surreal nightmare scenario, unthinkable in modern history, in recent days has taken several chilling steps toward becoming a dystopian reality, as America now asks itself: What happens if Donald Trump loses the election, but won’t go?
Trump confessed in mid-July that he might not accept the results of the election set for November 3, less than 100 days away.
“I have to wait and see,” he said, raising the spectre of declaring himself the winner despite electoral votes to the contrary.
“I’m not going to just say yes, I’m going to say no.”
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RUMP shocked the nation on Thursday, suggesting that the election be postponed, allowing him to hold on to power indefinitely.
“Delay the election,” he said, claiming – without a shred of evidence – that postal ballots will lead to “the most fraudulent election in history”.
And Trump, aged 74, has spoken repeatedly about extending his presidency beyond his two-term limit of 2024, even into the next decade, for up to “16 years”, ignoring the fact that this would be illegal.
Trump praised Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s
Recep Tayyip Erdogan when they extended or eliminated fixed terms, and hailed China when it removed the two-term limit on its presidency in 2018.
“He’s now President for life,” Trump said of Xi Jinping. “I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot some day.”
Trump could win November’s election, of course. But as he trails in every major poll, the US economy nose-dives and Covid-19 deaths top 155,000, critics fear that a vanquished President could adopt the stance taken by dictators, emperors and czars before him, refusing to relinquish power.
“This President is going to try to steal this election,” says his Democratic presidential rival Joe Biden, aged 77. “It’s my greatest concern.”
A Trump defeat holds the potential for “a complete electoral meltdown and the unrest and violence it could unleash”, says Amherst College professor Lawrence Douglas, author of the recent book Will He Go? which envisages the President digging in his heels.
Denying the election results could be easy for the President who had consistently rubbished scientifically proven dangers of coronavirus and global warming, and
‘There’s zero per cent chance he would gracefully transfer power, ungraceful is the best we can hope for’
conveniently refused to accept the evidence of Russian interference in his unexpected 2016 election victory over Hillary Clinton which was uncovered by 17 US intelligence agencies.
Critics accuse Trump of repeatedly flouting democratic norms by undermining an independent judiciary, a free press, the equal powers of Congress, and rules against selfdealing, while displaying the barest minimum of truth-telling. “This President is a wannabe dictator,” says Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters, of California, citing Trump’s unprecedented recent use of the US military to attack and seize peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters in Portland, Oregon.
“What’s going on… is practice for what could happen with the President if he decides that he’s not going to step down and he’s going to stay in theWhite House.”
Tony Schwartz, co-author of Trump’s bestselling book The Art of The Deal, says: “He’s a psychopath. Anything goes for Trump. The minute he leaves office his life, for all practical purposes from his perspective, is over. Losing that is unthinkable. Trump will do everything he possibly can to steal this election.”
Democratic chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Congressman Adam Smith, says: “There’s a zero per cent chance that he would gracefully transfer power. The best we can hope for is that he would