Trying to cook up the most incendiary way in which Trump could win in 2020 and it would go something like this:
Trump is going up against, say, Elizabeth Warren. Warren wins the popular vote by an utterly indisputable margin - 8%. But Trump ekes out a 270-268 victory in the Electoral College by carrying several swing states by Florida-like margins of only several dozen or hundred votes each. (Or perhaps, even, Warren wins the Electoral College narrowly, but one or a few electors are bribed into crossing the aisle to voting for Trump.) Meanwhile, there is widespread Russian interference, all sorts of hacking of voting machinery, millions of voters prevented from voting, and dirty shenanigans in hundreds of swing-state precincts. Subsequent investigations show ***proof ***that the election was rigged for Trump. Oh, and the 2020 election campaign was several months of nastiness and bile that makes 2016 look like a walk in the park in comparison.
…In such a scenario, the anger would be several times hotter than what it was after Trump’s first win. What kind of civil unrest would we be looking at? It would surely be more intense than the after-election protesting in the streets that took place in November 2016. Would we be looking at widespread riots, bombs and Molotov cocktails, all kinds of physical fights between Trump supporters and opponents, probably multiple assassination attempts of Trump or others, National Guard having to be called up?
IMHO what we would see is about what we see now, this day, with the possible change that most people would be sitting back saying “at least there won’t be a third term”.
Oh, they know which bathroom to use just fine. It’s the assholes who are scared of them and try to dictate which bathroom they must use is the problem.
I’m sorry, who is wishing for what now?
And you seem to be saying that your on the side that would be OK with this? That can’t be right, please explain.
At one time I might have expected civil unrest or demonstrations or something. But now, we’re just so used to thump that I agree with this post. And I DO believe he WILL get reelected. The Dems are already fragmented and scattered, and that won’t change. Bernie is going to be a spoiler, no matter what. Wake me in 2025.
The question in the OP seems to imply that people who hate Trump with a passion now, still have a capacity for even more outrage, and I don’t see it. I see outrage fatigue in ThelmaLou’s post. She was very vocal when he was first elected and is now resigned to him. And I don’t think she is alone in seeing Trump’s behavior as the new normal, at least for this president.
It is very early in the game of Democratic candidates jockeying for position and I think Bernie will play the role of spoiler again. He is not electable nationally for a number of reasons. If the trend toward the hard left that is currently popular continues, and the aversion to moderates in regard to a potential candidate holds for much longer, then Trump wins again.
The Democratic party needs to win back the Rust Belt, win the moderates within their own party and the silent moderates in the GOP who are unhappy with Trump. Then they have a chance. Socialism, higher taxes, etc. will not get there. Small steps in that direction maybe. Particularly if the current job and economic growth continues. People tend to vote with their pocketbook.
I agree with these comments. And it doesn’t appear that the current slate of Democratic candidates in the field can come anywhere near accomplishing this.
As long as we’re talking about civil unrest, may I expand the subject a bit?
I’m not at all worried about violence if Trump wins in the OP’s description of “a galling fashion”.
I’m more worried about if Trumploses…in any fashion.
No matter how legitimate the results, Trump will find it galling.
He will declare that the election was rigged. And his base will believe it.
And they have 8 billion bullets.
I would expect to see a couple of drive-by shootings at several Democratic headquarters, and a couple of large-scale shootings into crowds, in places where liberals are gathered.(maybe a college campus).
In this universe, Asimovian is right, and I promise not to pile on. But…
That was a pretty good microcosm of the first 78 days of the OP. Couple folks hiss the villain, clutch their pearls, maybe cry a little and try to put their brains back together to deal with the situation rationally. Constitutionally. Adult…ily.
Then Trump will just have to get his mug out there during his second inauguration and crow about the massive landslide win, the public mandates it represents, the new powers we all want him to have, all while doing his smug little poutysmile. And then, just when things are about to get hot, ex-pres Obama will grab a microphone and tell us all to just calm down. Someone will throw a chair at him. Things will get blurry.
Not only that but I’m willing to predict that if Combover Boy is reelected, it will be a pretty straightforward wrongheaded reelection. Leaving aside disinformation campaigns, any actual election tampering will be conventional vote fraud or suppression, as we saw in North Carolina of late, not any sort of deep Russian hacking.
OTOH if he loses, y’know what? No, I don’t see the larger chunk of his “base” actually rising up violently. They’ll revert to the hunkering down for when the Great Tribulation finally hits. Prepper suppliers will have a windfall and run out of stocks, but not much beyond that.
There has already been a spate of violence and vandalism directed at Republicans. Why would you be “not at all worried”? Is it because it wouldn’t be directed at you and thus is not a concern, or you find it unlikely, despite the historical record?