Don't Worry - Trump Is Leaving Office

Joe Biden won the election and will be the next President of the United States - even if Trump says otherwise. After the flurry of lawsuits and outbursts by Trump in the wake of Biden’s victory, the litany of articles examining the potential of a coup, and the general atmosphere of 2020, it’s easy to wonder if we aren’t heading for a historic seizure of power by a president known for corruption and abuses of power.

With all of that in mind, let’s break down the different paths Trump has for seizing power and, more importantly, breakdown just why he won’t be staying in the White House past January 20th.

At its most basic, here is the timeline for Biden becoming president:

Each state has to certify its results before the electors vote on December 14th.

After that, on January 6th, Congress holds a join session to certify the results.

On January 20th, the next president is sworn.

Any attempt by Trump to seize power would need to happen before January 20th, but realistically, would need to happen by January 6th as that is the latest possible date by which Biden will be officially declared President. There are many different scenarios and concerns being floated about, so let’s tackle them one at a time.

1. “What about Trump’s lawsuits?”

Trump could win every single lawsuit and get every contested mail-in ballot thrown out and he’d still lose. The ballots that he is disputing don’t make up enough votes to change the results for any of the states involved.

In each of the states where Trump is pursuing legal action, Biden won by margins far greater than the number of votes Trump is claiming were fraudulent. The numbers aren’t even close - Trump’s loss is simply too definitive to be overturned by even the most draconian anti-mail-in ballot ruling by any court.

2. “What about using lawsuits to delay certification of the results?”

Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania are all controlled by Democratic governors. The governors are in charge of appointing electors and overseeing the certification of election results. Each respective governor can certify the results and appoint electors even if Trump has pending or unresolved lawsuits.

In Pennsylvania’s case, for example, their results need to be certified by November 23rd, which means that is the latest possible date for Trump to be able to take any action to disrupt the results there. Nothing Trump has brought forward or threatened to do would disrupt that certification process and there is no reason to think anything will happen in the next 10 days to change that. The reason being, the methods available for disrupting certification vanish each day that passes - Trump has already launched his strongest attacks and they’ve failed, he has no options left in the remaining 10 days that are more likely to succeed than what he’s already tried.

3. “What about unfaithful electors? What if the electors go against the popular vote?”

In every state where unfaithful electors could hypothetically be a concern, there are already laws in place to prevent such a thing from happening or affecting the final results. Being an electoral college ‘elector’ in most states is largely a ceremonial position where you don’t actually have the freedom to vote how you please.

And, because state governors are responsible for appointing the electors and all the key states in this election are controlled by Democratic governors, there’s little chance of electors being appointed who would ever even consider voting against Biden.

But let’s say for the sake of argument that somehow some MAGA-loyalist snuck through the vetting process and wanted to vote against Biden. What if, for example, a Michigan elector decided to vote for Trump even though they were supposed to vote for Biden? In that case, by law, that elector would automatically be resigned from their post and replaced by someone who would vote for Biden.

The influence of the electoral college is, at this point, minimal - there’s nothing left that the electoral college can do to change the outcome. The media is hyping up the notion that there is potential for a potential rebellion or lack of Biden electors, but this is utterly baseless propaganda to generate ratings and ad revenue. There is simply no reason to believe that the electors will do anything other than vote according to their assigned candidate, especially as the penalty for doing so can mean prison time in some states (not to mention there is literally not a single instance of the outcome of an election being swayed by the electors themselves).

4. “What about when Congress certifies the votes?”

The only possible thing that could happen by the time the votes make it to congress that could cause trouble would be if every Republican Senator decided to try and stop the vote certification from going forward.

“Shouldn’t we be worried about that??? Aren’t they all loyal to Trump???”

No, and no.

Republicans have been loyal to Trump as a means to an end. He is the popular defacto leader of the party as long as he’s president and any dissent among party members would mean risking re-election. But that is no longer the case now that Trump lost. For now, the only concern is the upcoming Georgia runoff election where the party needs Trump voters to turn out in high numbers. Beyond that, the vast majority of elected Republicans don’t care what happens to Trump. Mitch McConnell, for instance, only cares about the courts and maintaining right wing control of them. Others, like Senators Susan Collins and Mitt Romney, only care about re-election. Both of them have already congratulated Biden on winning and said they support him being given National Security clearance as quickly as possible.

This is the biggest point of anxiety for many - the notion of a party-led coup where Republicans and Trump work together to seize total control of the government - and there is simply no way to address this concern (short of writing out a long and detailed history and explanation of party politics) that isn’t going to sound condescending to some readers so let’s get this out of the way: MSNBC, NPR, The New York Times, and other mainstream media outlets are not reliable or accurate sources of political news or analysis and any political understanding based on them is going to be equally distorted and misguided. Some mainstream outlets - The New York Times and Washington Post, for example - contain genuine journalism and news reporting, but that is a minority of what they do and it’s important to understand that most of the perspective they offer is skewed and detached from political realities.

The reality is that Republicans are not nearly as aligned as they seem - their alliances are strategic and self-serving. Backing Trump through a coup is not in the interest of the party or its leadership, with only a select few congress people and fringe politicians (who don’t have the power or influence to affect the final outcome) showing any sincere commitment to Trump’s goals. Each day more and more Republicans are coming around and acknowledging Biden’s victory and calling for him to be officially certified as president-elect, a trend that will continue to pick up pace as staying loyal to Trump offers diminishing returns.

“But what if those Republicans are just saying that and they change their mind later on?”

While that might seem like a risk from the outside, it’s actually about as likely as Biden stepping down and saying “Actually, I think Trump should stay.”

The Republican party is made up of two parts: The ideologues and the Machine.

The ideologues are dangerous because they really would support a coup. Fortunately, the ideologues make up the aforementioned demographic of low influence low power party members. Senators McConnell and Grassley, on the other hand, have a good deal of power and influence and are instead part of the Machine - they have loyalties and interests far beyond Trump or any one sitting president. Mitch McConnell primarily cares about the courts and in that regard, he has gotten what he wanted out of Trump. He and other Republicans are only standing with Trump right now because it’s good for fundraising for the upcoming runoff election in Georgia and because it’s useful for justifying their opposition to Biden once he’s in office. They can call him the fraud president and use it to argue for why they shouldn’t have to cooperate. But they won’t stand in the way of Biden getting into office because at this point, backing Trump for real would be far worse than dealing with Biden.

Why?

Well, this ties in with the next biggest worry on people’s minds:

5. “What about the Supreme Court?”

Believe it or not, the appearance of legitimacy is essential for these institutions to do what they do. As much as people decry Trump and the courts, if they actually thought this was all illegitimate no one would have voted at all. We voted because these institutions, flawed as they are, still hold some legitimacy and we still have some level of trust in them to function. And it’s that trust that gives them power.

If the Supreme Court and the Senate backed a Trump coup without even a shred of evidence or convincing story to justify their acitons, they would lose all legitimacy among the majority of US residents who oppose Trump and who recognize that Biden won. They would, in other words, be trading the legitimacy of their power to protect Trump’s ego. The courts and the Senate have absolutely zero incentive to do this.

Their power comes from their legitimacy and their ability to wield it for their own interests. That vanishes if they openly reveal themselves to be ideologues unconcerned with the law or with Democracy. Trump supporters would be happy, but keep in mind, Trump supporters make up less than 20% of the country - they are a small minority with little overall power relative to the rest of the country.

McConnell and the Republicans have been using Trump to get what they want because he was the president at the time and he was a useful vessel for their agenda. Now their primary job is to defend what they’ve won. They don’t need Trump for that and their claim to power - the validity of their actions - hinges upon the institutions to which they belong still being respected and treated as legitimate by the majority of voters and citizens. Whatever Trump has left to offer them pales in comparison to what they’d risk trying to stage a coup; throwing it all away for Trump’s vanity would undermine the very project that McConnell and others have been working for decades to cultivate.

The same is true with Fox News, a media empire run by someone who doesn’t even live in the US and who could care less about who’s president as long as the network continues to generate high revenue. Trump, however, has been threatening that revenue as he has become increasingly hostile to Fox while trying to promote more “loyal” right wing news network. That’s why you’ve seen Fox start to turn away from Trump and why he’s increasingly turning on them. Fox News has loyalties and interests beyond any one president and because they want to have a monopoly on Right Wing media, Trump’s championing of other networks is an act of aggression against Fox News’ interests.

The philosophy behind Fox has always been to have a legitimate news branch that they use to legitimize the propaganda arm of their network. In order for that strategy to work, the news branch has to report the actual news, which in this case means reporting that Trump lost. They have been doing this since election day - they were the first to call Arizona for Biden - and that has put them increasingly at odds with Trump, even while their propaganda arm continues to support him in an attempt to retain MAGA viewers.

The network doesn’t want to be at war with Trump, but they also can’t afford to unreservedly back him anymore as he pushes his fan base to other networks. They will throw Trump under the bus just like McConnell and the others as soon as it benefits them to do so, a tipping point that is rapidly approaching. Fox is already pivoting to the next fights and McConnell will abandon Trump as soon as the Georgia election is over, or as soon as the General Services Administration certifies Biden as winner (something increasingly likely to happen before the December 14th electoral college vote).

The Upshot

This whole saga has been stressful to watch for many reasons, but none of us should be worried about Trump remaining in office - that is not an actual danger and there are too many other valid stressors for us to be carrying around one has ultimately far fetched and unlikely as this one.

None of this is to downplay the significance of a sitting president calling for what amounts to a coup - Trump’s actions and speech introduce the notion that a president can, and should, challenge election results when they lose. In theory this could benefit the left as much as the right, but in practice it’s much more likely to be abused by right wing ideologues seeking to subvert the popular will than it is by leftists seeking to assert the popular will.

This sort of move into coup-territory, even as it openly fails, still serves to lay the groundwork for someone to stage an actual coup 5-10 years down the line if we don’t do the work in the meantime to reform our electoral system. Trump is opening the doors to challenging elections on a scale no one has before and that is, in the case of the US system, not a good thing. But this is not an urgent or immediate concern, just something to be aware of for the future, and it’s certainly not worth the time or mental energy to worry about it right now. Biden won. It’s settled. The real current fight is over the Georgia runoff Senate election and that is, ultimately, what most of the current coup theater is about.

Though I’m reluctant to make specific predictions, particularly in regards to someone as impulsive and erratic as Trump, if you want an idea of one possible outcome for all of this, here’s my current best guess:

Trump continues to yell about voter fraud in the weeks and months ahead. He has never liked the job of being president, but he has loved the fame and authority it grants him and in particular, the image of being a winner. He will fight this as long as he can and then once he’s out, he will pivot toward grifting his base by holding rallies and book events and talking about how he’s “the people’s president.” If he’s still alive by then, he’ll run again in 2024. In regards to the specifics of his departure, Trump is not going to be hauled out nor will he do any of the typical presidential handoff ceremonies. Instead, next month when he typically goes to Mar-a-Lago for Christmas, he’ll likely just decide to stay there and not return to the White House at all come January.

However things play out, Trump remaining president is not a serious enough possibility to merit the media hype and anxiety its inducing. The country may have seemed lawless the last four years under Trump, but the actual mechanisms of bureaucracy and power brokerage are still very much intact and Trump has neither the coalition of support, nor the personal leverage, to force a coup.

For the most cynical sign that Biden will be president and that Trump’s power is waning, simply look to the stock market. Stocks went up as soon as Biden was declared winner. If you trust in nothing else, trust in the money.