Tornado Alley (PROG)

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Donald Trump doesn't plan to admit defeat

By Mark Sumner
Monday Aug 22, 2016 · 9:16 AM CST

Normally, campaigns play to win, and their plans for what happens after Election Day are focused on transitioning into power. But increasingly, the Trump campaign seems to be planning a post-defeat insurgency based on the idea that the election results can't be trusted.

So what happens if Trump refuses to accept defeat?
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/donald-trump-concede-succession-227252

Donald Trump is on track to lose in November and to refuse to accept the legitimacy of that Election Day result. That’s a problem not just for Hillary Clinton but for both political parties and the country. For everyone, really, other than Donald Trump. …

“If he loses, [he’ll say] ‘It’s a rigged election.’ If he wins, he’ll say it was rigged and he beat it. And that’s where this is headed no matter what the outcome is,” said one Trump ally. “If Donald Trump loses, he is going to point the finger at the media and the GOP establishment. I can’t really picture him giving a concession speech, whatever the final margin.”

Trump’s constant use of “rigged” and his insistence that the phantom of voter fraud is a real thing are already impacting not just his supporters, but the confidence of voters in general.

What happens if Trump continues his charges of rigging right on past the election? What happens if Donald Trump not only fails to concede, but claims to be the legitimate winner?

Should Trump opt not to concede after a loss or deliberately roil his supporters and spark uprisings by refusing to accept the legitimacy of the election results, he would still have little recourse to alter a significant electoral victory for Clinton. Only if the election were close, hinging on one or two states where there were alleged voting irregularities, could Trump seriously contest the result in court.

Court? Donald Trump isn’t going to court. It’s full of Mexican judges.

Republicans worry about Trump’s coarseness and his forays into racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny, and unconstitutional religious tests coming to define the party itself, especially for a new generation of Americans.

Racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny, and unconstitutional religious tests are already defining the party. That is the Republican Party now. Donald Trump has charged past every barrier in the name of defeating “political correctness.” This is a party that’s spent decades constructing a fictional reality around everything from Travelgate through Benghazi, with a side order of death panels and Obama’s 100 secret czars. They don’t respect reality.

Respecting the outcome of the election? Donald Trump no more has to do that than he has to respect Obama’s birth certificate, or climate change, or the citizenship of people who don't look like him.

“A Republic, if you can keep it.” — Benjamin Franklin

That “if” … is sounding a lot more important these days. Donald Trump won’t admit defeat at the ballot box. He won’t accept the word of the courts. What then?

This could be an aspect of Trump’s strategy (i.e. “elect me because if I don’t win, I kill your democracy”). Or his post-election focus may be real. Both ideas are frightening.

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/8/22/1562652/-Donald-Trump-doesn-t-plan-to-admit-defeat