Storm coming, por John Cochrane:
Imagine, as seems quite possible, that Trump scores an early lead in the days after the election, with a narrow electoral college majority, though losing the popular vote, with 90% - 10% losses in the deep blue cities. Trump declares victory. Blue cities erupt in protest.Isto é uma mistura de b) e c) no meu cenário.
As mail in votes come in and are tabulated, Biden gets closer and closer and by his party's count has won.
But lawyers have already fanned out around the country. Every single smudged postmark, questionable signature is challenged by both sides. Conspiracy theories abound. Vote harvesting stories are told. A few bales of forgotten mail are discovered. As the key battleground counties are isolated, we have 50 hanging chad controversies, with warring and disagreeing injections by different courts. More protests erupt on both sides. (...)
No, this makes it a virtual certainty that courts will weigh in.(...)
We will have the 2000 hanging chads all over again -- except in multiple states and counties all at the same time.
All that ends up in the Supreme Court, on a tight deadline. (There are abundant legal issues, which are beside the point. The suits will be filed, argued heatedly, and people will be in the streets protesting.)
This was going to be bad enough. Now suppose that the Senate has flipped to Democrats, 51-49, but the lame duck Senate confirms a Trump appointee to the court. Protests and riots erupt. (There are already protests, here for example, and Trump hasn't even nominated anyone. Another, from "grandma, team resistance:" "If he tries to appoint someone, it's civil war, and I'll be on the front line." There are demonstrators in front of Senator Mitch McConnell's house now. I just googled "Ginsburg protest," there's lots more.)
And then suppose that court decides, 5-4, or even 6-3 with the new member, in favor of Trump. In the softer gentler era of 2000, many democrats never acknowledged that Bush legitimately won the election. (I read the New Yorker which called it "stolen" for years afterwards. I have never seen them acknowledge that in the final count, Bush did, actually, win.) Democratic acknowledgement that Trump really did win in 2016 and is the legitimate President of the United States has been soft at best. Can you imagine they would sit still for the legitimacy of this outcome?
There will be widespread protest, violence and looting. Right and leftwing "militias" will face off. We are not fighting about abstractions like "social justice." This a good old fashioned fight about political power.
What do you do if you are president with cities burning? You send in the troops. Republicans will call it "law and order, " "protecting life, property and the rule of law." Democrats will decry this as "martial law," and a "coup." And with some justification: To their view, protesting such a presidential outcome is the same as protests all over the world, in Hong Kong, in Iran, in Belarus, that aim to topple illegitimate regimes, though those regimes are "lawful" by their laws and procedures for implementing those laws.
Cochrane (um economista conservador de Chicago) apresenta mais uns quantos cenários possíveis ("Risk analysis 101: If there is one path to disaster, by which 5 improbable events have to fail, you're probably ok. But if many scenarios all come back to the same disaster, the chance of that disaster is larger").
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