He is still holding power though. Look how he was able to block aid to Ukraine for 6 months. Or how he tanked the border bill that actually had everything Republicans were asking for.

He is not a president, but he still controls people in powerful positions.

First, he's not the President. That gave him an overwhelming advantage in trying to steal that election. He held power.

He isn't, but a huge number of sympathetic judges that he appointed still are. As if an activist, conservative Supreme Court.

We need both the Presidency and majorities in Congress. All but one of the moral Republicans who sided with the election results last time have lost their primaries to pro-Trump candidates; there are none left in Congress to side with Democrats against Trump-backed activism.

he has cult members in multiple states and at the local level who are in charge of elections or ballot certification or somewhere in that process; and judges at all levels, some of whom have already ruled in his favor.

it is unlikely but still a non-zero chance that enough bullshit gets piled on the process in enough places that neither candidate gets the minimum 270 electoral college votes required when they're officially counted and certified at the start of the next congressional session.

if that were to be the case, then congress votes to choose the president (house, each state gets one vote--dc gets no vote; 26 to win) and vice president (senate, 51 to win).

Worth noting, though, Trump’s plan to steal the election is at a more local level than before. Focusing on election officials and people that certify results. I could see a scenario where a state is won by shenanigans.

Remembering the 2000 election that the Supreme Court stole from Al Gore, there were counties in Florida that were ordered to do recounts, but didn’t start the recount for weeks because they knew it would only benefit Gore. In the end, Gore lost because the recounts took too long and the partisan Supreme Court decided they had to stop.

Lesson here is that local officials can easily make an impact in the final results, and republicans have no ethics in the matter.

The main concern is if Trump convinces enough electoral vote officials and they refuse to certify results, we will be in unprecedented territory. Democrats have been known to take the knee in favor of remaining civil (see Bush vs Gore), so there is understandably a lot of uncertainty and why Harris needs to win by a HUGE margin

This time all he might need is a couple of dodgy decisions in some swing states. "Oh my the Dems are cheating well the wonderful governor of state X can overturn the election results and the delegates can vote for who the think the people really want."

What I expect to happen is this:

• Donald will double down on the only strategy he knows, and will chew his way through a series of increasingly brief campaign managers whilehe tunes out while he leans into personality attacks and conspiracy theories, galvanizing his MAGA core and alienating an increasing share of Republicans

• He will continue to chase moderates towards Kamala, expanding into the right, eventually even to include a small handful of politically savvy MAGA types compelled to denounce him to save face

• Election night is a drubbing in the popular vote with record turnout and a similar map to 2020 with maybe even one or two new blue states

• Donald will trot out a litany of accusations of interference and refuse to concede, his base will further contract

• MAGA protests will quickly turn violent and Donald's refusal to denounce his few remaining supporters will pretty much sever MAGA from what's left of Republicans

• a few MAGA election officials delay certifying anywhere possible, exhausting all legal and some illegal means of avoiding certification

• At least one or two of these delays will result in a standoff between county and state government or even state and federal

• All of this likely set against a backdrop of sporadic but increasing violence and rioting by the remaining hardest of the hard core MAGA, with right wing militias playing a large role and even intervening on behalf of at least one of the aforementioned standoffs at one point or another

I'd be curious which of those elements you find to be the most far fetched. I know in their totality they sound like a crazed paranoid rant, but given our recent history, and the insane trajectory we are on, this doesn't really seem like that big of a stretch to me.

These are all good points. We should also be vigilant, as you highlight, but especially because of the lower court appointees, board of election positions, and others that have been packed with bad faith actors preparing for this moment. It's McConnell's last hurrah.

not like hes off the hook for the last go

oh? sure, we still talk some shit, but he's not going to see consequences. even the participants who broke in and stole information from congressghouls and set bombs in the capital with the explicit goal of overthrowing the government didn't get as much prison time as a POC with a joint in alabama or a kid who threw a rock at a cop's riot shield. seems like a pretty clear message.

I think the big issue here is the right wing news ecosystem and their viewers. They consume so much propaganda and believe it wholeheartedly. It's almost like Trump isn't the problem, the youtubers are...

The orange felon is doing felon things WITH fellow wealthy accomplices. Money can get a lot of shady/illegal shit done.
There is a reason countries used to line up seditionists before firing squads.

You'd be surprised, there are a lot of people on here still who don't believe it. I've called it out and had many people argue back saying "they can't do that", "they won't do that".

A lot of people still have their head in the sand over the rise of fascism in this country.

he’s speaking to people that don’t know and out of the loop.

Even if he wins, he'll rage that there was tampering, because it should have been 100% Trump, in his mind.

He was complaining about it even when he beat Clinton.

If the SC tells us to throw our country away we don't have to do it.

Unless they get to the SC

You mean the thing that's already happened years ago?