TWO WAY STREET — The Weekly Opine

This thing can go both ways. (Photo credit The Weekly Opine)

About to boil over?

As we approach the November presidential election, one oft-repeated question is on the minds of citizenry. What will happen if President Biden defeats Trump again? The question simmered at first, in the months following Trump’s attempt – carried out by his violent MAGA thugs – to overthrow our democracy on January 6, 2021. As months became years the question no longer simmers. Now, the question concerning what Trump will do if he loses again to Biden is on full boil, hotter than New Orleans in August.

American’s handwringing largely centers on two related scenarios. First, is the presumption that, based on his own words and actions, Trump will not accept the results of the election if he loses. Same as prior to the 2020 election Trump already has, without a shred of evidence, declared the 2024 election will be rife with election fraud. Trump and sinister Republicans primarily focus their not-based-on-reality suspicions on the swing states, Colorado, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Pre-November 2024 GOP election deniers include House Speaker Mike Johnson. Johnson, now rivaling Mike Pence as America’s #1 fake Christian, says he is OK with legal challenges to election results but, like other Republican insurrection sympathizers, Johnson lacks firm clarity regarding acceptance of election results. Vice presidential hopefuls, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) and Sen. Tim “Tom” Scott (R-S.C.), offer tepid support for election results. Vance says if results are “fair and free” he’ll go along. Scott refuses to answer, saying asking if he will accept election results is a “hypothetical question.” Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) says if results are “constitutional” she’ll accept them but still claims 2020 election results were not constitutional.

The second and much scarier scenario posits that if Trump’s Kool-Aid drinking followers believe the 2024 election is stolen they will launch another round of violence, to do what they failed to do three-and-a-half years ago.

The presumption is that, if Trump is defeated, MAGA insurrectionists will attempt to reverse the outcome of a legitimate election by overthrowing our democratic government. Politicians, cable news hosts, pundits and everyday folks frequently refer to the U.S. slipping into unfettered violence, maybe another Civil War. A struggle for the nation’s soul not featuring northern states vs. southern states but rather a battle between believers of U.S. democracy vs. subscribers of Nazi-style fascism.

Regardless of November’s outcome, could President Biden remain in place? (Photo credit The Weekly Opine)

Both sides can play the game

At the 2016 Democratic National Convention, First Lady Michelle Obama delivered her now famous quote, “When they go low, we go high.” Mrs. Obama’s line was in response to increasingly tawdry behavior displayed by Trump and Tea Party relics transforming into MAGAs. Mrs. Obama received plaudits for her appeal to our better angels. Yet, my response to Mrs. Obama’s lofty aspiration was, “When you turn the other cheek, you end up with two black eyes.”

While teeth gnashing is a legitimate reaction to the potential for MAGA election denial to combust into violence, fears of MAGAs opting for violence may underestimate the possibility that moderates and progressives could also resort to violence. Will all democracy-loving citizens sit idly as Trump and GOPers deconstruct America? Will people go quietly as their constitutional rights, such as voting rights, abortion rights, healthcare rights, Social Security, freedom to marry whom they please, and many other rights are trampled upon in favor of authoritarianism?

Worries that Trump and Republican blowhards won’t accept election results seem to discount that Biden is already in the White House. Does anyone think Biden – if he wins – will just pack up and leave because Trump and his ignorant trailer trash queen Marjorie Taylor Greene claim the result is not legitimate? Furthermore, what if Biden announces he will not accept the results of the election if he loses to Trump? Considering Biden occupies the White House he could claim squatter’s rights.

In other words, would you go on vacation, leaving your teenagers at home, with knowledge your neighbor planned to break into your house, destroy everything, and harm your kids? No, you would not leave. You would stay home and protect your family and the house you worked many years to turn into a comfortable home.

Looking at our American “home” and its citizens, with the prospects of another criminally-infused Trump administration hellbent on destroying America, Biden would have every right not to leave the White House if Trump wins the election. Biden may be forced to stay. Faced with an authoritarian, revenge-seeking fascist regime, that openly talks of meting out violence while dismantling the United States Constitution, Biden justifiably could hang on to the presidency. If necessary, martial law could be imposed with the military temporarily replacing civilian government, until order is restored.

If neither the criminal justice system or voters get it done there is an argument to be made that, by any means, the Biden administration should do what is necessary to save our democracy.

It’s a two way street.