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In a world where the coronavirus crisis is getting worse, North Korea refuses to give up its nuclear weapons, the Russian military is still fighting in eastern Ukraine and terrorism still

lurks, the fear that President Donald Trump would refuse to leave office after losing this November’s election should rank among the more farfetched and ridiculous worries. Joe Biden isn’t

worried about that scenario. Pete Buttigieg joked, “It’s going to be pretty awkward when Chasten and I are moving in our furniture. I mean, if he won’t leave, I guess if he’s willing to do

chores we could work something out.” But some Democrats genuinely fear this scenario. So for a few minutes, let’s play along with the paranoid. Is it possible to envision a scenario where a

Trump defeat turns ugly? Sure. If Trump is defeated on election night, it is very easy to picture him claiming that this year’s election is “stolen”. Or Trump may claim, without evidence,

that hackers got into every county elections office in a key swing state. Or Trump may claim that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the deep state made reckless and baseless

allegations against him to smear his reputation. Trump is likely to accuse his opponent of being in a secret alliance with a foreign power — probably China or Iran — and to offer the

conspiracy theory that several of his critics and rivals are being secretly groomed by hostile powers to take over the country. If Trump is defeated, he is almost certainly going to claim

the national news media helped elect his opponent, that the debate moderators asked questions that helped his opponent and that he lost because of the ignorance and foolishness of “low

information voters”. Of course, Hillary Clinton _said all of these things in the past four years_, and American democracy has survived. (You notice no Democrats contend the 2018 midterm

House elections were hacked . . . because they won a whole bunch of those. Far too many people in American politics believe elections have only two possible outcomes: either their side won

or the other side cheated.) There’s a reason that presidents who are approaching the end of their power are nicknamed “lame ducks”. Trump keeps the powers of the presidency during his

transition, but his leverage drops to zero. He could order the Department of Justice to investigate any voting irregularities, but his chances of getting a legal injunction to slow down any

of the transition activities are nil. Trump’s influence on Capitol Hill would virtually disappear. Congressional Republicans will have little fear of Trump anymore, and his ability to grant

favours will be limited. Trump would change overnight from the most powerful man in American government to the guy who botched a winnable election after four years of a good economy and

general peace abroad. (We’ll see how the coronavirus shakes out.) On December 14, 2020, the electors of the electoral college will meet in their respective states and vote for a president

and vice-president on separate ballots. The electors are technically legally free to vote for someone else, what is sometimes called “faithless electors”. It’s pretty rare; in 2004, an

unnamed Minnesota elector cast a ballot for “John Ewards” (presumably the vice-presidential nominee John Edwards) and a vice-presidential vote for John Kerry. These usually amount to nothing

more than odd historical footnotes. If Trump loses, it is likely that he and his supporters will publicly argue that the Democratic electors should vote for him instead of the Democratic

nominee. Trump will find some reason — a claim that illegal aliens voted, or that Democratic governors rigged the vote, or that someone prevented Trump voters from casting ballots, or that

aliens who escaped from Area 51 used mind-control rays, or some other entirely rational argument supported by heaps of incontrovertible evidence. Alex Jones will undoubtedly deem the

president’s claims credible. An attempt by Trump to get the electors to change their minds will probably go about as well for him as it went for the Clinton supporters. Once the electoral

college casts their votes, and 270 of them vote for someone besides Trump, the presidency will change hands at noon on January 20, 2021, period, full stop, no questions asked, do not pass

go, do not collect two hundred dollars. Trump can whine, complain, and rage all he wants. The White House staff and US Secret Service take oaths to discharge their duties faithfully and

defend the Constitution; they do not take personal loyalty oaths to the president. No matter how childishly Trump may behave, he’s surrounded by grown adults who are not willing to ignore

the Constitution or law. Those adults — and perhaps Trump’s trusted advisers like Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and vice-president Mike Pence — would tell him that by refusing to leave his

office, he was embarrassing himself and tainting his legacy. The absolute worst-case scenario is that sometime after noon, the president, in deep psychological denial, is removed from the

White House by the Secret Service. That would represent an ugly and embarrassing chapter in American history, but we’ve gotten through worse. One way or another, Donald Trump will be

physically out of the White House in the afternoon or evening. (Bill Clinton dragged out his departure as long has he could on January 20, 2001 with multiple hand-shaking sessions with

staffers at the White House, and Andrews Air Force base. Terry McAuliffe, Clinton’s long-time friend, fundraiser and choice to run the Democratic National Committee, finally had to tell the

newly-former president, “cut it out,” and get him on Air Force One for a final ride to New York City.) But what of Trump’s supporters? What if those diehard MAGA-hat wearing self-proclaimed

proud deplorables refused to accept the results of the election? If Trump loses, Americans could see angry crowds of the losing candidate setting limousines on fire at the inauguration,

attacking businesses run by immigrants. We could see activists in masks throwing rocks and bottles at police officers. We could see rioters using chunks of pavement and baseball bats to

shatter the windows of banks and restaurants in downtown Washington. We could see hundreds of arrests and supporters of the president getting punched in face on the street, with all of it

live-streamed to social media. You know, _all the kinds of stuff that already happened at Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2017. _Once again, the United States of America has survived the

British burning down the White House, a Civil War, the Spanish flu, a Great Depression, two World Wars, Vietnam and the cultural upheaval of the 1960s, the Cold War, 9/11 and the Great

Recession. We will get through some people being furious about their guy losing a presidential election. We go through this every four years. The odd thing is, Trump may eventually learn to

love life as an ex-president. Most former presidents hold their tongues about their successors and tend to settle into a weary brotherhood nicknamed “the President’s Club”. Former rivals

begin to appreciate each other, recognising just how difficult the job is, and how heavily the duty of command weighs upon them. Trump does not seem likely to want a quiet retirement. As a

former president, Trump could (and almost certainly will) remain a public presence, tweeting whenever he feels like it, calling into news shows and regularly popping up on Fox News Channel

for interviews — presuming, of course, Trump is on good terms with Fox News. The president periodically jumps onto Twitter to complain the network has too many Democratic guests and segments

that are critical of him. Trump will let the country know just how badly his successor is screwing up every single day. Defeat would mean he would spend the rest of his days in an extremely

high-profile new role as the heckler-in-chief, endlessly ridiculing his successor(s) and spotlighting every misstep, failure, and disappointment. And he would get to live in Trump Tower

again. Everything he likes, and none of the presidential duties that bore him — not a bad consolation prize.