Why I fear Trump won’t leave office

By Bob HepburnStar Columnist

My biggest fear about the U.S. election isn’t that Donald Trump
will win, which is a real possibility given the craziness of
American politics these days.

No, my biggest fear is that Trump loses, declares the election
rigged — and refuses to leave office.

If that happens, then the U.S. could be facing a constitutional
crisis and another civil war — literally — with hardline wacko
supporters marching through the streets with their assault weapons
at the ready as Trump holes up defiantly in the White House.

An unlikely scenario? Nonsense?

Maybe, but constitutional experts say that if it does happen the
U.S. would be in uncharted waters with no real rule book for
legally removing him from the Oval Office if he refuses to go
quietly.

Increasingly, many Trump analysts express concern over the U.S.
president’s strategy of firing up his base by ranting about the
Nov. 3 election being “rigged” because of scandals around mail-in
ballots, which would mean it could be months before the final
results are available.

As always, Trump has no proof of that, but it doesn’t stop him
from fomenting anger and fury with his base, which believes he can
do no wrong nor say anything that isn’t true.

The possibility that Trump would refuse to leave office after
the 2020 election has become more serious in the last year. It is
gaining credibility by the fact that Trump has said nothing to
dispel such concerns.

Michael Cohen, who was Trump’s former lawyer and personal fixer,
warned during a congressional hearing in early 2019 of trouble
ahead. “Given my experience working for Mr. Trump,” he told
lawmakers, “I fear that if he loses in 2020, that there will never
be a peaceful transition of power.”

In an interview this past July with Chris Wallace of Fox News,
Trump bluntly refused to say if he would accept the election
results. “I’m not going to just say yes,” Trump said, adding “and I
didn’t last time either.” He was referring to a 2016 presidential
debate in which he also refused to say if he’d accept defeat,
declaring: “I’ll keep you in suspense.”

One of the top U.S. legal experts on the presidency says it is
sheer folly to believe Trump would go easily if he loses.

“Should President Trump lose in the 2020 election, don’t expect
him to concede defeat — it is simply not in his DNA to do so,” says
Lawrence Douglas, a law professor at Amherst College in
Massachusetts, who has written a book about this issue titled “Will
He Go? Trump and the Looming Election Meltdown in 2020.”

Douglas told PBS that Trump’s recent comments about possibly
delaying the election “should concern all Americans, regardless of
political affiliation … The fact that Trump lacks the power to
delay an election — only Congress could do that — provides cold
comfort. The very idea that he would float the idea smacks of
authoritarianism.”

It’s this authoritarian streak in Trump that most worries
constitutional experts. They believes he is capable at stopping
short of nothing to keep himself in power.

Indeed, there is no provision in the U.S. Constitution of how a
president should be removed if they lose the election and won’t
hand over power to the winner. But it’s also hard to imagine the
FBI storming into the Oval Office and hauling a handcuffed Trump
into a waiting police car.

A more likely scenario is one where Republican congressmen place
so much political pressure on Trump that even he realizes his time
is up.

Until that happens, though, Trump could certainly make mischief,
Douglas wrote recently in the Los Angeles Times. “He could, for
example, encourage his supporters to take to the streets,
triggering counterprotests met with ugly displays of federal
force.”

Douglas believes the best hope for ensuring Trump goes quietly
is for Democratic candidate Joe Biden to trounce him in the
election. “Anything short of that will aid Trump in rejecting
defeat and igniting an electoral crisis the likes of which we have
not seen in our history,” Douglas argues.

It’s a dire thought, and one that makes me even more fearful
about this election.