Trump probably just "won," and you didn't notice
Amid all of the ridiculous spectacle of last week's... whatever that was, something important happened.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, made an important statement about the 2020 election. In normal times, the idea of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff saying anything about the presidential election would be absurd, but these are far from normal times. Milley stated that the military would not remove Trump from office if Trump loses and refuses to step down.
Look, this is the argument being posed to me by my fellow academics: yeah, Trump will refuse to step down, but... the military! It hasn't just been a rhetorical point among politicians and commentators. This is what my fellow academics say to me when I tell them to worry.
Milley just poured cold water on that. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And it's time to stop counting how many times Trump has said that he won't recognize an election that he loses. If the military won't back up a Biden victory, can someone please explain to me how Trump can ever be removed from office?
What's the process?
If Trump just says no, I won, that wasn't a legitimate election, I'm still President, and orders everyone in the executive branch, including the military to continue following his orders, what happens?
This isn't the country you thought it was, so stop assuming it can't happen here. Trump is telling you exactly what he's going to do, and Milley just told you, in no uncertain terms, that he won't do anything to prevent it.
Make no mistake, it would be a disaster either way. If Trump refuses to concede and provokes a US military response to remove him from office, that's a disaster. If he refuses to concede and the military permits it, that's a disaster. (And if Trump wins, that's a disaster.) We are facing a situation in which every eventuality is a disaster. However, there are gradations of "disaster," and the response to the worst case scenarios that my fellow academics have posed to me has been to trust Milley-- or at least the military, if not Milley, by name-- to save them.
Milley just refused. That matters far more than any and all Hatch Act violations.
In several recent posts, I have suggested that the worst case scenarios may not materialize. As the "narrative" coalesces around the empirical observation that Trump really is losing by any realistic count, and more importantly, as Republican officials and commentators appear to accept that narrative semi-publicly, it may become more difficult to shift to Trump's preferred narrative after the election-- that he really won, and that there was fraud everywhere despite the inability of any Sec. State's office to find any. That doesn't mean they won't, but the existing narrative makes the shift more arduous. Without the backing of Republican officials around the country, it becomes more difficult for him to do what we know, with absolute, 100% certainty, he will try to do if he loses: refuse to concede, claim that everything was "rigged," and say he's not stepping down.
What Milley just did changes everybody's calculus. How? Game theory. Backwards induction. Part of the Republican incentive to dissociate from Trump after a loss would be to avoid a military showdown, but if they know that this won't happen, then their incentives to bend over for Trump get even stronger. Consider the following basic structure.
Assume Trump loses.
Stage 1: Trump either fights a court battle and eventually leaves while ranting on twitter like a pre-teen mean girl, or escalates.
Stage 2: If Trump escalates, Republicans either back him, or oppose him.
Stage 3: If Trump has escalated, the military either intervenes, or acquiesces.
Military intervention is ugly all around. If congressional Republicans know that Milley will intervene, they oppose Trump in order to get him out of office peacefully, counting on the combined opposition of congressional Republicans and the threat of the military to force Trump to leave in Stage 1. See where we're going with this?
However, if congressional Republicans know that Milley will cave in Stage 3, and if Trump knows this too, Republican efforts to oppose Trump in Stage 2 would ultimately be ineffectual because without the threat of Milley backing them up, they are nothing but useless, spineless, worthless wastes of carbon who have done nothing but cave to Trump on nearly everything for the last four years. He'll steamroll them by sending out some mean tweets, and they'll shrivel like the slugs under salt that they are. Without Milley, they're nothing. Less than nothing. And they know that. So they'll cave. They'll back Trump, and beg him for the privilege of licking dogshit from his boot, just like they've done every day for the last four years.
If every actor knows that Milley won't do anything, congressional Republicans will back up whatever lunatic conspiracy theory Trump invents to claim he really "won," and when Trump refuses to step down, they'll side with him because they know that nobody will remove him. There's that old aphorism about going after the king. They won't go after the king.
So with Milley taking this position, can anyone explain to me what process leads to "President Biden?" Right now, I'm honestly having difficulty imagining a realistic sequence of events. Sure, I can imagine lots of realistic sequences of events in which he wins a legitimate vote count. Getting to the White House?
I'm open to suggestions. I posed a simplified model. However, every time I remind my fellow scholars that Trump won't step down, they acknowledge the fact and simply say, "yeah, but... the military!" Now that we know Milley will let Trump stay in the White House for as long as he wants, that scenario has officially gone off the table. What scenarios are left leading to "President Biden?" I'm not asking about scenarios in which he wins a legitimate vote count. I'm asking about scenarios that get Trump out of the White House, because with Milley's statement, I'm having a hard time envisioning them.
And the mere fact that we have to consider these questions tells you just how far this country has fallen. This isn't America anymore.
I want my country back. Make America democratic again!
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, made an important statement about the 2020 election. In normal times, the idea of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff saying anything about the presidential election would be absurd, but these are far from normal times. Milley stated that the military would not remove Trump from office if Trump loses and refuses to step down.
Look, this is the argument being posed to me by my fellow academics: yeah, Trump will refuse to step down, but... the military! It hasn't just been a rhetorical point among politicians and commentators. This is what my fellow academics say to me when I tell them to worry.
Milley just poured cold water on that. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And it's time to stop counting how many times Trump has said that he won't recognize an election that he loses. If the military won't back up a Biden victory, can someone please explain to me how Trump can ever be removed from office?
What's the process?
If Trump just says no, I won, that wasn't a legitimate election, I'm still President, and orders everyone in the executive branch, including the military to continue following his orders, what happens?
This isn't the country you thought it was, so stop assuming it can't happen here. Trump is telling you exactly what he's going to do, and Milley just told you, in no uncertain terms, that he won't do anything to prevent it.
Make no mistake, it would be a disaster either way. If Trump refuses to concede and provokes a US military response to remove him from office, that's a disaster. If he refuses to concede and the military permits it, that's a disaster. (And if Trump wins, that's a disaster.) We are facing a situation in which every eventuality is a disaster. However, there are gradations of "disaster," and the response to the worst case scenarios that my fellow academics have posed to me has been to trust Milley-- or at least the military, if not Milley, by name-- to save them.
Milley just refused. That matters far more than any and all Hatch Act violations.
In several recent posts, I have suggested that the worst case scenarios may not materialize. As the "narrative" coalesces around the empirical observation that Trump really is losing by any realistic count, and more importantly, as Republican officials and commentators appear to accept that narrative semi-publicly, it may become more difficult to shift to Trump's preferred narrative after the election-- that he really won, and that there was fraud everywhere despite the inability of any Sec. State's office to find any. That doesn't mean they won't, but the existing narrative makes the shift more arduous. Without the backing of Republican officials around the country, it becomes more difficult for him to do what we know, with absolute, 100% certainty, he will try to do if he loses: refuse to concede, claim that everything was "rigged," and say he's not stepping down.
What Milley just did changes everybody's calculus. How? Game theory. Backwards induction. Part of the Republican incentive to dissociate from Trump after a loss would be to avoid a military showdown, but if they know that this won't happen, then their incentives to bend over for Trump get even stronger. Consider the following basic structure.
Assume Trump loses.
Stage 1: Trump either fights a court battle and eventually leaves while ranting on twitter like a pre-teen mean girl, or escalates.
Stage 2: If Trump escalates, Republicans either back him, or oppose him.
Stage 3: If Trump has escalated, the military either intervenes, or acquiesces.
Military intervention is ugly all around. If congressional Republicans know that Milley will intervene, they oppose Trump in order to get him out of office peacefully, counting on the combined opposition of congressional Republicans and the threat of the military to force Trump to leave in Stage 1. See where we're going with this?
However, if congressional Republicans know that Milley will cave in Stage 3, and if Trump knows this too, Republican efforts to oppose Trump in Stage 2 would ultimately be ineffectual because without the threat of Milley backing them up, they are nothing but useless, spineless, worthless wastes of carbon who have done nothing but cave to Trump on nearly everything for the last four years. He'll steamroll them by sending out some mean tweets, and they'll shrivel like the slugs under salt that they are. Without Milley, they're nothing. Less than nothing. And they know that. So they'll cave. They'll back Trump, and beg him for the privilege of licking dogshit from his boot, just like they've done every day for the last four years.
If every actor knows that Milley won't do anything, congressional Republicans will back up whatever lunatic conspiracy theory Trump invents to claim he really "won," and when Trump refuses to step down, they'll side with him because they know that nobody will remove him. There's that old aphorism about going after the king. They won't go after the king.
So with Milley taking this position, can anyone explain to me what process leads to "President Biden?" Right now, I'm honestly having difficulty imagining a realistic sequence of events. Sure, I can imagine lots of realistic sequences of events in which he wins a legitimate vote count. Getting to the White House?
I'm open to suggestions. I posed a simplified model. However, every time I remind my fellow scholars that Trump won't step down, they acknowledge the fact and simply say, "yeah, but... the military!" Now that we know Milley will let Trump stay in the White House for as long as he wants, that scenario has officially gone off the table. What scenarios are left leading to "President Biden?" I'm not asking about scenarios in which he wins a legitimate vote count. I'm asking about scenarios that get Trump out of the White House, because with Milley's statement, I'm having a hard time envisioning them.
And the mere fact that we have to consider these questions tells you just how far this country has fallen. This isn't America anymore.
I want my country back. Make America democratic again!
Comments
Post a Comment