Wild stuff? — you be the judge!

The three outcomes

What is the future for the USA with the most important election in a generation approaching?

There seem to be three main outcomes, taking these from best to worst

Best

Massive majority for Joe Biden.

Although Trump will claim that is is due to “massive fraud” and try to contest the results, the scale of his defeat may give his enablers pause for thought. With his army of sycophants crumbling Trump may not be able to instigate the indefinite legal tangles and chaos that is his aim. In this case Biden gets the presidency on the allotted date. Trump escapes to a jurisdiction which does not have an extradition policy with the USA. From there he keeps up a constant barrage of whining about how badly he has been treated. He attempts to foment a coup using his most fervent supporters. There could be internal terrorist attacks within the USA but the government will keep control.

Middle

Trump wins (yes really)

As the results come in Biden eventually realizes that Trump’s majority is genuine (maybe thanks to all the voter suppression, but what can you do?). Biden graciously concedes and Trump takes office. There may be some violence from left wing groups but not much. The problem with this result is the death of democracy in the USA. For the next election in 2024 Trump will have changed the rules so that he can stand again (or put in a proxy e.g. Ivanka). He will have refined the techniques of election rigging so as to guarantee a ‘victory’ for himself. Journalists are rounded up, the USA becomes an authoritarian state with the usual gloom of constant fear and poverty due to the activities of a kleptocratic elite (yes, worse than what we have now). But life carries on (for those who keep their head down).

Worst

What is the very worst? This is uncertainty carrying on beyond the inauguration date. Everyone is shouting and screaming. Wild news reports come and go of ballot boxes being destroyed or fraudulently stuffed here and there. For both sides it seems that massive demonstrations might tilt the chaos in their favor. Demonstrators are heavily armed, there will be deaths. Each side is farther enraged to avenge their martyrs. As conflict increases the sides start to think in terms of territory. Democrat cities erect roadblocks to keep out Trumpian pickup trucks and vice versa. Those of the opposite ideology which are stuck in these zones had better get out — or shut up. What about the army? There is no commander in chief. The army may try to quell the conflict but it is extremely difficult to do this without taking sides — or being seen to take sides. The army and their equipment end up divided between the warring factions. Within each balkanized statelet wild rumors of spies and traitors circulate. Atrocities are committed. Each side starts to consider the other side as not human beings but a kind of cancer that must be cut from the body of the nation. Nuclear weapons are available, what they are good for? The mass extirpation of millions of human beings. The final curtain sees the USA reduced to a smoking radioactive ruin.

Considering that the total breakdown of civil society is a possibility, there will be immense pressure on Joe Biden to concede, even if he has won, just not by a massive margin. This is what Trump is counting on.