General Discussion

November 3rd is Election Day. Due to lingering (or perhaps full on) coronavirus effects, many states will see massive vote-by-mail numbers.

Even before midnight on November 3rd, all exit polls and early returns are pointing towards a massive Biden landslide and clear loss for Trump. Joe Biden will take the stage and address his supporters and the nation as the presumptive President-Elect.

However, because there will be far more mail-in ballots than usual, Trump will refuse to concede that night. He will insist he will stay in until "the very last vote is counted."

That will probably take up to two weeks. During those two weeks, Trump will begin raising questions about the fairness of the vote. He'll start throwing out all sorts of baseless claims of voter fraud and conspiracy theories. The more time goes on, the more unhinged he'll become.

During this time, there will be no attempt whatsoever to facilitate any sort of transition period between the administrations, so our entire government will remain in limbo.

Finally, the vote tallies are done and they are certified and ready to be sent to the Electoral College. At this point, Trump will file a lawsuit in desperation hoping to enjoin the Electoral College from finalizing the vote.

I predict he will not have much success at all in the courts. It will rapidly move all the way up to the Supreme Court, who will refuse to entertain the case, effectively confirming the will of the people and various states in electing Biden.

Now, that is as far as I am confident in predicting. What comes after that I'm far less certain of.

Here is the "best" case scenario: Trump, feeling angry, bitter and defeated, chooses to resign sometime in December. Mike Pence is sworn in as the nation's 46th President. Trump will have demanded that he be given a Nixon-like blanket pardon, and Pence, being the spineless lapdog that he is, will oblige. Pence will, however, facilitate a half-assed, hurried transition period, and on January 20, 2021, Joe Biden is sworn in as the nation's 47th President. (The next day, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg will announce a very well-earned retirement.)

As for the "worst" case scenario...well, I'd rather not go there quite yet. All I say is that it would probably look a lot like Ukraine in 2014