CNN is reporting that voting experts and political strategists from across the political spectrum are “increasingly alarmed” about a potential constitutional crisis after the November election as President Donald Trump is setting the stage to stay in power by refusing to concede.
Trump in an interview on Fox News Sunday openly questioned the legitimacy of the process and refused to say if he will accept the election results.
“I have to see,” Trump replied, “No, I’m not going to just say yes. I’m not going to say no, and I didn’t last time either,” Trump told host Chris Wallace.
As noted by CNN, there is good reason to brace for chaos. “Experts are keenly aware of President Donald Trump’s well-documented history of lying about voter fraud and claiming that elections were “rigged” when he doesn’t like the outcome. They also see a Democratic base that is still burned from 2016, when its nominee was dragged down in part by Russian meddling operation, won the popular vote, and lost to Trump.”
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The network interviewed nearly 20 election experts, former lawmakers, political strategists, legal scholars, and historians who indicated that there are widespread fears of a nightmare scenario in November, where Trump’s norm-breaking behavior test the limits of American democracy and plunge the country into a constitutional crisis.
“There’s a significant scope for an unprecedented post-election crisis in this country,” said Larry Diamond, an expert on democratic institutions at the conservative-leaning Hoover Institution, according to CNN.
“As Trump slides in the polls, he already declared that his matchup this fall against presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden “will be the most rigged election in our nation’s history.” Trump’s messaging, coupled with his past behavior, has insiders contemplating what he’ll do if he loses.
“If it’s a very close election, there’s no question in my mind that he’ll contest it,” said former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, a CNN contributor who backed Trump in 2016 and supports his reelection. “Even if it’s not a very close election, I think he’ll want to contest it, but I don’t think he’ll have a broad base of support to protest this election, and he wouldn’t get very far.”
Trump could blame mail-in voting if he loses in November. That would fit with his well-established past of questioning the legitimacy of elections, even though there was no proof of widespread irregularities or fraud in any U.S. elections.
