Will the November Election End in Chaos?

Here's a nightmare scenario. The result of the November US election hinges on the state of Michigan. Poll results give the state to Trump, but the mail-in vote swings the state to the Democrats. Trump refuses to acknowledge the mail-in results, claiming fraud, and come January stages his own inauguration ceremony. 

That's one of the possible results discussed in this interview with Amherst College law professor Lawrence Douglas, author of the book, Will He Go? It's not comfortable reading. 

Sean Illing

It feels almost pointless to ask this question, but I’ll do it anyway: Are you confident that our constitutional system can handle what’s potentially coming in November?

Lawrence Douglas

No. I have incredible respect and admiration for our constitutional system, but I’ll go back to one of the points you made, which is that the system really assumes that political actors have absorbed the norms that make the system work. But if you have a president who ignores those norms; if you have a party that ignores those norms, that continues to facilitate the rejection of those norms; and if you have a fractured media universe that rewards the president for rejecting those norms, then we’re in a very dangerous situation.

The only real way to avoid this is to make sure we don’t enter into this scenario, and the best way to do that is to ensure that he loses decisively in November. That’s the best guarantee. That’s the best way that we can secure the future of a healthy constitutional democracy.