Back in August 2020, I wrote out my thoughts on how I was expecting the next five months to go. I wound up being frighteningly close to the mark. Some details were wrong, but still within the margin of error, and still within the realm of “that’s sort of what happened.” By and large, I called the major events. High turnout. Trump declaring victory before mail-in balloting was processed, and then claiming that any vote totals that didn’t show him winning by an absolute landslide were fraudulent. Lawsuits far and wide that had no basis in legal reality. Trump flooding the zone with “this election was stolen” between the election and the final certification. Violence to stop the certification. Trump pointedly refusing to calm. The entire thing being blamed on left-wing agitators.

Now let’s be clear, I wasn’t exactly looking into a crystal ball. Trump had been telegraphing this for months, if not years. We are talking about a man who loudly cast doubt on the legitimacy of an election that he won, because it would make it easier for him to challenge the legitimacy of any further election. Believe me, I wish I had been wrong. For about a year now, I’ve been talking about what I expect to happen this year in the midterm elections, and I suppose it’s time to write them down. Buckle in, it’s not pretty.

First and foremost, this isn’t just wild speculation or hyperbole. This isn’t doom thinking. It’s not looking for Pepe Silva, it’s not connecting unrelated dots. This is taking the obvious historical context and reading current events. It’s listening to what they say and how they say it. It’s listening to what they do and how they do it. This is smelling smoke and not needing to check if the doorknob is hot because it’s already glowing red, and correctly surmising that there’s a fire.

The Trump administration is planning to use federal troops to disrupt the 2026 election in key areas of the nation in order to maintain and expand his majority in Congress and seize power in state capitols, with an end result of manipulating the electoral system to a degree that he or whoever seizes power after him can’t lose in 2028.

We have to win this election, most important election ever. We want a landslide that’s too big to rig. If you want to save America, get your friends, get your family, get everyone you know, and vote. Vote early, vote absentee, vote on election day. I don’t care how, but you have to get out and vote. And again, Christians, get out and vote. Just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what? It’ll be fixed. It’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians. I love you, Christians, my Christians. I love you. Get out. You got to get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not going to have to vote.

Donald Trump, addressing the Turning Point Action summit on July 27, 2024

A little context here for how to interpret Trump and his relationship with the truth: If he’s saying he’s going to do something that is even potentially illegal, he’s telling the truth. If he says he’s not going to do something that would be illegal, after saying repeatedly that he is considering doing it, he is absolutely going to do that thing. If he says he has no knowledge of a plan that would be illegal, he is lying. If he says he’s going to help someone or something, he isn’t just lying, he’s telegraphing that he’s actually going to hurt them.

Let’s go through this.

1. The Setup

ICE has been deployed as terror units around the country, but has acted as agents provocateur in a few specific places. “Terror units” isn’t an overwrought slander, it is an accurate representation of what they do. Terrorism is “the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.” That describes ICE perfectly. They operate in legal grey areas or outright in violation of the law, under the flimsiest of guises as performing immigration enforcement, using violence and intimidation far beyond the scope of their remit, against a civilian population, specifically in places that are not politically aligned with the administration. They have worked in a manner that is designed to sow fear in the communities they target. They have shown themselves to be indiscriminate in their arrests, rounding up citizens and legal residents, arresting those following the law, and flagrantly violating civil and human rights. They have unlawfully attacked observers and protesters. They have held people in inhumane conditions. They have murdered detainees. They have murdered protestors. And then they have justified their actions by labeling their victims “domestic terrorists” even when video evidence clearly contradicts them.

What’s important to note here is where they are doing this. Strangely, they have largely avoided areas where the majority of undocumented persons actually live, and when actions have come, they haven’t resulted in a fixed and ongoing presence. They are targeting cities and states where a small minority of undocumented people resides, cities and states that just happen to be politically opposed to the administration. That’s where they’ve set up shop. It’s the dictionary definition of terrorism.

2. The Method

Los Angeles was a provocation designed to test the legal boundaries of what they could get away with at the time. Minneapolis is a test of how to push enough to get the response you need to justify your next actions. But Washington, DC was a test of what the actual plan looks like in action. Trump’s authority to deploy the military against a civilian population without court interference exists only in DC at the moment. One of Elon’s failsons picked a fight and got his ass beat but a bunch of tweens, and that was all the justification Trump needed to deploy the national guard in a major US city. While they are still there, they have kind of faded from the daily list of outrages. Their entire purpose, however, was to see if a city could be completely disrupted for a few days. And it worked just as intended.

The justifications are perfunctory. They exist simply to give their rubber stamp court something to gnaw on. The Supreme Court has proven time and time again that they will torture the law to make it arrive to their foregone conclusion, but this is more about division than legality. Calling murdered protesters “domestic terrorists” when clearly they were not engaged in anything of the sort allows Fox and OAN to publish the government line uncritically. It is wild that the “don’t trust the government” crowd are the first ones to accept without question whatever words come out of Kristi Noem’s mouth.

3. The Execution

Living in Philadelphia, I’m seeing the pattern I was expecting emerge. ICE has been terrorizing one of the near suburbs, Norristown, and establishing a presence. They’re now beginning to snoop around the city and getting the lay of the land. Philadelphia’s mayor has tried to keep the Eye of Sauron off the city by being preemptively compliant, but that can only last so long. Pennsylvania is an odd state that has three culturally distinct regions: the Pittsburgh area in the southwest that is definitely a Midwestern rust-belt city and outlying suburbs, much more closely related to Ohio than the Northeast (don’t tell them about that, though). The “T” in the middle of the state is, aside from a few pockets like Lancaster city, Scranton, and Erie, very rural and Appalachian. The Confederate flags are thick in some parts. Philadelphia and its ring counties, however, are very Northeastern and generally blue. There are some peculiarities there, like Bucks County, the northernmost suburban county, which is a red-leaning purple, but even there the patience for this nonsense has worn thin.

When it comes to statewide elections, we have John Fetterman and David McCormick representing us. McCormick is a MAGA stalwart who in 2024 ousted the longtime and popular senator Bob Casey Jr, who can best be described as slightly to the left of the center of the Democratic Party, that is, a centrist. Fetterman swept in on a progressive campaign in 2022, winning easily over quack snake oil salesman Mehmet Oz. Fetterman had a stroke and took his support for Israel on a journey into Mar-a-Lago, becoming one of the most unpopular (and laziest) senators in the country. That said, it’s only been four years since this state handily swept a campaigning progressive into office. The governor, Josh Shapiro, is one of the most popular governors in the country. He’s a prototypical Democrat but manages the state well even despite a state senate that is controlled by Republicans and a state House where the Democrats have a single-seat majority. Shapiro is running for reelection in 2026, and polling suggests that he will win easily, currently holding a double-digit lead over any of the Republican contenders. He’s talked about openly as a candidate for President in 2028.

But that could change radically if the Philadelphia area’s turnout is too afraid to leave their houses.

ICE is going to start escalating in Philadelphia. Not quickly, but enough that it’s going to start looking like Minneapolis. “Bad Things Happen In Philadelphia,” Trump once famously told the country, and the city is a masterclass in “fuck around and find out.” Once the trouble starts, it’s going to escalate. That’s the plan. At some point near the end of October, the outrages will become enough that people are consistently taking to the streets. That’s when the administration will send in the National Guard, over Shapiro’s objections, to “restore” the order they are responsible for disrupting. They don’t need to do it for long, just a day or two. Just enough to disrupt the election. Just enough to flip a few House seats. Just enough to flip the Governor’s mansion.

4. Aftermath

There’s two main paths for how 2026 ends, and neither of them are going to be anywhere close to “return to the political stability of 2014.” Those days are gone. Whatever happens on November 3rd, we will be in the endgame of this administration’s efforts.

1. Trump succeeds in this: This plan works, and democracy is over. Rubber stamp elections by those trusted to vote the way they should replace the radically flawed but generally free elections we had. Protesters become a target, because the administration is unchecked and will waste no time in establishing dominance.

2. The plan fails. Either due to internal issues leaving them unable to properly enact it, or by an upswell of opposition so great it can’t be overcome, Trump has to face an opposition Congress. It didn’t do much to slow him down before, and he’ll have over two months to do whatever he can to overturn (or more likely, simply set aside the results of) the election. Protesters become a target, because the administration will need to create massive unrest to fully implement their “we have to save the country” justifications.

There’s a third, far less likely scenario where Trump simply doesn’t make it to November. He’s obviously in physical and mental decline, but he also has the best healthcare in the world. Depending on when this happens, it could be a huge blow to the administration that they are unable to recover from as the infighting for control of the plan overrides the plan. This is kind of a subset of 2’s “due to internal issues,” but might actually be worse in the long run. Democrats would have zero will to conduct a much-needed Cadaver Synod, and the real masterminds behind the past 10 years of GOP strategy will have had a great trial run for whatever dashing young populist comes along next to do the whole thing again, with a longer timeline.

Chances are good that, if the Democrats manage to survive the end of the year without becoming a permanent minority until they are forced out entirely, they will not have the spine to do what must be done to prevent it from happening again. The leadership of the party has shown no stomach to do more than wave a strongly worded letter around in the face of actions that would have lead to impeachment, removal, and prosecution any time up until a decade ago. They couldn’t be bothered to operate on the given timeline to prosecute the previous insurrection, and somehow the ancient leadership still hangs around. This party lost two elections that should have been cakewalks, and have allowed the country to come to the brink of another civil war.

Or maybe we all get really lucky and a comet decides to pay a visit.

As of July 18, 2025

September 1973
Donald Barr, headmaster of the Dalton School, a private high school in Manhattan, publishes a sci-fi novel that involves child sex trafficking by powerful oligarchs with the protagonist joining in and unbothered by this.

September 1974
Jeffrey Epstein starts working as a teacher at the Dalton School despite his lack of credentials. The hiring headmaster at the time is Donald Barr, though it is unclear if he is involved in Epstein’s hiring. Barr is known at this time to make a number of questionable hires.

June 1976
Epstein is dismissed from the Dalton School for “poor performance.”

March 2005
Epstein is accused of soliciting a 14-year-old girl for a strip tease and massage in Palm Beach, Florida. Police chief Michael Reiter would publicly call out Palm Beach County District Attorney Barry Krischer for not sufficiently investigating Epstein. Krischer has a long history of manipulating the justice system to cover up crimes for his friends.

Reiter convinces the FBI to get involved in the case and identifies five alleged victims, some ages 14 and 15, as well as 40 other minors who were likely subjects of inappropriate behavior by Epstein.

July 2006
Epstein is arrested and charged with procuring a minor for prostitution and solicitation of prostitution. Krischer takes the very odd step of convening a grand jury and presents evidence from only two of the alleged victims, resulting in a single charge of felony solicitation of prostitution.

The FBI opens a wider investigation of Epstein.

August 2006
Epstein pleads not guilty and hires a legal team that includes Alan Dershowitz and former Clinton Special Prosecutor Ken Starr.

June 2007
The FBI produces a 53-page indictment of Epstein. Dershowitz negotiates a plea deal with U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta that grants Epstein immunity from prosecution in exchange for Epstein pleading guilty to the single count from July 2006. Acosta would later contend that he cut the deal because he was told that Epstein was an intelligence asset and to leave the case alone.

November 2007
Epstein forms the Florida Science Foundation, a non-profit.

June 2008
Epstein pleads guilty to one count of procuring for prostitution a girl below age 18 and is sentenced to 18 months in prison. Highly unusually, he is sent to a private wing of the Palm Beach County Stockade, in an unlocked cell, and after less than 4 months was allowed to leave for up to 12 hours a day, six days a week, in violation of the Palm Beach County Sheriff Department’s policies regarding work release for sex offenders. He is allowed to have his own private driver transport him to and from the prison. To satisfy the conditions of his work release, Epstein works out of the office of the Florida Science Foundation.

February 2008
Two unnamed women sue Epstein, claiming that they were raped by Epstein when they were 16 years old. These cases will later be dismissed.

July 2009
After serving less than 13 months, Epstein is released and given a year of probation on house arrest. During this time he is allowed to travel on his private jet to a number of locations, including a residence in Manhattan, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

October 2009
Epstein dissolves the Florida Science Foundation.

January 2011
Manhattan ADA Jennifer Gaffney is chided by a judge for arguing that Epstein’s sexual offender status – that of Level 3 “high risk of repeat” – be downgraded to a Level 1 low-risk designation. As a Level 3 offender, Epstein is required to personally check in with NYPD every 90 days. NYPD fails to enforce this.

September 2013
Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi announces that her office is considering joining a New York state lawsuit against Trump University. Four days later, Trump’s personal foundation donates $25,000 to Bondi’s reelection campaign. Bondi declines to join the New York case.

December 2014
Two women sue the United States for violations of the Crime Victim’s Rights Act over Acosta’s 2007 non-prosecution deal, and also allege that Dershowitz sexually abused a minor that Epstein provided him, and that Epstein ran a sex trafficking organization that procured underage girls for “prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents, a well-known prime minister, and other world leaders.” This case is referred to as Two Jane Does v US.

Virginia Giuffre files a sworn affidavit that Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell sexually trafficked her when she was 17 for their own use and the use of Dershowitz and Prince Andrew and forced her to recruit other victims.

September 2015
Giuffre sues Maxwell for defamation over comments concerning Giuffre’s 2014 affidavit.

April 2016
A federal lawsuit is filed by a woman alleging that Epstein and Trump sexually assaulted her at a series of parties in 1994 when she was 13 years old. The suit will be dismissed by a federal judge the next month.

September 2016
Another federal suit by another woman is filed alleging the same as the suit from April 2016. The case is withdrawn after the victim is alleged to have received threats on her life.

November 2016
Trump is elected president. Trump settles a class action suit against Trump University without admitting wrongdoing. The settlement is paid by a Trump investor claiming to be providing the funds as part of an unrelated real estate transaction.

January 2017
Sarah Ransome files suit against Epstein and Maxwell alleging that she was threatened with physical harm and retaliation if she refused sexual demands. The suit will be settled out of court with details sealed.

April 2017
After being nominated by Donald Trump, Acosta is sworn in as Secretary of Labor.

December 2018
Lawyer Bradley Edwards sues Epstein for defamation. Epstein settles for undisclosed terms rather than allow Edwards to provide evidence in court.

February 2019
Two Jane Does v US concludes with a finding that the government violated the law, but provides no penalty or remedy.

William Barr, son of Donald Barr, is sworn in as U.S. Attorney General after being nominated by Trump.

March 2019
As part of Giuffre’s 2015 defamation suit against Maxwell, unsealed testimony unveils accusations that Guiffre was forced by Maxwell to provide sexual services to Prince Andrew, then-Governor of New Mexico Bill Richardson, an unnamed foreign president, an unnamed prime minister, and many other rich and powerful men.

July 6, 2019
Epstein is arrested by a joint FBI-NYPD task force on sex trafficking charges. His residence in Manhattan is raided and thousands of sexually suggestive or explicit pictures of women, many confirmed to be underage, are discovered, as well as a fraudulent passport that had been used to enter a number of different countries.

July 8, 2019
Epstein is charged with sex trafficking and conspiracy to traffic minors for sex. The indictment alleges that Epstein has brought “dozens” of underage girls to his Manhattan residence for the purposes of sex. He offers to post a $100 million bond. The court declines, citing him as an extreme flight risk and danger to the community. 

Citing work with a law firm that represented Epstein in the past, Barr recuses himself from the case. The case is handled by Maurene Comey, former law clerk to New York judge Loretta Preska, and daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, who was fired by Trump in 2017 over the FBI’s investigation into Russian interference on behalf of Trump in the 2016 election.

July 29, 2019
Epstein is found unconscious in his cell with marks on his neck.  His cellmate, former NYPD officer Nicholas Tartaglione, himself awaiting trial on four counts of murder, denies any knowledge of what happened. Six days later, Epstein is taken off of suicide watch and placed with another cellmate.

August 9, 2019
Epstein’s new cellmate is transferred out and not replaced, despite protocol. Further, corrections officers are supposed to check on him every thirty minutes, but leave him unattended for a window of three hours, falsifying records to cover this up. Two cameras aimed at his cell malfunction. Epstein is found dead in his cell the next morning. His death is immediately reported as a suicide by Barr despite no official investigation being concluded.

November 2019
Trump is ordered by a New York state court to pay $2 million in damages for misusing his personal foundation to make illegal campaign contributions, including to Bondi’s 2014 election campaign. Bondi is hired to defend Trump during his first impeachment hearing.

December 2019
Judge Preska orders a list of names of more than 170 Epstein associates be release on January 1, 2024.

December 2021
Ohio Senate candidate JD Vance writes on Twitter “If you’re a journalist and you’re not asking questions about this case you should be ashamed of yourself. What purpose do you even serve? I’m sure there’s a middle class teenager somewhere who could use some harassing right now but maybe try to do your job once in a while.”

December 2023
Former Chief of Staff to the Secretary of Defense Kash Patel urges Trump to release “Epstein’s client list” on day one of his presidency if he is re-elected.

January 2024
As ordered by Judge Preska in 2019, Documents are released with affidavits from various lawsuits linking Trump, former president Bill Clinton, physicist Stephen Hawking, and other wealthy and powerful individuals to Epstein. Most of these links are without accusation of wrongdoing.

September 2024
Trump states that he has no problem releasing the alleged client list, and suggests that he will do so if he is elected to a second term as President.

October 2024
Vance, now the Republican Vice Presidential candidate, says “We need to release the Epstein list.”

November 2024
Trump is elected to a second term as President.

February 2025
After being nominated by Trump, Bondi is sworn in as U.S. Attorney General and Patel is sworn in as FBI director. She is directly asked about the alleged client list and responds “It’s sitting on my desk right now to review. That’s been a directive by President Trump. I’m reviewing that.”

March 2025
Dershowitz claims to have knowledge of the names on Epstein’s client list.

May 2025
Sean Combs goes on trial for a number of charges including sex trafficking. Maurene Comey is the lead prosecutor.

June 2025
Former presidential advisor Elon Musk states that he has knowledge of the alleged client list and that it has not been released because it implicates Trump.

July 2, 2025
Combs is found guilty of lesser charges and not guilty of the more serious charges against him.

July 7, 2025
A DOJ memo from Patel and Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino states that the DOJ will not release any more documents relating to Epstein.

July 8, 2025
In a cabinet meeting, Trump criticizes reporters for discussing Epstein and Bondi attempts to clarify that she was talking about the entire Epstein file in February 2025, despite being asked directly about the alleged client list. 

July 13, 2025
Trump claims that the Epstein files are falsified documents created by former presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, wife of Bill Clinton.

July 15, 2025
House Democrats force a vote on releasing the entire Epstein file. This vote fails 211-210, with all Republicans voting against and all Democrats voting in favor.

July 16, 2025
The Department of Justice dismisses Maurene Comey, allegedly due to her being the daughter of James Comey.

July 17, 2025
The Wall Street Journal reports that Maxwell collected correspondence to Epstein from dozens of people, including a salacious letter for Epstein’s 50th birthday from Trump which includes the inscription “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.”

July 18, 2025
Trump threatens to sue the Wall Street Journal over their report containing the birthday letter to Epstein, calling it a fabrication. Trump also claims to have ordered Bondi to produce any and all grand jury testimony, subject to court approval. As any grand jury proceedings would involve only the direct subject of the investigation and any named co-conspirators, it is extremely unlikely that Trump’s name would be involved in such documents, and would be a very small fraction of the entire DOJ file on Epstein.

Vance writes on Twitter: “Forgive my language but this story is complete and utter bullshit. The WSJ should be ashamed for publishing it.”

Establishment Dems talk about ideological purity a lot and how the Left demands it, refuses to vote for candidates who aren’t ideologically pure, and thus, hurt the party. They frame this as “the Left won’t vote for anyone who’s not a hard-charging Bernie Sanders-style anti-capitalist crusader, and this is why Republicans win!” While there are definitely some on the Left who will agree on the first part, the second part is a total lie. The vast majority of those demanding “ideological purity” from Dems are literally just asking Democrats to run candidates who support Democratic ideals. The problem is, the rank and file and the establishment have very different ideas of what those are.

The Democratic Party is, in essence, a center-right, pro-business, socially moderate party with no strong ethos other than “don’t upset the money.” It is the GOP from 50 years ago, just with less backbone. The problem is that everyone who is in favor of that is either rich, in their 90s, or in the ground already. The modern non-GOP voter wants candidates that will work for them. And when I say “work for them,” I don’t mean some nebulous “work for the people,” I mean “actually make the lives of the non-rich better in these highly quantifiable ways.” The establishment does not agree with this.

The starkest difference between the Dems and the GOP is how they deal with ideology within their parties. The GOP has allowed a fringe authoritarian ideology drive them for the last 40+ years, leading to what we have today. Why? It’s loud and preys on fear, and it works. Older GOP politicians probably aren’t the raving proto-fascists we see today from the party, but pantomiming it to secure and maintain power makes them seem like that. Younger GOP pols? Wearing jackboots. Why? Because that increasing curve into authoritarianism generated true believers, who are beginning to take over. It went from “Mexicans are going to take your jobs!” to “we either win elections at the ballot box, or at gunpoint” because leading by fear produces extreme results.

Dems, on the other hand, refuse to be lead by their party. The establishment demands top-down control, and the top does not care much about the bottom. What it does let itself be lead by, unfortunately, is “The Middle.” The problem here is that, in our two-party system*, “The Middle” only matters if both parties are fighting over it. The GOP is not. It does not need the political center, because it operates on fanatical turnout from its base coupled with driving turnout down among others. The GOP does this in two ways: 1) making it difficult or impossible for those that aren’t likely to vote for them to vote at all and 2) preying on the discord the Democratic party itself generates internally to drive down turnout. And in doing this, they shift the center. The GOP has managed to shift the Overton window steadily to the right for decades by painting moderate Dems as burgeoning Stalinists, and in response, the Dem establishment moves to the right to try to prove them wrong. Spoiler alert, it doesn’t work.

There are, of course, “independent” voters, but they don’t represent “The Middle.” Most of them are low-info, reactionary voters who show up once every four years to vote for whichever candidate has made them care more. To be fair to them, though, most voters are low-info, because neither party likes an informed electorate. Independents tend to say they don’t like either party, but typically it’s more that they don’t care enough to form an opinion longer than it takes to vote. The GOP strategy toward this group is either to keep them home or make them angry at Dems. Both strategies are super effective, because both are easy.

Look at when Dems have won – years that the GOP has been in control when the economy has tanked. Look at years the GOP has won – all the others. They win elections when they’re destroying the country, as long as the money isn’t being touched, because they excel at blaming Dems for their own failures and only lose when those failures are so horrifically large to shift all the blame on. Democrats, on the other hand, are completely inept at even taking credit for their own wins, and are constantly playing catch-up, which, in turn, moves the Overton window farther to the right.

This, in turn, leads the Dem establishment to further marginalize and demonize voices within the party calling for a move to the left, because they still think they can win “The Middle” by being centrists. The only thing they do is create a larger, more disaffected bloc that cannot be relied on to turn out. Rinse, repeat, definition of insanity. “But they won in 2020!” Did they? 2016 and 2020 should have been layup elections where they not only won the White House, but supermajorities in Congress. 2020 was not a win. All it did was barely hold the line. Heavily on display was the Dem establishment strategy of attacking the concept of ideological purity in favor of “what wins.” TWENTY-NINE Dem candidates for President, and they were mainly there to paint candidates like Sanders and Warren as outside the mainstream.

Contrary to what the Dem establishment would have us believe, “what wins” is candidates who say stuff like “it would cost lest money and lower your taxes to forgive student loans so let’s do it” instead of touting GOP lines like “what about people who paid theirs off?” Dem candidates aligning themselves with the establishment will pile on any outsider who says stuff that upsets the money, and piling on draws the money. Dems calling other Dems “socialist” is hilarious, because if you stop using that word and list what it means, that polls extremely well. But the money doesn’t like it. The only ideological purity that the Dem establishment cares about is fealty to the money.

And that’s the biggest difference between the Dems and the GOP. For all the squawking Dems do about ideological purity, the GOP has been practicing this for quite some time, and it works terrifyingly well. Republican voters purge anyone with even a hint of moderation in their primaries, general election consequences be damned, because their party is willing to sacrifice borderline districts in order to increase turnout everywhere, and slowly eat up more control of the process. GOP candidates that lose are considered failures unto themselves for not being pure enough. The Dem establishment paints center-left leaning candidates as threats to general election success, and either paints establishment candidate wins as vindication, or losses as the result of leftist spite.

* Yes, a two-party system, because like it or not, our Constitution does not allow for viable third parties.

I started writing this back in February, but didn’t manage to get it down in a condensed version until mid-August when I unleashed it as a tweet storm. Here’s the slightly expanded and cleaned-up version. Posted here for posterity so you can call me a genius or an idiot later.

The election in November isn’t going to be pretty. It won’t be done by the start of December, either. And when I say “not pretty,” I don’t just mean it’s going to take a while and involve people on CNN yelling at each other. Glad we’re all used to staying inside, because it’s going to be safer there.

Montgomery County, Pennsylvania (the third largest county in the state) didn’t certify primary election results for over 14 days. That was in a primary with ~45% turnout among primary voters, which is around 85% of all registered voters. 14 days. Two weeks. Guess what happens when we hit 70% turnout of all registered voters? Think we won’t hit 70%? My precinct did n 2018. This was a high-turnout primary despite the fact that it was essentially a nothingburger for most of the races. Dems had a choice on Auditor General, Republicans had basically nothing. People were just excited to vote. They’re going to be even more excited in November.

Expect high turnout, especially since there is no “I couldn’t make it to the polls” excuse anymore. Expect way more mail-in voting wherever it’s available. That said, my precinct saw almost record-high turnout among in-person voters. Discounting mail-ins entirely, it was the third-highest turnout in the past two decades, and not by a huge margin. Add in the mail-ins and it was far and away the highest turnout my precinct has seen for as far back as they publish statistics for.

Exit polling is going to be all over the place, because we’re not going to be able to rely in exit polling on mail-ins. How could we? Exit polls are literally done by asking people walking out of the polls. Now, mail-ins and walk-ins in my area were pretty much evenly split along party lines as they related to a percentage of voters, but it’s probably a safe bet that exit poll numbers are going to favor Trump.

He’s going to claim victory based on that. You know he is. Why wouldn’t he? When we get the real final numbers in 2 (maybe 3 or even more) weeks, Biden is likely to be the winner, and he’ll claim victory. Now we have a problem. Think Trump will concede? He has adamantly refused to accept the results of an election that he won, what do you think he will say if he loses? That was always the plan, though. He was tweeting about how there was already fraud happening around mail-in voting, despite not a single ballot being sent out when we didn’t even know who was running. Fraud, in an election process that hasn’t started.

Thing is, mail-in voting isn’t rife with fraud. We have plenty of data on that from states that have been doing it. But that doesn’t matter – Trump has been spinning reality from his delusions because there is a significant segment of the population that believes everything he says, no matter how outlandish.

But now we have malicious manipulation of the postal system for the express purpose of stymying the mail-in voting process. We have the Trump campaign blowing millions to fight the placement of ballot drop boxes. On the whole, though, I expect that the system will work correctly. But that won’t exactly matter when the losing candidate starts launching lawsuits in every state he loses. I expect lawsuits in all 50 states. Legal teams are going to be thick on the ground in the swing states, though. And when it comes to states like Pennsylvania, where the results could take weeks, don’t expect to know by Thanksgiving who the actual victor is. That won’t stop the lawsuits, though. The first lawsuit challenging the results will likely be filed before the polls close.

What happens in between election day and final certification is going to be a lot of crazy. Trump is no stranger to whipping up his base with totally ludicrous statements that somehow people believe. Say 40% of the electorate votes for him. Say 25% of those people believe when he says the election has been stolen. That’s still 15 million people who are convinced that the election is illegitimate. Let’s say just 1 tenth of 1% of those people are willing to do something about it. You know what I mean. That’s still 15,000 people.

Do you think I’m speaking in hyperbole here? Wake up, it’s 2020. We’ve had people in the streets for months protesting actual injustice. We’ve had actual Nazis willing to kill out there. In Portland, we’ve had right-wing agitators aided by the police attacking locals for years. Those are the 15,000 people – the ones who are already on the street looking for targets. The political violence is going to get a lot worse.

Trump is already blaming Biden for all of this political violence, which is some egregious doublethink. What happens when he takes to the airwaves to make the case that unless the election is decided in his favor, violence will only intensify? He praised a 17-year-old who murdered protesters in cold blood. Do you really think he will ever go on television and ask for calm? At this point, if he did, do you think anyone would listen?

Any violence is going to be attributed to left-wing radicals and government forces are going to be brought to bear on them, despite repeated data that shows the violence is almost always instigated by right-wing provocateurs, sometimes with the implicit or even explicit aid of law enforcement. We’ve had waves upon waves of protests against injustice going for months now, and it’s just going to get more intense as those protests morph into protests against a stolen election.

Blue state governors are going to wind up in open opposition to the federal government. It won’t be talk anymore. We’re already seeing that in places like Washington and California, and even here in Philadelphia where the DA put federal law enforcement on notice. The federal system is going to get some serious strain the likes of which haven’t been seen since 1861. We already have a federal law enforcement apparatus that is acting as a political wing, issuing favors or reprisals against political allies and enemies at the behest of the President. What happens when that gets turned up to 11?

Out in the suburbs, it might feel a little tense, but in population centers, it’s getting close to civil war. Government institutions are breaking down and are being used for overtly political purposes. This election isn’t going to be fair and free, and it’s going to lead to even more political violence. That violence is going to persist after the election, regardless of who wins.

The question is how much, and can we survive it intact? I really hope I’m wrong. I hope that if Biden wins, Trump gracefully concedes in a manner that doesn’t sow discord, and we have a peaceful transition of power. I think there’s well more than enough evidence to suggest that isn’t going to happen, though.