What Will Happen in the Next 70 Days

You already know that the next 70 days will be dangerous, chaotic, and upsetting, that the president and his allies will do anything to cling to power, that the situation in the United States will be unpredictable and intense. But that’s not the same as knowing what’s going to happen. So here’s a guide and a forecast, culled from sources inside the president’s camp and outside experts who are following all this particularly closely. We can’t predict exactly what’ll happen during the next 10 weeks, of course, but this is what we think might happen, and what we’re preparing for:<br><br><br><br>**Until Election Day (November 3)**<br><br>* Expect Trump to get worse. COVID has made him more volatile and prone to outbursts, and we should expect heavier and more frequent doses of the vitriol that’s always defined his presidency. He’ll be more active on Twitter than ever before, and his speeches will be even more bitter and divisive. With his campaign and his allies, he’ll intensify attacks on Biden, the media, Democratic and Republican critics, the debate commission, and anyone else who raises the slightest obstacle to his progress.<br>* The president will get a lot sicker, or he’ll claim he’s running for reelection to save his life. Trump will either get a bad case of COVID-19 and have to step away from the campaign, or he’ll claim the election is a choice between disease and health, and that his leadership is the only thing standing between Americans and a pandemic that Biden would let rage out of control.<br>* Trump will lose the first debate. The first presidential debate is scheduled for September 25, at the University of Notre Dame. Trump is a terrible debater and Biden has been practicing his ripostes for months. Even if Trump has fully recovered from COVID-19, he’ll be in terrible shape for this debate, and Biden will likely make him look like a fool.<br>* Expect one or more October Surprises. The president and his allies will try to create one or more October Surprises, timed for maximum effect in the last month before the election. These will be major news events that change the subject from Trump’s record and create a sudden, fleeting sense of momentum. One October Surprise might involve a (probably fake) Iranian assassination plot against the president. Another might involve the announcement of a COVID cure or preventive treatment. We should be prepared for whatever comes our way, so we’re not caught off guard.<br><br><br><br>**Election Day and the Interregnum (November 3 - January 21)**<br><br>* We will win so bigly that we can’t be stopped. Current polling shows Biden with a lead much bigger than Hillary Clinton’s was in 2016. With universal voting and mail-in ballots, the Democrats have a much broader path to victory than we did four years ago. We’re going to win so bigly that the gop won’t be able to block our transition or deny reality, no matter how hard they try.<br>* Trump won’t get a second debate. The second debate is scheduled for October 15 and the third for October 22. Trump will be so badly bruised after the first debate that he might even try to escape the next two. He’ll be in far worse physical and mental shape than he is today, and he won’t want Biden to humiliate him again. Even if he shows up, he’ll be so erratic and out of control that he’ll do even more damage to his campaign than he did in the first debate.<br>* Polls will shift after the first debate. Biden’s numbers will jump after the first debate, and Trump’s will fall off a cliff. Neither shift will stick, but they’ll both be big.<br>* Trump will get sicker and sicker. If Trump gets a bad case of COVID, he might be feeling better by the middle of October, but he’ll still be weak and vulnerable. Even if he has a mild case, he’ll be in terrible shape for the debates and the last push of the campaign. Voters will see that he’s old, weak, and out of it, and that Biden is the future.<br>* The president will refuse to leave office. Trump will say that Biden and the Democrats are trying to steal the election, that mail-in ballots have been tampered with, that foreign powers are interfering in the vote, and that the president has a duty to stay in office and keep us safe.<br>* The country will erupt into unrest and violence. Trump’s refusal to leave office will be too much for the country to stand. The first reaction will come from Democrats, who’ll pour into the streets in cities and towns across the country, demanding that the president leave office immediately. There will be clashes between pro-Trump and anti-Trump groups, and the violence will escalate into something like a civil war. The president will call out the military, and there might even be a military coup to remove Trump from power.<br>* What will happen in the interregnum? There are a few possible scenarios, and we should be prepared for any of them. In the first scenario, Trump will be frog-marched out of the White House and forced to hand over power. In the second, Biden will try to negotiate a peaceful transition with the outgoing administration, but Trump will refuse all his overtures. In the third, the president will try to create a violent incident and use it as a pretext for martial law, suspending the Constitution and canceling the election. This would put paid to any idea of a peaceful transition, and we’ll have to use massive civil disobedience to force Trump out of office.<br><br><br><br>**After Inauguration Day (January 21 - ?)**<br><br>* We’ll have a rapid transition. Once Trump is forced out of office, Biden will be sworn in, and we’ll start the transition that should have started two months earlier. There will be a lot of catching up to do, and the new administration will have to move fast to undo the damage of the last four years, but we should be patient. There’s no way to repair all that damage overnight, and President Biden will have to make some hard decisions right away to get the country back on track.<br>* Trump will be prosecuted. Like any normal human being, the former president will have to answer for his crimes. He won’t be above the law any longer, and he’ll have to face justice in court.<br>* There will be a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The new administration will have to look into the atrocities and crimes of the last four years. There will have to be a reckoning, a period of truth-telling and reconciliation, to figure out what happened and how we can prevent anything like that from happening again. This process will be long and painful, but it’s what we owe the victims of Trump’s abuse, and it’s necessary for healing the country’s wounds. <br><br> traveller