During a press conference Wednesday night, President Donald Trump was asked a familiar, yet annoying question concerning the 2020 presidential election. His answer was probably less than helpful.
Reporter: "Win, lose or draw in this election, will you commit here today for a peaceful transferal of power after the election?"
President Trump: "We're going to have to see what happens." pic.twitter.com/h5RF3dKPD1
— NBC News (@NBCNews) September 23, 2020
Naturally, lots of people freaked out at the answer because it “implied” he would not accept the results of the election. See MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, for example.
Rather than commit to a peaceful transfer of power, the president just said that if you get rid of the ballots, he can guarantee it will be peaceful because there will be no transfer and he will continue rule.
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) September 23, 2020
Others in the media were quick to jump on the case, fueling the fire that is speculation over the “tyrannical” president potentially not leaving office in January if Joe Biden were to win the election. Biden himself has weighed in on the issue in the past. Naturally, this could be a huge problem… if it were actually possible. The good news for the pearl-clutching crowd is that it is not possible.
We live in a constitutional republican that is built specifically to prevent a system like that. There is a balance of power between the three branches and, try as the Democrats and their media allies might to make us think it would happen, it’s impossible to believe that even the President’s supporters in Congress would stand idly by while he simply refuses to leave. It’s just as impossible to believe that the military, the federal agencies, and other systems put in place to defend and protect the Constitution would allow it to happen.
Especially for someone who has been routinely attacked behind the scenes and anonymously by members of the military and those federal agencies.
Trump also knows he couldn’t pull it off, even if he wanted to (and I find it highly unlikely that he does). But what he does want to do is make the media and the Democrats freak out over something stupid because it’s the perfect way to get them to stop talking about things he doesn’t want them talking about (like 200,000 COVID-19 deaths, economic numbers, polls, etc.). It’s a distraction game, and they fall for it every single time. If they were people I actually liked, I would feel bad for them.
I find it very funny that they spent many hours four years ago mocking conspiracy theorists on the right who thought Obama might try to pull this stunt, only to themselves start believing the same conspiracy theory about Trump.
That they routinely allow Trump to tweak them is a testament to how broken they’ve become over his presidency. There is no reason to believe that he could actually pull something like this off, yet they never fail to take the bait and lose their minds simply because he won’t say he would step down peacefully.
And you know what? He shouldn’t have to say it. It shouldn’t be a question he’s asked. There is no reason to actually think he would reject the election’s results. The Democrats have spent the last four years rejecting them with no criticism from the media, but if Trump doesn’t say outright he’ll accept them, then clearly he’s planning a coup.
That’s insane.
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