Current polls show Joe Biden holding a sizable lead over Donald Trump. If this trend continues, and if the gap actually widens, what might happen in the light of overwhelming evidence that Biden will win the 2020 presidential election?
I make no special claim to political insight, but at any rate – given the uniqueness of the personality involved – this question could probably be better addressed by a psychologist than a political scientist.
One possibility is that a narcissist of Trump’s calibre may simply be incapable of compassing the prospect of his own defeat. Fixating on his come-from-behind 2016 victory in the Electoral College (and also, in his mind, the popular vote), he will press on regardless, blaming any putative loss on a “rigged” system and “fake” figures – stubbornly disputing the validity not only of current unfavorable polls but even the November vote count itself, no matter how clear.
The result could be an unprecedented constitutional crisis, one that might very well lead to violence on a national scale.
A less frightening but more intriguing situation arises if, one way or another, it finally comes home to Trump that he has no hope of ultimate victory. This would presumably have to be some kind of thoroughly convincing, but nevertheless subconscious, realization, as I suspect he would be unable to admit defeat consciously even to himself, let alone publicly.
Of all the terms in Trump’s vast lexicon of pejoratives – crooked, crazy, corrupt, etc. – the most damning must be “loser.” The scorn and utter contempt he heaps on those he has tagged with that epithet seem limitless. Trump himself would surely prefer to be labelled a lecher, a liar, or even a lunatic – anything but a loser.
Consequently, I wonder whether candidate Trump, facing the unendurable humiliation of a manifest loss, might preemptively decide to opt out of a “fixed” game and choose not to stand for re-election, thereby following the lead of Lyndon Johnson, another president whose ego was legendary.
If so, Trump would no doubt declare that, in any event, he had already fulfilled his agenda and his campaign promises “perfectly.” With his wholesale appointment of conservative judges, his huge tax cuts for large businesses and the wealthy, his confronting of China, his harsh restrictions on immigration and his sweeping rollback of governmental regulations, he would claim to have accomplished more in one term than any of his predecessors had in two. Thanks specifically to him, America is now, indeed, “great again.”
An obvious problem with this script is its chronology. Johnson made his announcement at the end of March 1968, more than half a year before the election, whereas the 2020 Republican National Convention is now barely a fortnight away, leaving little time to select an alternative candidate.
Nonetheless, I feel confident that Vice President Mike Pence, or some other selfless Republican (maybe Utah’s own Mitt Romney), would be willing to step in to bear the burden at very short notice – even if after the convention.
With Trump’s decision to stand down coming so late, some plausible reason would have to be advanced. The standard formula of, “I want to spend more time with my family,” ( his niece Mary, for example) could not be recommended in this case, so an emergency medical excuse would need to be fabricated, as it might otherwise be hard to explain why “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency,” had abruptly decided to retire.
Here, a tactic enjoying the sanction of personal precedent could be to maintain that, much as Trump longed to continue serving his country, some serious, unpredictable condition that was both sudden and debilitating – a recrudescence of severe bone spurs, perhaps (or, really, anything else one might care to invent) – has sadly made that impossible.
I leave it to those more politically and psychologically astute than I to debate how unlikely, or even incredible, such a scenario may be. I do believe, though, that it could provide some measure of protection both for the United States and the rest of the world, by allowing at least the pretense of saving face for a person who without it might prove singularly dangerous.
Christopher Stone
Christopher Stone, Ogden, teaches physics at the University of Utah.
