DOMESTIC POLITICS

The Trump Administration did more to erode government credibility and the public trust than any President since Watergate, and these crimes are far more severe. The reality is that every Supreme Court decision made is now illegitimate. Every government bureaucratic order from a Trump appointee is illegitimate and stymied public reforms, and efforts to roll back healthcare and other welfare protections will make violent revolution inevitable.

Most experts believe that there is no legitimate way that Biden can lose this election, and Resolute agrees. If Trump wins re-election, it will end the world’s longest streak of peaceful elections and power transfers. Public discourse is dangerously close to resorting to extrajudicial political solutions, which become justified, according to our nation’s founding fathers, if a tyrant steals the election.

When Biden wins, it could be an historic margin akin to Reagan vs. Dukakis. This resounding victory would have spillover effects, if Democrats can wrangle control of state governments, legislatures, and the U.S. Senate away from Republicans nearly everywhere overnight. And that’s dangerous too, because the Republican Party generally is in an untenable position, having thrown in its lot with white supremacists and criminals—there are no good Nazis. The United States must systemically cleanse itself from Republican tyranny in a manner reminiscent of the Nuremberg trials. Not just for Donald Trump and his administration, but for state officials that enabled and carried out his reign of terror, including crimes against humanity in their treatment of immigrants, failure to mitigate COVID, climate change, and much more.

Nine months into the Great Depression, most Americans had not yet felt the extreme pain that would befall them. At this same point in the War on Terror, the U.S. was still over a year away from invading Iraq. Historically speaking, it is likely that we have not yet experienced the great historical event that will come to be associated with pandemic-era America.

GEOPOLITICS

Tensions among world powers are at levels unseen since WWII, and the world is a tinderbox. Economic interdependence theoretically prevents wars, but the U.S. and China spent the last few years reducing their ties—a worrying trend with devastating historical consequences. Since 1945, the risk of mutually assured destruction through nuclear war prevented great powers from attacking each other. However, the rise of asymmetrical warfare, cyberattacks, and non-state actors have already brought that era to an end. The reality is that in interfering in U.S. elections, Russia, China, and Iran committed an act of war. Election interference has been an act of war since 1787. The Pentagon classified state-sanctioned cyber attacks as an act of war in 2013. Unquestionably, America was attacked, and a legitimately-elected President will have to make a proportional response. What is a proportionate response to an attempt to destabilize the U.S.? It will be an attempt to destabilize the opposition. An act Putin or Xi rare unlikely just to let happen. There is no proportional response that would not spark a more massive war. So Biden will either have to stomach the risk of nuclear annihilation or settle for a disproportionate response, looking weak on the international stage.

Before the first World War, experts scoffed at the possibility of a British-German war, despite their rivalry due to unparalleled economic ties (for the time). War was unthinkable until it happened. The parallels between the U.S. and China are clear. Rival powers and rival economic models fight each other once they get powerful enough because a liberal U.S.-led order cannot co-exist with an opposed autocratic global order proposed by Russia or China.

This moment in history is scary enough on its own. However, Russia succeeded in installing its puppet in the White House. Whether Americans are cognizant of it or not, since 2016, there has been no risk to Russia of mutually-assured destruction. If it chose to attack the U.S. and eliminate a system that stood in the way of its puppet, why would the puppet stop it?

Therein lies the premise of American destruction. During the 70 days between the election and Biden’s inauguration, Trump, an ‘assumed’ Russian asset, will work rapidly to cause as much lasting damage to America as he can on his way out. What if this damage includes not responding to a direct attack on the U.S.? Or perhaps it might be even worse if he did respond—guaranteeing American involvement in a new global war.

Despite the optimism and hope that a new President-elect Biden will restore to America, the fact is that we are about to enter into the most dangerous moment in the Trump presidency, as he will be a cornered animal with nothing to lose.