Trumpists have found the vulnerability in the American electoral system

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that Donald Trump ends up not running for president in 2024, for whatever reason.

Could be that he just decides not to; could be that he’s in jail.

Whichever extreme we go with there, does that mean the threat to American democracy from Trumpism is over?

No.

Trumpists have discovered the vulnerability in the American system, and whether it’s for Trump, for Ron DeSantis, for another from their ranks, they’re going to exploit it.

It’s hard to imagine that we got this far into American history before some fascist group or another figured out what will be relatively easy for the Trumpists to do in 2024.

That it doesn’t matter who actually wins an election, as long as you have people in charge of counting the votes who won’t, in any circumstance, sign off on certifying the results.

Unless Democrats are able to win 270 votes without Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and other swing states where the Trumpists have their eyes on having their people in charge of the vote counts, the Trumpists win.

We were perilously close in 2020, in a cycle that saw Joe Biden get 7 million more votes than Trump, to having a candidate who lost in blowout fashion declared the winner because of the flawed Electoral College handed down to us by the Founding Fathers.

A combination of that flawed Electoral College and what should be the simple act of certifying the vote will be democracy’s undoing two years hence.

And while the flaws could be fixed, they won’t be – because to get them fixed, we need the consent of politicians who stand to benefit from the flaws being allowed to play out.

The fascist third of the country will rule over the rest, because of how the i’s get dotted, and the t’s get crossed.

This is how it ends.