Biden won the US election: what if Trump refuses to leave the White House?
In America's 244 year history, there has never been a president who refused to leave the White House after losing an election.
The normal, legal and peaceful transfer of power is one of the defining characteristics of American democracy.
For this reason, the announcement by President Donald Trump to refuse to accept his defeat to Joe Biden, generates a situation as unprecedented as it is disconcerting in the life of the country.
And, for analysts, it is a challenge to envision previously unthinkable scenarios.
"Far from being finished"
Trump was playing golf outside Washington when Biden's election victory was confirmed on November 7.
Shortly afterwards, the defeated candidate's campaign team issued a statement assuring that "the election is far from over."
"We all know why Joe Biden is rushing to falsely portray himself as the winner, and why his media allies are doing everything they can to try to help him: they don't want the truth to be known," the statement read, further indicating that Trump would continue to oppose the announced result, through legal action, alleging the existence of suspected fraud.
The US Constitution is clear, without a doubt, in stating that the current presidential term ends "at noon on January 20".
Joe Biden managed to win in a number of states which got him over 270 electoral college votes. He therefore has the right to hold the presidency for the next four years.
Donald Trump has legal and legitimate resources that he can still use to challenge the outcome of the vote.
But unless there is a dramatic turnaround of the courts from here to then and he can prove in the courts the existence of irregularities in the election as he claims, still without presenting any evidence, January 20 is the date on which the current president must leave the White House and hand over power to his successor.
Predictable position
Trump has been clear throughout the current campaign in warning that he will not accept defeat.
He has repeated on several occasions that he is determined to retain power, no matter what election officials say, saying the only chance he will lose is if the elections are stolen.
So the country began to discuss what would happen if Trump followed through on his threat and tried to cling to power by force.
A hypothesis even commented on by Joe Biden himself when he was a candidate.
In a TV interview on June 11, comedian Trevor Noah asked Biden if he had thought about the possibility that a losing Trump would refuse to leave the presidential residence.
“Yeah, I've given it some thought,” Biden replied, adding that he was convinced that in such a situation the military would be responsible for preventing him from staying in power and would simply kick him out of the White House.
It has also been said that it could be the Secret Service who could fulfill the eventual task of escorting Trump out of the presidential residence.
This civilian body, responsible for the security of the president, also has a legal obligation to protect all former presidents, and will continue to escort the former president from January 20.
The unthinkable scenario?
But at this point, it would be necessary to assess the loyalty of the security forces to this president, just as analysts who seek to understand the situation of any country in times of institutional instability do.
BBC Mundo asked experts if it was possible for Trump to try to use state security forces to illegally stay in power.
"For a president to abuse the powers of the presidency to stay in office after apparently losing the election, it would be difficult and destroy vital standards. But it is not inconceivable," Professor Dakota Rudesill, a political expert and National Security Law, affiliated with Ohio State University in the United States.
"This would cause serious damage to the country, to important principles of civil-military relations and to the global prospects for democracy," he warns.
However, he clarifies that he believes the scenario in which Trump might cling to the presidency backed by security forces is difficult to achieve.
“The military pledges allegiance to the Constitution, not to the current politician. And the current top military man in the country, General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has repeatedly said that the military will have no role in this election. "
Rudesill is not the only one to ask these questions. Keisha Blaine is a professor at the University of Pittsburgh and an expert in the study of social protest movements.
"The mere fact that we have to ask ourselves if the armed forces are going to intervene in the elections says a lot about the sad situation in our country," he told BBC Mundo.
Blaine adds: “Four years ago, most Americans didn't think so. But after watching Trump deploy federal agents [during the recent riots] in Portland and Washington in recent months, it's a serious concern. I don't think it's a likely scenario, but we can't rule it out as a serious possibility, given everything that's happened this year. "
Indeed, during the social protests that emerged with the anti-racism movement in the middle of the year, Trump considered mobilizing the military to quell the protests.
On June 5, The New York Times claimed that General Milley "had convinced Trump not to use the Insurgency Act of 1807 to mobilize regular troops across the country to quell protests, a line that several officers from The US military said they would not cross, even if the president ordered them to do so. "
Ultimately, given the regular military's unwillingness to get involved, Trump ordered the protests to be contained by using members of the National Guard, who report to the governors of each state.
Members of the non-military security forces reporting to the Department of Homeland Security have also helped contain protests in Washington, Portland and other cities.
Some therefore believe that in a crisis resulting from the elections, Trump would potentially have the possibility of ordering the deployment of a number of armed non-military personnel.
However, assuming that the armed forces do not make themselves available for the president's political survival, it is difficult to imagine that Trump would succeed in staying in power under these conditions.
Violence in the meantime?
Rudesill says he's concerned about the related scenarios.
"I wrote about the possibility that President Trump is trying to use an executive order, or that the Justice Department controlled by its political allies is trying to issue a 'directive', stating that the executive branch should regard Trump as the winner of a contested election, "the expert told BBC Mundo, but warned that it would be" totally inappropriate and unacceptable ".
"Ordering the army to continue to greet the president beyond the end of his term at noon on January 20 would put the army in an impossible situation," he said.
"Half the country and many people around the world would think the non-partisan US military has taken a partisan stance. The military should never, ever receive this order," says Rudesill.
And without reaching the extreme case of a situation where the autonomy of the armed forces is at stake in the face of partisan conflicts, others warn that an extension of the current political situation can generate violence in other areas.
A situation in which the losing presidential candidate refuses to accept the result certainly leads to "the possibility of serious civil unrest," Keisha Blaine told BBC Mundo.
Presidential rhetoric "has increased the possibility of protests and even violence," he argues.
The situation observed in various American cities in recent months, with demonstrators armed to the teeth expressing their support for the president, as well as the appearance in the streets of these same cities of radical opposition groups, are a reminder of the potential for violence in states. -United.
