I was scrolling through some old posts a few days ago when I came across one from 2019 which contained predictions for the 2020 election. I guessed that Trump would lose the election and would respond by filing a blizzard of frivolous lawsuits and calling his supporters out into the streets. I further predicted that the turnout on his behalf would be relatively meager, and that the system would hold–this time. How did that turn out?
I was mostly right, of course, but I was wrong about one important thing: the violence took place, not at the local level, but in Washington. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that Trump thought he could prevail by persuading a motley group of protesters to storm the Capitol. That didn’t even compute.
He would have been better off if he had taken my advice. He won’t make the same mistake twice. In 2024, the battlegrounds will be local elections offices and state legislatures, not the Capitol.