Noah Feldman: “Claiming election fraud and refusing to accept a clear loss would precipitate a constitutional crisis on a scale not seen since the Civil War. Fortunately, Trump can’t do it alone. He would need the collusion of hundreds, maybe thousands of other people in the government, from poll officials to state legislators to members of Congress. If that happens, our democracy will not just be under threat from an irresponsible leader. It will be on the edge of collapse. This possibility is vanishingly small.”
“Trump could be bluffing, of course — the market appears to think so, or else it must be pricing the costs of constitutional crisis at something near zero, which can’t be right. Regardless, the problem is that we can’t be sure Trump is bluffing. At the same time, it’s important to realize that while Trump can threaten not to leave, he can’t actually attempt it without a lot of other people taking part. That’s true under all the possible scenarios in which Trump might try to stay.”