Autocrats who actually have the power to fix elections don't announce their plans to do it
Michelle Goldberg: Trump may be behaving like a strongman, but he is weaker than hed like us all to believe. Autocrats who actually have the power to fix elections dont announce their plans to do it; they just pretend to have gotten 99 percent of the vote. Its crucial that Trumps opponents emphasize this, because unlike rage, excessive fear can be demobilizing. Theres a reason TV villains like to say, Resistance is futile.'
Its also true that by floating the idea of refusing to concede, Trump begins to normalize the notion
One of the most oft-used metaphors for the Trump years has been that of the slowly boiling frog. (The frog, in this case, being democracy.) By threatening what is essentially a coup, Trump may have turned the heat up too quickly, forcing some elected Republicans to implicitly rebuke him by restating their fealty to a constitutional transfer of power.
But if history is any guide, those Republicans will adjust to the temperature. The next time Trump says something equally outrageous, expect them to make excuses for him, or play some insulting game of whataboutism by likening Bidens determination to count ballots past Nov. 3 to Trumps refusal to recognize the possibility of defeat.
https://politicalwire.com/2020/09/25/trump-wants-you-to-think-you-cant-get-rid-of-him/