Photo: Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images

It is a question that has been bothering me for many months now: What if Donald Trump is defeated in November 2020, or impeached before then, but refuses to leave office? Last week we discovered it’s a question that also bothers Trump’s former personal lawyer. In his concluding statement before the House Oversight Committee, Michael Cohen issued this ominous warning: “I fear that if he loses the election in 2020, that there will never be a peaceful transition of power. And this is why I agreed to appear before you today.”

To be clear: Since the first handover of the White House from one party to another, back in 1801, there has never not been a peaceful transition of power in the United States. There have been close calls — including the Compromise of 1877 and, of course, George W. Bush vs. Al Gore in 2000 — but the system has always worked. Even Richard Nixon, to whom Trump is oft-compared, conceded to John F. Kennedy in 1960, despite numerous accusations of vote-rigging by the Democrats. “In our campaigns,” the then-sitting vice president told Congress, “no matter how hard they may be, no matter how close the election may turn out to be, those who lose accept the verdict and support those who win.” In 1981, Ronald Reagan referred to the “orderly transfer of authority” in the U.S. as “nothing less than a miracle.”

Enter, however, Donald Trump. The 45th president of the United States has made clear that he does not give a damn about political, legal, or constitutional norms; his only concern is with winning at all costs. When running for office in 2016, he refused to commit to accepting the result of the presidential election. After emerging victorious, he baselessly claimed to have “won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.” In the wake of the 2018 midterms, he ridiculously suggested that Republican losses were a result of “potentially illegal votes” involving people changing their clothes to vote multiple times, and falsely accused Democrats of trying to “steal” the Senate and gubernatorial elections in Florida.

Trying to STEAL two big elections in Florida! We are watching closely! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 10, 2018