In the November 2020 issue of The Atlantic, which was published well before the election, Barton Gellman wrote this:
Let us not hedge about one thing. Donald Trump may win or lose, but he will never concede. Not under any circumstance. Not during the Interregnum [the period between the election and the inauguration] and not afterward. If compelled in the end to vacate his office, Trump will insist from exile, as long as he draws breath, that the contest was rigged.
Trump’s invincible commitment to this stance will be the most important fact about the coming Interregnum. It will deform the proceedings from beginning to end. We have not experienced anything like it before.
Mr. Gellman explains that only one previous election had an Interregnum which brought the country to near collapse. That was in 1877 in the Hayes-Tilden race. Tilden did not concede until two days before Inauguration Day. He conceded only after a deal that federal troops would be withdrawn from the South where they were stationed to protect the rights of former slaves. That left us with another century of lynching, segregation, and white supremacy. Not a good precedent.
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