This is the shit that worries me. There is a very good chance that if somehow Trump pulls this off in the EC with a SC ruling, half the country and the media will just decide to control reality by ignoring it and saying he's illegitimate.
You could see Trump being sworn in on 1/20 in DC with massive riots around him and a military cordon around the Capitol. Meanwhile Biden is sworn in Delaware, NY, CA or PA because any of those Governors would bend over backwards to have that honor.
Biden could set up a "White House in Exile" and form a Cabinet. The media would call him the Real President, and constantly refer to Trump as the Illegitimate President who is currently illegally in office due to a coup. They would not report on any of his doings as having any real legal standings--Exec Orders, meetings with other nations, etc. Social Media would do the same, and of course hand the official accounts to Biden. There would be a massive propaganda campaign even worse than the current one with the media, big tech, and Hollywood.
Biden and Trump would then start issuing various Exec Orders and nominating people, and the states with Democrat Governors would obey Biden, the Republican ones would obey Trump. Cuomo, Newsom, and Whitmer would reactivate their COVID coalitions and alliances and declare all these states acknowledge Biden. But because we are not geographically as easily split as in 1861, there would be a weird thing where Deep State types in Washington and state governments for either side would simply choose whose orders to follow.
Any citizen at an individual level would have to deal with a nightmare of red tape, as any govt dealings would be colored by the Presidential allegiance of who you are dealing with. Some countiy DMV offices would give licenses to illegals, some wouldn't. If you apply for unemployment, whoever sees your case will give you more or less, or approve or disapprove based on their "conscientious objecting" to Biden or Trump. Governors, govt managers, and Trump will try to fire people, but it will be a cascading Saturday Night Massacre at thousands of federal, state, and local levels. If it goes on til April 2022, the tax code will be a shitshow, because there will be two competing forms of taxation classification.
Internationally, there would be a patchwork of nations who acknowledge Trump, acknowledge Biden, or fence sit for both or neither. We could have two UN Ambassadors. If somehow we limp along for a few years like this, literally nothing will get done.
A lot of these actions could be shut down by the SC--supporting Trump firing officials, etc, but this is why even with a conservative majority, they will be very tempted to rule for Biden because if they rule for Trump they will cause this. to happen. I don't see Trump as doing a "President in Exile" thing if he loses in the SC. He won't sit in the White House til 1/21 and be dragged out by the Secret Service or Marines or whatever because the blow to his dignity would be horrible. He might do some "I'm the Real President" stuff on OANN or Rush, but most of it would be to promote his post Presidential endeavors and not a serious attempt at trying to run the govt. Without the support of the media and big tech, it would be pretty toothless. You'd get a lot of disaffected Republicans and MAGAs, but they'd just refocus on the next election.
