Three weeks from now, we will reach an end to speculation about what Donald Trump will do if he faces political defeat, whether he will leave power like a normal president or attempt some wild resistance.

Reality will intrude, substantially if not definitively, into the argument over whether the President is a corrupt incompetent who postures as a strongman on Twitter or a threat to the Republic to whom words like "authoritarian" and even "autocrat" can be reasonably applied.