We are suffering in many places in the world with power grabs by openly fascist leaders/groups. It's been an ongoing problem and I think some of these people just believe the old chestnut that the winners write the history. So, for example if Trump and the Republicans can override democracy and throw out the votes and just claim the country for their own, well, then there is no looking back. You just bulldoze your political foes and declare an emperor. It's not complex, it is a pure power move. You also don't need the majority of the country to follow you there you just need enough of them to follow you. 45 or 50 million people are enough particularly when some of them are elected officials that are willing to ignore the law, ignore norms, and push forward with their plans. 

Trump is basically the test case here which is why, I believe, elected Republicans won't speak up despite the fact that what Trump is doing breaks laws and eliminates any form of democracy for the country. They are essentially watching quietly to see if it works. If you can just declare the votes of black people do not count. If you can just step in when you have lost by the vote and say "Well, we don't care, we will declare ourselves the winners anyway." 

Sure, the power Trump has over elected Republicans here is that they are looking at the number, 73 million voters supported Trump, despite all his lies, despite the criminal behavior,  despite the fact that he constantly threatened elected Republicans. Those numbers primarily come from the states where these Republicans have to run for reelection. They see Trump as someone that can harm them no matter if he loses or steals the election through a coup. He won't go away because Trump is power mad and insane. He intends to make the lives of every person in the country miserable once he is out of the White House and Republicans will be his primary target. He wants to make them crawl to him. To beg him for mercy. To  praise him as a god. And he will stop at nothing to get this. He also intends to be a shadow president. Cutting deals, selling out the country, doing as much harm as he can so all people suffer for not handing him a second term. 

Biden has to deal with all of this while also dealing with the fact that McConnell and the majority of Republicans are looking to sabotage his presidency. It's not going to be a simple task. 

I'm not sure what this election signals yet. I think that what we have here in the United States is a two party system where the two parties are on the verge of splitting so we have a 3 party system. The Democrats are split into what is the Biden wing, who are essentially right of center and come across as Eisenhower/Nixon Republicans. They have had the party in their grasp since Bill Clinton was elected. Then there is the Bernie Sanders wing, who are just old school FDR Democrats...which hilariously or tragically are now seen as the far left. The Republicans are in even worse shape because their party has been taken over by complete nutjobs. This is now the Trump wing. Their primary goal is destruction of democracy and instituting a dictatorship, essentially following the Putin model, where power is centralized in one man and a small group of oligarchs run everything. This has been Trump's goal since getting elected. 

This now represents most of the Republican party and there are a smaller portion that, as we have seen, really have nowhere to go except perhaps joining the Biden group...which makes sense because that's essentially the real Republican party now. 

So, essentially if people like Mitt Romney, Jeff Flake and John Kasich join with Biden we have what is a "centrist" party, an FDR style Democrat party, and then a Trump party. What would happen from there?

Probably things grow more dangerous because I think the Trump/fascist wing of Republicans  would have the most strength at the start. They likely keep the 73 million voting for them where the Centrist Party and the Progressive party would split the 78 million hence giving each of them 40 some million voters.

Pretty certain the fascists like McConnell, Graham, Jordon, Nunes, Johnson, Gaetz, etc...have seen this gamed out. Hence they continue down Trump's path because it is, while a destruction of the United States, a much clearer path to retain power. And you are right, power is everything to them. 

The big question is how do we fix any of this? I think the Democrats have to operate in such a way that they have a small 2 to 4 year window to steer the country back to a path where we are a democracy in the future. Prosecuting Trump and his family will be important to the future of the country because it needs to be demonstrated we will not tolerate this kind of criminal behavior. This will mean taking some drastic steps and Biden will have to follow the path of Trump and use the executive order as a hammer. The loons that now run the Republican party will not negotiate and they will not cooperate. I don't care if Biden makes his cabinet up of lobbyists and centrist Republicans. This won't make a dent with the wacko right, particularly if Trump is out there (and he will be) cheering on the fascists and the further destruction of democracy. The only option is to bend these clowns to your will and to make sure they pay a price for their actions.

We will walk a very fine line here and the thing to watch will be how the Republicans react once Trump is gone and threatening them from the sidelines. McConnell knows he is the power in the party and he loves to show his dominance so how he resists or accepts Trump's behavior will be interesting.