Every possible outcome of the struggle over the 2020 election involves considerable risks. No matter how it occurs, a Trump victory would further polarize the country, radicalizing many liberals and leftists, but it would also likely lead to a tremendous amount of bloodshed and repression. If Biden wins the election in a landslide without significant resistance from Trump’s supporters, he will surely crack down on radicals and introduce policies that are oppressive to poor, Black, brown, indigenous, and undocumented people in order to placate the right-wing forces with whom he hopes to re-establish a truce. If Biden ends up in office thanks chiefly to the efforts of social movements in the street, it could discourage him from immediately cracking down on them, but this path involves passing through a very dangerous period of open conflict in which victory is by no means guaranteed.
And regardless of what happens between now and January, social polarization in the United States will continue to deepen. A large segment of the Republican Party is openly and perhaps irrevocably committed to a program of brute force, and they will still be pursuing this strategy regardless of who holds power in February.