Responding to this question:

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So what happens if a candidate doesn’t accept the results of an election? Asking for a friend (named democracy itself). –@andrewmair

As far as I know, concessions are not a legal or Constitutional requirement in the US. So legally, Clinton wins, democracy continues.

However, whether a society and government continues to function is 100% about whether the people within that society believes it does, and whether the various political powers do.

In less-stable countries it’s a balance between the people, the political rulers, and the military. The military may decide it doesn’t like the election and decide to coup, or declare martial law (see Egypt).

In the US our military is pretty much guaranteed to follow the Constitution, regardless of how much the public complains about them, they do not believe themselves to be, nor wish to be the masters. So a military coup is out of the question. Ditto civil servants (you know, the people who actually get shit done).

Again, in less-stable countries, if political and civil establishment does not like the winner they may use extra-legal or semi-legal ways to depose a winner or sitting leader. Or they may declare the election moot (Burma/Myanmar…hopefully they’ve turned a new leaf).

Elected officials in the US all play by the same rules, without another 2000 Florida-like incident, most would huff about the tirefire refusing to conceed and then move on. With a Florida-like incident, they would lawyer up—again working within the system.

If the candidate themselves has enough power or clout, they may attempt a coup with their own force. This requires huge levels or organization that (I suspect) grows exponentially with geographic size, political complexity, and technological development.

So the people are the wildcard (but might as well be thorough, I suppose). And this depends on three major factors: how many people believe, how many people care enough to do something ridiculous, and what is the reaction of everyone else.

I’m going to assume the number of people who would be pro-Clinton, think the election is rigged in her favor, and would do something about “fixing” that is pretty tiny. If she wins with a healthy margin, her supporters are going to outnumber the naysayers. I’m also going to assume a majority of people who support Trump are rational about the electoral system and will accept the loss. It’s the small minority of rabid supporters we’ve got to fear.

And that group is tiny. Loud? Yes. Dangerous? Yes. But completely unorganized and without competent leadership.

Even if he does not concede, he has neither the competency, nor the wherewithal to carry out a coup. So any trouble is going to come from small, disorganized individual or groups. For the most part, I’m going to assume the even though police unions support the trashfire, they’re not going to try to overthrow the system. So they’re probably going to stop any nonsense—with kid gloves most likely.

So if nobody but his own tiny echochamber supports him, all we have left is what happens to his most fervent supporters?

That depends on how the rest of the public responds to them. If we take Brexit, Australia, and Germany as models for what happens after upsurges of white nationalism, violence against marginalized groups is going to increase.

My intuition is that the public annoyance at their ridiculousness that will be on the news is not the one that matters. What matters is what happens in the home, neighborhoods, and in the communities where this happens.

I suspect a lot of people are going to laugh them out of the room. Eventually a lot will be shamed into complacency. Which while not a particularly kind social tool, it is rather effective. What I wish would happen was that this would stimulate cross-community empathy. The worldview of his supporters is one that comes from a set of experiences that needs to be addressed. In the long term, the only way to do that is through sitting down and have a lot of really difficult conversations.

What if the demagogue was more competent, won, and person fighting for inclusivity and justice wouldn’t conceed? Now that’s a much harder question. But again, it depends on how many people care and how much?

In short: American democracy hobbles on, but we’re going to a have a horrifying uptick of hate crimes.