It is better for humanity if Donald Trump thinks he has been cheated by the Democrats rather than rejected by the public says American ex-pat and local academic John Malouf.
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The University of New England's Associate Professor at the Faculty of Medicine and Health; School of Psychology pointed out to the Armidale Express this morning that whatever the outcome of the US elections Mr Trump will still be in office, and have control of US nuclear arms, until January 2021.
"I think it would be very, very bad for humanity if Trump thought he was rejected," Professor Malouf said.
"He could not stand that because of his personality, and he might do something very, very harmful to the world.
"If he thinks he's been cheated then he'll argue, he'll litigate, he'll think 'I'll tweet and tweet while I'm out (of office) and then I'll run again', and he'll have hope versus if he thinks he was just rejected well, then his anger might explode - and he is in control of a nuclear arsenal and the most powerful military on earth.
"He could do a lot of damage if he just stopped caring about anything except revenge.
"I think that is in his personality - he's a vengeful person, he hates people that turn against him or act against him. It's a dangerous situation I think for humanity - other people don't think that, but I do based on his psychology.
"Let's hope he maintains some level of mental health and doesn't do something disastrous with the power he has before a new president is given the nuclear codes in January.
"The odds are he will just go, but there is a slight chance he'll do something crazed, like a mad man.
"It's worth considering there are leaders that have the authority to launch an all-out nuclear attack which would end up killing us all I suspect.
"That would be the ultimate revenge.
"I believe Hitler would have killed everyone on earth in the end if he had the power - he shot himself, but if he had the power, he would have taken everyone with him. This issue doesn't just come up now with Trump; it could come up with other leaders if a madman is in a position of power.
"Trump will be very angry (and vengeful) no matter how he interprets things, but I do think it is better if he thinks he was cheated by the Democrats and plans to get his revenge through litigation or buying his own media network and exposing how they cheated him."
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Professor Malouf grew up in Colorado, where Joe Biden was declared a winner this morning with 55.4 percent of the votes, and spent some years living in Florida ( where Trump has won with 51.2 percent) before moving to Australia more than a decade ago.
"I went back to Florida in 2012 to help with Obama's reelection campaign, so I have been active in the past with US elections," Professor Malouf said.
"This time it is amazingly close, and the blue wave didn't happen, but it looks like Biden will win so the country will move from chaos and corruption to the more typical paralysis because the Republicans will probably still control the Senate and be able to block legislation and perhaps prevent the appointment of any new Supreme Court Justices.
"So some of those Senate races may turn out to be crucial, but it is not looking good for the Democrats in the US Senate, and things didn't go as well as the polls suggested."
Voter complacency resulting from positive polls was not the cause of the close call Professor Malouf says, and although he posted his vote three weeks ago, he is not sure it has been counted yet.
"It was a record turnout - people were very excited about voting, and I did my best to vote," he said.
"It's not clear whether my vote ever was counted because the postal service slowed down delivery and that was part of the Trump defence - to slow down the post office and block the absentee ballots - because those were mostly Democratic and those are the ballots that are now going to push Biden over. Trump was right that those would ruin him because they look as if they are ruining him."
Mr Malouf said he expects Donald Trump will move out of the White House and into the 'Big House'.
"I suspect he will go to prison because I believe he committed a lot of crimes before he was president and while he was president but if he gets a pardon and is not in prison, and he doesn't die before the next election, he'll probably run again - I mean why not?
"He'll be in the news every day tweeting his brains out whether he is president or not."
As of 11.30am Thursday (AEDT), Joe Biden was leading the race to become the next president of the United States, with 264 electoral votes compared to Donald Trump's 214.
Biden has won two key northern states - Wisconsin and Michigan - while several key battleground states including Pennsylvania remain unclaimed in the US 2020 election, as the world awaits a conclusive result.