I stand by my initial post. One factor that I had not considered was the possibility that Trump might deploy national guard forces into American cities. Perhaps a more direct form of voter suppression is in the cards.
There will almost certainly be the pageantry of an election. Whether it is a free and open election (at least in the sense that recent US elections have been free and open) is questionable. It is not difficult to imagine a combination of voter suppression legislation and repression against political opposition turning 2020 into the sort of "managed election" that has characterized many despotisms across history.
