Honest question: Will there be an election in 2020?

[Gary J]

When a government has been functioning in a more or less orderly way, for over two centuries, it is difficult to imagine it not continuing. However constitutional orders do sometimes break down, after being stable for a long time.

It may be that, like Rome under the early Emperors, the forms of republican government will be preserved but that real power will be exercised outside the traditional government structure. In Rome the Senate continued to meet, the Consuls and other officers continued to be elected, but the Emperor (whether or not he held formal office) was the effective ruler.

The existence of an Emperor became the core of the government, so that thereafter no serious attempt was ever made to re-establish functioning republican government.

At the end of the day an existing government will be preserved if people are prepared to follow it. If not something new will eventually emerge.