Donald Trump does greater damage the longer he refuses to concede and Americans pay the price

There he tucked into lunch with a number of his senior colleagues, though not, fatally, Ken Wreidt, the leader of the Labor Party in the senate. Another present was John Menadue, then secretary of the department of prime minister and cabinet.

"Bastard has sacked us," Whitlam told his incredulous colleagues.

It was a fate, deserved or not, for which Whitlam and his colleagues ought to have been prepared. But so confident had Whitlam been that Kerr was in his pocket, that no one had gamed a parliamentary response to dismissal, including the need to block Senator Reg Withers, leader of the coalition in the senate, from moving the adoption of the supply bills. Which he did, without the significance - it had been a condition of Malcolm Fraser getting his commission - being noticed.

Whitlam and other colleagues were busily drafting a House of Representatives resolution of no-confidence in the new prime minister. John Menadue withdrew from the room. He was a public servant, even if one identified with Whitlam. His role was to serve the prime minister, and Fraser was now that man. In all of the recriminations from that amazing day, no one, rightly, has ever reproached John Menadue for recognising his duty.

Donald Trump is not a prime minister, one whose position can be terminated by anyone other than a general election, or by a constitutional finding of incapacity by his Cabinet. The president is not only at the apex of the Executive triangle - he commands in himself all of its power. Indeed he represents American sovereignty - the state itself. He stands in the same position as the King of England did 250 years ago, at least for four years at a time.

There may be checks and balances imposed by the constitution, or the other two arms of government, but within the president's lawful domain his authority is absolute. Even the extent to which he is subject to law is a matter of dispute.

A British or Australian monarch also personifies executive government. But our monarch has only limited personal authority, and must generally act only in accordance with the advice of people enjoying majority support in the House of Representatives. If Trump's position was analogous, he would have to follow the instructions of Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker. His Cabinet would be nominated by her.

November 11, 1975 might show that a person standing in the place of the Australian monarch has some independent authority in a constitutional brawl. But reforms to the British (and consequently the Australian) constitutional system as a result of the successful revolt by the American colonies deprive our monarch, and its representative, of independent political authority.

For the moment at least, the current president is refusing to accept that the voters of the United States have decided not to extend his term from January 20. When not Tweeting, he is mostly playing golf or launching generally unsuccessful litigation against state counts.

There has long been late counting after election day of postal votes sent before election day. An obvious example since 1864 has involved soldiers on duty. This year, the number of postal votes increased enormously, because of fears of coronavirus in voting queues, and because Democrat strategists thought that postal voting could short-circuit Republican efforts to effectively disenfranchise likely Democrat voters by giving them the business at polling booths.

Although many reckon the US Supreme Court is now so politically partisan that it would do anything to help Donald Trump in his agonies, it seems almost impossible to imagine the grounds for an intervention. None of the state outcomes are so close that they would warrant the sort of intervention that occurred in 2000 in Florida, over the "hanging chads" issue. That state should have made a Democrat, Al Gore, president, but was cancelled for an outcome narrowly favouring George W Bush.

The public knows the outcome of the popular votes, and is easily able to do the maths for the (mostly) winner-takes-electoral college votes. On election day, media companies "call" the outcome in each state, once it is clear that the candidate running second cannot win. But this has no legal significance. The legally effective outcome occurs, usually in late November, when the polling officers complete the tally, and have "certified which slate of electoral college candidates can vote the state's entitlement". The votes of these electors are sent to Washington.

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On "the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December" - this year December 14 - the electoral college votes are added, and there is a formal result. At that point the name of the person to take up the presidency on January 20 is a matter of law, and Trump cannot legally dispute the outcome, though he retains his power for five weeks. No doubt he could simply maintain a state of siege and denial, and refuse to go, even on January 20.

Missing out between now and January 20 would be inconvenient for Joe Biden, who is strictly entitled by law to transition funding and resources, as well as briefings from the permanent administration. But it is not fatal to his rights.

If I were Joe, I would patiently wait out the mad king behind the battlements of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Trump is doing far more harm to his reputation, the future political prospects of anyone called Trump, and any Republican supporting his tantrum, than the Democrats could do with the same resources. On January 20, Biden could give a lawful order to anyone, from the defence chiefs of staff, to the secret service or the White House janitor to throw the old fool out. And they would.

Australia has had occasions in which leadership or regime changes have been difficult.

The obvious example, almost as comical as what is happening in Washington, would be Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, who in late 1987 lost the confidence of his National Party colleagues 38-9 but refused to step down as premier. After offering a coalition with Labor and Liberal, he threatened to advise the governor, Sir Wally Campbell, to call an election. There had been one only a year before, and the new leader of the Nationals, Mike Ahern, had sent a letter to Campbell saying Sir Joh lacked support and asking to be commissioned.

Campbell wanted Sir Joh to lose a vote of confidence first. Sir Joh dithered for a while, then resigned, damning his party, old colleagues and everyone else. Perhaps his going in this manner could be said to have marked a convenient break with the past that he himself represented. The Fitzgerald royal commission was showing widespread corruption among politicians, public servants, police and even in the judiciary going back many years.

Tony Abbott agreed to go after losing the confidence of his colleagues in 2015, but there was a delay, and significant ill grace and even sabotage, before the transition occurred.

In December 1991, a campaign of undermining prime minister Bob Hawke on behalf of Paul Keating ultimately led to a delegation of Hawke Ministerial loyalists approaching Hawke to tell him, in Gareth Evan's immortal phrase, "Time to move on, digger. The dogs are pissing on your swag". At a Caucus meeting soon after, Hawke lost narrowly, and was initially so distressed that some colleagues wondered whether he would refuse to go. But the fury was soon contained, and an orthodox transition, if not one famous for grace, occurred.

Will the toughest Trumpites be willing to bear arms?

Donald Trump seems more anxious than his die-hard supporters to replenish his election war-chest for legal expenses than gather for a last-ditch defence of the guns they will need to defend themselves from the socialism - and perhaps enforced abortion - which Biden seems to threaten.

Some of America's deepest and most dangerous lunatics are united behind Trump, and some of them fantasise about becoming involved in some apocalyptic struggle between Good, as encapsulated by Trump, and the Anti-Christ, represented by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

So flaky do some of them sound - indeed some believers in the most absurd conspiracy theories were actually elected - that it would be wrong to jeer or bait them. However, there are limits to what must be reconciled if normality is to be reintroduced.

Biden might be better off regretfully allowing those who insist upon it to wrestle serpents, increase their chances of catching coronavirus, and resist any effort to force vaccines or other bad fairies into their personal temples of the Holy Ghost. From afar, Australians can snigger, up to a point, about the possibility of a peasants' revolt or the spectre of Republican mass deaths from COVID-19 as sovereign citizens insist on their constitutional right to ignore science and medical common sense. Up close it may become a major problem, once Biden takes power.

He pledged to take charge of efforts to contain further spread of coronavirus after the disastrous mismanagement of Trump. The virus is back to wildfire proportions, infecting more than 100,000 a day. The death rate is a matter of national shame, far worse than anywhere but Brazil, and among the worst for rates per million. That the US, which considers itself (wrongly) to be the master of effective health care is suffering more than most third world countries, is a serious indictment not only of Trump and Pence but the victory of stupidity and wilful ignorance over science that their period in power has represented.

A crash program to bring down American infection rates, and death rates, would involve measures of the sort we have seen in Victoria, in NSW, and in Western Australian and Queensland. That is to say the measures so bitterly opposed by Scott Morrison and John Frydenberg, but for the success of which they now claim the national and international credit. It would involve, in the US, a significant rebalancing of disease prevention and economic recovery programs. But measures likely to dramatically reduce contagion involve a degree of coercion, not least in the sort of red rural states in which the risk is now highest. There the prospect of cooperation and assistance from sullen republican state governments is lowest.

For some, it's almost a tenet of religion that one should not mask up, or avoid crowds. Some think that the virus, if it exists at all, is not dangerous but is the cover for a sinister Democrat world-government plot. Hand in hand with this, as it were, is opposition to vaccination, generally, or against the ungodly COVID-19. The question for Biden's policy makers is whether a popular consumer revolt against prevention programs, treatment programs or mass vaccination campaigns should halt at the moment where a citizen refuses cooperation, however irrationally. That might be the politically prudent response, given the way that some warriors are spoiling for a fight. But it's not only a matter of respecting their rights. Vaccine resisters will be maintaining a pool of infection in the community which will continue to put everyone, even the vaccinated, at further risk. We now know that acute infections pose long-term serious risks to health, including mental health, as well as a substantial risk of death if one has any sort of pre-existing illness.

Of course, most Republicans are as sane and sensible as any other Americans, or Australians. Many will do the right thing, including taking sensible precautions and getting vaccinated. That said, the lunatic conspiracy-theory "Biden's gonna take your guns away" fringe has itself been a virus that now runs in the centre as well as the fringes of the party, and has become welded into both Trumpian and Mitch McConnell ideology.

That's not necessarily because those who presently control the Republicans are irrational. As James Meek put it in a recent article in the London Review of Books, "it's an observation that the interests of conspiracy theorists and the interests of the selfish end of the plutocracy have a way of aligning. Both are cynical and mistrustful of institutions of authority, the courts, the media, the government, legislatures: the conspiracists because they think such bodies are agents of a secret elite, the plutocrats because they place limits on their wealth and power". What are a few coronavirus casualties in such noble causes?