BBC is reporting that he has already told his staff to begin logistical preparations to hand over to Biden. He disagrees with the results, he will do lawsuits, but it doesn't look like he'll do anything more than that. So far, that proves all the naysayers wrong who accused him of trying to not transfer power when not re-elected.
quietly making preparations doesn't outweigh repeatedly and incessantly lying to public about the operation of and outcome of the election, nor sending his supporters to attack vote-counting stations.
I'll believe it when it's said and done. As of now, nothing has changed to his day-to-day, his life is continuing on as if the election happens. As everything winds down, and it sets in that he will be vulnerable to the investigations from NY along with loans coming due that he simply can't pay he may lash out. I've felt the interregnum period will be the most dangerous for the country, moreso than the previous 3+ years.
I don't think anybody reasonably believed president Trump would have actually not relinquished power if he formally lost the election. What he was accused of however, is trying to play nasty with votes, and trying to undermine the legitimacy of his loss. To put it another way: it's not that he wouldn't transfer power, but rather that he's willing to play dirty to try not to transfer power.
The reason why it was never realistic to believe he wouldn't step aside is simply that he does not have the support to pull that off; it's essentially a kind of civil war but one he (and any other president) would likely lose almost instantly - as long as it's clear he lost the election.
And that's why it's so insidious to undermine the election, because that will eventually pave the way to actually ignore election outcomes. Even today, I suspect in all the partisan posturing some voters may have come away with the honest impression that there really was a stolen election. Since democracy hinges on the losing side accepting that loss, action that undermine that are quite problematic.
President Trump's action so far, both before the election and after, are entirely in line with the accusations against him; in essence: he's willing to undermine democracy to try and hold on to power.
Had the election been closer, it's conceivable he might really have engineered some legal shenanigans to try and steal the election. And if he had been backed in that (which isn't entirely impossible, because some of the toss-up states have republican-appointed courts, republican legislatures, and republican governors, and of course the heavily tilted supreme court now), then things would have gotten dicey. In that situation, just like in other strong-man democracies, the outcome of the election would have been rigged. Would democrats have backed down? Or would they have disputed the elections, even though formally they lost them? That's the kind of thing that breaks a democracy; because both backing down and confrontation are terrible outcomes.
To their credit - because that's how it's supposed to work in a democracy - those toss-up states did not seriously try to steal votes (although the vote-segregation thing is pretty close). And of course we don't know Trump would really have stolen the election, given the opportunity, since it never arose. But we can see that he took all possible steps in that direction at least; and that's something the US needs to deal with in the future for the sake of stability. It ended well this time; it might not every time.
