Asked by a San Sebastian Film Festival questioner about President Trump‘s refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, Chicago 7 director-writer Aaron Sorkin suggested a movie ending.

“If I was able to romanticize the whole thing, here’s what would happen,” Sorkin said. “On election night, Donald Trump would do what we all assume he’s going to do, which is not concede defeat, claim that the election was rigged, claim that the Democrats cheated, all of that. The nightmare scenario that’s never happened in this country — we’re very proud of our peaceful transfers of power that have been going on for 240 years.

“However, for the first time since the man was sworn in, Republicans, his enablers, his apologists, march up to the White House and say, ‘Donald, it’s time to go…you will not ruin this country, you will not start a civil war.’ I would write an ending, in short, in which everyone does the right thing.”

HE ending: A smallish group of Republican Congressional Constitutionalists, alarmed at Trump’s post-election recalcitrance, goes mano e mano with a slightly larger group of rightwing Senate and House legislators who know Trump has to leave because he’s lost to Biden, but are afraid to tell him. They don’t want to piss off his base, and they can’t quite muster the cojones to look him in the eye and say “you’re done, Don.”

This leads to a fierce, behind-closed-doors argument, with the fate of the nation hanging in the balance, etc.