Donald Trump's Predecessor in Rejecting Election Results: King Umberto II of Italy and the Close Call of 1946

Here is an interesting precedent for Donald Trump resisting the 2020 election results:  

On June 2, 1946, the people of Italy voted 54% -- 46% to abolish the Italian monarchy and create the Italian Republic.  The man at the losing end of the vote was King Umberto II of the House of Savoy -- the son of the fascist collaborator, Victor Emmanuel III, who had left Italy for Egyptian exile in May of 1946.  

Umberto claimed vote rigging, gerrymandering, and fraud and vowed to fight the “outrageous illegality” of the results.  He even contemplated pursuing a coup by using the Italian military to overturn the election results by force.  During this period of uncertainty, violence erupted across Italy.  As Life Magazine reported at the time, riots in Naples and Rome led to the deaths of twelve people and injury of more than 245.      

It raises the “what if” nightmare scenario of Italy descending into civil war.  As one Savoyard website recently put it, Umberto II “could have challenged the results but that…might have triggered a civil war and he had no wish to cause his defeated country any more agony.  He chose to abide by the results and went to live in Portugal.”  

In the end, though, he gave in to reality and stepped down, giving way to Alcide de Gasperi of the Democrazia Cristiana (DC).  

I’m sure Trump has no idea of this precedent, but it would be nice to think he would follow it.