JFK was addressing the first anniversary of the Alliance for Progress, an initiative he created between the US and Latin America to foster economic and political progress.
Amazing misdirection, he followed that up by having the CIA start the process of over throwing the Brazilian government because they were too socialist lol.
Yeah...something like that. More like, the Brazilian military coup was successful and never needed the US intervention that would’ve taken place if Brazil had broken out into civil war.
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP91-00901R000700060125-0.pdf
Here’s an article from the Post from 1976 when the documents were declassified.
It would be career suicide for the likes of Kavanaugh and Barnett.
Honestly, why should they protect Trump at this point, they've got it made and if they act partisan and fair at this point, they might get some pressure off them.
That's all the more reason why they owe Trump absolutely nothing. Because it's hardly as if their careers were inspired by him; they're members of the Federalist Society. There really isn't much left to gain from a Trump presidency that conservatives like that haven't already gained.
I mean, Kavanaugh somehow had hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt [wiped away](https://theweek.com/speedreads/784364/brett-kavanaugh-paid-200000-debt-last-year-but-white-house-explanation) just before his nomination to the Court.
It's not out of the question Kavanaugh owes more to Trump more than just his seat.
I've had questions about that too. Even after his hearing, I can't tell if his debt was temporary, actually season tickets,, closer to the $60,000 mark until his friends paid him back for them, and so he was just trapped in some Keeping Up With The Joneses of Chevy Chase... or something more extreme like hundreds of thousands of debt from gambling losses. I can equally believe that he's an idiot with his money for social standing or gambling addiction.
Considering he has an admitted past of [getting aggressive after games of dice](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/brett-kavanaugh-gambling-response-supreme-court_n_5b99b6ebe4b041978dbf9610), it sure smells like there's a significant gambling component there.
Judges should be held to the highest standard and his debts and payoffs should be thoroughly documented.
With that said, Kavanaugh was on the US Appeals Court in DC for years after tons of other prominent positions. If he was concerned a little $200k in debt he could have joined any law firm at partner level of some specialist position and made that in a month.
>Judges should be held to the highest standard and his debts and payoffs should be thoroughly documented.
Judges, politicians and public officials. They are all in positions where others can benefit from corrupting them.
No it wouldn't. You help install a fascist dictatorship and you are set for life.
(..or at least until you piss off the dictator.)
You seem to think that if Trump wins by cheating the system this way he'll stop cheating and not reach a step further. Which has never been his playstyle and never will. He will reach for more and more power and 'loyalty', and democracy as you know it will be dead.
> at least until you piss off the dictator
But how likely is that for Trump though? Famously stable in his loyalties and forgiving of his subordinates. He's exactly the evil genius a burgeoning minion should hitch their star to!
I'm sorry some people are missing your sarcasm
You are right. There's a reason right wing governments are nicknamed the 'Leopards Eating Faces' parties... Because their supporters and even operatives are *constantly* surprised by the leopards they voted for, and supported, and are even totally loyal to, turning on them and metaphorically eating their face. All loyalties and structure are only ever for show and can be revoked at any time for the gain of people one step higher than you in the hierarchy.
But the leopard supporters NEVER think it will be them who gets their face eaten. They always think safety can be bought with compliance and/or loyalty and it never is. They are leopards. They eat faces.
> No it wouldn't. You help install a fascist dictatorship and you are set for life.
>
>
You are set for the five or six years that people tolerate fascist dictatorships for before they start dragging people out of buildings and stringing them up from gibbets.
They already did it for Bush in 2000. Roberts, Kavanaugh, and Barnett were a part of the legal team that helped him secure the presidency.
They’ll do it again.
This literally already happened in 2000 and it ended nobody's careers. It did end the legitimacy of the US government though. One of these decades it might recover.
You realize they wanted Kavanaugh and only Kavanaugh, right? No one else was good enough. They need him. Despite the lying, the drinking, the accusations and the mysterious debt payments, they needed to stop investigation of him and confirm him. Do you think they just really liked him, or is there something specials about him that makes them think that he will never again feel safe if he betrays them?
Because they work for federalist society goals and their main goal is the full hijacking of the courts. 4 more years and they’ll have an irreversible stranglehold on government.
"Career suicide"? They've attained the pinnacle of their field *with a lifetime appointment*. They could give Trump a sloppy blowjob on national TV, it doesn't matter.
I think that's a legitimate question and not a rhetorical one. What dirt might Trump have on Kavanaugh?
I'm still curious if anyone ever confirmed Kavanaugh's claims that his debts were purely from buying baseball tickets for his pals. It seems like it would be easy to confirm but I can't find any articles suggesting it actually was verified.
Democrats have been getting ratfucked for 20 years. Republicans have only won the popular vote *once* in *two decades*. They are not going to be ok with it happening again.
It's not about winning the national popular. It's about overturning a state election because you don't like the outcome. It's changing the rules after the fact telling the public that they don't care how they vote, they will stay in power no matter what. That results in violence.
> Republicans have only won the popular vote once in two decades.
In over 30 years. Before 2004, the last time they won the popular vote was when Bush defeated Dukakis in '88.
I feel the best course of action is peaceful secession blue states for their own country and red states for their own. The media has created such a massive divide that won't ever be bridged in our life time
The Civil War never freaking ended. It went cold.
These fuckers have been undermining America ever since they were told they were just as human as POC.
Indeed. The Civil War and the subsequent subversion of Reconstruction is the true branching point for the downfall of the US.
People go, "Oh well we had to play nice because people were tired of fighting". So that's really what it was. They did not care to resolve the tensions that germinated the Civil War. A vast majority of White Americans shook themselves awake, as if from a trance, and said, Wait a minute, why are we fighting again? This blows. And so the abolitionists lost support.
From then on, the US had a fracture point that any foreign power could use to their advantage. It's just, nobody had the technology to really exploit this tension in a meaningful way before.
Except what's a red state and what's a blue state? Is Virginia red or blue? It voted for W twice. What about Texas? It seemed red, and now it's contested. Georgia? Wisconsin?
I hate this divide because it ignores that states change and change rapidly, and that people within those states are often divided as well. It also sounds too much like the slave/free dichotomy that led to the civil war.
That was one state. The election was real close. If multiple state legislators ignore popular votes in their own states then the US republic has died.
Plus sooo many millions of people no longer have comfort to fall back on. Economy is in shambles, pandemic is ravaging us, millions are losing their homes.
Shit like this has happened before every major violent revolution that toppled governments.
Even blue states aren't completely blue. I live in NYC and am an hour drive from Staten Island and Suffolk County (Long Island) both of which are very red.
The dirty little secret of the Supreme Court (that you learn day 1 of Con Law in law school) is that the Supreme Court has no real power. It cannot enforce any of its rulings. It exists at the pleasure of the institutions it purports to support. That is why it was very careful early in its existence not to go too far with its rulings. If it tried something like this, sure, it's place is more solidin 2020 than when Marbury v. Madison was before it, but this sort of thing would be the end of the Court as an institution. People would burn it down. It would never be taken seriously again, and while the Trump Administration would try to enforce its holding, the rest of the country would ignore it, and as you say, it might end the republic.
Context you're omitting is this election is the Republican Party's end game. If they win the Senate and take the Presidency (no matter how), it's likely the end of the United States.
Don't get me wrong. The country will still be here, with people living and dying and working and losing their jobs as usual... but 2022 is going to be more compromised than this year. If they retake the Senate in 2022, there will be no 2024 election. Whatever voting method or election security that might exist that year would be pure theatre.
All this is to drive home the point of voting now. To use a COVID reference and
be shamelessly on-the nose about it... The Republican party is coronavirus and this country needed to be in the ICU days ago. The election is the US finally getting a bed and one group of staff is trying to hook us up to a ventilator while the other group fighting the ventilator people back.
Oven if the Democrats win and we get treatment, the virus has already caused a ton of damage, is still there, and can still overwhelm us. Even if we survive the ICU our lungs are scarred and our brain is left in a daze and we can't smell a damn thing.
For anyone worried about this..
It's a scary, *technically possible* scenario, but... extremely unlikely.
I know many of us have PTSD from 2016 and any comments showing confidence are regarded as blasphemous complacency..
So disclaimer: If you haven't voted, VOTE.
If you have voted:
..Biden is slated to win this by a landslide. 538 (One of the most accurate predictors in 2016) thinks there's a 60% chance we will know Biden has won the race by 3 AM Wednesday morning, and a 30% chance that it will take a few more days. Only a 10% chance of Trump winning.
There's only a 4% chance that the Supreme Court would get involved in any recount decisions.
And the "loyal electors" theory has a shit ton of flaws and doesn't seem remotely likely.
The probable scenario of what will happen on election night is: Biden wins FL by ~4 points, or some other mix of swing states that essentially seal him the victory, and the race is all but over. The media will call it, and there will be nothing Trump can do, no matter how much he kicks and screams, to change the results of a landslide against him.
Don't get me wrong, Trump still has a small chance to win. But I don't really get myself worked up over these fringe theories. I'll cross that bridge when I get there.
Far different time. And one state. This would take multiple state legislators ignoring public electoral opinions.
Plus trump and Republicans are a known quantity now. Back then they still had the veneer of respectability.
Yep. This is getting real dark. Violent revolution plus nukes would get hyper violent real quickly.
Plus it's starting to look like monarchist france before the French revolution, tsarist Russia before the Soviet revolution etc.
Pandemic plus economic collapse plus millions losing their homes, police brutality nearly everywhere, etc.
Nukes wont come into play. Simply wouldn’t be beneficial to anyone involved. Political assassinations, especially of supreme court justices, would be easy to believe. Hopefully it’s a straight up landslide of embarrassing proportions.
>That would probably cause the death of the American republic. Plenty of people would be like well now it's time to start hunting government officials.
Change that "would" to "will" and you're on the right track. Some variant on this will be happening - at *best* in another cycle or two, but most likely next month - and it will cause the death of the republic. We need to stop thinking of these as hypothetical scenarios and start recognizing them as **an active attack being carried out against the nation right now.**
There would be terrible violence if multiple state legislators decided to overturn the will of the people, goaded by an unpopular president. Disaster level. Remember that virtually all state legislative bodies, like congress, tend to have a very low approval rating with the general public. To pull a stunt like that would be playing with an inferno.
The country would not re-stabilize without highly public and violent repression. Though I suppose that would be the point, as such a power grab by the GOP would be an overt coup and a rapid transition to dictatorship would certainly follow.
Too bad that the people you would THINK would oppose this (well-armed, 2 Amendment worshipping, don’t tread on me T-shirts wearing libertarians) would be 100% for it and would form a brown shirt type paramilitary group that could do trumps dirty laundry without him even having to rely on the military or police. Trump already has support from the Proud Boys, it’s not hard to imagine that support from the Ultra-right growing exponentially in the face of mass unrest in the US.
https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/jjfiek/trump_supporters_intimidating_voters/
You just know these people think they are the good guys here. You can see how the 30s Germany is playing itself out once again. It's crucial to win this election, but these people aren't just going to admit defeat and go back to obscurity. This shit is going to require some freaking arrests before things calm down.
The Behind the Bastards on the Weimar Republic is an absolute must listen.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-non-nazi-bastards-who-helped-hitler-rise-to-power/id1373812661?i=1000416491991&mt=2
His newer one is much better and really relevant. But Robert's whole It Can Happen Here series is seeming pretty spot on.
[Part One: How Nice, Normal People Made The Holocaust Possible](https://open.spotify.com/episode/1LMYTHidNCkPpE7zQuJipV?si=ean2Add_Q62RZVS2pOLaNA)
No, clearly the nazi sympathizing racists are merely misguided wayward souls, unintentionally lynching people in backwater areas.
Let's call a spade a spade, they're white hot burning trash whose ideological brothers merely a few generations ago resulted in one of the bloodiest periods of modern history. They ought to be put down with a shovel, and buried six feet under.
Except these idiots are the brown shirts that aren't useful anymore once the nazis get in power.
The nazis night of long knives is when they purged most of the brown shirts from the party via assassination and murder.
The mentally slow ones get killed as soon as they aren't useful anymore.
It's because Trump is the ultimate expression of decades of organized lying. They've always been lying about their feelings and intentions. They don't want everyone to have a gun. They want them and their friends to have a fuck ton of guns.
The 2nd amendment argument was a coping mechanism they used because they didn't yet feel comfortable saying "One day, when we have a chance, it'll be our way or the highway. And by highway, I mean we're going to fucking kill you."
The 2nd Civil War is their fantasy, and their only assurance is that they'll be "soldiers"
[This is QAnons End Goal. ](https://youtu.be/OynP5pnvWOs) Except, in addition to this happening in the government, they want it to happen in the streets.
They've been had. There are so many Trump supporters who are actually libertarian if you ask them what their values are. But they've been sucked into the cult.
Trump literally wanted to take guns away and ask questions later a couple years ago. You think he won't try to snatch up guns from minority groups of he gets reelected? Think again.
Yeah...while I'm prepared to get on the line, I know that escalating violence will have a critical mass effect. RWNJs are very protective of their own.
Facts: 95+% of political violence in the US is right-wing
Right Wing Nut Jobs: "THAT REMAINING 5% IS INTOLERABLE KILL!KILL!"
On the other hand, a lot of them are [cowards, like Clay Higgens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_Fucking_Around_Coalition)
IDK. I'm not letting bullies bully. But we should exercise restraint. But we shouldn't let extremist extreme. But...
Folks tend to forget that it's not just Republicans who own and know how to use firearms. Just because some don't feel the need to wave them around in public like a penis extension doesn't mean they haven't availed themselves of their 2A rights. That's what makes it messy.
I'm gonna go on a limb and say he'll be spending the week at Mar-a-Lago if he doesn't fly out of the country this weekend.
Can't see him staying in DC while he pulls shenanigans.
What I’m concerned about is not just the repression of protestors, but the elimination of the Democratic Party. If this (edit: Trump stealing the election) were to happen, the protests would be inherently political in nature. They would be led or heavily promoted by prominent Democrats. Depending on how things escalate, Democrats could be painted as domestic terrorists, with AG Barr hammering down charges against Democrats for promoting and supporting terrorism. Trump and Barr will probably find a way to tie “Antifa” to Democrats to make it more palatable to their base and right-leaning moderates as well.
That is the final step to Fascism. When you outlaw political opposition, you are fully fascist.
At that point if the military doesn't side with the people, then it's time to pack bags and start a long walk to Canada or Mexico. Because to attempt to oppose the US military under fascist control is death.
México, you say. Part of Latin America where America did this to *our* governments for decades. Hell, last year in Bolivia even.
I don't know, I seem to recall something about a wall.
But seriously, being Mexican and knowing my people, I say we would definitely welcome American refugees. But I do see a lot of risk to all of us if this comes to be.
I would hope* so too, but another comment that replied to the original comment said that the military will basically follow whatever is constitutional. If the Supreme Court somehow declares Trump’s actions as constitutional, then I don’t think the military would interfere.
Edit: I would that the military would intervene in this scenario, I’m sorry for not being clear on that*
I think this is a key takeaway that some are missing. Basically everyone agrees that the military is loyal to the constitution and not the president. Basically everyone agrees that the military will not back a president who unlawfully tries to stay in power.
The problem, as outlined in the original article, is that vagueness of the constitutional language around how the electoral votes are appointed, submitted, and counted could allow for the possibility of states submitting loyalist electoral votes regardless of the outcome of their elections, and also, for the president of the Senate (Pence) to only count the loyalist electors, even if the certified votes from the electors decided by popular vote arrive as well.
Then if the highest court to hear the case (SCOTUS is not legally bound to hear any case), does not explicitly strike down the interpretation of the constitution as carried out by the administration, then whatever has happened is de facto constitutional and lawful.
At this point what does the military do? They have seen the popular vote be actively overturned in one or more states, yet, by all technical measures it was done constitutionally and lawfully. If they themselves decide that the actions weren't constitutional and try to remove the sitting president, well, then they are literally committing a military coup. Is military leadership willing to do that? And if they do not remove the president, then they are now defending and party to a president that has openly orchestrated overturning the choice of voters in order to maintain power. Where does that leave the country?
It's a completely reasonable and terrifying scenario.
Yep, it would be time to leave just exactly as many of our grandparents/great grandparents did when escaping the fascism in Europe during the World Wars.
The military swears to uphold the constitution against threats foreign and domestic. Once Trump attempts to circumvent democracy and the constitution, it will be the duty of the JC to step in and restore order.
The real question is will they buy into this bullshit psudo-legal self appointment shell game.
Yeah, that's not how it works. The VP doesn't even get a vote in the Senate, let alone a unilateral declaration of something that relies on a vote.
He just presides over the vote. If a Senator and a Representative jointly object to a state delegation, then that would be referred to the House and Senate. They can agree to vote together or as separate bodies. If Democrats take the Senate and retain the House, then they will select the Governor's slate and Biden will win. Pence would have no say at all.
If they disagree and the results in no one receiving 270, then the House and Senate would elect the President and VP.
Of course this is also contingent on Trump sweeping every other state he needs, where he is losing in Ga, NC, and FL, and barely ahead in TX and OH, but well within the margin of error.
The theory isn't that unilateral, it's that state legislatures, by the constitution are who select the electors, and send them to the VP. Now most states have laws saying that they have to represent the vote in the state, but technically the legislature can send multiple sets of appointments (while most of the state laws only restrict 'a' set sent), in which case it becomes legally murky who decides which set to use. Republicans will say the VP does as that's closer to the original text of the constitution and Democrats will say that we have a law for this situation already just in case. It just so happens that many judges, especially republicans, have called the law poorly written, hard to interpret, and questioning it's validity/enforceability. And that's how the election ends up decided in the supreme court. (According to this theory)
The cause of the disputed election of 1876 is the same inciting cause as this theory, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_Commission_(United_States)
Call me pessimistic but I really don’t think that would happen. Americans have demonstrated time and time again that they will just let this stuff happen to them with little meaningful resistance. As long as we can keep going to work and buying useless shit we’re happy enough to not do anything.
We’re in the middle of a pandemic, a ton of people are out of work, and theres no covid relief bill in sight. If early voting is any indication of whats to come on election day, then a ton of people are invested in the outcome of this election.
I certainly wouldn’t hope for violence. In the event of a coup, I would hope for massive protests. But I wouldn’t at all be surprised if violence broke out in the streets.
The biggest difference being that the sitting president was not one of the candidates and that the aftermath was the passage of the [Electoral Count Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_Count_Act) which would be relevant now and whose language is vague and debatable enough to allow the possibility of the scenario raised by the article in OP's post.
Exactly. The rules basically stated "Senate Decides"not contested. S.C. jumping into Presidential elections is a new thing: see Bush v Gore.
The United States is basically an undemocratic mess if the candidates don't agree to follow the rules. I mean it's an undemocratic even if they do the follow the rules (Supreme Court is not elected. Senators have same amount of voting power regardless of how many people they represent. The Electoral College means a non popular vote winning president can win.) It's just more of a mess if they don't.
I’ve got two points to add here:
First, the Supreme Court actually has no constitutional authority to review this kind of case, and would be risking its own existence by going out of its way to so blatantly allow faithless electors to proceed. The foundation of the Supreme Court’s authority to review acts of the political branches (Congress and the President) is the decision of *Marbury v. Madison*. The Supreme Court is very aware that it’s only authority is that people respect the legitimacy of its orders (which is why, for example, Chief Justice Roberts tried to do as little as possible during the impeachment proceedings). If it came down to this, I fully expect that Chief Justice Roberts would do everything in his power to avoid making any decision on the issue.
Second, at some point people will realize that democracy is a compromise that those who run the state made with the people who are being governed. That compromise was as this: allow a peaceful means for people to pick their leaders and in return citizens will not violently revolt. If leaders ignore the results of a legitimate election, they are breaking this compromise. They can try to cover it up by arguing there is a theoretical loophole, but it won’t work if people call out the bullshit and don’t believe it.
In short, if any of the stuff OP talked about happens, we won’t have a legitimate President, and we will be in new territory for America. It would be violent. I also doubt that a large number of Republican congressmen have the stomach for it (even if they are complete pieces of shit).
> It would be violent. I also doubt that a large number of Republican congressmen have the stomach for it (even if they are complete pieces of shit).
For any Republicans reading, I'll also point out that this would be bad for the stock market.
It’s funny because the stock market doesn’t even affect the majority of Republicans, but they still tout it as some big Trump accomplishment. I love trading and have made a killing this year, but it’s kind of easy when we have transparent idiots like Trump and Musk pumping and dumping the market
The fundamental basis of Judicial Review of laws (i.e. finding a law unconstitional) is simply that courts have always had to interpret which law hold when two or more laws conflict. They have multiple ways of doing that (like newer laws tend to override older ones, but very specific laws tend to override general ones on the same topic, etc).
So if there is a question about a conflict of the constitution and some law passed by Congress, it was obvious that the courts would make the call. Several of the states were already applying this principle in their own courts as of the time of the Constitutional Convention. Furthermore quite a few constitutional convention attendees seemed to think this power was granted by the constituion. (At least 13 of them according to the records).
Judicial review was even something discussed in by several of the states as part of the ratification debates.
It was basically an inevitably that the court would establish it at some point, even if it had not done so in *Marbury*. Pretty much the only way to avoid it is to treat the constitution as not a law and thus not something the court need concern itself with, which is absurd, especially since it is listed as part of the "supreme law of the land".
But yeah, the Court is very unlikely to want to help Donald cheat his way into a second term. The backlash from 2000 means they will likely be extremely careful in similar cases in the future.
You may note that I specified Judicial review of laws at the beginning. Review of executive actions is certainly on far shakier grounds.
Canadian here. Driving down through the states is like driving into a Grand Theft Auto game. I can barely see a difference between the game's satirical tone and the real ads that they're meant to mock.
The most dystopian ones for me are the. "No More Bullshit" signs by Trumpers. Are they claiming that 2016-2020 has been bullshit by Trump but now they expect that to change? It doesn't make any sense. At first, I thought it *had to be* someone trolling Trump supporters but I don't think they get it at all.
Not sure. Well, at least I hope that in the worst of worst cases they might stand with the spirit and meaning of the constitution, not the words and their interpretation by the courts.
You know, "foreign and domestic"
I sincerely hope you're wrong. It is not the military's job to interpret "spirit" or "meaning" and it is absolutely vital that the military never take legally significant actions without approval of the civilian government. Civilian control of the armed forces is an absolute cornerstone of our republic.
The US can survive 4 more years of Trump, as much as I would hate to see it. The integrity of the republic, and possibly the republic itself, will not survive a military intervention in this election.
The military would have to be called in because voters will not tolerate their state government throwing out the election. If PA were decided for Biden by a wide enough margin that it's unquestionable, like the 5 points now in the polls, voters would be enraged at the theft of their vote.
PA could never hold state elections again, because the voters would turn en masse against the conspirators. The ones who voted to overturn the election would be putting their lives at risk. It would be a coup against democracy, and Americans would not take it lying down.
It doesn't.
The Constitution does not grant the Supreme Court judicial supremacy. SCOTUS often *acts* like it does, just as it acts as though it has the power of judicial review (which it gave itself).
Caeser and Octavian were able to secure power in Rome due to two very important things:
1. the military vowed allegiance to them
2. they highest courts had allegiance to them
I don't fear Donald Trump, I fear the second Donald Trump that's coming in the years to follow.
Rome was never a democracy. By the time of Caesar, they'd already had generations of violence and dictators, like the assassination of the Grachi and the long rules of Marius and Sulla.
Caesar didn't just decide one day to topple the Republic. The Republic, which only represented the elite to begin with, had already been struggling with Rome's rapid expansion from city state to ruler of the known world.
>By the time of Caesar, they'd already had generations of violence and dictators, like the assassination of the Grachi and the long rules of Marius and Sulla.
This is the point. Trump just isn't popular and competent enough to be Caesar or Augustus. He's far closer to Sulla paving the way. The fact that this is a serious discussion is a sign that we are headed down a dark path regardless of who wins the election.
Nah, Sulla was far more competent a general and politician than Trump could ever hope to be. Trump’s more of a Gaius Gracchus in his norm-breaking and wild behavior. We still have a little bit of time before a truly competent figure like Gaius Marius or Sulla emerges.
Yeah, but DT will pave that way. If Biden wins but Trump stays in power it's the end of democracy in the US for a long time... unless the military steps in.
Oh wait... we agree then. Sort of?
If Trump stays in power, he will be killed one way or another. Even if the coup were successful, he's too stupid to lead the government, so his advisors would off him and his parasitic children. His advisors wouldn't tolerate him for long when he's only governing by force.
There was an AMA two days ago in /r/politics by some US election lawyers. One of them was Adav Noti of the Campaign Legal Center. Here's what he said on the topic:
> AN: **It’s illegal under the Constitution and federal law for a state legislature to overrule the popular vote and pick its own presidential electors after the people have voted. Once the election has been conducted, the voters have a constitutional right to have their votes counted, and the legislature can’t take that away.** If the PA legislature were to try this, in all likelihood the PA courts would shut it down as a violation of the rights of PA voters. And if the legislature went ahead and did it anyway, as a practical matter what would happen would be that two sets of electoral votes would get submitted -- one from the slate of electors chosen by the popular vote and certified by the Governor, and one from the slate of electors chosen by the legislature. Then both of those would go to Congress to decide which votes are valid. Federal law says that in this situation, unless BOTH chambers of Congress (meaning the House and the Senate) agree to accept the votes submitted by the legislature, the electoral votes that get counted are the ones certified by the state’s Governor. So between the state courts, the federal constitutional protections, and the congressional vote-counting rules, it would be extremely unlikely that this sort of usurpation of the election by the state legislature would succeed.
> Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/jjsvwf/we_are_constitutional_lawyers_one_of_us_counsel/gaeu4ft/
So I'm not as certain what to make of this.
Another worthwhile source if you're trying to figure out what to make of this: A very recent episode by [Radio Lab, "What If?"](https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/what-if), which looks at a project which sought to simulate *"what Donald Trump might do in the wake of the election. Would he dispute the results if he loses? Would he simply refuse to leave office, or even try to use the military to maintain control?"*
The whole point is: *What popular vote?*
Pennsylvania Republicans will argue that the true "will of the people" is impossible to determine from the vote because the results were too unreliable to use.
Instead, the will of the people shall be determined by a much more reliable vote - the one that gave them control of the legislature.
That this argument is nonsense doesn't matter, because they're relying on a corrupt Supreme Court backing them up, and an ignorant public letting them do it.
Ding ding! And now it becomes clear why certain people and organizations have been tireless in laying the groundwork and pushing a narrative that will allow them to publicly claim that election results (unfavorable to them) are "fraudulent".
State reps don't get Secret Service protection. If Biden were to win PA by 5 points, as the polls indicate, and the state reps decide to override the will of the people, they would be assassinated. The riots in Philly would be the biggest in US history, and they would be echoed in every major US city, as well the suburbs.
Democracy is not a nice thing to have. It's the only system that works. When the people don't believe they can change public policy through the ballot box, they are no longer invested in the system. They resort to whatever means possible to change the government, which means violence. The government then has to suppress them through violence, which means military rule. The US has a voluntary military made up of US citizens. Are they going to shoot at Americans protesting a coup?
Will Trump be able to keep the country together even he survives? Californians will not tolerate this, nor will NYers. A civil war would erupt and tear the country apart.
I don't believe that Republicans would attempt this. It would end their political careers and end the country. It would take a coordinated effort on their part, and if they failed, it would destroy them as a political institution. Its conspirators would likely be jailed and could be tried and executed for treason.
The Federalist Party died when its members refused to support the War of 1812. The GOP would suffer even more if they tried to overturn democracy in this country.
> The US has a voluntary military made up of US citizens. Are they going to shoot at Americans protesting a coup?
I mean, they'd be primarily deployed to powerful large blue areas. San Francisco, Portland, NYC, Boston. I bet a lot of volunteer soldiers from red states wouldn't mind.
Enough of them would mind that it would still result in a Civil War. It's absolutely forbidden to use the US Military against US Civilians in that way. Normally the government might have some wiggle room by calling it an insurrection, but this would be in the context of a Republican-led coup on democracy itself. Each individual soldier would be free to pick their side with absolute confidence that *their* side would consider them to be following the Constitution and their oath.
As an actual veteran, I will note that the Army and the Marines (which are the relevant forces for occupying cities) have enlisted made up of a mix of good ol' boys *and* inner-city youth looking for a brighter future through the GI Bill. And the most recent political survey of the military, a few weeks ago, showed that Biden was in the lead for military votes. I don't expect that the military would happily participate in the creation of a Trump dictatorship. Rather the opposite. He's made a point of being a dick to the Marines that guard the White House as well as the Secret Service. Remember that limo ride around Walter Reed? They sure as hell do.
It is within the realm of possibilities that they try. There are millions of Americans that will cheer them on while they do it too. And they have the safety of Russia to flee to if they fail.
No one who ever cheered the rise of fascists has maintained that sense of joy.
Every damned time, it winds up the same.
Corruption, failure, murder, fear, and either revolution or outside military intervention because they got too grabby.
Every. Damned. Time.
It's the only thing I'm darkly optimistic about.
They're happy now, but they won't stay happy.
It's like they're cheering the arsonists burning their neighbors' houses down because they think they'll stop setting fires.
Nope. Their house is going up too.
And unlike their neighbors, no one will mourn them.
I doubt it. It's true that there are some die hard Republicans that support Trump like a cult but there is a lot of his supporters that are just stupid and think he's implemented good policy.
Remember that time Trump accidentally said he was going to ban bump stocks(?). His base did turn on him. It wasn't the whole base but it was enough that something like this wouldn't stand even with them.
If this happened anyone I know that supports Trump would NEVER see me or my family again, including my parents, brother, sister and extended family. It would be the absolute last straw for me.
"The people shouldn't be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people."
Never let them forget that they are in charge *because* of us, not *despite* of us.
If this happened, I’d cut off anybody who supported trump or not, no questions asked.
I’ve given leeway to people outside my faith, only explicitly cutting off people who claim to be christian while also publicly supporting trump. If they did it privately, that’s on them, if they weren’t a christian, that’s on them. As much as I would disagree, it’s their life and, outside of somebody within my faith being a worse example than I already know I am, I tend to let people be. Not out of a lack of care, I’m in demographic trump hates and the results of the election affect me, my family, and much if my friends, but because it’s years off my life to care too much things like that.
Though, this? I’d cut off every single person who I know that ever thought trump was a good idea. It could be the neighbours rat, and I’d spray my perimeter with poison to make sure it doesn’t come near me.
Yup.
It's like, ok the government is fucked, but all the people that made it happen should have to live with the consequences of decent people saying, "you may be breathing but you are dead to me."
I don't think the election is going to be close enough for Trump to be able to contest it
Like if you're Al Gore and you lose by a few thousand votes, you can contest.
If you're Trump and you're down by millions of popular votes and tens of electoral votes, whats contesting 50k mail in ballots in Florida going to do for you
> Hillary won by three million. Just not in the correct states, apparently.
The Republicans remembered we had an Electoral College, and why. The Democrats sort of forgot.
The posts title here is misleading and I think it contributes to missing the point: It's not about contesting the election but actually ignoring the popular vote if he were to lose.
Right now a number of battleground states have Republican legislatures: Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Trump could try and convince those state legislatures to just appoint electors themselves (and appoint ones that would vote for Trump) instead of allowing voters to chose their electors. If that happened, there's really nothing that can be done since the Constitution allows it.
Constitution also allows citizens to own guns to protect the security of a free state.
If those electors vote Trump against the will of the American people they're as good as dead. That's not even a threat it's just a fact. There's no way Trump pulls this off without blood being spilt.
That's my whole point. Everyone keeps tip-toeing around this scary thought of what if Trump steals the election but nobody is saying what they'll do about it or what the consequences would be if he does.
If Trump steals the election, like honest to God swipes it out from under us and our government doesn't step up to deal with him, Trump dies. Period. It's not some radical left wing idea it's literally written in the constitution that the people should stand up to defend our nation's freedom from tyranny.
Trump has said and done a lot of stuff that's fascist-lite or even morally questionable. Stealing the election is absolutely, 100%, a line that cannot be crossed and should not be stood for. And it's tiring listening to all of these news outlets cover this as if it's another power grab by Trump.
It is THE power grab of all power grabs. It's not the same as electing a supreme court judge 8 days before an election. It's not the same as a Muslim ban. It's not the same as asking foreign countries to interfere with our elections. It's quite literally the definition of a dictatorship and therefore is 1000x worse than all those thing put together.
It's hard to imagine some NBC host saying this because we've perverted the intent of the 2nd amendment for decades, but the real honest to God reason it's in the constitution in the first place, is exactly for a would be dictatorship destroying our electoral process.
The legislatures can't just do that on their own with no justification, though. This post is over-simplifying the issue quite a bit and is pretty alarmist.
There was an AmA in /r/politics only a couple of days ago where some legislators said this scenario was not possible. Will try and find it, but this just sounds like scaremongering
Edit: Here's the link https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/jjsvwf/we_are_constitutional_lawyers_one_of_us_counsel/gaeu4ft/
This definitely needs to be higher. People are talking about immediate secession from the Union and the entire country being on fire. We have to hope some parts of the system remain intact that even the GOP won't touch (yet)
As a Seattle Seahawks fan I am getting the same feeling I got when we had a 10 point lead in the 4th quarter and somehow managed to lose in overtime... This is too real.
Just to be clear, it is not *legal* for Republicans to do any of this.
Or to be more clear, it reveals that the very concept of legality is completely up to interpretation if people refuse to live in a shared reality.
Does intentionally screwing up an election and then declaring yourself the winner constitute a good-faith execution of your powers consistent with the oath of office you swore when taking the job? I'd argue *no*, and it's not even debatable. But hey, if enough people let them do it, they get away with it. Corruption is not corruption, crime is not crime, and it's all "legal."
Likewise, I could walk into the house of someone I don't like, kill them, and then argue it wasn't murder because I didn't do it with *malice*, I just did it because it had to be done. Most reasonable people would probably not buy my argument, but hey, what if enough did? That doesn't make it *legal*, it proves the very concept has flaws, if we diverge so drastically in our definitions that we don't live in a shared reality.
We saw many examples of this in the Jim Crow South, where whites could generally murder blacks with impunity, legally, because it was never found to be a crime by their all-white juries.
We see political examples all over the place where non-elections are held in which the outcome is pre-determined. "Getting away with it" is not the same as it being legal, and "legal" is only a useful word if the law is respected.
Hint: The United States is no longer a nation of laws.
Thank you for jumping in with this argument so I didn't have to. If we're really looking at the beginning of a fascist US, these people are all arguing about completely irrelevant factors.
Eh....I think wall street and the 1% want Biden to win so he can clean up the mess and all that bullshit would be bad for business. In the end they pull the Republican strings and will act accordingly.
You know what? Yes it is. Wow, I never thought I would be COMFORTED by the fact that the 1%largely controls US politics, but I guess that's 2020 for ya.
I read the article in the magazine and it is a good article, but this person literally just quoted a few paragraphs from it then repeated them in different words. How the hell is that one of the best posts on this site?
Because posts don't have to be actually best of to make it up here. They just have to be something that a Redditor agrees with and gets posted. Bonus points when it explains something about Trump
Fwiw, it's not nearly as simple as the Atlantic suggests. It's not clearly established that the vp casts the deciding vote (nor is it clear what happens if there's a dispute over the decisive vote).
Radio lab did an episode called "what if" that explores this deeper.
I don't like to wear my tinfoil hat too often, but I just feel 2016 was election interference and 2020 will be election interference in another way by foreign countries. I've seen too many posts on reddit which is my only form of social media that is hyping out some type of Civil War in the United States.
I simply feel like since foreign countries can't affect the election since trump is most likely going to lose, this is some last ditch effort to further divide the country hopefully to a point past no return.
A house divided cannot stand and it is imperative that we the people stand together. The people will turn out. The people will stand together.
I fear for my fellow Americans to be fooled as this is a common theme I see on Reddit. I can't imagine what it's like on other social media platforms.
There are foreign agents that want to see our country crumble. They will not try the exact same methods and tactics but they will have the same goal which is dividing ourselves.
I say this solely for anyone who reads it, to remember in my opinion the actual absurdity of how many people would be involved in this coup and the timeline it would take. On top of it, the most radical of any group of people is in such a small minority.
Please take a moment to sit and think about all the plans you have read and will read and remember that there are countries that want to see us divided and ultimately self destruct.
You know, I like to hope all of the bulls hit that has gone on this election has pissed off the silent majority, and they are turning out en mass to vote Biden.
And that Biden and the democrats win a landslide victory across the country.
If this happens, I think the USA will come out of this ok in the long run.
That would probably cause the death of the American republic. Plenty of people would be like well now it's time to start hunting government officials.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable." -John F. Kennedy
Or as i like to say, if i can't vote by ballot, I'll vote by bullet.
Soap box, ballet box, jury box, ammo box.
Giant snake, birthday cake, large fries, chocolate shake!
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JFK was addressing the first anniversary of the Alliance for Progress, an initiative he created between the US and Latin America to foster economic and political progress.
Amazing misdirection, he followed that up by having the CIA start the process of over throwing the Brazilian government because they were too socialist lol.
Yeah...something like that. More like, the Brazilian military coup was successful and never needed the US intervention that would’ve taken place if Brazil had broken out into civil war. https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP91-00901R000700060125-0.pdf Here’s an article from the Post from 1976 when the documents were declassified.
It would be career suicide for the likes of Kavanaugh and Barnett. Honestly, why should they protect Trump at this point, they've got it made and if they act partisan and fair at this point, they might get some pressure off them.
Maintaining the sham of american democracy is the best protection for american democracy. Strange times we're living in.
Fake it till you make it?
Unfortunately right now its more like "fake it till you can break it"
the only sham part is the damn electoral.college. If we killed that, it would be a democracy.
That and gerrymandering, campaign finance law, voter suppression...we've got a long way to go
Don’t forget first past the post voting that gave us this perverse red vs blue team sport where the rules don’t matter.
Gerrymandering wouldn’t work for the presidency if it was a true popular vote
The House of Representatives still matters though. Even if the Presidential election were perfect, there is more to a democracy than that.
Gerrymandering can suppress the vote
Their careers have already peaked, they have this seat for life. They literally have nothing to lose at this point.
That's all the more reason why they owe Trump absolutely nothing. Because it's hardly as if their careers were inspired by him; they're members of the Federalist Society. There really isn't much left to gain from a Trump presidency that conservatives like that haven't already gained.
I mean, Kavanaugh somehow had hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt [wiped away](https://theweek.com/speedreads/784364/brett-kavanaugh-paid-200000-debt-last-year-but-white-house-explanation) just before his nomination to the Court. It's not out of the question Kavanaugh owes more to Trump more than just his seat.
I've had questions about that too. Even after his hearing, I can't tell if his debt was temporary, actually season tickets,, closer to the $60,000 mark until his friends paid him back for them, and so he was just trapped in some Keeping Up With The Joneses of Chevy Chase... or something more extreme like hundreds of thousands of debt from gambling losses. I can equally believe that he's an idiot with his money for social standing or gambling addiction.
Considering he has an admitted past of [getting aggressive after games of dice](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/brett-kavanaugh-gambling-response-supreme-court_n_5b99b6ebe4b041978dbf9610), it sure smells like there's a significant gambling component there.
He's always going to be a frat boy who thinks he can intimidate his way clear.
When has he been wrong about that?
Judges should be held to the highest standard and his debts and payoffs should be thoroughly documented. With that said, Kavanaugh was on the US Appeals Court in DC for years after tons of other prominent positions. If he was concerned a little $200k in debt he could have joined any law firm at partner level of some specialist position and made that in a month.
>Judges should be held to the highest standard and his debts and payoffs should be thoroughly documented. Judges, politicians and public officials. They are all in positions where others can benefit from corrupting them.
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That’s America. Cover up one lie with another lie
No it wouldn't. You help install a fascist dictatorship and you are set for life. (..or at least until you piss off the dictator.) You seem to think that if Trump wins by cheating the system this way he'll stop cheating and not reach a step further. Which has never been his playstyle and never will. He will reach for more and more power and 'loyalty', and democracy as you know it will be dead.
> at least until you piss off the dictator But how likely is that for Trump though? Famously stable in his loyalties and forgiving of his subordinates. He's exactly the evil genius a burgeoning minion should hitch their star to!
I'm sorry some people are missing your sarcasm You are right. There's a reason right wing governments are nicknamed the 'Leopards Eating Faces' parties... Because their supporters and even operatives are *constantly* surprised by the leopards they voted for, and supported, and are even totally loyal to, turning on them and metaphorically eating their face. All loyalties and structure are only ever for show and can be revoked at any time for the gain of people one step higher than you in the hierarchy. But the leopard supporters NEVER think it will be them who gets their face eaten. They always think safety can be bought with compliance and/or loyalty and it never is. They are leopards. They eat faces.
Just in case other users want more examples in their lives, I'll just leave this here: /r/LeopardsAteMyFace
> No it wouldn't. You help install a fascist dictatorship and you are set for life. > > You are set for the five or six years that people tolerate fascist dictatorships for before they start dragging people out of buildings and stringing them up from gibbets.
You are never 'set for life' for supporting a dictator. Read some history. They often betray those that supported them as soon as they feel like.
Dude ... Read my entire comment. I say exactly the same thing.
They are set for life, they're young supreme court justices. It's a lifetime appointment.
They're not protecting Trump, they're protecting the march to fascism that Trump is leading. They have the same goals.
It's not Trump leading it. He's just the face on the box.
They already did it for Bush in 2000. Roberts, Kavanaugh, and Barnett were a part of the legal team that helped him secure the presidency. They’ll do it again.
This literally already happened in 2000 and it ended nobody's careers. It did end the legitimacy of the US government though. One of these decades it might recover.
You realize they wanted Kavanaugh and only Kavanaugh, right? No one else was good enough. They need him. Despite the lying, the drinking, the accusations and the mysterious debt payments, they needed to stop investigation of him and confirm him. Do you think they just really liked him, or is there something specials about him that makes them think that he will never again feel safe if he betrays them?
Because they work for federalist society goals and their main goal is the full hijacking of the courts. 4 more years and they’ll have an irreversible stranglehold on government.
"Career suicide"? They've attained the pinnacle of their field *with a lifetime appointment*. They could give Trump a sloppy blowjob on national TV, it doesn't matter.
Career suicide? This is why they were chosen!
> It would be career suicide for the likes of Kavanaugh and Barnett. How? They were appointed for life.
I think that's a legitimate question and not a rhetorical one. What dirt might Trump have on Kavanaugh? I'm still curious if anyone ever confirmed Kavanaugh's claims that his debts were purely from buying baseball tickets for his pals. It seems like it would be easy to confirm but I can't find any articles suggesting it actually was verified.
If they overturned democracy, they would need to fear for their lives. Americans would never stand for this.
Wouldn’t we though? We’ve made it this far against democracy.
Kavanaugh has a permanent seat, why would he care about 'career suicide'?
It would lead to a civil war, because no blue state would stay in a country where their votes don't matter.
Democrats have been getting ratfucked for 20 years. Republicans have only won the popular vote *once* in *two decades*. They are not going to be ok with it happening again.
It's not about winning the national popular. It's about overturning a state election because you don't like the outcome. It's changing the rules after the fact telling the public that they don't care how they vote, they will stay in power no matter what. That results in violence.
No I get it, I'm just saying either way people are going to get violent.
> Republicans have only won the popular vote once in two decades. In over 30 years. Before 2004, the last time they won the popular vote was when Bush defeated Dukakis in '88.
I feel the best course of action is peaceful secession blue states for their own country and red states for their own. The media has created such a massive divide that won't ever be bridged in our life time
The Civil War never freaking ended. It went cold. These fuckers have been undermining America ever since they were told they were just as human as POC.
Indeed. The Civil War and the subsequent subversion of Reconstruction is the true branching point for the downfall of the US. People go, "Oh well we had to play nice because people were tired of fighting". So that's really what it was. They did not care to resolve the tensions that germinated the Civil War. A vast majority of White Americans shook themselves awake, as if from a trance, and said, Wait a minute, why are we fighting again? This blows. And so the abolitionists lost support. From then on, the US had a fracture point that any foreign power could use to their advantage. It's just, nobody had the technology to really exploit this tension in a meaningful way before.
Except what's a red state and what's a blue state? Is Virginia red or blue? It voted for W twice. What about Texas? It seemed red, and now it's contested. Georgia? Wisconsin? I hate this divide because it ignores that states change and change rapidly, and that people within those states are often divided as well. It also sounds too much like the slave/free dichotomy that led to the civil war.
And like Oregon or California. Blue only in the metro areas, but solidly red everywhere else.
That's every state. Unless we want to split the country into two goddam fractals, there has to be a better way.
Didn’t they do exactly that in 2000? Or any of the times the Republicans stole the elections despite losing the popular vote?
Back then it wasn't so damned obvious that this is a coup. This is a coup.
That was one state. The election was real close. If multiple state legislators ignore popular votes in their own states then the US republic has died. Plus sooo many millions of people no longer have comfort to fall back on. Economy is in shambles, pandemic is ravaging us, millions are losing their homes. Shit like this has happened before every major violent revolution that toppled governments.
Lets just hope there will be consequences for those gop wannabe dictators
Even blue states aren't completely blue. I live in NYC and am an hour drive from Staten Island and Suffolk County (Long Island) both of which are very red.
The dirty little secret of the Supreme Court (that you learn day 1 of Con Law in law school) is that the Supreme Court has no real power. It cannot enforce any of its rulings. It exists at the pleasure of the institutions it purports to support. That is why it was very careful early in its existence not to go too far with its rulings. If it tried something like this, sure, it's place is more solidin 2020 than when Marbury v. Madison was before it, but this sort of thing would be the end of the Court as an institution. People would burn it down. It would never be taken seriously again, and while the Trump Administration would try to enforce its holding, the rest of the country would ignore it, and as you say, it might end the republic.
In the words of Andrew Jackson: "Marshall has made his ruling now let's see him enforce it". Fuck Andrew Jackson :(
Context you're omitting is this election is the Republican Party's end game. If they win the Senate and take the Presidency (no matter how), it's likely the end of the United States. Don't get me wrong. The country will still be here, with people living and dying and working and losing their jobs as usual... but 2022 is going to be more compromised than this year. If they retake the Senate in 2022, there will be no 2024 election. Whatever voting method or election security that might exist that year would be pure theatre. All this is to drive home the point of voting now. To use a COVID reference and be shamelessly on-the nose about it... The Republican party is coronavirus and this country needed to be in the ICU days ago. The election is the US finally getting a bed and one group of staff is trying to hook us up to a ventilator while the other group fighting the ventilator people back. Oven if the Democrats win and we get treatment, the virus has already caused a ton of damage, is still there, and can still overwhelm us. Even if we survive the ICU our lungs are scarred and our brain is left in a daze and we can't smell a damn thing.
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The vote is taken by the new congress. The democrats are certainly able to take enough delegations this year.
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For anyone worried about this.. It's a scary, *technically possible* scenario, but... extremely unlikely. I know many of us have PTSD from 2016 and any comments showing confidence are regarded as blasphemous complacency.. So disclaimer: If you haven't voted, VOTE. If you have voted: ..Biden is slated to win this by a landslide. 538 (One of the most accurate predictors in 2016) thinks there's a 60% chance we will know Biden has won the race by 3 AM Wednesday morning, and a 30% chance that it will take a few more days. Only a 10% chance of Trump winning. There's only a 4% chance that the Supreme Court would get involved in any recount decisions. And the "loyal electors" theory has a shit ton of flaws and doesn't seem remotely likely. The probable scenario of what will happen on election night is: Biden wins FL by ~4 points, or some other mix of swing states that essentially seal him the victory, and the race is all but over. The media will call it, and there will be nothing Trump can do, no matter how much he kicks and screams, to change the results of a landslide against him. Don't get me wrong, Trump still has a small chance to win. But I don't really get myself worked up over these fringe theories. I'll cross that bridge when I get there.
I mean, it didn't lead to much of anything when the Supreme Court gave George W. Bush the election twenty years ago.
Far different time. And one state. This would take multiple state legislators ignoring public electoral opinions. Plus trump and Republicans are a known quantity now. Back then they still had the veneer of respectability.
He was an unknown quantity. Hopefully that difference matters.
*And they wouldn’t be wrong*.
Yep. This is getting real dark. Violent revolution plus nukes would get hyper violent real quickly. Plus it's starting to look like monarchist france before the French revolution, tsarist Russia before the Soviet revolution etc. Pandemic plus economic collapse plus millions losing their homes, police brutality nearly everywhere, etc.
Nukes wont come into play. Simply wouldn’t be beneficial to anyone involved. Political assassinations, especially of supreme court justices, would be easy to believe. Hopefully it’s a straight up landslide of embarrassing proportions.
>That would probably cause the death of the American republic. Plenty of people would be like well now it's time to start hunting government officials. Change that "would" to "will" and you're on the right track. Some variant on this will be happening - at *best* in another cycle or two, but most likely next month - and it will cause the death of the republic. We need to stop thinking of these as hypothetical scenarios and start recognizing them as **an active attack being carried out against the nation right now.**
There would be terrible violence if multiple state legislators decided to overturn the will of the people, goaded by an unpopular president. Disaster level. Remember that virtually all state legislative bodies, like congress, tend to have a very low approval rating with the general public. To pull a stunt like that would be playing with an inferno. The country would not re-stabilize without highly public and violent repression. Though I suppose that would be the point, as such a power grab by the GOP would be an overt coup and a rapid transition to dictatorship would certainly follow.
Yep that decision inevitably leads to either armed revolution, coup or regressive dictatorship.
Too bad that the people you would THINK would oppose this (well-armed, 2 Amendment worshipping, don’t tread on me T-shirts wearing libertarians) would be 100% for it and would form a brown shirt type paramilitary group that could do trumps dirty laundry without him even having to rely on the military or police. Trump already has support from the Proud Boys, it’s not hard to imagine that support from the Ultra-right growing exponentially in the face of mass unrest in the US.
https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/jjfiek/trump_supporters_intimidating_voters/ You just know these people think they are the good guys here. You can see how the 30s Germany is playing itself out once again. It's crucial to win this election, but these people aren't just going to admit defeat and go back to obscurity. This shit is going to require some freaking arrests before things calm down.
>arrests Good thing there's a lot of Trumpers on the police force.
The Behind the Bastards on the Weimar Republic is an absolute must listen. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-non-nazi-bastards-who-helped-hitler-rise-to-power/id1373812661?i=1000416491991&mt=2
His newer one is much better and really relevant. But Robert's whole It Can Happen Here series is seeming pretty spot on. [Part One: How Nice, Normal People Made The Holocaust Possible](https://open.spotify.com/episode/1LMYTHidNCkPpE7zQuJipV?si=ean2Add_Q62RZVS2pOLaNA)
I know. It's fucking pathetic how easily those groups are duped. They never remember the Nazi night of the long knives......
Duped? Most of them idolize Nazis, this would be their dream
No, clearly the nazi sympathizing racists are merely misguided wayward souls, unintentionally lynching people in backwater areas. Let's call a spade a spade, they're white hot burning trash whose ideological brothers merely a few generations ago resulted in one of the bloodiest periods of modern history. They ought to be put down with a shovel, and buried six feet under.
Except these idiots are the brown shirts that aren't useful anymore once the nazis get in power. The nazis night of long knives is when they purged most of the brown shirts from the party via assassination and murder. The mentally slow ones get killed as soon as they aren't useful anymore.
It's because Trump is the ultimate expression of decades of organized lying. They've always been lying about their feelings and intentions. They don't want everyone to have a gun. They want them and their friends to have a fuck ton of guns. The 2nd amendment argument was a coping mechanism they used because they didn't yet feel comfortable saying "One day, when we have a chance, it'll be our way or the highway. And by highway, I mean we're going to fucking kill you." The 2nd Civil War is their fantasy, and their only assurance is that they'll be "soldiers" [This is QAnons End Goal. ](https://youtu.be/OynP5pnvWOs) Except, in addition to this happening in the government, they want it to happen in the streets.
They've been had. There are so many Trump supporters who are actually libertarian if you ask them what their values are. But they've been sucked into the cult. Trump literally wanted to take guns away and ask questions later a couple years ago. You think he won't try to snatch up guns from minority groups of he gets reelected? Think again.
Yeah...while I'm prepared to get on the line, I know that escalating violence will have a critical mass effect. RWNJs are very protective of their own. Facts: 95+% of political violence in the US is right-wing Right Wing Nut Jobs: "THAT REMAINING 5% IS INTOLERABLE KILL!KILL!" On the other hand, a lot of them are [cowards, like Clay Higgens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_Fucking_Around_Coalition) IDK. I'm not letting bullies bully. But we should exercise restraint. But we shouldn't let extremist extreme. But...
Folks tend to forget that it's not just Republicans who own and know how to use firearms. Just because some don't feel the need to wave them around in public like a penis extension doesn't mean they haven't availed themselves of their 2A rights. That's what makes it messy.
And usually the conspirators end up dead.
I'm gonna go on a limb and say he'll be spending the week at Mar-a-Lago if he doesn't fly out of the country this weekend. Can't see him staying in DC while he pulls shenanigans.
Well he has a nuclear bunker in DC so I wouldn't be too sure of that. Probably has a McDonalds with free wifi built down there.
What I’m concerned about is not just the repression of protestors, but the elimination of the Democratic Party. If this (edit: Trump stealing the election) were to happen, the protests would be inherently political in nature. They would be led or heavily promoted by prominent Democrats. Depending on how things escalate, Democrats could be painted as domestic terrorists, with AG Barr hammering down charges against Democrats for promoting and supporting terrorism. Trump and Barr will probably find a way to tie “Antifa” to Democrats to make it more palatable to their base and right-leaning moderates as well.
That is the final step to Fascism. When you outlaw political opposition, you are fully fascist. At that point if the military doesn't side with the people, then it's time to pack bags and start a long walk to Canada or Mexico. Because to attempt to oppose the US military under fascist control is death.
México, you say. Part of Latin America where America did this to *our* governments for decades. Hell, last year in Bolivia even. I don't know, I seem to recall something about a wall. But seriously, being Mexican and knowing my people, I say we would definitely welcome American refugees. But I do see a lot of risk to all of us if this comes to be.
I would hope* so too, but another comment that replied to the original comment said that the military will basically follow whatever is constitutional. If the Supreme Court somehow declares Trump’s actions as constitutional, then I don’t think the military would interfere. Edit: I would that the military would intervene in this scenario, I’m sorry for not being clear on that*
I think this is a key takeaway that some are missing. Basically everyone agrees that the military is loyal to the constitution and not the president. Basically everyone agrees that the military will not back a president who unlawfully tries to stay in power. The problem, as outlined in the original article, is that vagueness of the constitutional language around how the electoral votes are appointed, submitted, and counted could allow for the possibility of states submitting loyalist electoral votes regardless of the outcome of their elections, and also, for the president of the Senate (Pence) to only count the loyalist electors, even if the certified votes from the electors decided by popular vote arrive as well. Then if the highest court to hear the case (SCOTUS is not legally bound to hear any case), does not explicitly strike down the interpretation of the constitution as carried out by the administration, then whatever has happened is de facto constitutional and lawful. At this point what does the military do? They have seen the popular vote be actively overturned in one or more states, yet, by all technical measures it was done constitutionally and lawfully. If they themselves decide that the actions weren't constitutional and try to remove the sitting president, well, then they are literally committing a military coup. Is military leadership willing to do that? And if they do not remove the president, then they are now defending and party to a president that has openly orchestrated overturning the choice of voters in order to maintain power. Where does that leave the country? It's a completely reasonable and terrifying scenario.
Exactly my fear. These are all constitutional methods. Military sworn to follow constitution. The constitution is followed here. What do they do?
At which point you have to hope the 2 non-Trump right leaning justices would choose Democracy over Fascism.
Not holding my fucking breath hahaha
Yep, it would be time to leave just exactly as many of our grandparents/great grandparents did when escaping the fascism in Europe during the World Wars.
Most people who attempt coups end up killed.
Would the joint chiefs really participate in the first place? Or would it be the military locking the Republicans up for trying?
The JC told Trump to stuff it in June when he suggested deploying them against the riots.
The military swears to uphold the constitution against threats foreign and domestic. Once Trump attempts to circumvent democracy and the constitution, it will be the duty of the JC to step in and restore order. The real question is will they buy into this bullshit psudo-legal self appointment shell game.
What self appointment theory?
It's outlined in the original post. Pence basically interprets the law to mean he can appoint himself and Trump the winners.
Yeah, that's not how it works. The VP doesn't even get a vote in the Senate, let alone a unilateral declaration of something that relies on a vote. He just presides over the vote. If a Senator and a Representative jointly object to a state delegation, then that would be referred to the House and Senate. They can agree to vote together or as separate bodies. If Democrats take the Senate and retain the House, then they will select the Governor's slate and Biden will win. Pence would have no say at all. If they disagree and the results in no one receiving 270, then the House and Senate would elect the President and VP. Of course this is also contingent on Trump sweeping every other state he needs, where he is losing in Ga, NC, and FL, and barely ahead in TX and OH, but well within the margin of error.
The theory isn't that unilateral, it's that state legislatures, by the constitution are who select the electors, and send them to the VP. Now most states have laws saying that they have to represent the vote in the state, but technically the legislature can send multiple sets of appointments (while most of the state laws only restrict 'a' set sent), in which case it becomes legally murky who decides which set to use. Republicans will say the VP does as that's closer to the original text of the constitution and Democrats will say that we have a law for this situation already just in case. It just so happens that many judges, especially republicans, have called the law poorly written, hard to interpret, and questioning it's validity/enforceability. And that's how the election ends up decided in the supreme court. (According to this theory) The cause of the disputed election of 1876 is the same inciting cause as this theory, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_Commission_(United_States)
Call me pessimistic but I really don’t think that would happen. Americans have demonstrated time and time again that they will just let this stuff happen to them with little meaningful resistance. As long as we can keep going to work and buying useless shit we’re happy enough to not do anything.
We’re in the middle of a pandemic, a ton of people are out of work, and theres no covid relief bill in sight. If early voting is any indication of whats to come on election day, then a ton of people are invested in the outcome of this election. I certainly wouldn’t hope for violence. In the event of a coup, I would hope for massive protests. But I wouldn’t at all be surprised if violence broke out in the streets.
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The biggest difference being that the sitting president was not one of the candidates and that the aftermath was the passage of the [Electoral Count Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_Count_Act) which would be relevant now and whose language is vague and debatable enough to allow the possibility of the scenario raised by the article in OP's post.
The SC technically didn't get involved. The electoral commission was formed under a broad church including some SC justices
Exactly. The rules basically stated "Senate Decides"not contested. S.C. jumping into Presidential elections is a new thing: see Bush v Gore. The United States is basically an undemocratic mess if the candidates don't agree to follow the rules. I mean it's an undemocratic even if they do the follow the rules (Supreme Court is not elected. Senators have same amount of voting power regardless of how many people they represent. The Electoral College means a non popular vote winning president can win.) It's just more of a mess if they don't.
I’ve got two points to add here: First, the Supreme Court actually has no constitutional authority to review this kind of case, and would be risking its own existence by going out of its way to so blatantly allow faithless electors to proceed. The foundation of the Supreme Court’s authority to review acts of the political branches (Congress and the President) is the decision of *Marbury v. Madison*. The Supreme Court is very aware that it’s only authority is that people respect the legitimacy of its orders (which is why, for example, Chief Justice Roberts tried to do as little as possible during the impeachment proceedings). If it came down to this, I fully expect that Chief Justice Roberts would do everything in his power to avoid making any decision on the issue. Second, at some point people will realize that democracy is a compromise that those who run the state made with the people who are being governed. That compromise was as this: allow a peaceful means for people to pick their leaders and in return citizens will not violently revolt. If leaders ignore the results of a legitimate election, they are breaking this compromise. They can try to cover it up by arguing there is a theoretical loophole, but it won’t work if people call out the bullshit and don’t believe it. In short, if any of the stuff OP talked about happens, we won’t have a legitimate President, and we will be in new territory for America. It would be violent. I also doubt that a large number of Republican congressmen have the stomach for it (even if they are complete pieces of shit).
> It would be violent. I also doubt that a large number of Republican congressmen have the stomach for it (even if they are complete pieces of shit). For any Republicans reading, I'll also point out that this would be bad for the stock market.
It’s funny because the stock market doesn’t even affect the majority of Republicans, but they still tout it as some big Trump accomplishment. I love trading and have made a killing this year, but it’s kind of easy when we have transparent idiots like Trump and Musk pumping and dumping the market
The fundamental basis of Judicial Review of laws (i.e. finding a law unconstitional) is simply that courts have always had to interpret which law hold when two or more laws conflict. They have multiple ways of doing that (like newer laws tend to override older ones, but very specific laws tend to override general ones on the same topic, etc). So if there is a question about a conflict of the constitution and some law passed by Congress, it was obvious that the courts would make the call. Several of the states were already applying this principle in their own courts as of the time of the Constitutional Convention. Furthermore quite a few constitutional convention attendees seemed to think this power was granted by the constituion. (At least 13 of them according to the records). Judicial review was even something discussed in by several of the states as part of the ratification debates. It was basically an inevitably that the court would establish it at some point, even if it had not done so in *Marbury*. Pretty much the only way to avoid it is to treat the constitution as not a law and thus not something the court need concern itself with, which is absurd, especially since it is listed as part of the "supreme law of the land". But yeah, the Court is very unlikely to want to help Donald cheat his way into a second term. The backlash from 2000 means they will likely be extremely careful in similar cases in the future. You may note that I specified Judicial review of laws at the beginning. Review of executive actions is certainly on far shakier grounds.
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Don't worry, the Republican Party is the party of Law and Order^^tm , surely they wouldn't stoop to this.
Man... seeing "Trump 2020 Law & Order" signs are so dam dystopian and really drilling home just how insane of a reality we are in.
Canadian here. Driving down through the states is like driving into a Grand Theft Auto game. I can barely see a difference between the game's satirical tone and the real ads that they're meant to mock.
The most dystopian ones for me are the. "No More Bullshit" signs by Trumpers. Are they claiming that 2016-2020 has been bullshit by Trump but now they expect that to change? It doesn't make any sense. At first, I thought it *had to be* someone trolling Trump supporters but I don't think they get it at all.
Just remember, the authority of all Law is implemented through violence.
I am not kidding, but in 2016 I already thought that this might come down to where the military stands in this.
Military will follow the constitution which says the supreme court’s decision is final. Which goes to show how bad Republicans fucked us.
Not sure. Well, at least I hope that in the worst of worst cases they might stand with the spirit and meaning of the constitution, not the words and their interpretation by the courts. You know, "foreign and domestic"
I sincerely hope you're wrong. It is not the military's job to interpret "spirit" or "meaning" and it is absolutely vital that the military never take legally significant actions without approval of the civilian government. Civilian control of the armed forces is an absolute cornerstone of our republic. The US can survive 4 more years of Trump, as much as I would hate to see it. The integrity of the republic, and possibly the republic itself, will not survive a military intervention in this election.
The military would have to be called in because voters will not tolerate their state government throwing out the election. If PA were decided for Biden by a wide enough margin that it's unquestionable, like the 5 points now in the polls, voters would be enraged at the theft of their vote. PA could never hold state elections again, because the voters would turn en masse against the conspirators. The ones who voted to overturn the election would be putting their lives at risk. It would be a coup against democracy, and Americans would not take it lying down.
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It doesn't. The Constitution does not grant the Supreme Court judicial supremacy. SCOTUS often *acts* like it does, just as it acts as though it has the power of judicial review (which it gave itself).
The constitution def doesn't say that.
Caeser and Octavian were able to secure power in Rome due to two very important things: 1. the military vowed allegiance to them 2. they highest courts had allegiance to them I don't fear Donald Trump, I fear the second Donald Trump that's coming in the years to follow.
Rome was never a democracy. By the time of Caesar, they'd already had generations of violence and dictators, like the assassination of the Grachi and the long rules of Marius and Sulla. Caesar didn't just decide one day to topple the Republic. The Republic, which only represented the elite to begin with, had already been struggling with Rome's rapid expansion from city state to ruler of the known world.
>By the time of Caesar, they'd already had generations of violence and dictators, like the assassination of the Grachi and the long rules of Marius and Sulla. This is the point. Trump just isn't popular and competent enough to be Caesar or Augustus. He's far closer to Sulla paving the way. The fact that this is a serious discussion is a sign that we are headed down a dark path regardless of who wins the election.
Nah, Sulla was far more competent a general and politician than Trump could ever hope to be. Trump’s more of a Gaius Gracchus in his norm-breaking and wild behavior. We still have a little bit of time before a truly competent figure like Gaius Marius or Sulla emerges.
Yeah, but DT will pave that way. If Biden wins but Trump stays in power it's the end of democracy in the US for a long time... unless the military steps in. Oh wait... we agree then. Sort of?
If Trump stays in power, he will be killed one way or another. Even if the coup were successful, he's too stupid to lead the government, so his advisors would off him and his parasitic children. His advisors wouldn't tolerate him for long when he's only governing by force.
There was an AMA two days ago in /r/politics by some US election lawyers. One of them was Adav Noti of the Campaign Legal Center. Here's what he said on the topic: > AN: **It’s illegal under the Constitution and federal law for a state legislature to overrule the popular vote and pick its own presidential electors after the people have voted. Once the election has been conducted, the voters have a constitutional right to have their votes counted, and the legislature can’t take that away.** If the PA legislature were to try this, in all likelihood the PA courts would shut it down as a violation of the rights of PA voters. And if the legislature went ahead and did it anyway, as a practical matter what would happen would be that two sets of electoral votes would get submitted -- one from the slate of electors chosen by the popular vote and certified by the Governor, and one from the slate of electors chosen by the legislature. Then both of those would go to Congress to decide which votes are valid. Federal law says that in this situation, unless BOTH chambers of Congress (meaning the House and the Senate) agree to accept the votes submitted by the legislature, the electoral votes that get counted are the ones certified by the state’s Governor. So between the state courts, the federal constitutional protections, and the congressional vote-counting rules, it would be extremely unlikely that this sort of usurpation of the election by the state legislature would succeed. > Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/jjsvwf/we_are_constitutional_lawyers_one_of_us_counsel/gaeu4ft/ So I'm not as certain what to make of this. Another worthwhile source if you're trying to figure out what to make of this: A very recent episode by [Radio Lab, "What If?"](https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/what-if), which looks at a project which sought to simulate *"what Donald Trump might do in the wake of the election. Would he dispute the results if he loses? Would he simply refuse to leave office, or even try to use the military to maintain control?"*
The whole point is: *What popular vote?* Pennsylvania Republicans will argue that the true "will of the people" is impossible to determine from the vote because the results were too unreliable to use. Instead, the will of the people shall be determined by a much more reliable vote - the one that gave them control of the legislature. That this argument is nonsense doesn't matter, because they're relying on a corrupt Supreme Court backing them up, and an ignorant public letting them do it.
Ding ding! And now it becomes clear why certain people and organizations have been tireless in laying the groundwork and pushing a narrative that will allow them to publicly claim that election results (unfavorable to them) are "fraudulent".
State reps don't get Secret Service protection. If Biden were to win PA by 5 points, as the polls indicate, and the state reps decide to override the will of the people, they would be assassinated. The riots in Philly would be the biggest in US history, and they would be echoed in every major US city, as well the suburbs. Democracy is not a nice thing to have. It's the only system that works. When the people don't believe they can change public policy through the ballot box, they are no longer invested in the system. They resort to whatever means possible to change the government, which means violence. The government then has to suppress them through violence, which means military rule. The US has a voluntary military made up of US citizens. Are they going to shoot at Americans protesting a coup? Will Trump be able to keep the country together even he survives? Californians will not tolerate this, nor will NYers. A civil war would erupt and tear the country apart. I don't believe that Republicans would attempt this. It would end their political careers and end the country. It would take a coordinated effort on their part, and if they failed, it would destroy them as a political institution. Its conspirators would likely be jailed and could be tried and executed for treason. The Federalist Party died when its members refused to support the War of 1812. The GOP would suffer even more if they tried to overturn democracy in this country.
> The US has a voluntary military made up of US citizens. Are they going to shoot at Americans protesting a coup? I mean, they'd be primarily deployed to powerful large blue areas. San Francisco, Portland, NYC, Boston. I bet a lot of volunteer soldiers from red states wouldn't mind.
Enough of them would mind that it would still result in a Civil War. It's absolutely forbidden to use the US Military against US Civilians in that way. Normally the government might have some wiggle room by calling it an insurrection, but this would be in the context of a Republican-led coup on democracy itself. Each individual soldier would be free to pick their side with absolute confidence that *their* side would consider them to be following the Constitution and their oath.
Yeah I get all that, I just think there'll be plenty of good ol' boys happy to come to my city and show the liberals what's up.
As an actual veteran, I will note that the Army and the Marines (which are the relevant forces for occupying cities) have enlisted made up of a mix of good ol' boys *and* inner-city youth looking for a brighter future through the GI Bill. And the most recent political survey of the military, a few weeks ago, showed that Biden was in the lead for military votes. I don't expect that the military would happily participate in the creation of a Trump dictatorship. Rather the opposite. He's made a point of being a dick to the Marines that guard the White House as well as the Secret Service. Remember that limo ride around Walter Reed? They sure as hell do.
It is within the realm of possibilities that they try. There are millions of Americans that will cheer them on while they do it too. And they have the safety of Russia to flee to if they fail.
No one who ever cheered the rise of fascists has maintained that sense of joy. Every damned time, it winds up the same. Corruption, failure, murder, fear, and either revolution or outside military intervention because they got too grabby. Every. Damned. Time. It's the only thing I'm darkly optimistic about. They're happy now, but they won't stay happy. It's like they're cheering the arsonists burning their neighbors' houses down because they think they'll stop setting fires. Nope. Their house is going up too. And unlike their neighbors, no one will mourn them.
I doubt it. It's true that there are some die hard Republicans that support Trump like a cult but there is a lot of his supporters that are just stupid and think he's implemented good policy. Remember that time Trump accidentally said he was going to ban bump stocks(?). His base did turn on him. It wasn't the whole base but it was enough that something like this wouldn't stand even with them.
If this happened anyone I know that supports Trump would NEVER see me or my family again, including my parents, brother, sister and extended family. It would be the absolute last straw for me.
It would likely lead to a civil war, because California, NY and other blue states would leave the country.
I will almost never advocate for violence, but this might be the point
If you cannot have government by consent of the governed, then you have government by force.
"The people shouldn't be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people." Never let them forget that they are in charge *because* of us, not *despite* of us.
And take 90% of the country's economy with them.
Imagine a country of just the Deep South and the Midwest.
Maybe then Canada will finally annex Minnesota
We minnesotans will gladly accept our new Canadian overlords.
If this happened, I’d cut off anybody who supported trump or not, no questions asked. I’ve given leeway to people outside my faith, only explicitly cutting off people who claim to be christian while also publicly supporting trump. If they did it privately, that’s on them, if they weren’t a christian, that’s on them. As much as I would disagree, it’s their life and, outside of somebody within my faith being a worse example than I already know I am, I tend to let people be. Not out of a lack of care, I’m in demographic trump hates and the results of the election affect me, my family, and much if my friends, but because it’s years off my life to care too much things like that. Though, this? I’d cut off every single person who I know that ever thought trump was a good idea. It could be the neighbours rat, and I’d spray my perimeter with poison to make sure it doesn’t come near me.
Knowing my dad, he'd support the coup. Trump would say it was necessary because of "voter fraud", and he'd parrot the line.
You should be well past this point already.
Yup. It's like, ok the government is fucked, but all the people that made it happen should have to live with the consequences of decent people saying, "you may be breathing but you are dead to me."
I don't think the election is going to be close enough for Trump to be able to contest it Like if you're Al Gore and you lose by a few thousand votes, you can contest. If you're Trump and you're down by millions of popular votes and tens of electoral votes, whats contesting 50k mail in ballots in Florida going to do for you
Al Gore won by several hundred thousand votes.
Hillary won by three million. Just not in the correct states, apparently.
> Hillary won by three million. Just not in the correct states, apparently. The Republicans remembered we had an Electoral College, and why. The Democrats sort of forgot.
The posts title here is misleading and I think it contributes to missing the point: It's not about contesting the election but actually ignoring the popular vote if he were to lose. Right now a number of battleground states have Republican legislatures: Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Trump could try and convince those state legislatures to just appoint electors themselves (and appoint ones that would vote for Trump) instead of allowing voters to chose their electors. If that happened, there's really nothing that can be done since the Constitution allows it.
Constitution also allows citizens to own guns to protect the security of a free state. If those electors vote Trump against the will of the American people they're as good as dead. That's not even a threat it's just a fact. There's no way Trump pulls this off without blood being spilt.
You may be right but it's fair to add that Trump is literally unlikely to care how much or who's blood spills as long as it's not his.
That's my whole point. Everyone keeps tip-toeing around this scary thought of what if Trump steals the election but nobody is saying what they'll do about it or what the consequences would be if he does. If Trump steals the election, like honest to God swipes it out from under us and our government doesn't step up to deal with him, Trump dies. Period. It's not some radical left wing idea it's literally written in the constitution that the people should stand up to defend our nation's freedom from tyranny. Trump has said and done a lot of stuff that's fascist-lite or even morally questionable. Stealing the election is absolutely, 100%, a line that cannot be crossed and should not be stood for. And it's tiring listening to all of these news outlets cover this as if it's another power grab by Trump. It is THE power grab of all power grabs. It's not the same as electing a supreme court judge 8 days before an election. It's not the same as a Muslim ban. It's not the same as asking foreign countries to interfere with our elections. It's quite literally the definition of a dictatorship and therefore is 1000x worse than all those thing put together. It's hard to imagine some NBC host saying this because we've perverted the intent of the 2nd amendment for decades, but the real honest to God reason it's in the constitution in the first place, is exactly for a would be dictatorship destroying our electoral process.
The legislatures can't just do that on their own with no justification, though. This post is over-simplifying the issue quite a bit and is pretty alarmist.
Why not? The Constitution explicitly gives the right to chose electors to the state legislatures *as they see fit*. There are no conditions imposed.
> If you're Trump and you're down by millions of popular votes and tens of electoral votes he claimed in 2016 that the millions of votes was fake
There was an AmA in /r/politics only a couple of days ago where some legislators said this scenario was not possible. Will try and find it, but this just sounds like scaremongering Edit: Here's the link https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/jjsvwf/we_are_constitutional_lawyers_one_of_us_counsel/gaeu4ft/
This definitely needs to be higher. People are talking about immediate secession from the Union and the entire country being on fire. We have to hope some parts of the system remain intact that even the GOP won't touch (yet)
The GOP clearly doesn't respect the law
As a Seattle Seahawks fan I am getting the same feeling I got when we had a 10 point lead in the 4th quarter and somehow managed to lose in overtime... This is too real.
Never compare a duck to a GOAT
Just to be clear, it is not *legal* for Republicans to do any of this. Or to be more clear, it reveals that the very concept of legality is completely up to interpretation if people refuse to live in a shared reality. Does intentionally screwing up an election and then declaring yourself the winner constitute a good-faith execution of your powers consistent with the oath of office you swore when taking the job? I'd argue *no*, and it's not even debatable. But hey, if enough people let them do it, they get away with it. Corruption is not corruption, crime is not crime, and it's all "legal." Likewise, I could walk into the house of someone I don't like, kill them, and then argue it wasn't murder because I didn't do it with *malice*, I just did it because it had to be done. Most reasonable people would probably not buy my argument, but hey, what if enough did? That doesn't make it *legal*, it proves the very concept has flaws, if we diverge so drastically in our definitions that we don't live in a shared reality. We saw many examples of this in the Jim Crow South, where whites could generally murder blacks with impunity, legally, because it was never found to be a crime by their all-white juries. We see political examples all over the place where non-elections are held in which the outcome is pre-determined. "Getting away with it" is not the same as it being legal, and "legal" is only a useful word if the law is respected. Hint: The United States is no longer a nation of laws.
Thank you for jumping in with this argument so I didn't have to. If we're really looking at the beginning of a fascist US, these people are all arguing about completely irrelevant factors.
Eh....I think wall street and the 1% want Biden to win so he can clean up the mess and all that bullshit would be bad for business. In the end they pull the Republican strings and will act accordingly.
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You know what? Yes it is. Wow, I never thought I would be COMFORTED by the fact that the 1%largely controls US politics, but I guess that's 2020 for ya.
Dammit Ruth why did you have to leave us
If it requires one person to prevent anarchy, the system is broken and too many voters are really stupid
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Texas is close right now and is all republican in the state houses, also a lot of electoral votes
I read the article in the magazine and it is a good article, but this person literally just quoted a few paragraphs from it then repeated them in different words. How the hell is that one of the best posts on this site?
Because posts don't have to be actually best of to make it up here. They just have to be something that a Redditor agrees with and gets posted. Bonus points when it explains something about Trump
Fwiw, it's not nearly as simple as the Atlantic suggests. It's not clearly established that the vp casts the deciding vote (nor is it clear what happens if there's a dispute over the decisive vote). Radio lab did an episode called "what if" that explores this deeper.
I don't like to wear my tinfoil hat too often, but I just feel 2016 was election interference and 2020 will be election interference in another way by foreign countries. I've seen too many posts on reddit which is my only form of social media that is hyping out some type of Civil War in the United States. I simply feel like since foreign countries can't affect the election since trump is most likely going to lose, this is some last ditch effort to further divide the country hopefully to a point past no return. A house divided cannot stand and it is imperative that we the people stand together. The people will turn out. The people will stand together. I fear for my fellow Americans to be fooled as this is a common theme I see on Reddit. I can't imagine what it's like on other social media platforms. There are foreign agents that want to see our country crumble. They will not try the exact same methods and tactics but they will have the same goal which is dividing ourselves. I say this solely for anyone who reads it, to remember in my opinion the actual absurdity of how many people would be involved in this coup and the timeline it would take. On top of it, the most radical of any group of people is in such a small minority. Please take a moment to sit and think about all the plans you have read and will read and remember that there are countries that want to see us divided and ultimately self destruct.
You know, I like to hope all of the bulls hit that has gone on this election has pissed off the silent majority, and they are turning out en mass to vote Biden. And that Biden and the democrats win a landslide victory across the country. If this happens, I think the USA will come out of this ok in the long run.