The Twitter thread by Seth Abramson that @andre linked further down the replies here is really good, I highly suggest everyone read that. It seems like a realistic scenario for effectively...
Exemplary
The Twitter thread by Seth Abramson that @andre linked further down the replies here is really good, I highly suggest everyone read that. It seems like a realistic scenario for effectively invalidating the election, even if "he can't do that".
I think a mistake that a lot of people make is acting like laws work like natural laws (e.g. gravity) or computer code, where "you can't do that" is actually true. But laws don't prevent anything, they're basically just a promise that there will be some kind of punishment if you violate them, or that an action won't count as "legitimate" because it wasn't done properly. That doesn't stop the action from happening though, and negative effects from it can still do just as much damage. The legal system could take months or years to decide that something was illegal, and may not even be able to reverse the damage. Nobody ever gets un-murdered.
It's also all completely dependent on someone actually enforcing the law, otherwise it effectively doesn't exist. That's how "decriminalization" of certain drugs has worked in some places: the legal system in that place (police, prosecutors, etc.) basically just decide that they'll de-prioritize enforcement so much that it never happens. The law still exists, the drugs are still exactly as illegal as they were before, but without enforcement it's meaningless.
Laws on their own do absolutely nothing. The only thing that matters is if they're enforced, and with unprecedented situations like this it's not even necessarily clear who would do the enforcement or how, if it ended up being required. Like Seth says in the final tweet of that thread, it doesn't matter what the law—or even the Constitution—says will happen if nobody actually implements it:
It's amazing to see responses saying "the military wouldn't allow it" or "Pelosi would be POTUS." Again, this sort of coup happens purely through politics, rhetoric, and the reframing of reality with populist support—it has nothing to do with law, violence or the military.
I unfollowed Seth Abramson for spamming prophecies. I find his writing pretty much irresistible to the extent that it reminds me how susceptible I might be to narrative hijack. I read this despite...
I unfollowed Seth Abramson for spamming prophecies. I find his writing pretty much irresistible to the extent that it reminds me how susceptible I might be to narrative hijack. I read this despite my better judgment and got pretty spooked so I linked it to a savvier friend for critical reconsideration.
He said he didn't buy that the necessary republicans could be coordinated with to go along with the play; they couldn't just give passive consent to an attempt like this, they'd actually have to fight on Trump's terms to carry out such a plan. He also did not follow why democrats would challenge the results of an election, or that SCOTUS would struggle to respond in a timely fashion -- in Bush v. Gore their decision came on Dec 12, definitively within the timeframe presumed necessary for the orderly transition of power.
We currently live under a very different SCOTUS, DOJ, and political climate from Bush v. Gore though, don't we? I mean, Mike Pompeo has already testified under oath that he believes Bob Barr has...
We currently live under a very different SCOTUS, DOJ, and political climate from Bush v. Gore though, don't we? I mean, Mike Pompeo has already testified under oath that he believes Bob Barr has the authority to decide that Donald Trump can announce he's moving the November election, despite the fact he most definitely cannot actually move it.
Whether or not the specifics play out the way Seth describe, or in the various ways David Frum anticipates it could go, the point is sowing doubt and de-legitimizing the election not in terms of the law, but in the eyes of anyone who watches Fox News.
Of course, the transition of power seems terribly precarious in this case. Public opinion cannot directly regulate that process, but can unseat it with even only very contingent misgivings.
Of course, the transition of power seems terribly precarious in this case. Public opinion cannot directly regulate that process, but can unseat it with even only very contingent misgivings.
It's less a matter of someone stopping him and more a matter of anyone listening to him. The states administer the election. They're going to run the election as scheduled whether the President...
It's less a matter of someone stopping him and more a matter of anyone listening to him. The states administer the election. They're going to run the election as scheduled whether the President tells them to postpone it or not. The Electoral College electors meet in their states whether the President tells them to or not. They aren't part of that chain of command.
Now, there's all sorts of ways a President can cause trouble foe an election. States whose leadership agree with the President could try and postpone or outright cancel their own states' elections, at which point you get a bunch of little state constitutional crises, depending on what those states' laws actually say on the subject. The president can fire every mail carrier in the United States Post Office if sufficiently opposed to the idea of mail-in ballots. The president can claim to have postponed the election, and tell everyone that it's definitely off and don't vote, but the various state election apparatuses would probably disagree. And the president could always order the military or other federal agents in to stop the elections by force, at which point you've got your regular military coup. But it's not just a matter of telling executive branch employees not to run the elections and firing the ones who don't listen.
Military brat here (so not activity duty, but raised inside the military system my whole life) The thing about the military is that even we don't actually like Trump all that much. Our leadership...
Military brat here (so not activity duty, but raised inside the military system my whole life)
The thing about the military is that even we don't actually like Trump all that much. Our leadership has been going around him a lot since he became President, which in and of itself is unusual - the military is usually pretty loy to the office of the President. Like recently when they ignored Trump and banned the Confederate flag on military property even though he made all this noise about how he wouldn't allow it, and then he didn't say a peep against it when they actually did it.
Or with the incident with the Roosevelt and Captain Crozier (I had lunch with the dude a few years ago actually!), where not only did the sailors stand up to there command in defense of Captain Crozier, they got the Secretary of the Navy fired and caused a huge embarresment for Trump. Every officer swears an oath directly to the Constitution when comissioned, very explicitly not to the President themselves, and if Trump has already pushed us this far, there's no way they'll be complicit in him delaying elections or refusing to leave office if the vote says he lost. If there's no veneer for him to hide behind, we won't protect him.
My worry is if the vote says he wins. The military is bound to respect whatever the outcome is, and if it causes widespread revolts, we'll be asked to step in, and likely would. That's going to get really nasty if it comes to it, and I hope to god Trump loses the election openly, and not on a thon margin. His fraud claims are BS, but despite the Democrats substantial leads right now, I really worry what voting by mail might do to Democratic turnout...
And on a last side note, the military (especially the Navy and the Air Force) aren't as Republican and especially not as conservative as you might think. There's no formal statistics afaik, but they're large, borderline socialist, globalisticly spread, technocratic organizations filled with people from all over the US, of nearly every religion (including lack thereof), race, and sexuality. Not very friendly traits to right wingers these days...
I just want to say that I love the honesty of calling the US military influenced by socialism. I had a college professor explain that Catholic monastic orders were socialist organizations, and so...
I just want to say that I love the honesty of calling the US military influenced by socialism. I had a college professor explain that Catholic monastic orders were socialist organizations, and so many people freaked out. People put so much weight behind a word.
Yeah, I know exactly the effect you're describing. Lots of Marine Corps guys and Army dudes especially are super-sensitive about it, since they come in with the expectation of "fighting for...
Yeah, I know exactly the effect you're describing. Lots of Marine Corps guys and Army dudes especially are super-sensitive about it, since they come in with the expectation of "fighting for America" and "beating back communism" and all that jazz. They were supposed to save the public from socialism, not join it :D
at least for me, our lifestyle is one the big motivators that caused me to join the Democrats and adopt a pretty New Deal-esque worldview when it comes to economics, since I've seen for myself what living the dream is like. Especially in times like these with corona and everything, our economic stability is really damn nice, and I believe it should be our goal to strive for all of society to enjoy the benefits we get.
That being said, to its credit, the analogy does kind of bring the problem of costs into the equation. The US military is an enormously expensive institution (about one half of the nation's discretionary budget!), and iirc over half of our budget (so about 25% the national budget) doesn't go towards weapons development, ship maintenance, or research, it's just military benefits, like housing, medical care, military schools, PCSing (moving), GI Bill, retiree pensions, etc.
I'm no economist, and I'm not a subscriber to a strictly balanced budget, but it still seems like a really difficult problem to tackle. I wonder if we'll see that in our lifetimes.
Then be ready to strike. The day things turn pear shaped, general strikes must be present in force. Not aslow wind up, that will only get messy with employers and law enforcement retaliating. If...
Then be ready to strike. The day things turn pear shaped, general strikes must be present in force. Not aslow wind up, that will only get messy with employers and law enforcement retaliating. If almost everyone participates, the repaliation won't work.
The Secret Service and military generally follow orders. On inauguration day, he's no longer the one that gives orders. The assumption that the SS and military are blind followers that only do...
The Secret Service and military generally follow orders. On inauguration day, he's no longer the one that gives orders.
The assumption that the SS and military are blind followers that only do what they're told is foolish.
The assumption that they have as little respect for the rule of law and constitution as he does is, again, foolish.
The assumption that they would collectively turn on hundreds of millions of people that demand he step down or be forced to do so is, noticing a trend, foolish.
Soap, ballot, jury, ammo; use in that order. Soap is used daily, ballot will be used shortly as the last time it was deemed that the majority of voters don't count, jury was tried and boot lickers refused to remove from office so we'll step back to ballot and if that doesn't work you skip step 3 this time. There are a lot of Republicans that vote the party line, but there are far fewer that are willing to accept spray tanned dictatorship and tend to be armed. Despite what the Democrat party line would have you believe, the left is not some hippie commune where you can't find anything more than a butter knife. Per Pew Research, 30% of left leaning households have firearms. As an extremely left/liberal individual, I have about a dozen (haven't counted in a bit).
Except there are things that he quite literally has zero control over. He can say whatever he wants. All that's going to happen is his right wing nutjob fans won't go vote because they believe...
Except there are things that he quite literally has zero control over. He can say whatever he wants. All that's going to happen is his right wing nutjob fans won't go vote because they believe there is no election. Which won't go well for him.
It's almost as if a vacant position moves the responsibilities of that position to another person. What he did was undoubtedly wrong, but you want to outline how exactly he's going to remove all...
It's almost as if a vacant position moves the responsibilities of that position to another person. What he did was undoubtedly wrong, but you want to outline how exactly he's going to remove all of congress and block the election in every single state?
He doesn't need to do remove all of congress and block elections in each state. There are a lot of nefarious tactics that could be employed. For example, here's an interesting take by Seth...
He doesn't need to do remove all of congress and block elections in each state. There are a lot of nefarious tactics that could be employed. For example, here's an interesting take by Seth Abramson on something he could do: https://threader.app/thread/1288882406536228866
Except in that scenario he doesn't block a single election and he still loses. If the election is in contention or flat out doesn't happen by 1/20/21 then Chuck Grassley is the new acting...
Except in that scenario he doesn't block a single election and he still loses. If the election is in contention or flat out doesn't happen by 1/20/21 then Chuck Grassley is the new acting president as Pelosi is out on 1/3/21. If the election goes to the Supreme Court Biden gets the presidency even if it's split along "party lines" because there are four liberal judges, four conservative judges, and Neil I-don't-play-these-motherfucking-games Gorsuch.
Leftist slipperly slope arguments aren't any less of a logical fallacy than those on the right.
I'm gonna say the same thing I said to Loire in that thread: Just because Gorsuch made the right call once doesn't invalidate all the other bad shit he does, including ruling a truck driver should...
I'm gonna say the same thing I said to Loire in that thread: Just because Gorsuch made the right call once doesn't invalidate all the other bad shit he does, including ruling a truck driver should have frozen to death if he wanted to keep his job. Neil Gorsuch absolutely plays these motherfucking games, just maybe not as often as Kavanaugh/Alito/Thomas. He was not a good pick for SCOTUS and shouldn't have that seat anyway since it was stolen.
Riddle v. Hickenlooper - Voted that it was unconstitutional for Colorado to limit the donations to write-in candidates to half that of "major parties". A.M., on behalf of her minor child, F.M. v....
Just because Gorsuch made the right call once
Riddle v. Hickenlooper - Voted that it was unconstitutional for Colorado to limit the donations to write-in candidates to half that of "major parties".
A.M., on behalf of her minor child, F.M. v. Ann Holmes - Wrote the dissent that a child burping in class isn't a crime.
Pavan v. Smith and Altitude Express Inc. v. Zarda and R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission - Upheld LGBT rights
Sessions v. Dimaya - Closed an unconstitutionally vague loophole in immigration law.
Joined dissents to oppose lethal injection methods that fail, decided that there is freedom to practice religion any in prison, held that unlocking your phone without a warrant violates 4th amendment, decided twice that Manhattan District Attorney could access Trump's tax records...
He isn't great, he shouldn't be in the seat, but he's not as bad as Scalia and not the one trick pony you try to make him out to be. Under no circumstance is he going to look at Trump's blathering and see "yeah, that's legit" in the Constitution.
I'm not gonna hold my breath for it but I hope you're right.
He isn't great, he shouldn't be in the seat, but he's not as bad as Scalia and not the one trick pony you try to make him out to be. Under no circumstance is he going to look at Trump's blathering and see "yeah, that's legit" in the Constitution.
I'm not gonna hold my breath for it but I hope you're right.
I also see it as continued gaslighting. Back in 2016 he was trying to call that election rigged long before it actually happened, and one of the main focuses of his campaign and administration,...
I also see it as continued gaslighting. Back in 2016 he was trying to call that election rigged long before it actually happened, and one of the main focuses of his campaign and administration, both intentional and coincidental, has been to erode trust in all arenas -- not just in government, but in organizations, in the press, in our country, in other people, etc. In fact, he deliberately erodes the idea of leadership itself, framing it as a power absent of responsibility, which he dresses up as "freedom".
I see his actions here as continuing a long pattern of trying to sow doubt about our country and ideals itself, particularly our electoral process, to use to his advantage. In relationships, when abusers gaslight, they destabilize their victims as a means of leveraging control. I feel that Trump has been trying to do this with our country, and he's been largely successful. Even those who see through his tactics have still had to grapple with the genuine loss of faith that he will be held accountable, for example. His entire administration has been one of transparent corruption and scandals and he has slipped out of every single thing that should have pinned him down, in part because he cashes in on the doubt he sows as an out.
The prospect of ousting Trump in November is one of the few things keeping the anti-Trump side of the country from outright revolt. I worry greatly what is going to happen if Trump seriously tries...
The prospect of ousting Trump in November is one of the few things keeping the anti-Trump side of the country from outright revolt. I worry greatly what is going to happen if Trump seriously tries to push a "just keep me as president" angle.
I agree. A lot of my faith in the world not returning to pre-WWI European "balance of power"/"spheres of influence" monarcho-politics/geopolitics hinges on this election. I think we're all...
I agree. A lot of my faith in the world not returning to pre-WWI European "balance of power"/"spheres of influence" monarcho-politics/geopolitics hinges on this election.
I think we're all worrying about what should we do if a grim, dark rainbow falls upon us all.
This was not good for my mental health this morning. I'm absolutely terrified. Wish I'd been able to get out of the country before all this happened. For a long time I was of the "stay and fight"...
This was not good for my mental health this morning. I'm absolutely terrified. Wish I'd been able to get out of the country before all this happened.
For a long time I was of the "stay and fight" frame of mind, especially since I'm a cis white male -- try to make the country better from the inside. But honestly, I'm just sick and tired and scared and stressed about this. I just want to cut and run.
Ok fine Canadian friends are asking how seriously they should take this, and if he can actually do this. I told them take it as seriously as anything else he tweets. It's not actually actionable,...
Canadian friends are asking how seriously they should take this, and if he can actually do this. I told them take it as seriously as anything else he tweets. It's not actually actionable, but it is a piece of propaganda that can influence how the next few months go.
How fun is it that the Trump Administration has inspired so many Americans (and non-Americans, too, I suspect), to relearn so many of the basics of US Constitutional Law?
How fun is it that the Trump Administration has inspired so many Americans (and non-Americans, too, I suspect), to relearn so many of the basics of US Constitutional Law?
I agree, and I'm not American. When things are working, we seem to forget they can break, and if it's working as intended in a detrimental way, we never seem to notice if it's detrimental at all....
I agree, and I'm not American. When things are working, we seem to forget they can break, and if it's working as intended in a detrimental way, we never seem to notice if it's detrimental at all.
My personal favorite example was when Reagan won 90% of the Electoral college's votes with 50.7% of the popular vote because of a third party candidate (although to be fair, they did all vote Reagan in 1984), no one cared because the system was working as intended and people were feeling right-y so it was okay. Now that the EC has elected 2 out of 3 presidents in spite of the people, people care about it.
Perhaps just a coincidence, but Guiliani tried this as mayor of New York. After 9/11 he floated the idea of extending his term even though he was term limited. Thankfully the idea was roundly...
Perhaps just a coincidence, but Guiliani tried this as mayor of New York. After 9/11 he floated the idea of extending his term even though he was term limited. Thankfully the idea was roundly rejected.
Related (Title is mine/editorialized): Trump can't steal the election, but your governor definitely can Tl;dr Trump can't do this without the help of the military or or other enforcement units...
There has been a lot of concern that President Donald Trump will use the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to postpone or even “cancel” the federal election set for November 3, 2020. Let me allay that fear right now: He will not. He’s an authoritarian who disrespects the rule of law, so he might want to. But, thankfully, this isn’t his call. The date of the federal election can be changed only by an act of Congress. As long as Nancy Pelosi draws breath, we should expect to be voting on November 3.
In fact, even if Trump or coronavirus concerns somehow prevail upon Congress to move the date, the worst that can happen is that the election will be temporarily postponed, not canceled. The election still has to happen before January 20, 2021. That’s because the Constitution requires that the current president’s term end by that date.
We have to have a new, duly elected administration, even if it’s Trump’s second administration, by 1/20/21. We have to elect a new Congress. There is no constitutional mechanism for having a “provisional” government. Either we have an election before January 20, or we don’t have a government—we have a military dictatorship.
Unless Trump has the military on board for a full-on coup d’état, he simply doesn’t have the legislative or constitutional authority to escape from his reckoning with the American people.
Tl;dr Trump can't do this without the help of the military or or other enforcement units (which admittedly isn't very reassuring given Lafayette square and the George Floyd protests), but GOP governors can definitely make voting harder.
This is incorrect, Pelosi's term ends January 3rd, Trump's ends January 20th. If there's no election she's out of office before he is. The Presidential line of succession goes VP (Mike Pence),...
This is incorrect, Pelosi's term ends January 3rd, Trump's ends January 20th. If there's no election she's out of office before he is.
The Presidential line of succession goes VP (Mike Pence), Speaker of the House (Nancy Pelosi), President pro tempore (Chuck Grassley). Pence is out same day as Trump, Pelosi is out 17 days prior, Grassley isn't up for reelection until 2023, so come January 20, 2021 if there is no election Grassley is acting president.
Pelosi is out of office on January 3rd if California fails to hold their congressional elections, which seems even less likely than Trump postponing the Presidential election.
Pelosi is out of office on January 3rd if California fails to hold their congressional elections, which seems even less likely than Trump postponing the Presidential election.
Actually, I wasn't aware of this, although in my defense I'm extremely sad that I have any reason at all to care. Is this explicitly spelled out somewhere in the constitution, or is it just...
Actually, I wasn't aware of this, although in my defense I'm extremely sad that I have any reason at all to care.
Is this explicitly spelled out somewhere in the constitution, or is it just implied by the fact that the president and vice president are elected to a 4 year term and so are defacto no longer in office, leaving the speaker of the house to take the office by way of the established line of succession?
Edit: As far as I can tell it's not spelled out. Presumably if elections were delayed, it would include congressional elections, so applying the same logic that you're no longer in office once the term is up regardless of whether someone has been elected to replace you, I think Pelosi and the rest of the house would be out too along with 1/3 of the senate. If we're assuming the president is out of office once his term expires, I assume that implies that the cabinet is dissolved as well, in which case there is no clear successor.
It seems to me that in fact Pelosi does not automatically become president in this scenario. Rather, we have a very serious constitutional crisis on our hands and SCOTUS will most certainly have to rule on what happens next.
Edit 2: I think that section 3 of the 20th Amendment is the key here:
Section 3. If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President elect shall have died, the Vice President elect shall become President. If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.
If my layman's reading is correct, this gives Congress the power to spell out who becomes president if one is not elected. Presumably they would do just that in the extremely unlikely event that they pass a law that delays the election.
At a quick glance, both Trump's and Pence's term end on Jan 20th. However, Pelosi's term ends on Jan 3rd. Fourth in line is Chuck Grassley, as President pro tempore ... and as a Senator, his term...
At a quick glance, both Trump's and Pence's term end on Jan 20th. However, Pelosi's term ends on Jan 3rd.
Fourth in line is Chuck Grassley, as President pro tempore ... and as a Senator, his term doesn't expire for a few more years.
So, absent a new election, I think Grassley gets the job.
ETA: And yes, it sounds like your reading of the 20th suggests Congress can choose whoever else they like, but A) can you see this Congress agreeing on that in a timely manner, and 2) after Jan 20th, 1/3 of the Senate and (I think), the entire House is also out ...
Brit who knows nothing about the US voting system here... But: isn't the point here that Trump is playing a longer game continuing to spread the idea it's an illegitimate election, rather than...
Brit who knows nothing about the US voting system here...
But: isn't the point here that Trump is playing a longer game continuing to spread the idea it's an illegitimate election, rather than actually intending to delay? Presumably his base will eat up any idea that mail-in votes are fraudulent and fan the flames that he's spreading. The intention of moving the election seems to me to be less relevant than the optics?
Then it ends up with his base not voting, Biden winning by a landslide, them thinking it's illegitimate while they eat MREs in their bunkers and the world keeps on spinning.
Then it ends up with his base not voting, Biden winning by a landslide, them thinking it's illegitimate while they eat MREs in their bunkers and the world keeps on spinning.
My interpretation is like many here; he is preping for a loss in November. Realistically, he won't be able to post-pone the election, and if he loses the election, he can claim that it was voter...
My interpretation is like many here; he is preping for a loss in November. Realistically, he won't be able to post-pone the election, and if he loses the election, he can claim that it was voter fraud. Now, most people won't believe him, hell I don't think anyone will actually believe him, but it gives them a story to pretend they believe. I've known a few full Trumpists, and none of them convinced me they actually believed the shit they were saying. They want it to be true because it plays into their fantasies about conspiracies and being a victim.
Steven Calabresi, co-founder of the powerful conservative legal organization, is now calling on the House of Representatives to do again what it has already done once this year: impeach Trump.
What this tells us is that if Democrats hadn't run the table in 2018 then we definitely would not be having an election this year. There is no doubt that a hypothetical Republican controlled House...
Just to be clear, Trump does not have any ability to delay or hold off the election. This is a role that is specifically granted to Congress in Article 2 Section 1 of the Constitution which deals with the Executive branch.
What this tells us is that if Democrats hadn't run the table in 2018 then we definitely would not be having an election this year. There is no doubt that a hypothetical Republican controlled House would have rolled over for him if he tried to push this the way they rolled over on everything.
I feel like there's a lot of stuff this administration has done that's been coupled with "no way he can do that." and then he does it. I'm just a bit nervous. Maybe more than a bit.
Just to be clear, Trump does not have any ability to delay or hold off the election.
I feel like there's a lot of stuff this administration has done that's been coupled with "no way he can do that." and then he does it.
Agreed. A more accurate statement might be that Trump does not have the authority to do this. The pattern to date has been "Trump does whatever he wants, and then the courts spend a year or 3...
Agreed. A more accurate statement might be that Trump does not have the authority to do this.
The pattern to date has been "Trump does whatever he wants, and then the courts spend a year or 3 determining whether or not it was legal".
There is another pattern though, which is that often Trump says stuff and nothing happens. Trump does what he wants but that is basically just tweeting and giving orders. If you want to know the...
There is another pattern though, which is that often Trump says stuff and nothing happens.
Trump does what he wants but that is basically just tweeting and giving orders. If you want to know the actual effects, you need to think about what sort of orders he could give and who would follow them. Would they be accepted as legal?
In this case, the states hold the elections, so what could he do or say to convince them to postpone? Is any state seriously considering it?
Wait, he wants to delay elections because of alleged voter fraud that is already debunked? It would have at least believable if he wanted the delay because of Covid-19
Wait, he wants to delay elections because of alleged voter fraud that is already debunked? It would have at least believable if he wanted the delay because of Covid-19
They are both talking points being used by conservatives. I keep seeing "well what is liberals?? is the virus not so bad you can go vote now??" I'm sure Trump himself has said something similar,...
They are both talking points being used by conservatives. I keep seeing "well what is liberals?? is the virus not so bad you can go vote now??" I'm sure Trump himself has said something similar, but I can't recall specifically. As for voter fraud, nothing at this point will convince them otherwise. Trump has been instilling fear of voter fraud in his base since before January, so the best thing we can do is just ignore them just like they are ignoring the facts.
The Twitter thread by Seth Abramson that @andre linked further down the replies here is really good, I highly suggest everyone read that. It seems like a realistic scenario for effectively invalidating the election, even if "he can't do that".
I think a mistake that a lot of people make is acting like laws work like natural laws (e.g. gravity) or computer code, where "you can't do that" is actually true. But laws don't prevent anything, they're basically just a promise that there will be some kind of punishment if you violate them, or that an action won't count as "legitimate" because it wasn't done properly. That doesn't stop the action from happening though, and negative effects from it can still do just as much damage. The legal system could take months or years to decide that something was illegal, and may not even be able to reverse the damage. Nobody ever gets un-murdered.
It's also all completely dependent on someone actually enforcing the law, otherwise it effectively doesn't exist. That's how "decriminalization" of certain drugs has worked in some places: the legal system in that place (police, prosecutors, etc.) basically just decide that they'll de-prioritize enforcement so much that it never happens. The law still exists, the drugs are still exactly as illegal as they were before, but without enforcement it's meaningless.
Laws on their own do absolutely nothing. The only thing that matters is if they're enforced, and with unprecedented situations like this it's not even necessarily clear who would do the enforcement or how, if it ended up being required. Like Seth says in the final tweet of that thread, it doesn't matter what the law—or even the Constitution—says will happen if nobody actually implements it:
I unfollowed Seth Abramson for spamming prophecies. I find his writing pretty much irresistible to the extent that it reminds me how susceptible I might be to narrative hijack. I read this despite my better judgment and got pretty spooked so I linked it to a savvier friend for critical reconsideration.
He said he didn't buy that the necessary republicans could be coordinated with to go along with the play; they couldn't just give passive consent to an attempt like this, they'd actually have to fight on Trump's terms to carry out such a plan. He also did not follow why democrats would challenge the results of an election, or that SCOTUS would struggle to respond in a timely fashion -- in Bush v. Gore their decision came on Dec 12, definitively within the timeframe presumed necessary for the orderly transition of power.
We currently live under a very different SCOTUS, DOJ, and political climate from Bush v. Gore though, don't we? I mean, Mike Pompeo has already testified under oath that he believes Bob Barr has the authority to decide that Donald Trump can announce he's moving the November election, despite the fact he most definitely cannot actually move it.
Whether or not the specifics play out the way Seth describe, or in the various ways David Frum anticipates it could go, the point is sowing doubt and de-legitimizing the election not in terms of the law, but in the eyes of anyone who watches Fox News.
Of course, the transition of power seems terribly precarious in this case. Public opinion cannot directly regulate that process, but can unseat it with even only very contingent misgivings.
I guess you need a super-majority of good-faith actors to keep a government going.
It's less a matter of someone stopping him and more a matter of anyone listening to him. The states administer the election. They're going to run the election as scheduled whether the President tells them to postpone it or not. The Electoral College electors meet in their states whether the President tells them to or not. They aren't part of that chain of command.
Now, there's all sorts of ways a President can cause trouble foe an election. States whose leadership agree with the President could try and postpone or outright cancel their own states' elections, at which point you get a bunch of little state constitutional crises, depending on what those states' laws actually say on the subject. The president can fire every mail carrier in the United States Post Office if sufficiently opposed to the idea of mail-in ballots. The president can claim to have postponed the election, and tell everyone that it's definitely off and don't vote, but the various state election apparatuses would probably disagree. And the president could always order the military or other federal agents in to stop the elections by force, at which point you've got your regular military coup. But it's not just a matter of telling executive branch employees not to run the elections and firing the ones who don't listen.
I think it's down to whether you expect the military to drag him out on inauguration day.
Military brat here (so not activity duty, but raised inside the military system my whole life)
The thing about the military is that even we don't actually like Trump all that much. Our leadership has been going around him a lot since he became President, which in and of itself is unusual - the military is usually pretty loy to the office of the President. Like recently when they ignored Trump and banned the Confederate flag on military property even though he made all this noise about how he wouldn't allow it, and then he didn't say a peep against it when they actually did it.
Or with the incident with the Roosevelt and Captain Crozier (I had lunch with the dude a few years ago actually!), where not only did the sailors stand up to there command in defense of Captain Crozier, they got the Secretary of the Navy fired and caused a huge embarresment for Trump. Every officer swears an oath directly to the Constitution when comissioned, very explicitly not to the President themselves, and if Trump has already pushed us this far, there's no way they'll be complicit in him delaying elections or refusing to leave office if the vote says he lost. If there's no veneer for him to hide behind, we won't protect him.
My worry is if the vote says he wins. The military is bound to respect whatever the outcome is, and if it causes widespread revolts, we'll be asked to step in, and likely would. That's going to get really nasty if it comes to it, and I hope to god Trump loses the election openly, and not on a thon margin. His fraud claims are BS, but despite the Democrats substantial leads right now, I really worry what voting by mail might do to Democratic turnout...
And on a last side note, the military (especially the Navy and the Air Force) aren't as Republican and especially not as conservative as you might think. There's no formal statistics afaik, but they're large, borderline socialist, globalisticly spread, technocratic organizations filled with people from all over the US, of nearly every religion (including lack thereof), race, and sexuality. Not very friendly traits to right wingers these days...
I just want to say that I love the honesty of calling the US military influenced by socialism. I had a college professor explain that Catholic monastic orders were socialist organizations, and so many people freaked out. People put so much weight behind a word.
Yeah, I know exactly the effect you're describing. Lots of Marine Corps guys and Army dudes especially are super-sensitive about it, since they come in with the expectation of "fighting for America" and "beating back communism" and all that jazz. They were supposed to save the public from socialism, not join it :D
at least for me, our lifestyle is one the big motivators that caused me to join the Democrats and adopt a pretty New Deal-esque worldview when it comes to economics, since I've seen for myself what living the dream is like. Especially in times like these with corona and everything, our economic stability is really damn nice, and I believe it should be our goal to strive for all of society to enjoy the benefits we get.
That being said, to its credit, the analogy does kind of bring the problem of costs into the equation. The US military is an enormously expensive institution (about one half of the nation's discretionary budget!), and iirc over half of our budget (so about 25% the national budget) doesn't go towards weapons development, ship maintenance, or research, it's just military benefits, like housing, medical care, military schools, PCSing (moving), GI Bill, retiree pensions, etc.
I'm no economist, and I'm not a subscriber to a strictly balanced budget, but it still seems like a really difficult problem to tackle. I wonder if we'll see that in our lifetimes.
Probably because there's no hope otherwise. Trump could legitimately (or illegitimately) win the election.
Then be ready to strike. The day things turn pear shaped, general strikes must be present in force. Not aslow wind up, that will only get messy with employers and law enforcement retaliating. If almost everyone participates, the repaliation won't work.
Organize NOW.
The Secret Service and military generally follow orders. On inauguration day, he's no longer the one that gives orders.
The assumption that the SS and military are blind followers that only do what they're told is foolish.
The assumption that they have as little respect for the rule of law and constitution as he does is, again, foolish.
The assumption that they would collectively turn on hundreds of millions of people that demand he step down or be forced to do so is, noticing a trend, foolish.
Soap, ballot, jury, ammo; use in that order. Soap is used daily, ballot will be used shortly as the last time it was deemed that the majority of voters don't count, jury was tried and boot lickers refused to remove from office so we'll step back to ballot and if that doesn't work you skip step 3 this time. There are a lot of Republicans that vote the party line, but there are far fewer that are willing to accept spray tanned dictatorship and tend to be armed. Despite what the Democrat party line would have you believe, the left is not some hippie commune where you can't find anything more than a butter knife. Per Pew Research, 30% of left leaning households have firearms. As an extremely left/liberal individual, I have about a dozen (haven't counted in a bit).
Except there are things that he quite literally has zero control over. He can say whatever he wants. All that's going to happen is his right wing nutjob fans won't go vote because they believe there is no election. Which won't go well for him.
It's almost as if a vacant position moves the responsibilities of that position to another person. What he did was undoubtedly wrong, but you want to outline how exactly he's going to remove all of congress and block the election in every single state?
He doesn't need to do remove all of congress and block elections in each state. There are a lot of nefarious tactics that could be employed. For example, here's an interesting take by Seth Abramson on something he could do: https://threader.app/thread/1288882406536228866
Except in that scenario he doesn't block a single election and he still loses. If the election is in contention or flat out doesn't happen by 1/20/21 then Chuck Grassley is the new acting president as Pelosi is out on 1/3/21. If the election goes to the Supreme Court Biden gets the presidency even if it's split along "party lines" because there are four liberal judges, four conservative judges, and Neil I-don't-play-these-motherfucking-games Gorsuch.
Leftist slipperly slope arguments aren't any less of a logical fallacy than those on the right.
I'm gonna say the same thing I said to Loire in that thread: Just because Gorsuch made the right call once doesn't invalidate all the other bad shit he does, including ruling a truck driver should have frozen to death if he wanted to keep his job. Neil Gorsuch absolutely plays these motherfucking games, just maybe not as often as Kavanaugh/Alito/Thomas. He was not a good pick for SCOTUS and shouldn't have that seat anyway since it was stolen.
Riddle v. Hickenlooper - Voted that it was unconstitutional for Colorado to limit the donations to write-in candidates to half that of "major parties".
A.M., on behalf of her minor child, F.M. v. Ann Holmes - Wrote the dissent that a child burping in class isn't a crime.
Pavan v. Smith and Altitude Express Inc. v. Zarda and R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission - Upheld LGBT rights
Sessions v. Dimaya - Closed an unconstitutionally vague loophole in immigration law.
Joined dissents to oppose lethal injection methods that fail, decided that there is freedom to practice religion any in prison, held that unlocking your phone without a warrant violates 4th amendment, decided twice that Manhattan District Attorney could access Trump's tax records...
He isn't great, he shouldn't be in the seat, but he's not as bad as Scalia and not the one trick pony you try to make him out to be. Under no circumstance is he going to look at Trump's blathering and see "yeah, that's legit" in the Constitution.
I'm not gonna hold my breath for it but I hope you're right.
Incorrect.
The presidentially appointed IGs can only be removed by the president and it has been that way since 1992.
He says a lot and despite what people want to believe, most of those are just noise and he actually does very, very little.
This is an absolute distraction from the GDP report.
I also see it as continued gaslighting. Back in 2016 he was trying to call that election rigged long before it actually happened, and one of the main focuses of his campaign and administration, both intentional and coincidental, has been to erode trust in all arenas -- not just in government, but in organizations, in the press, in our country, in other people, etc. In fact, he deliberately erodes the idea of leadership itself, framing it as a power absent of responsibility, which he dresses up as "freedom".
I see his actions here as continuing a long pattern of trying to sow doubt about our country and ideals itself, particularly our electoral process, to use to his advantage. In relationships, when abusers gaslight, they destabilize their victims as a means of leveraging control. I feel that Trump has been trying to do this with our country, and he's been largely successful. Even those who see through his tactics have still had to grapple with the genuine loss of faith that he will be held accountable, for example. His entire administration has been one of transparent corruption and scandals and he has slipped out of every single thing that should have pinned him down, in part because he cashes in on the doubt he sows as an out.
The prospect of ousting Trump in November is one of the few things keeping the anti-Trump side of the country from outright revolt. I worry greatly what is going to happen if Trump seriously tries to push a "just keep me as president" angle.
I agree. A lot of my faith in the world not returning to pre-WWI European "balance of power"/"spheres of influence" monarcho-politics/geopolitics hinges on this election.
I think we're all worrying about what should we do if a grim, dark rainbow falls upon us all.
This was not good for my mental health this morning. I'm absolutely terrified. Wish I'd been able to get out of the country before all this happened.
For a long time I was of the "stay and fight" frame of mind, especially since I'm a cis white male -- try to make the country better from the inside. But honestly, I'm just sick and tired and scared and stressed about this. I just want to cut and run.
That's understandable ♥ if it's any consolation, you'll probably still be able to get out as soon as the pandemic blows over.
Haha, thanks! So in like, 5 years ... :P
Ok fine
Canadian friends are asking how seriously they should take this, and if he can actually do this. I told them take it as seriously as anything else he tweets. It's not actually actionable, but it is a piece of propaganda that can influence how the next few months go.
FWIW, the Republican leadership isn't having any of this.
Including, despite his many other evils, McConnell. I think it's safe to say that with McConnell against it this scheme is DOA.
How fun is it that the Trump Administration has inspired so many Americans (and non-Americans, too, I suspect), to relearn so many of the basics of US Constitutional Law?
I agree, and I'm not American. When things are working, we seem to forget they can break, and if it's working as intended in a detrimental way, we never seem to notice if it's detrimental at all.
My personal favorite example was when Reagan won 90% of the Electoral college's votes with 50.7% of the popular vote because of a third party candidate (although to be fair, they did all vote Reagan in 1984), no one cared because the system was working as intended and people were feeling right-y so it was okay. Now that the EC has elected 2 out of 3 presidents in spite of the people, people care about it.
Perhaps just a coincidence, but Guiliani tried this as mayor of New York. After 9/11 he floated the idea of extending his term even though he was term limited. Thankfully the idea was roundly rejected.
Related (Title is mine/editorialized): Trump can't steal the election, but your governor definitely can
Tl;dr Trump can't do this without the help of the military or or other enforcement units (which admittedly isn't very reassuring given Lafayette square and the George Floyd protests), but GOP governors can definitely make voting harder.
Is he not aware that if valid election results aren't obtained by inauguration day, Nancy Pelosi becomes President?
This is incorrect, Pelosi's term ends January 3rd, Trump's ends January 20th. If there's no election she's out of office before he is.
The Presidential line of succession goes VP (Mike Pence), Speaker of the House (Nancy Pelosi), President pro tempore (Chuck Grassley). Pence is out same day as Trump, Pelosi is out 17 days prior, Grassley isn't up for reelection until 2023, so come January 20, 2021 if there is no election Grassley is acting president.
Pelosi is out of office on January 3rd if California fails to hold their congressional elections, which seems even less likely than Trump postponing the Presidential election.
Actually, I wasn't aware of this, although in my defense I'm extremely sad that I have any reason at all to care.
Is this explicitly spelled out somewhere in the constitution, or is it just implied by the fact that the president and vice president are elected to a 4 year term and so are defacto no longer in office, leaving the speaker of the house to take the office by way of the established line of succession?
Edit: As far as I can tell it's not spelled out. Presumably if elections were delayed, it would include congressional elections, so applying the same logic that you're no longer in office once the term is up regardless of whether someone has been elected to replace you, I think Pelosi and the rest of the house would be out too along with 1/3 of the senate. If we're assuming the president is out of office once his term expires, I assume that implies that the cabinet is dissolved as well, in which case there is no clear successor.
It seems to me that in fact Pelosi does not automatically become president in this scenario. Rather, we have a very serious constitutional crisis on our hands and SCOTUS will most certainly have to rule on what happens next.
Edit 2: I think that section 3 of the 20th Amendment is the key here:
If my layman's reading is correct, this gives Congress the power to spell out who becomes president if one is not elected. Presumably they would do just that in the extremely unlikely event that they pass a law that delays the election.
At a quick glance, both Trump's and Pence's term end on Jan 20th. However, Pelosi's term ends on Jan 3rd.
Fourth in line is Chuck Grassley, as President pro tempore ... and as a Senator, his term doesn't expire for a few more years.
So, absent a new election, I think Grassley gets the job.
ETA: And yes, it sounds like your reading of the 20th suggests Congress can choose whoever else they like, but A) can you see this Congress agreeing on that in a timely manner, and 2) after Jan 20th, 1/3 of the Senate and (I think), the entire House is also out ...
Whoops you're right. I meant to check whether Grassley was up for reelection but I forgot and just went with the worst case.
Brit who knows nothing about the US voting system here...
But: isn't the point here that Trump is playing a longer game continuing to spread the idea it's an illegitimate election, rather than actually intending to delay? Presumably his base will eat up any idea that mail-in votes are fraudulent and fan the flames that he's spreading. The intention of moving the election seems to me to be less relevant than the optics?
Then it ends up with his base not voting, Biden winning by a landslide, them thinking it's illegitimate while they eat MREs in their bunkers and the world keeps on spinning.
My interpretation is like many here; he is preping for a loss in November. Realistically, he won't be able to post-pone the election, and if he loses the election, he can claim that it was voter fraud. Now, most people won't believe him, hell I don't think anyone will actually believe him, but it gives them a story to pretend they believe. I've known a few full Trumpists, and none of them convinced me they actually believed the shit they were saying. They want it to be true because it plays into their fantasies about conspiracies and being a victim.
Trump suggesting that the election should be postponed may have been a step too far.
From NPR article here:
Full NYT op-ed here.
r/subredditdrama has a thread detailing all the nonsense that has happened in conservative subs as a reaction to this.
What this tells us is that if Democrats hadn't run the table in 2018 then we definitely would not be having an election this year. There is no doubt that a hypothetical Republican controlled House would have rolled over for him if he tried to push this the way they rolled over on everything.
I feel like there's a lot of stuff this administration has done that's been coupled with "no way he can do that." and then he does it.
I'm just a bit nervous. Maybe more than a bit.
Agreed. A more accurate statement might be that Trump does not have the authority to do this.
The pattern to date has been "Trump does whatever he wants, and then the courts spend a year or 3 determining whether or not it was legal".
There is another pattern though, which is that often Trump says stuff and nothing happens.
Trump does what he wants but that is basically just tweeting and giving orders. If you want to know the actual effects, you need to think about what sort of orders he could give and who would follow them. Would they be accepted as legal?
In this case, the states hold the elections, so what could he do or say to convince them to postpone? Is any state seriously considering it?
Wait, he wants to delay elections because of alleged voter fraud that is already debunked? It would have at least believable if he wanted the delay because of Covid-19
They are both talking points being used by conservatives. I keep seeing "well what is liberals?? is the virus not so bad you can go vote now??" I'm sure Trump himself has said something similar, but I can't recall specifically. As for voter fraud, nothing at this point will convince them otherwise. Trump has been instilling fear of voter fraud in his base since before January, so the best thing we can do is just ignore them just like they are ignoring the facts.