One would be wrong. Trump is ruling poorly but he appears to be ruling legally. (I’ll grant that there is evidence that he has committed some crimes but that falls outside of his legal authority as President and we have a system to hold him accountable for breaking laws.)
How does thump deal with situations, questions, directives, etc., that he doesn’t like? He ignores them. Except when he calls them “FAKE!” first, and **then **ignores them.
So let’s imagine what this would look like: election returns come in in Nov 2020 and show that a Democrat has won the popular vote and the electoral college. I don’t know at what point on the timeline former defeated presidents have started to pack up, but let’s say thump (if he followed past examples, which he likely WON’T) is expected to vacate the family quarters and the Oval Office by January 15-ish.
What would it look like if he simply ignored that deadline? He has virtually ALWAYS ignored deadlines, even (or especially) deadlines that he himself has set. So, let’s say that Jan 1 comes and he hasn’t directed anyone to start packing up the family’s personal belongings. Then Jan 8, and still nothing.
Probably Melania would have vacated on her own back to New York City, unless he made some kind of deal with her to stick around for show.
Jan 15 comes and goes. The whole country is buzzing about thump’s inaction and he’s happy as a pig in shit (apologies to pigs) for being on the front page of every newspaper in the world. “Will he or won’t he? Will he go quietly?” Popcorn sales soar.
What if he just ignores the fact that he is supposed to move out? I’m looking for some *serious *speculation here, not “the Marines storm the OO and carry him out in a burlap sack,” as much as I’d like to see that.
In the past when thump has ignored deadlines, no one does anything. The deadlines just fade away. What, practically speaking, in real-world terms, would happen if thump simply failed to take steps to move out of the White House, or simply delayed and delayed? Who’s gonna MAKE him move? No one MAKES him do anything. :dubious: I do not seem him being defiant-- that’s not his style. I can see him employing a boatload of inertia, such that the new president and family might not move into the White House for a few months. Then when he finally does leave, he can declare himself a winner. “I left on MY terms!”
Too far-fetched? Just look at his past behavior. And the country’s reaction to it. He gets away with just about everything he does.
ETA
I can absolutely see this.
But that ***IS ***the serious speculation. The ex-President is required by law to leave the White House the moment he is no longer President. Which is 12 o’clock noon on Inauguration Day. In all reasonable likelihood Secret Service will be standing outside the Oval Office, watching the clock, and when it’s noon, they will tell him politely, once, to leave the premises on his own terms, and when or if he doesn’t, they will each grab an appendage and drag him out.
I would submit that he’s ruling mostly legally, but not completely. Firstly, there are very real and valid questions about the legitimacy of the process that enabled him to get elected. Consider the Comey memo, for instance, which was an extraordinary step when you think about it. And while I’ve actually understood Comey’s rationale and defended his character and motives to some degree, it’s the fact that he felt compelled to act in an illegitimate manner as a civil servant to safeguard the Department of Justice against the appearances of illegitimacy and impropriety, which was the result of an extraordinarily, essentially unprecedented political witch hunt that was orchestrated by the legislative majority at that time.
But as I said, we can also consider his behavior in office, which is doing considerable damage to the office - damage that will be long-lasting and impact the presidency and how we view its legitimacy for years to come, regardless of who’s president. We’re being blinded to this reality on a near daily basis.
Trump would have to find minions (I think we can use that term in this context) to do it for him. What kind of people would think they can do Trump’s underhanded bidding and not get caught like the others? Who thinks that if they’re caught, Trump will do anything but throw them under the bus? The fact that many Republicans support him with words and votes doesn’t mean they’re ready to end up like Manafort, Cohen or Stone. He may find such people but they’ll be the covert operative equivalent of Volkssturm militiamen in 1945.
To answer your original question, I think a lot of what happens rides on what happens economically and politically over the next 1-2 years, which is stating the obvious.
What’s sometimes less obvious is how someone like Trump could deliver fatal doses of toxicity to our political system - even if he’s defeated and eventually agrees to leave office, or even if he’s taken out by the Secret Service and the military.
Obviously if the economy is in tatters and the country blames all of Trump and the GOP for our national misery, what happens on January 20, 2021 is going to be anticlimactic. But suppose we have an election with circumstances as they are now, with a majority of the country thinking that Trump the man is a utter and total scumbag but that the country itself has managed to do not too badly during his time in office? What if a slight majority of the country believes it’s more important to have a president of better character in office than it is to have a president who isn’t destroying the economy (just so we’re clear, I get that these two things aren’t necessarily connected - but many voters don’t). What if, say, Kamala Harris or some other Democrat wins a tight election with 280-something electoral college ‘points’, and what if Trump claims voter fraud? Worse, what if foreign hackers are successful in creating some mischief, just enough to sow some doubt?
Trump doesn’t like losing, and the easiest way to avoid losing is to avoid situations in which you might lose. He’s not going to put himself in a spot of being dragged out of the White House, because he’ll have a year to lay the groundwork to prevent that from happening. He’s not smart, necessarily, but he has a mob boss’s instincts for recruiting henchmen and inspiring absolute loyalty. He’d be spending the year leading up to the election making sure he’s only surrounded by the absolutely most loyal Secret Service agents and Marines. He’d have a good sense for whether he could get them on his side or not, and he wouldn’t defy the election results unless he was confident that he’s surrounded by people who will protect him. I don’t know whether the majority of law enforcement and armed services are more loyal to the abstract idea of the electoral college, or to Trump, but it makes me nervous to have to gamble on it.
Has anyone once enforced the LAW on DJT? Ever? In his whole life? He has never given a rat’s ass about “The Law.” He believes that laws don’t apply to him. And his lifelong experience has supported this belief. I don’t see how this would be any different. I cannot see him being physically removed from the White House.
Now, something I CAN see… if a Democrat wins in November 2020, I can see thump vacating the White House the very next day in a ginormous tantrum. And I can see him ordering everything he installed in the OO and in the family quarters to be removed and hauled off to a dump or maybe burned on the WH lawn (okay, probably not that). Gold curtains, gold bathroom fixtures, etc. I can definitely see that. But I can’t see him leaving quietly and with dignity like a grown-up with class.
I don’t remember any president moving out before Jan 20. Inauguration Day is the busiest day for the Chief Usher of the White House and his crew. The minute the current and future presidents depart for the Capitol, all of the current president’s belongings are packed up and moved out. Then the new president’s stuff is all moved in and by the time he returns for the Inaugural Parade, everything is all set.
That being said, I can see Donald being classless and skipping the Inauguration altogether, and at the stroke of noon being hustled out. It will make the Chief Usher’s job a lot more difficult, but they will do it.
Lots of civil cases, plus Donald and Fred getting dragged in for housing discrimination. But mostly what he does is bully and intimidate where he can, and settle quietly without admitting guilt (and often without paying anyway) where he can’t. Has he even paid off the Trump University plaintiffs yet?
The family doesn’t pack up any stuff before Jan. 20, or after for that matter. On inauguration day, White House staff/movers pack up the exiting family’s things, re-paint, re-carpet, remove/add walls, etc. to match the new family’s needs, then they move the new stuff in. At noon, he’s no longer president, and he no longer has the same military powers, he is no longer a resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Whether the movers will have a forwarding address to drop his stuff off at, or they put it in storage because of his petulance, I have no idea. But at noon on January 20, he’s out, no matter how much he kicks and screams.
Now, he could hold a shit-ton of rallies between his loss in November and his exit on January 20, whipping his supporters into a raging froth, and causing all kinds of unfathomable trouble and civil disobedience, and he could scream “Rigged!” and “Fixed!” and “Fake!” but no amount of screaming and stomping his feet or ignoring The Law or Sean Hannity diatribes or anything else will stop him from being removed from office on January 20, 2021 (if he loses the election).
Followed by crying internet videos when they learn that the police are looking for them.
The White House is a non-issue. Living in the White House does not make you President. If Trump loses the 2020 election (or is impeached) he will cease to be President on a certain date and somebody else will be President. If Trump is still living in the White House after that, he’ll be doing so as a guest. He’ll no longer have any authority beyond choosing what he wants for breakfast. He can’t issue executive orders and declare national emergencies or veto laws. He’ll revert back to being an annoyance rather than a serious problem. If Fox wants to pay him to whine on TV, so what? We already have dozens of people doing that.
When January 20th rolls around there will be a new president who controls the whitehouse. As to what happens to a reluctant Trump that will depend on what the incoming president decides. If he/she calls for Marines to storm the OO and carry him out in a burlap sack, then that is what will happen. If instead he/she decides simply to wait until Trump realizes he is out of diet coke. That is what will happen.
I think the worst case scenario is that Trump makes a call to his followers to take to the streets to keep him in power like he’s seen all of his dictator idols do. Then in various locations a few dozen guys get together and wave their guns around but soon realize that noone else is bothering to show up, try to slink away before their boss sees them on youtube.
I believe (on cursory examination of past certifications) that the 2020 election will be certified by the congress which convenes on 3 January 2021. Since the Senate landscape in 2020 is not especially favorable to the Republicans — they will be defending 21 seats to the Democrats’ 12 — it may well be Schumer who presides over the that august body.
(Yes, I know that the GOP’s Senate success in 2018 suggests a harder road for the Democrats than the raw 21/12 split would indicate. On the other hand, CFSG’s coattails may well be so toxic by that time that we see a few Republican Senators discovering a sudden need to spend more time with their families.)
I can see the latter happening.
Maybe this, but thump will not want to take a chance on being seen as a loser.
Thanks to all who played for humoring me on the “will he or won’t he?” thing. Geez, we’re now officially a banana republic.
The question will be the extent to which his ego makes him believe his own propaganda.
Federal law lists a whole bunch of stuff about how Congress can challenge an electoral vote.
IANA constitutional expert but I take that to mean that the only way ballots can be thrown out is if BOTH the House and Senate agree.
And don’t forget that the joint session will be of the new Congress that’s elected in 2020. Republicans will be defending 22 Senate seats up for reelection, so if McConnell is still majority leader, it means the Republicans have held the Senate, which probably means that Trump won a sizable number of those 22 states, as well.
IIRC, on Jan. 3, the new Congress hasn’t taken office yet so it would still be a 53-47 Republican majority. I could see a substantial number of Republican senators voting with the blues on this one, though.
Secret Service is as independent an entity in the vicinity that there is. They don’t care for Trump’s opinions or personal history; he can think what he likes in his mind as he is being toted out by five agents; one for each appendage and one providing support for his verterbrae and neck.
You seem to be going well out of your way to entertain the idea of Trump not leaving the White House for…idk, a satisfying thought?