Have the official in question immediately impeached, removed from office, convicted of treason, and sent to prison.
You don’t understand much about how coups work, do you?
You don’t just announce that you are taking over. You have to have support from the military, or enough of the armed populace, to make your takeover credible.
Nobody, either in the military, or in any party, or involved in the government, would support this official in any way. If he issued orders to the National Guard to take over, the orders would be disregarded and he would be arrested.
Back during the sixties they used to ask, “What if they gave a war and nobody came?” In this case, it would be, “What if somebody announced that they were imposing a dictatorship, and everybody thought it was stupid and paid no attention beyond having the dictator arrested?”
This would not be like the crowning of Charlemagne. It would be more like that guy on State Street announcing that he is the Emperor of the Moon.
The answer might be that his Dad had 90% approval rating at one point and then lost the next election to a nobody from Arkansas. Not that he’d cancel the election, but that he might not be so secure about his eventual winning.
I’ll take this one as progress, thanks for playing, Polycarp! Since you posted regarding my more specific OP, we’ll play on that field for awhile…
You are of course correct in assessing that saner minds would prevail, and we would never reach such a situation, but I thank you for providing a scenario.
Your post still suffers from “Here’s what would happen…”, but it’s
good enough to get started. Now, if you’re willing to keep playing…
You haven’t mentioned your particular opinion of Bush, and I won’t make assumptions, but it seems if he were to attack democracy directly, you would want him impeached. Now let’s make it personal…
The president gets impeached by the House. Which of North Carolina’s 13 representatives is yours? Would you personally contact them to let them know of your desire to have them vote to impeach? How great is your expectation that they would vote the way you would wish? If the vote to impeach went through, would you contact Elizabeth Dole and John Edwards and tell them you want them to convict? In your opinion as a NC voter, would they?
What would you personally do if the vote to impeach failed?
The whole point of this is, how much personal responsibilty would you take on if democracy were seriously threatened?
I apologize to all for my poor decision to use Bush as the instigator of all this, but I wanted to get real names involved, to get people away from " Here’s what the community/country would do" to "Here’s what I would do.
Now is anyone willing to play? Either on the generic playing field or the more specific OP?
If you wanted to get “real names” involved, why did you pick “Shrub”? Failure on your part to see the irony there is what has turned a lot of people off to this thread. Don’t take it personal, though. Just an obvservation on my part.
If Shodan’s and Bricker’s legal or political options don’t work…
I’d start burying guns and ammo in bulk. Firearms, anything that blows up I can get my hands on, and MREs would become my new investment portfolio. I won’t live in a dictatorship, unless I visit by choice. Bricker and I might even end up in the same militia as I’d be hiding in western Virginia near some mountainous property I’ve got. It’s also not that far from DC.
Point taken, but maybe the scenario might have worked btter if we postulated Bush trying to stay on past a secdond term.
Anyway, the OP has further explained what he was after, so here’s my less-then-stunning contribution:
I’d like to think that I’d be highly activist in trying to resist such a hijacking of the electoral process, but chances are I’d weigh how much such a move would really affect me or persons I know. If Bush simply wanted to hold on to power, I have a feeling I wouldn’t do my utmost to resist, as there would be no particular personal effect on my life. If he were to simultaneously start tossing dissidents in prison wholesale, or commissioning the assassinations of opponents, that would be another thing again. My resistance, in any event, would probably start with joining street protests and escalate from there as and if needed. It would probably not start with letters to congresspeople, as the laws on this sort of thing are clear, and IMO either Congress will follow them or they won’t.
Here, I’ll put forward a situation like the OP, still outlandish, but perhaps a bit more plausible. I checked my cite, and found I goofed on a fact: According to an article in the LA Times on 3/13/2003, Utah and Colorado have cancelled support of party primaries, while Missouri and five other rebublican-controlled states were considering similar actions. While the Republican primaries in these states, as the article put it, “would be about as suspenseful as a cup of vanilla pudding”, I don’t think anyone can argue that it is also a political move to make it more difficult for other parties to settle on an opposition candidate in those states.
So let’s say that sometime next year, these states, all with overwhelming one-party majorities, plead to the US government that they are still suffering money troubles, and the governor would like, just this once, to forego the expense of holding elections and simply go by voter registration and historical election results and assign electors and congress members accordingly without having to go through the tedium of voting in such a one-party state.
Let’s pretend (I’m not saying it WOULD happen, but let’s pretend) that the Justice Department, with Bush’s blessing, announces that, given the extraordinary circumstances, will not seek to pressure any of these states into holding elections, and they can assign the offices as proposed.
What would you personally want to happen in this situation, and what would you do to make it happen?
Look, son. OK, let’s suppose Bush gets a brain tumor and declares himself dictator. There wouldn’t be any particular need for anyone on this message board to take any particular action. The military would refuse to take his orders. He would either be impeached, or declared incapacitated, and Cheney would take over until the next election cycle. The election would proceed as scheduled, Bush announcing that elections are cancelled doesn’t cancel the elections, and Cheney would rescind the order anyway. Republicans frantically distance themselves from Bush, but to no avail.
The Republicans would lose big in the election, the Democrats would sweep the House, Senate, and Presidency, probably for the next decade or more. The Republican party would disintigrate, and a couple of successor parties would form, a christian conservative party, a neocon party, maybe a few others. The Reform party and the Libertarian party would suddenly be revived, and have a shot at taking major party status. Which of the four or five new parties eventually steps in to become the major opposition party is up for grabs, but the Democrats will hold on to power for years and years and years and years.
Happy now? Oh, and if you insert “Clinton” for “Bush”, just reverse the names of the parties in the second paragraph.
Interesting. I’ll take you at your word. What would you do for food, how would you keep tabs on what going on outside of your hiding place, and how many people would be there with you?
As long as the scheme selected by the state legislature did not run afoul of the general Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses, the state LEGISLATURE has the power to select presidential electors however they please. I am unaware of any particular federal constitutional decision that would require a state to permit popular voting in the first place. It’s up to the state.
If this happened in my state, I’d be outraged, etc., and would act as I specified above. Beagle - maybe we can arrange to share hunting duties.
Ideal situation
The moderate Republicans in Congress wake up and realize George W. Bush is a menace to American society. They (politically) abandon Bush, push for elections to continue as normal, then actively campaign against him and rout Bush out of office.
Not-so-ideal situation
The Democrats in Congress and the American public put up a howl, but the Shrub administration ignores them (as usual). The Republicans in Congress go along with the suspension with sheep-like docility. The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision (the same split that ruled on Gore v. Bush, coincidentally enough) rule that suspending elections is Constitutional, and ignore the legions of legal experts who proceed to poke gaping big holes in the ruling. A large number of Americans decide that the country is going to Hades in a Handbasket, and emigrate out of the country toot sweet.
I would imagine the result would be the breakdown of government and open, armed insurrection. An attempted coup would likely fail miserably.
I think a more interesting question is this:
If, somehow, a coup of the U.S. Constitution succeeded, and a sitting President was installed indefinitely and elections suspended, with the support of Congress, most of the apparatus of federal and state governments, and most of the military command, what would you do?
I believe it is virtually certain that most people would go along with it. A minority of people would actually resist such a coup. Of course, if, say, 30% of the country violently resists, there would be open rebellion and probably failure of the coup; the pass/fail mark for a coup is way, way above 50%.
Oh, please. Look, you asked what I, personally, would do. I have attempted to answer as honestly as I can, responding directly to your specific, (and frankly, highly flawed) premise. If you are simply trolling for chances to chastise people over what you deem to be a lack of engagement with government, then look eslewhere.
