Because they’re terrified of Trump’s 71 million followers, and his king-making power even when out of office. They don’t want to say anything that would come back to bite them in the ass in 2 years, when Trump is bloviating on his cable show about who was loyal, and who wasn’t. That’s all. No one’s staging a coup, just protecting their phony-baloney jobs.
Among those congratulating Biden were also Murkowski and Sasse in the Senate. And about a half dozen RP House members.
I think people are being too paranoid. It is hard to pull a coup when the military is very unlikely to support him. I would have been worried if Reagan or Ike pulled something like this, but honestly, no President in well over a 100 years needed to be worried about at all until Trump. Ike by his nature would never have considered this and I believe the same is true of Reagan.
Only Trump would even think about it which is why I believe the military won’t support him and the Secret Service will uphold their oath to the Constitution and remove him first.
Dude, they never fucking cared.
Why is anyone surprised?
We assume that there will be a transition and that Trump will leave on January 20, 2021…because it’s a law? A tradition?
Did we watch the Mueller and impeachment and somehow not think it would end this way? The republicans have been telling us all along what they thought of democracy. We just didn’t think they were serious.
Yes. There will be recounts in Georgia and Wisconsin, but Biden will still prevail – recounts don’t change the outcome of races separated by more than a few hundred votes, and Biden is leading by 10,000 in each.
And Trump will file lawsuits. They will all be thrown out. Here’s how he’s doing in court so far (tl;dr: not well at all)
People will wring their hands over the prospect of state legislatures ignoring their state’s popular vote and substituting Trump electors. The chances of that are about the same as me being crowned Queen of Romania. No state legislator would commit career suicide for Trump.
Ah, that is better then. Any legislative attempt would require a majority in the Senate to go along. If that many have bailed then it’s probably not possible.
I will reduce my number to 1%.
I agree that’s most likely. Remember folks keep going into McConnell’s office before making this crazy-ass statements. Maybe he’s filling them in on the playbook. But there is a small, small chance that he really thinks there is enough smoke around these ridiculous accusations that they can pull off the legislative override option.
Pretty much agreed. I guess I’m sure gonna look foolish when I end up I’m sweating it in a reeducation camp, but at the moment my take is that people are panicking a little too easily. Esper had already prepared his resignation some time ago - he knew he was on his way out. Most of this is just posturing.
Probably. I did give myself a 0.001% out 
.
At least there’s this.
Makes it a lot harder to pull off a coup when most of the people think you’re full of shit.
I feel like it even going that far is just so scary. It’s a terrible precedent. It’s damaging to democratic ideals. As are so many other things Trump has done (showing many of our traditions need to be made law, and our checks and balances toothless - not the first time for that, admittedly).
While the people actually supporting these actions are disturbing, so too are all those who are “it’s just lockerroom talk” about when elected officials encourage having electors go against the vote, appointing them for that purpose, not accepting election results, etc.
Latest Trump tweet:
" Ballot Corruption will be exposed tonight at 9:00pmE on @SeanHannity on @FoxNews!"
Do us all a favor and watch it, then report back with a detailed summary. Thanks.
As Jan. 20 approaches, I am hopeful that more republicans will come around because the prospect of president Pelosi is far worse to them than president Biden. And as they gradually make their positions clear, Trump’s power over them will decrease.
Would you mind explaining how Pelosi would end up President? I don’t understand the chain of command.
0.5% is my guess.
The route to keep Trump president would be very violent and I think most in the government/military will not go there.
But there is Trump and a few others who absolutely do not give a shit about that and will happily see the country burn to keep power. Hopefully they can’t prevail.
Trump and Pence’s terms end January 20th.
Pelosi has been re-elected.
If there’s no President-elect, then the Presidential succession after the VP falls upon the Speaker of the House.
Thanks!
At noon on January 20, 2021, the new president takes office and the old one is out.
If, by some whatever machinations Biden cannot take office it does not mean Trump continues. He is out at noon. Period. Full stop.
So, if Biden is not president and Harris is not president we get to presidential succession which goes to the Speaker of the House next which is currently Nancy Pelosi.
Sorry for long post. Catching up.
It was changed from March to January in 1933. So, after railroads, but starting to be close to a century since it was changed. It seems like it could probably be changed to mid-December or so, with commensurate changes to the certification deadlines.
The main issue with that, though, is that it could leave too little time to sort out counting problems or recounts, or other (legitimate) irregularities. Some states allow votes to come in long after election day if they are postmarked in time. We should not let anxiety over delay in this year’s election process lead to changes that cause fewer people’s votes to be counted. I mean, I said earlier that I think it’s sensible to have an election-day deadline for all ballots to be returned, and there was a lot of push-back on that. I still think it’s fair and sensible in my state, where we’ve been doing it for years and everyone knows they need to use a drop box (which are plentiful) if it’s too close to election day. But maybe it’s not fair and sensible in other states, where mailed ballots are still the exception.
Basically, I guess if the date of inauguration day were to be changed, there might also need to be some election reforms at the same time to make the timelines work.
It would not think Trump won the election, even with those changes. He’d also have to get NC, which hasn’t been called yet, but he’ll likely get, plus at least one other state. With NC, Trump has 229. PA and GA are 36. That would only give him 265. So, I would not worry at all about your scenario, and I’m not very worried about him getting to 270, because it would mean reversing the results in at least 3 states.
It’s because the prior policy was to wait until state officials had certified the results. So USDOJ saw its role, not as protecting individual election results, but, rather, as policing the process. So, if there were allegations and a state did not seem to deal with them appropriately by the time the results were certified, USDOJ could investigate then. Results would typically not be overturned, but corruption or fraud could still be rooted out and punished.
The change in policy means USDOJ could be investigating while states are investigating, and without waiting to see if the states can resolve the issues (if any) through their own processes.
According to Jake Tapper, some Republican house members have been asking Dems to pass on congratulations, because they feel they can’t do it publicly. Or they will say they know Biden has been elected, but only “on background.” We need a Welch/McCarthy moment to help these people find their spines.
Cross posting from Cluserfuck. I’m sure Hannity will cover this in detail
All these various scenarios is why I hope Biden is holding off on his “46th President of the U.S.” business cards. He could end up anywhere from 46th to 48th, with Pence and/or Pelosi sandwiched in between.