I’m not sure this is good news. There may be voters motivated to vote against Trump who think Vance is OK. Whereas anyone already motivated to vote for Trump will automatically go for Vance.
I would be terrified of a Trump death or incapacitation between now and Election Day. His cult would still turn out to vote as a way to deify him, he could pick up a significant sympathy vote, and turnout for Harris could suffer as people don’t feel the same sense of urgency to vote against Trump. And it’s not unprecedented for voters to elect a dead man to office.
That’s not the way the Constitution, or history, works.
It does have one - the election.
Yeah, I think further deterioration without death would be best for us.
Trump is bad, Vance is much, much worse.
The constitution? You’re right! But what do you do when you’re on the side that wants to respect the constitution when the other side is already tearing it up?
History? Oh, it’s full of quick changes and dislocations. See: France, 1789. Germany, 1989. Etc.
Not really. We already have a rogue Supreme Court whose flouting of precedent and the clear meaning of the constitution cannot be practically remedied through normal means.
The problem we have with Trump is the same one the Weimar Republic faced in 1933: If the election cannot prevent people from coming in who don’t respect elections (and democracy as a whole), what do you do? They get to take over because they play by the rules until they win the election, then throw out the rules for their own benefit? The constitution doesn’t have a mechanism to prevent this.
If Trump were to win, Vance would almost certainly finish his term. The trouble would be that Trump is good at collecting evil people and putting them in. And he could get a head start on that before he kicks the bucket.
If I had to choose, I would rather have Vance start the term than Trump. I think he is less evil but definitely less capable of riling up the cult and catalyzing evil. I personally think that Vance could simply choose to be a “normal Republican” (i.e., shitty within certain norms) president and transition the party away from Trumpism.
Buuuttt, I certainly don’t want either of those assholes to win at all, so Trump deteriorating badly but not dying would be the best outcome here. Deterioration would scare away voters without garnering the sympathy that death would.
At that point I think the Constitution would be a moot point. We’d have to wait and see about history.
My version of @Aeschines’ “revolution” is a state deciding to actively resist complying with some extreme Trump edict (say, mandatory pregnancy registration or deportation of legal, documented immigrants). Trump sends in the 101st Airborne a la Eisenhower at Little Rock, only this time shots are fired and the resistance grows from one blue state to several. Etc etc.
Years before Trump entered the political arena (R) conspiracies were already well underway to undermine the US democracy by giving themselves an unearned majority in the Supreme Court.
Your democracy was lost somewhere during the Obama administration.
If Barack had any balls and turned his considerable mandate into judges; Donnie would be behind bars by now. Or maybe the Trump would never have felt secure enough to do the things he did.
There was no way to do that without control of the Senate. McConnel could (and did) block any judge he did not like for the last 6 years of Obama’s stint.
I strongly disagree with this. Trump has brought up tens of millions of voters who will not vote for anyone else. They don’t show up to vote for other candidates even when Trump explicitly asks them to. Vance would struggle to break 50 million votes.
I think such a scenario is entirely possible.
I hope you’re right. Not sure if I want to find out.
I don’t think Vance could ever win the presidency on his own (unless he were to take over from Trump and do some semblance of a good job), but the risk would be, if Trump were to die before the election, is that people would vote for Trump anyway, perhaps even with greater enthusiasm, in order to honor him, and Vance would win. I don’t know if that would happen–it may have the opposite effect of suppressing turnout–but it’s at least plausible.
From what I can tell he’s still doing events. He did one in GA yesterday and is doing the Alfred Smith dinner tonight in NY. I guess if he cancels that one at the last minute we’ll know something is up.
And Harris is just sending a pre-recorded tape which breaks with a long tradition. I’m not sure what to make of that. I remember Trump getting booed at the 2016 Dinner for using the event to humorlessly attack Clinton.
I’ve long since given up trying to predict anything wrt Trump… but I would imagine there’s a big difference between Trump-got-assassinated-and-is-a-Martyr vs Trump-suffered-a-stark-decline-into-having-a-stroke-and-then-lingering-for-a-week-then-dying or something. I mean, I’m sure there would then be conspiracy theories about how he was poisoned or whatever. But that’s certainly not a glorious way to go.
Democrats had the Senate majority for the first six years of Obama’s administration. They didn’t kill the filibuster for judges until less than a year before the Republicans took the chamber in 2014. I like Obama, but I have to agree that he showed little urgency on getting judges nominated and confirmed until losing his majority was imminent.
No, I don’t think so. He’s an adherant of an actual fascist neomonarchist and hand picked by Peter Theil who is also an adherant of the same guy. Donald only dreams of the type of control they seek. And they have the Republican Party geared up, and the election distrust already in place. The same crazy tear-it-all-down types will gladly jump on board someone who actually will.
I meant US History, in particular elections. There are numerous popular vote winners who lost the EC. The EC selected winner took office. It’s the very definition of legitimate.
Deliver a landslide up and down the ballot?
Well, that is technically what the EC was created to do. However that ability has been watered down by subsequent practices, like the winning candidate’s party selecting the delegates.
Look, if the Republicans win and start disregarding the Constitution, especially doing away with voting, then the Constitution is no longer in play, and we get Civil War II or Revolution II, depending on the scenario. But either of those is so drastic to take a very strong provocation.
Until then, I don’t think task of revolution is helpful. If election shenanigans, especially involving the SC, deliver Trump the White House, then the means to address that become a topic. Until then, plan for the winner to take office and of it’s Trump, plan for a lot of unhappy complainers as he does.
For President of Trump dies? They’ll just roll over and let “communist” win?
They’ll just go back to not voting like they were doing before.