The problem with our persistent fear of Trump is that it focuses too much on Trump. We should understand that the real danger is a rise in right wing authoritarian ideology, of which Trump is both a symptom and an accelerant.
It’s understood that Trump can’t just stay in power if he, and he alone, wants to without the complicity of others. But that’s the point: other Republicans clearly see value in destroying democratic norms. The economic and political classes they represent clearly see value in ignoring democratic norms as well.
This problem isn’t going away even if Trump eventually does.
But lose in two or three states by, say, less than 10,000 votes in each? Absolutely possible. No question about it.
It will largely depend on the mood of the country. If we’re still dealing with a massive outbreak of conoravirus and influenza with ICUs flooded and a broken economy to boot, no - I think the Republicans would probably work to get Trump to concede and if he didn’t there might be some defections. But if there’s a sense that we’re getting back to normal and Trump loses a tight election, then there’s no question that a contested election is not only a possibility but a probability. And yes, there are Republicans who would go along with this out of fear of breaking the party along pro-Trump, anti-Trump factions.
It can be that easy to TRY. It does, however, reply on a specific set of circumstances; Trump not only has to lose, but lose in a specific manner, whereby he can challenge the results in a few states where the popular vote was close, and taking away those electoral votes would mean the Democratic candidate drops to 269 electoral votes or fewer. But the courts could just shrug it off really quickly and then his effort amounts to nothing. (The idea of the VP just announcing the wrong winner is very silly; that isn’t gonna happen.)
Indeed, the election of 1876 is a good reference point. It’s worth noting that the 1876 election, similar to what we have now, came at a time of extreme polarization, growing economic inequality, and the largely white aristocracy’s willingness to use race as a wedge between the white working class and immigrants and blacks.
When you have an ethnic majority in fear of potentially losing its power and all of its attendant socioeconomic and political implications, politics can turn into a zero-sum game. There can be a sense among many that this might be the last election to ‘get it right’. Trump and Republicans are playing to that dynamic, and it’s a powder keg.
This is why Trump is appealing to whiteness, and it’s also why he’s trying to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election. He wants enough whites to turn out so that he can claim that the election was competitive. If white turnout is low and he gets blown out on election night, the gambit won’t work. But if white turnout surges at the end, and if for some reason Biden wins but only wins by a marginal amount in certain states, then Trump and Republicans can cast doubt on the election results and claim that it was rigged.
In that situation, there would be intense pressure for Republicans in key states to close ranks and stay hyper-partisan to the point of contesting an election, regardless of what official incoming returns might say. Don’t assume that Republicans are bound by the spirit of the law or by the principle of ‘May the best man win’ in free and fair elections.
All these scenarios require Trump to have the political capital normally given the newly elected dog catcher of Ada, Oklahoma.
By November 3rd, with a minimum of a quarter million dead, the economy worse than now, there won’t be the political will to keep him in the White House by the machinations listed above. Add to that anywhere between 15-30 million unemployed, doofus making it worse by stoking divisions, and even the simple fact that he, unlike successful dictators, hasn’t even bonded the Army to his side… who is going to do the above work for Donald, and who is going to make it their judgment that he needs to stay?
And let’s say that, despite all the deaths, the out of control pandemic, the economic catastrophe, kids getting educated @ home, and all that… let’s say the Supremes rule Donald remains President. How long before a country with more guns than people start looking to more direct solutions to their frustrations?
No, he has a track record which has conclusively proven that he cannot handle the Presidency going forward, and has done so in a manner which is undeniable. This reality will be reflected in any court decisions which may be made post November 3rd.
But I agree with JohnT: if Trump and the GOP are looking at an election blowout, there would probably be some defections from Senate and House members who want to win a legitimate re-election in 2022 or 2024.
Even with the current corruption of the GOP, a lot of it is peer pressure. I agree that the tribe would crack up if we’re looking at a pandemic that’s raging out of control and a 2nd Great Depression in October/November.
The question and hypothetical in this thread applies only if the twin crises of pandemic and recession stabilize, and this is not at all certain. We’ll know more in another 60+ days.
That at least I can answer. The new congress counts the EVs and therefore the new house would hold the vote.
My question, which a reading of the constitution doesn’t answer, is whether the winner of the EC needs a majority of the votes cast or of the total possible votes. IOW, if PA doesn’t cast any EVs because the results are disputed, does it still require 270 to win or would 260 suffice?
No, you need 270 electoral votes, or it goes to the House.
From there, it’s not the number of House members who determines the winner; there are state delegations, each with one vote. Republicans, despite having fewer House members, still have a majority of state delegations. They could conceivably win, even if the votes say they lose.
I agree with JT that if the signs point to a landslide, they won’t pull the trigger. This applies only if it’s close.
IMHO trump will never go quietly. It’s likely he will fight because of what I’ve bolded at the end of this excerpt: he cannot tolerate being labeled a loser. Especially if it’s true.
It’s doubtful that anything Trump does will produce a popular-vote victory; he lost by nearly 3 million votes in 2016 and will probably lose by a greater margin this year. But it won’t matter if, by election night, he is within spitting distance of an electoral college victory.
I recently took part in a “war game” to see what would happen under those circumstances. The session was organized by the Transition Integrity Project, a nonpartisan group founded by Rosa Brooks of Georgetown Law School and Nils Gilman of the Berggruen Institute. The scenario we were given predicted a narrow Biden victory in the electoral college: 278 to 260. Various participants played the role of the Trump campaign, the Biden campaign, Republican and Democratic elected officials, the news media, and other key players to see what would happen next.
I was on Team Trump and, needless to say, we did not concede defeat. Instead, we went to work, ruthlessly and unscrupulously, utilizing every ounce of power at our disposal, to secure the 10 electoral college votes to swing the election. We focused our attention on three of the swing states that Biden won in our scenario — Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — because, in all three, Republicans control both branches of the legislature. Normally, the governor certifies the election results, and in all three states the governor is a Democrat. But there is nothing to prevent the legislature from certifying a different election outcome.
Something similar happened in the 1876 presidential election: Democrat Samuel J. Tilden was leading on Election Day in both the popular vote and in the electoral college, but the results were contested in three states. Congress appointed a commission to adjudicate the dispute, and it voted along partisan lines, 8 to 7, to hand all three states to Republican Rutherford B. Hayes. That gave Hayes a 185 to 184 majority in the electoral college, and the presidency along with it.
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It is impossible to write off such concerns as far-fetched given how many seemingly far-fetched things have already occurred in the past four years. Trump got himself impeached by trying to blackmail a foreign country into helping his reelection campaign. He will stop at nothing to avoid the stigma of being branded a “loser.” Unless Biden wins by an electoral college margin that no one can credibly dispute, our democracy may be imperiled as never before. We had better start thinking now about how we would handle such an electoral crisis.
President Trump declined to say whether he will accept the results of the November election, claiming without evidence that mail-in voting due to the coronavirus pandemic could “rig” the outcome.
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In the “Fox News Sunday” interview, Wallace asked Trump whether he considers himself a “gracious” loser.
Trump replied that he doesn’t like to lose, then added: “It depends. I think mail-in voting is going to rig the election. I really do.” Trump’s comment echoed unfounded claims he has made in recent weeks that mail-in voting is susceptible to widespread fraud.
“Are you suggesting that you might not accept the results of the election?” Wallace asked.
Trump responded, “No. I have to see.”
Later in the interview, pressed on whether he will accept the results of the November election, Trump again declined to say.
“I have to see,” he said. “Look, you — I have to see. No, I’m not going to just say ‘yes.’ I’m not going to say ‘no.’ And I didn’t last time, either.”
During the final presidential debate of the 2016 campaign — which was moderated by Wallace — Trump similarly suggested that he might consider the November election results illegitimate because the process is rigged.
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Amid a raft of polls showing him trailing Biden, Trump has remained defiant, and in the interview with Wallace, he again dismissed the survey results.
“I’m not losing, because those are fake polls,” he said.
This is a Washington Post article and it is probably paywalled. I’ve quoted all the parts relevant to the headline. There’s some other predictable BS from trump, which you can probably find elsewhere, as it’s from a Chris Wallace interview on FOX.
In my nightmares, Trump goes so overboard that he orders Roberts to declare him “the winner” of whatever sham lawsuit he files to try to get himself declared the winner. If Roberts seems like he won’t go along, he sends his Homeland Security goons to threaten Roberts (and possibly Gorsuch if necessary) at gunpoint to rule in his favor. This scenario would also likely involve having Biden arrested and charged with rigging the election. I admit this is a fantastical scenario, but with what is going on in Portland I won’t rule it out entirely.
Trump’s path to a legitimate electoral victory is razor thin at this point - that much has to be acknowledged. And yet, he could still find a way to hang on, and here’s how/why:
Fast-forward to late October and early November. It’s not quite election day yet, but millions of people have already attempted to vote in mail-in voting. However, by this point, many of these millions of these people (hard to quantify in exact terms) have taken to social media and complained about various problems with their ballots, either not receiving them or claiming that the local elections office / registrar has put up some kinds of roadblocks that prevent them from voting by mail. There are even reports of attempted unauthorized computer access to voter databases by foreign governments like Russia, China, and Iran, and even non-state actors such as anarchist trolls and terrorist groups like ISIS - nobody knows who’s involved for sure. But we’re already expecting major turmoil. Added to this, Trump has withheld emergency federal funding for post offices, meaning that some are understaffed or non-operational. Even worse, because of COVID-19, state governments are slashing budgets and funding for elections security and poll staffing. Some voting stations suddenly close without warning or explanation. Perhaps a massive wave of COVID and flu makes some would-be staffers sick on election day. In sum, we head to election day with Biden leading by double digits in the polls (let’s not get carried away and say 9-10% in national polling, and in the single digits in battleground states like Ohio and Florida).
Election day arrives, and we begin the process of counting the votes, only the counting doesn’t end on election night, which is what we’re conditioned to expect. Instead, the vote count continues into the next morning and the next day. News agencies show early voting returns favoring Trump, but because the voting totals are delayed, they gradually show Trump losing. Trump then screams “RIGGED!” And because voters already have doubts - more specifically, his base of voters - this energizes and charges the atmosphere for a contested election.
You’d think that Republicans might accept the outcome but don’t be so sure. Remember that Trump’s voters are also their voters. They cannot win, they cannot exist as a party without Trump’s voters. That’s the problem. If Trump screams “RIGGED,” and his base believes it, then there’s pressure on the rest of the party to go along with the charade
Going all the way back to the hypothetical argument posed by OP (that in a few swing states with Republican-controlled legislatures, they could substitute in a slate of electors for Trump, ultimately throwing the election into the House which would elect Trump):
If anyone is still interested in that nightmare scenario, I just came across an article (dated July 2) that discusses and outlines the scenario in great detail:
The only way Trump could possibly win at this point is if Ginsburg suddenly kicks the bucket around the end of October. That would suddenly wake up his base and send them to the polls at such a lopsided turnout rate that it would compensate for the Democratic enthusiasm. They would be screamingly enthusiastic all of a sudden. You can’t underestimate how much they lust to get a far-lefty replaced by a far-righty; it’s the exact reason Trump was elected in the first place.
Now, if Trump does lose, any talk of the military allowing him to stay in power is nonsense. A dictator only gets that benefit if he is enormously popular, or if there is some huge incentive for the military to keep him in power. Neither applies here. Trump is not hugely popular nationwide, nor does the U.S. military have any reason to keep him around - why? Nothing is in it for them.
After he loses, trump is going to call on these guys to come to Washington to protect him and keep him from being dragged out of the White House. Unlikely? Maybe. Impossible? I’d have said so as recently as two months ago. No longer. It’s quite possible.
Before his political awakening this spring, Peter Diaz lived a quiet life near this leafy liberal bastion at the base of the Puget Sound. He ran a tree-trimming service and a business that built office cubicles. He was 37 and had never voted.
Now he has formed his own political party and is the leader of American Wolf, a roving band of civilians who have anointed themselves “peacekeepers” amid months of tense protests over racism and policing. In the name of law and order, members of his informal group have shot paintballs at demonstrators and carry zip ties and bear spray as they look for antifascists. Diaz has done “recon” in Minneapolis and Seattle’s “autonomous zone,” and drove his American Wolf mobile home to Mount Rushmore to celebrate Independence Day with President Trump.
America’s summer of anxiety and rage has swept up men like Diaz, energizing conservatives who are deploying to the front lines of the culture war. Across the country, conservative armed civilians have surged into public view — marching on statehouses, challenging Black Lives Matter protests, chasing Internet rumors — and bringing the threat of lethal force to local politics. Their emergence has prompted congressional hearings on the surge in anti-government militias and domestic extremism and has alarmed researchers who track hate groups.
Unlike the old image of militiamen as fringe elements motivated by a desire to overthrow the federal government, these groups often rally in defense of the president and see themselves as pro-government allies of local law enforcement.
“We’re the silent majority,” Diaz said, standing outside his house with a .45-caliber Remington handgun on his belt. “It’s time to act.”
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With a hodgepodge of military garb and over-the-counter assault rifles, such self-styled “patriots” come from lots of backgrounds, but they are predominantly white and male. They are often veterans who say the mission now is to defend the Constitution and the freedoms they fought for in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“I never thought that I’d be in the back of a pickup rolling through downtown Olympia with six guys heavily locked and loaded, armored out,” said Diaz, a former Army reservist. “I’m doing something now that’s for a greater cause than myself. And it feels really . . . good.”
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My bold. The difference now is that the president himself is a fringe element who is overthrowing the government.
It’s important to see Trump’s continued relationship with Vladimir Putin for what it is: an apprenticeship on how to ruin a democracy, which is what Putin did in the late 1990s. It’s important to see the similar circumstances from which they arose as well: Putin became president in part to escape his legal troubles when he was a corrupt administrator helping a corrupt local government in St. Petersburg. He engaged in a fraudulent relief for gold scheme that enriched himself. When prosecutors began digging around to see what he had been doing in St. Petersburg, he began his ascent into power, eventually culminating in a takeover of Russian politics. He then turned the tables against prosecutors and critics, using the law to investigate the investigators, jailing and murdering his critics, with others escaping into a state of permanent exile.
Putin is in regular contact with the Trump administration. There are long financial and political ties, not just with Trump but with members of the administration. Putin’s intelligence background has also enabled him to not only help Trump use Russia’s intel machine against critics but he’s managed to penetrate deep into our own national security circles.