The following months would have lit the fuse to chaos ! From what I’m seeing and hearing in these hearing is that Trump cooked up this scheme to overthrow our government leading up to the election and after the election. Alot of what’s coming out, he was talking about and setting things up to get this coup set up months before the election. Then once the election was over, he then went into action and got his followers ready to do his dirty work on 1/6. This is as close to treason as one can get. If he gets away with it and is allowed to walk away without any punishment, then our government is certainly broken and the door swings wide open to anyone to wants to try and pull off a coup can get away it.
I reflect back to my third Presidential voting experience. I voted for Ronald Reagan and that was the last time I voted for a republican. Having said that, I look back, and I realize that we should have seen this coming; all of us. The GOP has been morphing for many, many years. Ronald Reagan, then Newt Gingrich, then the Tea Party, and now the Trump party. And before Ronald Reagan? Our very own Richard Nixon. I was a kid watching those hearings on TV. There is an element in this country that weaponizes the constitution, wraps it in the American flag, prays over it, and then they turn around and call themselves patriots and storm the capital. God, guns, and Trump, and interpret the constitution to fit their needs. This is not over. Luttig’s comments to end the hearing were chilling. Trumpism has become bigger than Trump, and I don’t see any reconciliation any time soon. We can’t even establish the same guiding set of facts to base our opinions ; Vote.
No disagreement. We really should have seen it coming, it was just too easy to believe the system would continue on indefinitely in it’s fragile state.
If Pence had obeyed, he would have been in violation of his oath and of the Constitution, which would have precipitated a constitutional crisis. It’s uncharted territory and one can only speculate as to what would have ensued.
^
100% this. And he is promising (with a lot of if’s) he will pardon the insurectionists if he gets elected again.
Trump is literally wagging his finger at the DOJ & anyone Not in his movement! Looking at films of Germany 1930 and the rallies, this not a far-fetched analogy of where we are at !
This may be getting off topic into Factual Questions territory, but what prevents a president from doing something hugely unconstitutional or coup-ish as long as he promises pardons to everyone in advance and he has the cooperation of a friendly governor (such as a Republican governor of Virginia?) He can say “I need 10,000 patriotic Virginians, and Virginians only, to assist me in the coup, you will all receive federal AND state pardons in advance.”
Im interested to know what would happen then.
I have hope…that these traitorous repubs forget that Democrats have guns, too. What happens when 100,000 loyal to the constitution armed NYers invade Virginia in defense of the proper government?
Well, I know what happens, We’ve had it happen. It wasn’t pretty.
I guess I’m more optimistic than most dopers. Even if Pence had gone along with it I don’t think the military or other centers of power would have. Yes, it would have been a constitutional crisis, but more of a “We need to make these rules more clear” than Civil War part II. All Trump managed to get was several hundred delusional losers willing to fight for him.
Yes, there are millions more who are willing to post online slacktivist style, but I don’t think many of them really believe the big lie. After all, if you really believed that democracy was ending and a dictatorship being set up, wouldn’t you do more than just re-post facebook memes?
It depends on what he’s asking them to do. It has to be a federal crime, because that’s all he can pardon. If he asks them to screw with any part of the election, he can’t pardon, because elections are administered locally.
It would have gotten ugly. Very ugly. It comes down to what the military would have done. I think there’s three possible scenarios.
-
The military follows Trump’s orders until until noon on 1/20/2021, then starts following Biden’s orders.
-
The military follows Trump’s orders, even after noon on 1/20/2021.
-
The military refuses to follow Trump’s orders and starts following Biden’s as of late afternoon / night. / whatever time on 1/6/2021 that Pence declares Trump the winner.
My guess is that scenario 2 was the least likely. Scenario 1 had the most likely probability of happening, but scenario 3 had a fair chance. It could very well have meant Biden having to flee to Canada during those 2 weeks.
I think that if the electoral votes are not certified, it falls to the House to elect/certify the president.
Not by an amount of the majority of representatives. Each state gets one vote.
Was that the plan? If the certification was not done, Trump could be president.
The House could have ignored Pence and declared the votes certified. A flood of lawsuits would follow, not one of which would affect the decision made by the House to ignore Pence’s failure to perform a ceremonial duty. I hope that is what would have happened. Unfortunately for Pence the terrorists invading the Capital wouldn’t know he had done what was asked of him and they’d still try to hang him.
It’s complicated. If Pence had simply ignored the contested votes it probably would have gone to the House, where at least 26 states would have elected Trump. The problem is really in the law passed after the 1876 debacle that tries to regulate what happens in the case of contested EVs.
Suppose that Republican Secretaries of State in States like Michigan had simply refused to certify the results of the election? We are really getting into unknown and unanticipated territory here. The Texas Republican party has just endorsed a platform that declares the 2020 election stolen.
See this thread about just how much all of us are planning on (not) doing if/when this happens again with greater success. 99% of the folks in Czechoslavakia sat out the Velvet Revolution. 1% made the difference. Ditto in the “color revolutions” nearby.
So we should not be surprised that the vast majority of rightists nationwide didn’t arise and storm their local City Hall. But rest assured they are making their interests known via their donations, tweets, and general followership of the (largely Russian-sponsored / inspired) RW media / disinformation / grift campaign
Has anyone asked Chuck Grassley what he would have done had he been needed to fill in for Pence in administering the electoral count?
The Constitution says nothing about Congress “certifying” the election (the only use of that word in the entire Constitution refers to what the electors do). All Congress does is “count” the votes, and it is only delegated the authority to elect a president and vice president if no candidates have the necessary majority. Refusing to count a pile of things does not change the number of things in the pile, so Congress cannot create a contingent election by obstinately refusing to count the votes. (I mean, it “can” in the sense that laws can be violated, but it would be plainly unconstitutional.)
And keep in mind that the regular majority of the House still controls its calendar and procedures at all times, and any decision it makes to defer a contingent election to a later date (such as January 1, 3000) would be effectively unreviewable in the courts due to the absolute immunity held by members of Congress. Even if the choice of President falls 100% legitimately on the House, the simple majority of the House can say “nah, not gonna vote at all” and nobody can really make them hold the contingent election. It might arguably be unconstitutional but it wouldn’t be something the courts could force, and the 12th Amendment even says what to do if the House can’t get its act together (the VP-elect becomes the acting president until the House elects a president) so it wouldn’t be totally unthinkable. (IMO this would actually be the likely outcome in any situation where (A) the regular majority party and the state-by-state majority party differ and (B) the regular majority party prefers the other party’s VP nominee over the presidential nominee (or it controls the Senate); both of these conditions would have been fulfilled in January 2021.)
This is something I’ve wondered about for years, about people who allegedly believe all the common Conspiracy Theories about the New World Order and all that. If I really believed all that crap, I’m pretty sure I’d have started a civil war about it by now.
But these guys? Either they know, consciously or not, that it’s all crap, or they are just the laziest, most passive people in history. Sitting at their computers watching while THEY carry on their Evil Agenda unimpeded.
You may be interested in the following thread where we tracked the then-upcoming coup, the thread started just 6 days after the 2020 election:
I thought the US military was forbidden from acting in domestic matters.