Let’s say that Harris “won” or ought to have won, but due to Republican election officials and other Trumpers refusing to certify, or tampering with votes, or some other shenanigans, Trump is engineered into victory some way. Suppose that 30-50 perfectly good electoral votes for Kamala were tossed out for spurious reasons. (Basically, any mechanism that throws the election to the House and Trump prevails due to the Rs having more house delegations.) And, let’s suppose that the federal courts, and perhaps SCOTUS itself, rules in Trump’s favor.
Do Biden and the Democrats just throw up their hands and say, “Well, you got us then,” and quietly hand over the keys to the White House and begin packing up and doing the transition of power like any other election?
I’ve read that the Harris campaign has a veritable army of attorneys at the ready, prepared to deal with any elections shenanigans by the Trump persons.
I’m not worried about the election being stolen.
I’m worried about it being lost.
But in the event that Trump was somehow successful in stealing the election, I don’t see Dems and/or non-MAGA Republicans just standing back and just letting him have it.
Biden and the Democrats at the top of the party chain? Perhaps.
The people? Different story. Remember what happened when Ferdinand Marcos “won” an election over Corazon Aquino in the Philippines. If that does happen, it could very well come down to the answer to one question: “Which side is the Armed Forces on?”
Worried that Trump and co will manage to steal it and even if the Democrat’s army of lawyers get to work that will take time and I think there are a number of left leaning people that are also a bit crazy and armed.
If he loses, whether it’s decisively or marginally and he doesn’t manage to cheat his way in, there’s a whole bunch of MAGAs that are less than tightly wound who I think will let loose. They’ve been well primed.
I think the only way there won’t be violence is if he wins decisively and without cheating and the thought of that gives me nightmares.
And then I quietly sing another verse of Oh Canada and thank my lucky stars.
Sorry for the brag.
I have a very hard time believing that the majority of the armed forces will follow a loser who’s no longer in power to command them to do anything. I am confident that Biden will have this concern well under control.
Trump does appear to be attempting to raise a ragtag “army” of no-hopers from sundown towns around the country:
Hard to think this is going to be a terribly successful effort, though.
Even this SCOTUS seems unwilling to go that far. If they were, they would have made their ruling in the garbage immunity decision applicable to all actions of a president while in office. They didn’t. They left it up to themselves to be the final arbiters.
And let’s remember, he’s not a president now. SCOTUS would have to rule that he had some basis to claim he’d won the election as a candidate, not an incumbent.
I don’t see any relevance of the immunity ruling to a hypothetical SCOTUS letting the state decide how their electors go and 2) you’re fighting the hypothetical.
So far as I understand, the only way Trump gets to 270 is if he wins Pennsylvania (a MUST) and then finagles Georgia.
There are already active efforts to stop Georgia from implementing their obviously-desperate tactics to change election rules at the last minute, opposed even by current elections officials. I don’t think they’re going to be able to finagle enough for Trump in time.
Are there not ANY house delegations from states that would refuse to turn the country into a de facto dictatorship? Are they ALL willing to believe obvious bullshit “election stealing” lies and hand the presidency to a clearly malfunctioning old sociopath? I mean, many, many elected officials know that Trump is incompetent, but they keep the Team Shirt on, and march in lockstep (in public). Is there not one single state delegation that would say “ummmm, no, we’re not willing to go there”
I would think that if the SCOTUS ruled, that would be the end of it, and the military would be on the side of the “rightfully” elected President.
The military can’t and shouldn’t play kingmaker, even in situations like this. That’s bush league, banana republic crap and sets IMO, a worse precedent going forward.
I think the battleground for election shenanigans is going to be at the state level, not the Federal one, if only because it’ll be what slate of electors get sent and/or whether they’re valid or not. That’s all state-level stuff.
I just want to add that the reason I raised the immunity ruling is in response to @That_Don_Guy’s concern around the Armed Forces. Trump will not have command of them in 2024.
I believe they waffled on this simply because Biden was currently in office. They wanted to keep the power for themselves to decide who was immune. (hint - only a Republican president, but they did not say this out loud).
When it comes down to it, I think they would certainly go that far, and declare Trump the victor even in the face of clear and obvious evidence against.
No, but you’re also not going to have an adjudicated loser (Biden) commanding the army to overthrow the government and them go along with it. Like Mark Milley said he wouldn’t help Trump with his coup, we’re not going to see the opposite happen this year either.
This just happened in Venezuela – Maduro lost by a landslide and has remained in power. Venezuelans are nowhere near as fat, dumb, and happy as Americans, so you’d think you’d see a real uprising there before you’d see something here.
My point is, most Americans are happy enough that they aren’t going to go to war if someone steals an election. If Trump finds his way to the WH with SCOTUS and Congressional blessing, that will be the end of it.
Seriously? If the US goes down in flames, we’re going with them. I can’t even imagine how fucked Canada would be with even a low-level civil war going on in the US. We’ll look back fondly on the days when we only had to worry about COVID restrictions on trade with the US.
The adjudication of the election will happen before Biden steps down, so I’m not worried about the Armed Forces becoming a factor.
I think the Harris campaign understands that the best way to prevent a steal is to win decisively. This is also something I’ve said many times. What bullshit TrumpCo will attempt to pull, and how the country will respond to it, is all uncharted waters. There is no answer to this unless it happens. I prefer to never see it happen.