Pennsylvania Republicans have only a narrow edge in both chambers of the legislature—and the Democrats hope to deprive the GOP of its majority in November. For Gelman’s scenario to make sense, the Trump forces would need nearly unanimous votes by the GOP in both chambers. Remember, this isn’t a vote on a Supreme Court nominee or a tax bill. This would be a legislative coup to overturn a presidential election. Republicans have often refused to stand up to Trump, but the Gelman nightmare requires an entire state party marching in lockstep to overthrow the Constitution.
[T]he final arbiter of a state’s electoral votes is not the legislature but the governor (or some other state official). Even frightened anti-Trumpers lying awake at 3 o’clock in the morning can take comfort from the reality that the governors of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and North Carolina are all Democrats.
Notwithstanding The New Republic’s weirdly personal attacks on people who are worried that Trump, who is a fascist, will do something fascist, I think the likelihood of it is something on which reasonable people can differ.
I would point out, though, that those same reasonable people ought to at least consider this argument:
Republicans have often refused to stand up to Trump, but the Gelman nightmare requires an entire state party marching in lockstep to overthrow the Constitution.
in the light of, you know, all the Republicans who have been marching in lockstep to overthrow Constitutional protections for the last 4 years. I certainly would not be comfortable adopting the tone of that TNR piece knowing that it rested on that assumption.
I’m not saying he’s definitely going to do this stuff and succeed, but I am saying that it’s weird that some people only seem willing to recognize the dangers presented by Trump when it’s in a context that doesn’t require them to change their beliefs about anything fundamental – like, for example, the strength of our democratic institutions pre/post Trump.
I see no danger of Trump leading a coup. He wouldn’t know how.
Trump’s lifelong pattern has been to expect other people to do things for him. That’s not going to change. He’ll want somebody else to fix things so he gets to stay President. But the people who could stage a coup have no reason to do so for Trump’s benefit. If somebody like Mitch McConnell overthrows the Constitution and sets up a dictatorship, the dictator will be Mitch McConnell.
Trump’s other lifelong pattern is to make a lot of noise. And that’s what he will do if he loses. He will file lawsuits, he will hold rallies, he will call for protests and uprisings, and he will tweet. And none of this will stop Joe Biden from assuming the Presidency on January 20 if he wins the election. It will be another example of Trump not accomplishing something he said he would do.
One final prediction; Trump will immediately declare he will run again in 2024 and keep his political campaign organization alive as long as his followers keep sending him money.
There’s no doubt that if Trump loses, he will leave the White House by Jan 20. The problem is: he will never admit that he lost.
Step 1 is to suppress the vote, intimidate voters with “poll watchers” and file lawsuits to limit the counting of mail-in ballots.
Step 2 is to immediately file lawsuits in every state that he doesn’t carry on Nov 3 contesting every mail-in ballot, and to stop counting in every state where he holds a lead.
Step 3 is twist the arms of every state legislature in the appointment of electors.
With enough monkey wrenches in the works, he can get enough SCOTUS rulings in his favor that he can get throw the election to the House.
I hope the New Republic article is basically correct. I almost think is probably is. But a lot of the details are wrong.
Few Republicans would see state legislatures returning a different list of electors, than that preferred by voters, to be unconstitutional. The idea that mail ballots were unreliable, and could be constitutionally ignored, would be an easy sell.
As for the power of the Democratic governors, the idea that governors can’t veto an election bill, because the Constitution doesn’t mention that veto power, would be another easy sell. I can see some of the conservative justices saying that governors have a right to veto such bills, because the legislatures approved the state constitutions. Maybe (one can dream) they would ever say that 9-0. But no way your average right wing talk radio listener would buy that.
The coup danger is precisely because 40 percent of Americans would never admit to themselves it was a coup.
Remember that they have been telling each other for decades that the U.S. is not a democracy.
Still, there are probably just barely enough moderate GOP state representatives to save us.
Also, if the polls are right, the legitimate vote will not be close. That also could save us.
I think that’s a good example of how Trump wouldn’t know how to lead a coup. Does anyone think Trump knows the name of ten people serving on any of the state legislatures?
Look at people like Hitler or Stalin or Napoleon. They knew what was going on in their country. They worked for years laying the groundwork and building up a network of people who worked for them and preparing for the moment when they would overthrow the regime and seize power.
Trump has spent the last four years playing golf, watching TV, and posting on Twitter.
If somebody sat Trump down and explained to him that he needed to twist the arms of state legislators in order to get them to appoint electors for him, he’d make ten or fifteen phone calls. Then he’d get bored and tell somebody else to make the calls for him.
I think the logic is that he has plenty of hardworking, smart, and loyal toadies ready and willing to do all of that legwork for him. I personally am torn on that idea. That some exist, I acknowledge, but in sufficient numbers?
Either that or they figure, like, governors will just do it on their own, without marching orders. That I definitely doubt.
The signs are that Trump’s ego won’t let him keep anyone around who’s more competent than he is and therefore makes him look bad in comparison. Trump’s a small man who likes to surround himself with smaller men.
I agree. It’s like expecting somebody else to go out and rob a bank for you and then drop off the money at your house afterwards. Why are other people motivated to commit some serious crimes on behalf of Donald Trump?
Sure, the Republicans will commit their usual voter fraud. They know they can get away with that kind of stuff. But they’re not going to go out on a limb for Trump. For Republicans other than Trump, this is just another 1992 or 2008 - they’re in it for the long game.
I think that most of the Toadies are currently focused on how much they can grift out of the system before they are run out of town. Loyalty? Ha! It’s going to be every man/woman for themselves once the election loss is clear.
At least that’s my hope. I’m counting on the fact that these people are ethical black holes, and have no loyalty to anything but themselves. The people close to Trump are not wide eyed idealists, or people with a mission, or folks that believe in anything. They are sycophants and greedy scumbags.
A bigger question for me would be: If Trump loses the election, what kind of damage would Trump and his nutbags do between the election results and the official end of his term?
I would hope that attempting to dispute the election results would keep him occupied, but I could see him attempting to sabotage as much as possible out of spite, just to make life difficult for the Democrats. Doing everything he can to undermine the system and encouraging his white supremacist followers to riot.
We’ve had several prior threads discussing this very question. This recent post by @LSLGuy in one of those threads contains links to three earlier threads on the subject:
Legislatively none. The House can block anything they get up to.
It is all about Trump’s efforts to claim the election was a fraud and whether a Supreme Court where he picked two (maybe/probably three) justices will help him.
I think you misread the analogy. I was suggesting the bank robbers gave you all the money not just a share of it. They took all the risk and you collect all the reward; so what motivated them to take the risks?
That seems like a valid comparison. It’s not like Trump can share his election win (except arguably with Pence).
Beyond the risk of committing the crime in general, there’s the additional risk of committing a crime with Trump being involved. He’s demonstrated he’s not a very smart criminal. Nixon understood you cover up crimes. If Trump had been President back in 1972, he would have been posting about the Watergate break-in on Twitter.
I did not misread your analogy, you asked specifically why they would drop the money off at your house after they did all the work. And that is because they expect to share in the rewards, while leaving the incriminating evidence in your house.
Why do you think that they would not be taking any reward for themselves?
Why not? There are plenty of places of power for loyal individuals. Does Putin not have his oligarchs, Gadhafi and Hussein not have their generals? What do you think that they get out of supporting him?
By your reasoning, there could never be a dictator, as who would support such a person?
His stupidity allows him to be taken advantage of more easily by the manipulative forces around him. And the fact that he does lay his crimes out in the open actually works to their favor, as he has convinced many people that as long as he is laying his crimes out in the open, then he’s not really a threat.
But all of these dictators made sure they were stronger and smarter than the people they had working for them. Trump fails in that regard. Anyone strong enough and smart enough - and ruthless enough - to be able to overturn an election and put Trump in power after he loses is going to ask the big question “Why am I doing all this for somebody else?” That person is going to let Trump lose and work on putting themself in power.
Trump doesn’t have the stuff to be a Napoleon or a Hitler or a Stalin. But he might end up as a Sieyes or a von Papen or a Kamenev.