The “Scary Scenario” thread, although implausible in its own right, does lead me to think that there are two other scenarios not out of the realm of possibilities - and both involve Biden (apparently) winning the election:
#1 - Republicans control both the House and the Senate. If they have enough votes in the Senate to sway any naysayers, we could end up with something similar to 1876, and Trump ends up as President anyway.
#2 - Democrats control both the House and the Senate (and the Senate is more than 50-50 with Harris’s tiebreaker). Considering what the Republicans have put everything through over the past two years, I wouldn’t put it past the Senate to finally vote to get rid of the filibuster, which opens the door for things like the Green New Deal. (“What’s so scary about that?” Ask Governor Newsom what happens in the long run when you raise taxes on the rich and corporations.)
As mentioned in the other thread on this. The president of the senate (The VP) gets to decide what is and is not a valid objection to the electoral college vote count. So while I do see lots of possibility for GOP illegitmately overturning an election, particularly a close one. I’d say the main risk is at the state level.
Don’t threaten me with a good time! I’ll believe this when I see it.
I’m confused by the “scariness” of both of these scenarios.
The problem with 1876 was that Southern states defying Reconstruction sent separate slates of electors. That’s not a realistic possibility today. Nor does the Senate have anything to say about the slates that the Electoral College approved.
As for number 2, the scenario is that the rest of the country gets as rich as California and the country and world improves for everyone. Scary? Only if everybody starts singing “Happy Days Are Here Again”!
You might turn into a hell-hole like Canada or Sweden. Lawless dystopias with criminals running free and forced re-education camps turning children trans.
Have you really fallen victim to the counterfactual idea that Republicans are the party of low deficits and fiscal responsibility?
Remember 25 years or so ago when DEMOCRATIC President Bill Clinton balanced the budget and eliminated the deficit? Did the Republicans thinks this was a good thing?
OH NOES IT WAS THE WORST THING ANY PRESIDENT HAS EVER DONE! It proved that the evil government was taking money they didn’t even need.
So the Republicans spent the next 8 years slashing taxes, spending like drunken sailors, and running the economy off a cliff as they were on the way out the door. Then they cried poor when the Democrats were looking for a fairly modest amount of spending in order to repair the economy they trashed.
This was because the Republican strategy was to keep the country in a heartbreaking recession as long as a Democrat was in office, putting political expediency over the welfare of their constituents.
And with Trump they doubled down on the playbook of running up huge deficits, trashing the economy on the way out the door and running obstruction on any attempt by incoming opposition to fund the repair of the economy they trashed.
The filibuster exists because everyone knows eliminating it would be disastrous. It might be good for the party that does it short term, but they know it would backfire at some point. However, Trump doesn’t understand this and he might be successful in pressuring a Republican senate to do so.
The 2024 Senate map is not good for Democrats and they aren’t going to pass the Green New Deal with the best case scenario of a narrow majority, there will always be spending opposition from purple state senators. Actually, they won’t pass the Green New Deal because it’s a policy paper, not a piece of legislation.
I’ll admit I thought Biden’s original Build Back Better legislation was excessive, but I’m astute enough to recognize that a politician as experienced as Joe Biden knows enough about negotiations to know that you don’t start out by asking for only what you really need, you shoot for the moon in order to get as much as possible, hopefully something close to what you really need.
I recently moved from a very HCOL area to purple state with a lower cost of living, and I was in for some surprises……the biggest one being how close to the edge financially almost everyone here seems to live, at least relative to what I’m used to. I honestly don’t know how these people manage it.
I live in an upper middle class neighborhood, my neighbors are most white collar workers and small business owners. I was at a neighborhood gathering and I mentioned that I was paying the trade school tuition of $2500 for a family member, because I couldn’t let them miss a life-changing opportunity because they couldn’t come up with what I considered to be a relatively small amount of money……I guess everything is relative, because they couldn’t relate at all.
I had imagined lots of financial scenarios with my retirement, but the one I never imagined was that my SS benefits supplemented with my modest retirement account would leave me feeling rich, but that’s what happened and it doesn’t suck. The experience has left me with a new appreciation of life in an HCOL area, and renewed support for populist economic policies.
It would be hilarious to see the reaction of Trumpers if, after all that talk about “Trump can still win if Pence has the courage to do the right thing,” Democrats then invoke it, “Biden can still win if Kamala has the courage” - and actually do it.
I see we’ve moved on from every action by a Muslim condemns every Muslim in the world to every action taken by an immigrant condemns every immigrant in America.
I’m still waiting for every action by a neo-Naxi condemns every neo-Naxi in America or the big prize, that every action by a Christian condemns every Christian in America.
Then that thread is wrong. The Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act of 2022 clarifies that the Vice President’s role in the counting of the electoral votes is “solely ministerial,” with no power to “determine, accept, reject, or otherwise adjudicate or resolve disputes over the proper list of electors, the validity of electors, or the votes of electors.”
