This entire thread is predicated on nonsense to begin with, but having said that, do you really think the military is make up of mindless automatons that just do what they are told, without any thought what so ever? They are the same people that you went to high school with, that your sister dated in college.
I guess you do, and if you think so, I supposed this entire thread is for you.
Beyond that, the military’s ultimate loyalty is to the Constitution, not the President, and they spend a lot of effort on legal vs. illegal orders, etc…
An order from a President who was refusing to relinquish power would almost certainly be considered an illegal order and against the Constitution.
An interesting question would be whether they’re honor-bound to then move against said President… (“…I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same…”) since he’s clearly acting in a way counter to the Constitutional provisions for orderly transfer of power.
Comments like this assume that the Rs would send out their simplest stooges. The risk is that master liars and lawyers would take over. Fox News viewers would be sure that it was the Democrats who were cheating; many police would be eager to defend the patriots they would view as victim to Democratic shenanigans.
Again, think about recent events. Mueller’s report accuses Trump of felony obstruction and regrets that sitting Prezes can’t be indicted. Yet a large portion of white Americans think the Mueller report exonerates Trump, and want those who empowered Mueller investigated! Fake videos are being circulated, etc.
Some of you seem nostalgic for the Cronkite era where Facts were often agreed upon. But Cronkite was succeeded by Rather, who was driven from his post by clever frauds probably orchestrated by Karl Rove. If the election is lopsided there may be a more-or-less agreed-on set of facts Nov. 4, 2020. But if Trump loses narrowly, the forces of evil will foment great confusion.
Maybe, but in that event, the military would likely view it as a matter for law enforcement, which is something they’re expressly forbidden to participate in.
So really, the only event of this nature that I could see the military actually getting involved in, would be some sort of rebellion, a-la the Civil War, or some other sort of breach of the Constitution.
Why do you think this matters at all? 
I actually got a house with two extra bedrooms here in Edmonton- just in case I need to offer relatives a place to stay if the US goes too far to the Reich.
Because my experience with members of the military is that they mostly all support the rule of law and take that sort of thing seriously.
Exactly. WWII hammered home to the military the need to distinguish between legal/illegal orders, and our military has always been grounded on the notion that the military follows the rule of law and legitimate civil authority.
And the officer corps is, in my experience with separated/retired officers, a surprisingly reflective and insightful group of people, and very aware of the moral/philosophical aspects of their jobs.
So thinking that the military would blindly follow Trump if there were widespread and serious concerns about the legitimacy of the election, just because he was President beforehand is a stretch in my opinion.
My guess is that they’d sit it out until the Supreme Court, or some sort of convocation of the States were to make a decision, and then declare for that person. But even then, they’re de jure limited in what they can do domestically, and they’d pay scrupulous attention to that as well.
A more important question is, what have the people of this country done? Absolutely freaking nothing except reward corrupt Republicans with more and more power, which is another argument against impeachment: there’s really no point in having the congress fix the presidency if the people aren’t willing to invest their time and energy to making better decisions about who runs their government.
My best guess wouldn’t lead to outright war between the states - though I wouldn’t be surprised if some sort of Balkanization occurred in that scenario - but the aforementioned insurgency. I think you’d see a surge in bombings and assassination attempts against government officials from people on both sides of the aisle.
Lefties would begin bombing and far-right-wing people who are afraid of government acting so capriciously would start their own movements.
That would bring police and the National Guard into it - not the Army unless Posse Comitatus is somehow rescinded - and that would harden resistance. I’m not really aware of any military that has ever completely wiped out a violent insurgency. At least not one where outright genocide is precluded for PR reasons.
In short, it’d be a bloody, painful mess. The Union is founded on the belief that elections are relatively fair and abided by because even if you lose, there’s always next time to work toward. Take that away, especially in some blatantly unfair way, and that’ll be it for peace and prosperity.
Yes, many such cases, including the one already cited for you.
[quote=
Kentucky Union Co. v. Commonwealth of Kentucky, 219 U.S. 140, 152–53, 31 S. Ct. 171, 177, 55 L. Ed. 137 (1911)]
Laws of a retroactive nature, imposing taxes or providing remedies for their assessment and collection, and not impairing vested rights, are not forbidden by the Federal Constitution. League v. Texas, 184 U. S. 156, 46 L. ed. 478, 22 Sup. Ct. Rep. 475. This court had occasion in a very early case to consider the meaning of an ex post facto law as the term is used in the Federal Constitution, prohibiting the states from passing any law of that character. Calder v. Bull, 3 Dall. 386–390, 1 L. ed. 648–650. In that case it held that such laws, within the meaning of the Federal Constitution, had reference to criminal punishments, and did not include retrospective laws of a different character. That case has been cited and followed in later cases in this court. See Kring v. Missouri, 107 U. S. 221, 27 L. ed. 506, 2 Sup. Ct. Rep. 443; Orr v. Gilman, 183 U. S. 278, 285, 46 L. ed. 196, 200, 22 Sup. Ct. Rep. 213.
In the latter case a former decision of this court, in Carpenter v. Pennsylvania, 17 How. 456, 463, 15 L. ed. 127, 129, opinion by Mr. Justice Campbell, was quoted with approval. It was therein said: ‘The debates in the Federal convention upon the Constitution show that the terms ‘ex post facto laws’ were understood in a restricted sense, relating to criminal cases only, and that the description of Blackstone of such laws was referred to for their meaning. 3 Madison’s Papers, 1399, 1450, 1579.
‘This signification was adopted in this court shortly after its organization, in opinions carefully prepared, and has been repeatedly announced since that time. Calder v. Bull, 3 Dall. 386, 1 L. ed. 648; Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cranch, 87, 3 L. ed. 162; Watson v. Mercer, 8 Pet. 88, 8 L. ed. 876; Charles River Bridge v. Warren, 11 Pet. 420, 9 L. ed. 773.’
[/quote]
I agree with you in part, but the main thing the people of this country HAVE done is voted (or tried to vote) in huge numbers for the other party – and had their votes suppressed, gerrymandered into irrelevancy, or effectively ignored because of a system designed a couple centuries ago to support slavery.
If all political regions were created algorithmically for non-partisan fairness, every eligible voter allowed to vote and those votes counted equally, and the candidates who got the most votes actually won the elections, the GOP would not exist today.
All of these things have gotten much, much worse now that the checks and balances are gone and blatant lawlessness is being pushed from the top. You can’t really blame people for losing faith in the system when the system has moved from “seemingly unfair” to “blatantly unfair, and the people making it unfair are in charge of it.”
There would be an opposition party, but I suspect that in your scenario both parties would be more moderate and centrist than they currently are.
Or not… I’m not entirely convinced that a lot of our problems are caused in large part by low voter turnout, and that of that low turnout, a disproportionate amount are fanatics and zealots from either side.
So in a sense, we’d still over-represent the extreme ends of the party, if only because those people are motivated to go vote more than your average politically uninvolved person.
Thank you for this post.
I might add mandatory voting to your platform.
Thanks. I sit corrected.
Regards,
Shodan