If a bad faith interpretation of the law wins their case (without getting them into ethical hot water), 9 times out of 10 they’ll use it. To a lawyer, the law is a tool to pick up when they need it and set aside when they don’t.
And judges.
And judges.
Here’s how I would do it….
The election is conducted, seemingly as normal. But wait… if the results aren’t acceptable, the Department of Justice will determine that extensive election interference from Antifa, etc. has made the national results totally invalid. Therefore, due to NATIONAL SECURITY concerns, Trump has “reluctantly” agreed to act, not as president, but as executive branch “caretaker”, until such time as standards for a truly “free and fair” election can be established. Trump has also graciously said that in case of inability or resignation, his son will take over as “national caretaker”.
Considering there is no legal (constitutional) mechanism to allow such a thing I see no way this will be possible. If the military or SCOTUS declared the Constitution as invalid then possibly but otherwise no way this happens.
You might as well say that Trump declares himself Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, if we’re going with scenarios that are completely divorced from any legal or constitutional mechanism to actually make them happen.
Any scenario in which Trump unilaterally declares the Constitution void is going to result in the same thing - schism within the federal government, mass defections, states seceding from the Union, and civil war, unless a coup overthrows Trump first (and maybe even still depending on who tries to assert power in his absence).
This is something that would have been of comfort to me ten years ago. Since then I’ve witness not just individuals in government but whole branches ignore their responsibilities. My only comfort is believing Trump is sundowning so hard I’m having doubts he’ll make it through his current term let alone be capable of running for another.
I agree. If DJT wasn’t circling the drain, I fully expect that SCOTUS would find some way to find a loophole that would allow a 3rd term. They simply don’t give a shit about precedence or the plain text of the Constitution, they’ve got 6 votes and by God they are going to do what they damn well please.
That doesn’t fit what we’ve seen at all. It’s much more likely that there’d be some handwringing about how awful it is, and then everyone with any authority would just let him do it without resistance.
Resistance is impolite.
They’ve (the general ‘they’ve’, not just SCOTUS) been kicking the ‘he’ll die before we have to make a decision’ can down the road for a long time now.
This is why when people keep talking about this or that being impossible to happen, I’m still worried. The clownshow is just the face of this “regime” and is being used to distract from what is happening in the background. The people behind Project 2025 are evil and we have seen that there is no line they won’t cross, no bottom to how low they will go to try to keep power. They don’t care that they are trampling on every law, norm and tradition that gets in their way. They haven’t done all this to chance losing an election and being held accountable. They absolutely have plans to keep that from happening, with Trump or not. I won’t go so far as to say they will undoubtably succeed at this because ::waves hand around:: look at this insane timeline, but they will disrupt things in ways we can’t imagine.
JB Pritzker is just going to let Trump dissolve the union and declare himself king without resistance? Gavin Newsom? AOC? Ilhan Omar? Zohran? Mark Kelly? Even Ted Cruz, who presumably wants to be president himself someday?
Assuming Trump even survives 24 hours, I would expect at least one governor to declare something alone the lines of “If the states are no longer allowed to exercise their constitutional right to elect the president, then the state of X no longer recognizes the sovereignty of the federal government and deems itself independent”.
Even in the unlikely event that happened, the governor in question would simply be arrested or killed and replaced with a loyalist. They would even need to use military force; fascist police make for a poor defense against a fascist government.
Arrested by who? Replaced on whose authority?
The police. And by the authority of the dictator.
The police? Who work for the state, which is no longer part of the US? Why would they arrest their own chief executive?
The dictator of a foreign country?
And how long does this go on for before someone in the Secret Service decides that pulling an “Et tu Brute” is less risky than plunging the entire country into a bloodbath?
Trump has come close to declaring it void:
And the response was not anything close to a schism , states seceding, or civil war. Revolutionary activity (think bombings) in the U.S. remains lower than in the Nixon or even Ford administration.
In other presidential republics in the Americas that turn bad, they mostly still keep the same Constitution. They just ignore parts or change the interpretation. And civil wars have gone out of style. Consider this:
A bunch in the nineteenth century, but none since 1901.
The police work for themselves, and their dictator, and have shown little reluctance to threaten the officials they supposedly are employed by. And the dictator would be the dictator of the US, of course; that’s what somebody who just declares themselves President For Life is.
And the Secret Service wouldn’t consider anything like that; they’ll just keep their heads down and go along with it like everyone else. The military and security services aren’t going to suddenly rush in and save us from ourselves, no matter how popular that fantasy is.
Because a presidential tweet is absolutely meaningless and does not have force of law. The Constitution was not “terminated” because Trump tweeted it to be so. His administration ignored it and went on with business as usual.
Remember in March when Trump “terminated” the pardons Biden issued? And then last month when he did it again? And how both times neither tweet resulted in any pardons being terminated? People actually have to DO things in order for Trump’s decrees to be enacted. And when he decrees things that are outside his authority to do, the people responsible for enacting those things ignore him.
The same thing would happen if he declared elections were canceled or that he was now “national protector” or something else.
Tell that to Indira Gandhi.
Who wasn’t American.