With the exception of 2000, every single presidential election in modern U.S. history was considered to be, for de facto purposes, over once it was clear that one candidate had hit 270. Although it was known that the states would take weeks more to certify results and the electoral slates wouldn’t be sent and voted on a month later, that was just a mere formal technicality that nobody even paid attention to.
But now, it’s clear that the election isn’t over even when/if Biden hit 270. Now the certification process itself is considered a game to play. The Electoral College itself is a game to play.
By analogy, it’s like as if, when one team scored a touchdown, and the officials put six points on the board, the six points was on the board - it’s time to move on to the next play. You could grumble and complain that the touchdown wasn’t fair - maybe there was a foot out of bounds, or pass interference - but once the points were on the board, they were on the board. But now, even the scoreboard itself is considered to be in play. Suddenly, now, the head coach interferes with the officials and tries to prevent them from physically putting six points on the scoreboard.
For as long as the GOP is the Trump party, I think the answer is yes. The Trump party doesn’t see the Democratic party as a legitimate political party, and doesn’t see any election that doesn’t result in victory as a legitimate election. Who knows how long that will be?
If it doesn’t work this time, it might happen again next time, but it’s a very dangerous game to play. If Trump actually succeeds in getting state legislatures to ignore the election result, or someone does that next time, it’s the end of the US experiment in the form that we know.
The Trumplicans who aren’t already brainwashed are currently trying to draw comparisons between people saying “Trump is not my president” and this effort by the Trump campaign at reversing the elections, if somehow Trump succeed they’ll see what the equivalent is when declared by whole states.
I don’t think they become the norm, but I think the barriers for someone to try it and maybe get closer to success are much lower now. If we end up with “normal” Joe Biden/Mitt Romney style presidents in the near future they will probably not go there, but if someone becomes president by copying Trump’s strategy for campaigning and governing, they’re also going to copy everything he’s tried to do to stay in power, with the benefit of a lot more competence and all the groundwork Trump is laying.
The scary thing about all of this is that it’s completely pointless posturing every time until the one time it isn’t, and then the game is over. Once a president figures out how to remain in office despite losing an election, they’re going to secure power until it’s wrested from their hands. You only need to go through technicalities and legal gray areas until you prove that you can’t be removed, then you get to do whatever you want. What we’re seeing from a lot of GOP figures is that there’s no political cost to going along with Trump’s game, so it’s just playing with house money to them. The problem is that even if 2024, 2028 are normal elections without any of this nonsense, if this happens again in the future it’s not going to seem completely insane.
Yep, much deeper than Trump; the Republican party has for years desired an imperfect form of democracy in which “qualified” voters (i.e. theirs) vote, and others don’t. This is the result.
You mean the state legislatures that are so gerrymandered that Democrats can win a clear majority of the electorate but only win a minority of legislative seats?
Wisconsin is one of the worst. In a hypothetical 50-50 election, in which there are equal numbers of Democratic and Republican voters in Wisconsin, Republicans would win 65 of the 99 legislative seats.
Democrats need to out-perform the GOP by 9 or 10 percentage points statewide to have a good shot at winning an Assembly majority.
And of course the Assembly draws the districts, so now that the GOP has cheated their way into an unassailable majority, it seems likely they will never lose the majority in this state legislature again.