Uh, no, several states did do that.
Nope. None of the fake electors had any sort of official sanction from the states they were attempting to represent nor were their votes certified and transmitted by state officials.
These self-proclaimed electors have no legal standing, and the National Archives did not accept their documents, publishing the official (Biden) results from those states as the result of the election.
Anyone can send JD Vance an official looking list of electors by registered mail. And there are lots of state officials of some sort or another. That is not a high bar.
Googling to see if Penn was mailed any such lists in December 2020 or the first few days of 2021, I think so but I’m not sure. This seems to indicate Pence was given phoney lists in person except that he refused to take them:
And there’s fuck-all he can do with them because the vice president no longer has a discretionary role in the certification process.
The law 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.”
In that law, they did their best to cut off the kind of cheating we are talking about.
But if Vance accepts certificates from the wrong state officials, and refuses those of the right officials, what happens? And do we really think he is above doing that?
This will be the subject of separate threads once we get closer to Jan. 6, 2029. The only relevance here is that Trump won’t believe he really has to run for a third term because of thinking Vance will take care of things in an acceptable-to-Donald manner.
And if he ignores the law, and counts the alternates, what exactly can be done about it?
He’d be out of order. Presumably a point of order would be raised and the parliamentarian would instruct him to either do his job the right way or vacate the chair and let the president pro tempore do it.
The veep isn’t Dictator of the Senate and he doesn’t get to unilaterally decide who wins the election.
My suspicion is that he’ll float trial balloons about somehow running in 2028, but eventually he will end up running out his term and anointing an heir apparent for the election. Not sure if that’ll be Vance or someone else.
Then he’ll hang around Mar-A-Lago and essentially hold court for endorsements and attempt to direct GOP policy from afar. I mean he’ll feel like he’s still the most important person, but won’t have to actually be a politician. Kind of the best of both worlds.
Which would be just fine with him. Toddler mentality. “If I can’t have it then I’ll break it.”
He may just try to get the military to back him, and if Hegseth is still there, he’ll try too. But I don’t think it will work, outside of a few lower level moops who will be arrested.
Hegseth is weeding out all the generals who aren’t sufficiently loyal to Trump. By November of 2028, he could capture a significant portion of the officer corps. The only moops being arrested will be those who refuse to follow orders.
Will he run? Yes.
Will he be on any ballot anywhere? No
Will he retain power, anyway (which would be in a form that we can no longer call “President”)? … maybe.
Why not?
President Saddam Hussein
President Idi Amin
President Augusto Pinochet
President François “Papa Doc” Duvalier
President Chiang Kai-shek
President Xi Jinping
President Vladimir Putin
Ok, if you want precision, not “President” as defined by the US Constitution.
I think you underestimate the ability of career military leaders to tell the politicians currently in charge what they want to hear.
To answer the OP, no, I don’t think Trump will run. Even if dementia hasn’t claimed him yet by 2028, I think he and his supporters know full well the 22nd Amendment is an insurmountable hurdle, no matter how much they may troll-suggest a run in 2028.
I think if he makes more noises about running again in 2028 that the Democratic Party make similar noises about Barack Obama running again.
Based on all the times Trump was stopped by the constitution and rule of law and traditions before?
And running Obama would actually be the perfect counter, because no one could credibly contest it. The cultists would find a way, but it would be even more transparently comical than their usual rationalizations. But it’s the perfect, savvy, political move, and that’s why the democrats would never do it.
As I said before, by this point in his first term his reelection campaign had already been up and running and taking donations for over a year. He hasn’t even filed paperwork to create a campaign organization this time. That’s the single biggest sign that this is all talk and he knows it’s not gonna happen.
The US Army runs 4-1 Enlisted v. Officers. The officers have sidearms. The enlisted have automatic rifles and tanks and artillery and fuel/arm/maintain the planes.
Keep in mind that Hegseth’s whole schtick has been to tell the enlisteds that they are fat, useless, and bearded. And to recruit an officer corps that is similarly endearing itself to the pointy end of the stick. It may not end the way he thinks it will.
Since I wasn’t challenging that particular point all you’re doing is trying to beat us into submission by repeating your points whether they’re related to the comments you’re responding to or not.