That’s a very misleading characterization, as though I were against it in general terms, rather than in a specific national emergency.
You are aware, aren’t you, that Lincoln didn’t exactly do everything by the book? Yet he is generally considered our greatest president.
Really? You can’t imagine anything he might do that could be worse than cutting some constitutional corners?
Pakistan has had many coups and will have more. Elections are adhered to only as long as the army feels like they can live with the results.
Dude, “cutting some constitutional corners” is why we’re in the slow-motion constitutional crises over appointing members to the Supreme Court. In that crises, the wheels of justice will grind out an answer eventually.
You appear to be advocating the armed takeover the United States President and the installation of an un-elected figurehead. That’s not something we can walk back from or hope to change at the midterm elections. If that’s not what you meant, please mansplain your OP to me, because I really didn’t get it. In the meantime I’m going to go look up Musharraf.
No, not a figurehead. A fully functional president who isn’t a Manchurian Candidate.
No, it’s a very precise and accurate description of what you propose. You can wrap it up in whatever clothes you want, but it represents a complete overhaul of US Constitutional democracy.
I hate to burst your bubble, but this is always true in every country.
You are saying the army wouldn’t live with a Trump presidency? Your OP asks if Trump would be “allowed” to take office. Who is doing the disallowing in your imagined scenario?
No it is not. You made it sound like I was against there ever being a peaceful and democratic transfer of power, regardless of the candidates involved.
The military, the intelligence agencies, the bureaucracy.
How does this happen, exactly? Which military leaders are your proposing would do this and what is it about their politics that makes you think they will?
What you need is some kind of barrier the army isn’t allowed to cross, like a river or something.
This says all I have to say further on the subject.
It’s not their politics. (After all, I’m proposing replacing him with a Republican.). It’s the threat that is recognized by all those high ranking Republican national security experts and officials.
This thread reminds me of people who ask, “Why don’t the 24 million people in North Korea simply rise as one, speak with one voice, act as one, and topple their dictator?”
Because it’s exceptionally difficult to arrange a revolt or coup d’etat without being caught. All it takes is one person in your midst to leak your plans for you to be in serious, serious trouble.
In America, a military general wouldn’t be shot for trying to arrange a coup d’etat against Trump, but there would be severe career consequences. And now you think that we can get many generals together on the same page, and many soldiers, and many in the Secret Service, together, to have a coup?
Yes. Trump would be allowed, and I fully support a peaceful transition to his presidency, as much as I am against it. The premise is absurd.
Nah, the military and security apparatus will do what they always do, and what they did with Obama. They would sit him down and carefully, slowly, repeatedly until it sinks in, explain to him how thing really work in the world (in their view). They will do this until they get him on board. No need for a “coup” when you’re already in charge.
Aw heck. As long as everyone else is piling on, I might as well join in.
When FDR died in 1945, the military didn’t stop Truman from taking office even though there was a war going on and nobody knew what Truman would do.
When Kennedy was elected in 1960, Eisenhower didn’t put Nixon in office, despite the fact that Kennedy was rumored to have stolen the election, and Nixon was Eisenhower’s vice president.
When Nixon beat Johnson, Carter beat Ford, Reagan beat Carter, Clinton beat Bush 41, Bush 43 beat Gore and Obama beat McCain, the military didn’t take over just because political power changed hands.
Everyone knows the proper way to get rid of a democratically (small “d”) elected leader is to administer fast-acting poison and call it a massive heart attack.:dubious:
Even if this were to happen, he could always take the Oath of Office somewhere else, and go to his equivalent of Camp David until those pesky people were dealt with.
Much as I hate the idea of Trump being President, I would hate tenfold the idea of him being denied the Presidency after being duly elected.