“No worries! If we just allow Trump to exceed the power granted to him by the Constitution and delay the election, he will cease to be President because that would violate the Constitut—oooohhh.”
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We need to be vigilant, not complacent, but it also makes no sense to give up or give in to despair.
While more people now see Trump as the fascist that he is, there is good news: he is incompetent, and has pissed off too many factions within the government to accomplish the coup that he would need to stay in power.
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Will there be enough federal thugs to go around?
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My point wasn’t that we should “allow” the election to be postponed. Only that this is another example that the person who “knows the system better than anyone”, clearly doesn’t. I would have thought that obvious.
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I disagree with the implication that the logical or likely outcome of delaying the election would be “Trump isn’t President anymore.” He’s been wiping his ass with the Constitution since he took office and few people in positions of power seem willing or able to stop him.
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It’s hard coded into the Constitution - his exit is January 20th.
Does he want riots? Because he’s about to get more riots.
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All fair points, and I should be clear that I’m not saying anything is a certainty, much less that he would certainly succeed.
But what scares me is that in trying to do the things he’s very obviously and explicitly laying the groundwork to do, it has the potential to bring down our system of government as we understand it. You may be correct that he couldn’t accomplish the coup he envisions because he’s upset too many factions, but I’m not sure our system survives that test. And he’s simply not interested in leaving behind intact institutions–if he can burn it down on the way out, he’ll do it. And that’s only half a step away from being literal.
I should also note that observing that the guy driving the bus is telling us all that he’s planning on steering it over a cliff isn’t giving up or giving in to despair. I sincerely hope Trump doesn’t put any of these plans into motion, and if he does, that they are easily quashed without serious damage. But I think our country should prepare itself for other options, as well.
Yes. Desperately. He wants riots, he wants conflict, he wants a Reichstag fire.
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Yes? I mean, he at the very least wants riots more than he wants to admit he’s going to lose the election. But as long as they’re gonna happen anyway, he probably figures he might as well invest in some Blackwater* stock, fortify the whitehouse and throw some red meat to his federal goons…
As the epic twitter thread posted above stated quite nicely:
https://twitter.com/AlexandraErin/status/1288828208754888704
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What if California doesn’t cancel its election, and Nancy Pelosi is reelected?
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There will still be two presidents on that day though, and Trump won’t be the legitimate one. This might cause problems regarding the military, where senior officers already seem pissed off at Trump. They swore an oath to protect the US against all enemies, and Trump declares himself to be an enemy if he tries to stay in office without an election.
This will not be pretty, but it should be the future we expect.
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Same result, different president.
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a more optimistic take:
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I think he wanted to do Portland with real military forces, but was given a definite NO.
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It was a bit rhetorical… 
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Plus, if he tries to pull that shit, it will indeed be the last straw for military leaders. They wouldn’t even have to take direct action - all they would have to do is make it clear to Dem governors that, if they call up the National Guard to protect their own state’s elections, that the military leadership will not step in to command those units. That insulates them from presidential control. National Guard units vastly outnumber Trump’s ICE/CBP goons across the board.
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I want to USE some goddamn guillotines!
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The emoluments clause is “hard coded into the constitution” as well. How has that worked out? We cannot rest on the “but that is unconstitutional” argument. He does not care.
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