The tally is 26-24 Republican to Democrat, but you also have to bear in mind that several of those GOP governors are never-Trump Republicans. Vermont & Maryland for sure. Even Massachusetts’ Baker and Ohio’s De Wine have shown tendencies to resist Trump lately.
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Also, not all Republican politicians are interchangeable, soulless and spineless members of the Cult of Trump; and not all of Trump’s actions are equal.
I can very easily see people who are willing to use subtle means to disenfranchise the “wrong” voters, still balking at the idea of outright canceling the election. One is just business as usual; the other is literally participating in an illegal coup.
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I don’t think he thinks that far in advanced. But I am sure plenty of Republican senators do.
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There’s nothing he can do about it. The Repubican Party, on the other hand, is perfectly willing and able to break any laws and ignore the Constitution to tip the election in their favor or find a way to bock it altogether. Their survival as a Party depends upon it, and they are desperate to remain in power.
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He’s just a couple of sexual harassment allegations short of going full Oliver Stone at this point.
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I can’t look at an electoral college map without thinking that it’s theoretically possible to win the presidency with as little as 25% of the vote, assuming a two party race. Just win a little over half the vote in states totaling half the population, and you can get zero percent of the vote in the rest and it won’t even matter. That’s not even taking third parties or faithless electors into account. This system is such bullshit that it can’t even look fair.
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For Trump to use COVID as an excuse to stop the election. . . .
People die for the sake of the economy = OK
People die for the sake of the election = NOT OK.
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NPR did this exercise and came up with 23% of the popular vote:
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The Constitution prohibits lots of stuff. And it depends on a functioning system of checks and balances to enforce those prohibitions. Anyone who thinks we can depend on those checks and balances somehow magically kicking in at this point to save us should Trump and the GOP decide to toss the election results is kidding themselves.
I agree that we’re having an election, whether he wants it or not. The question is what happens if/when the President declares the results of the election invalid, the DOJ says that widespread mail-in voter fraud for Democrats occurred, and the Senate agrees the election doesn’t count? There is no deus ex machina that steps in at that point.
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Can’t happen and it should not be repeated. It makes us look bad.
It made the other side look like idiots when they said Obama would not leave office. And repeating this makes us look like idiots.
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Hopes and prayers.
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Not sure if you’re agreeing or just being snarky, but I’ll cling to that cold comfort which keeps me sane; thanks.
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House members are reelected every two years. If there’s no election, her term ends January 3.
I heard someone play this out as a thought experiment and I forgot where they ended up. Congress calls the election and they’re administered locally. So it depends on how the cards fall for a lot of things separate from the President.
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Obama never disputed the legitimacy of a national election. Trump already has, even though the results of that election put him in office. We would have to be hopelessly naive to just assume he will play by the rules in an election that would remove him from office.
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Agreed. We are already no longer a nation of laws, but of men. There are no checks and balances in government, separation of powers ceased to exist, and the current occupant of the White House is not - and does not feel - constrained by anything other than his own imagination.
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What? That old thing? As long as he doesn’t do anything about gun ownership, his base couldn’t give a fuck how much he mangles and undermines the Constitution. Take as evidence the last four years.
With all the gerrymandering and other hijinks (threats to withhold blue state funding if they allow mail-in ballots, etc) they are engaged in, I feel like the Hail Mary will be to cancel the election, if the GOP can’t cheat their way to a win “legitimately.”
For anyone pointing out that the Right said that Obama would do the same thing back in the day, please consider; what the Right says their opponents are going to do often turns out to be the thing the Right will do if given any chance. And right now, they have the chance.
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True, but it comes down to who is going to enable him if he tried. For the last 3+ years our Republic has kept its existence largely due to the laziness and incompetence of those actively trying to destroy it.
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The federal government does not run elections. The states do. It’s not clear to me what gambit trump could use to compel the 50 states to cancel their elections.
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Who would remove him if he tried?
Seriously. If he just declared himself the winner of the election and refused to vacate the office peacefully (neither of which seem far-fetched) is there any way he gets forcibly removed without widespread violence both inside and outside of government?
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