US Election 2020

[Tero]

Trump and GOP to mess with electors at state level

Now the Trump campaign is said to be considering another, even more outrageous approach: In a thorough and deeply disconcerting piece about the constitutional crisis that may await us between November 3 and the inauguration in January, the Atlantic’s Barton Gellman reports that the Trump campaign has been discussing “contingency plans to bypass the election results and appoint local electors in battleground states where Republicans hold the legislative majority.” Citing the president’s baseless claims of fraud, Team Trump could ask GOP-controlled state governments to choose electors, completely ignoring an unfavorable or uncertain popular vote, state and national Republican sources told Gellman.

“The state legislatures will say, ‘All right, we’ve been given this constitutional power,’” a Trump campaign legal adviser explained to the Atlantic. “‘We don’t think the results of our own state are accurate, so here’s our slate of electors that we think properly reflect the results of our state.’”

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/09 ... ype=earned

[Scot Dutchy]

Nobody is bound to protect a dictator here Dutchy.

Who is going to stop them if Trump declares martial law?

[Sean Hayden]

If those responsible for removing a would be dictator from office fail to do so, then that's carte blanche to revolt, and everybody is free to take their shot. I sincerely hope that we can count on global support to remove him from office should he lose and refuse to leave.

--talk about an insane discussion!

[Tero]

I think Trump will declare Martian law.

[Sean Hayden]

[Scot Dutchy]

Just think of the worst case scenario. Trump loses by a landside in the popular vote but wins the EC which is what happened the last time and again nobody does anything. But if he loses by just a view votes in the EC? What then?
Demands a recount after recount. Just who would stop him?

[NineBerry]

Marital law?
Maritime law?
Martinian law?

[Sean Hayden]

That's not illegal Scot, and it would not likely be considered justification for revolt by most people. However, losing the election, and attempting to hold onto power through force would be grounds for revolt, and everyone would be free to stop him and his party.

I'm not sure why you think loyalty to him is so high that he can coerce everyone to go along with a literal coup. Even those who have waited for the system to work have seemingly done so begrudgingly.

[Scot Dutchy]

Ok Sean but he has the backing of the 1% and we all know what they want.

[Sean Hayden]

To die horribly behind Trump?

--//--

This is all rather crazy, isn't it? If he loses he'll leave, bitchin and moaning, and confirming his followers crazy conspiracies, but still leaving.

[Sean Hayden]

If he's talking like that it's because his idiot followers love it, not because he's capable of staying.

I think that he might say those things because he's a pathological disputer and disrupter. We've seen the pattern so often: he always dodges the context or subtext, assumes difficult questions are all heavily pregnant gotchas, and just says stuff to confound and shut the conversation down. Surely the media can see this by now? He's a parody of a politician when he tries to do the talking-without-saying thing, because he's simply not a politician - he's a spoilt rich kid who thinks respect is everybody hanging on his every word as well believing he's absolutely entitled to fulfil whatever whim or fancy bubbles up and floats across his forebrain.

Yeah, that sounds good. Do you remember when people were saying he might be an evil genius?

[laklak]

Thanks. I see two senators per state, so does this mean that the Republicans will hold the Senate even if Trump loses?

Yeah, two Senators per state. The House is based on population. Each state is divided into House districts, each district has one Representative, residents of each district vote ONLY in their district. Senators, conversely, represent the entire state, so everyone votes for the senators. Senators serve for 6 years, so 1/3 of the Senate is up for grabs every two years, but only ever one Senator from any given state at a time, you'll never get both senators standing for election at the same time. Representatives serve only 2 years, so every two years 100% of House seats are contested. So it could go either way. I've no idea what's going to happen, this is a total crap shoot. Either party could take complete control of the Presidency, Senate, and House.

Originally Senators weren't elected, they were appointed by state Legislatures. The idea was the Senate represented the States, while the House represented the citizens of each state.

It looks complicated, but the structure is designed, specifically, to avoid the "tyranny of the majority" by insuring that all states, large and small, are equal in the Senate, but their relative strength varies in the House. I think this is a good thing (along with the Electoral College), but a lot of people disagree. It's going to be VERY hard to change it (either the senate or the college) because it requires Constitutional amendment(s) to do so, and it only takes 13 states to block an amendment. There are plenty enough smaller states who generally support both the senate and electoral college to prevent it.

[Tero]

No fair! Biden has been talking politics 47 years!

And:
"His son and him, he knew everything ... stole money from Russia, this just came out. Three and a half million bucks they got," he added. "He was in charge of Russia, then they say I'm soft on Russia. I'm actually the toughest there ever has been on Russia."

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump- ... e-show.amp

[L'Emmerdeur]

Apparently the Postfutzer General of the US has ensured that every one of the sorting machines he had removed is no longer operable, and cannot be made operable.

'DeJoy Tells Judge Mail-Sorting Machines Can’t Be Reassembled'

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy told a judge the U.S. Postal Service can’t reassemble the hundreds of high speed mail-sorting machines that were taken apart this year, a project that more than a dozen states allege was intended to undermine the upcoming election.

A nationwide injunction issued last week in Yakima, Washington, should be amended to acknowledge that the machines can’t be put back together, DeJoy and the USPS said in a filing in the case on Wednesday. The machines, dismantled under a DeJoy initiative, were stripped for parts to improve or repair other machines, they said.

“It is therefore not possible to return such machines to service,” the USPS and DeJoy, a major Republican donor, said in the filing.

Really, the US government should just give the Postal Service to one of the competitor companies that DeJoy owns stock in, then everything would be so much better.

Together, DeJoy and Wos [his wife] may claim up to a total $75,815,000 in assets from U.S. Postal Service competitors, according to government records.

[source]

[JimC]

If those responsible for removing a would be dictator from office fail to do so, then that's carte blanche to revolt, and everybody is free to take their shot. I sincerely hope that we can count on global support to remove him from office should he lose and refuse to leave.

--talk about an insane discussion!

Oz will send a gunboat!