Read on Twitter
All of the "if the President did something so profoundly unconstitutional as to trigger the most massive constitutional crisis since the civil war" catastrophizing is always "true" in the sense that it'd be an apocalypse and technically possible, but useless.
1/ https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1288892210902118403
1/ https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1288892210902118403
The logic behind all "this is the first step in a bid to dictatorial power is always the same as "there's a weird hard thing in my arm, it must be a tumor, if it's a tumor it's cancer, if it's cancer it's spreading..."
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When Alex Jones screamed about how any terrorist attack is a false flag because that's how they get people to support gun control, and that lets them disarm the populace, and a disarmed populace can't fight to stop FEMA death camps, it's the same thing.
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In all versions there's a key step, let's call it the godzilla threshold, where the argument becomes "he could then seize dictatorial power and if enough people supported him it could work". In this case:
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Look at just how many moving parts are required to make this work. Enough states would need to refuse to send electors that Biden doesn't win a majority of possible electors outright, (263 counting just states with Democratic Secretaries of State, 267 with Hawaii).
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Literally ONE SINGLE Republican SoS who doesn't want to individually be the end of American Democracy kills the plan. But let's assume they're all pro-fascist.
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For his idea to work, democrats (who would still control the House and in absence of a majority for any Presidential candidate would be able to choose who won) would be forced to "sue" to validate the result they control. For some reason.
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I'm not clear why Democrats would be obliged to sue rather than say "don't send your electors, then, Article I is clear what happens and in case you're thinking "well Republicans can chose Trump" note that it has to be someone the electors voted for".
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But therein lies the problem @SethAbramson:
Your scenario both breaks down in a number of ways, requiring both every Republican elected official to be profoundly evil (I won't argue), and every Democratic elected official to be cravenly stupid.
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Your scenario both breaks down in a number of ways, requiring both every Republican elected official to be profoundly evil (I won't argue), and every Democratic elected official to be cravenly stupid.
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There's no reason in the midst of that constitutional crisis for Democrats (who, in your scenario, have the only constitutionally-accepted means of choosing a president at their disposal) to decide to side with fascism for the appearance of legitimacy rather than the reality
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You might as well speculate (if, as @SethAbramson seems to, you must) Trump could order the military to occupy Democratic cities, enforce martial law, prohibit voting in them, and if the military did so (in contravention of the law and constitution) "whatever would we do"?
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And that brings us back to the initial problem: the catastrophes could always happen. The president could do something to seize power and if the people required to go along with it went along with it, boom fascism.
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As a final note, @SethAbramson, buddy:
If you didn't learn "that impeachments are about politics, not law" until January 2020 you need to sit in a quiet room for a while and think about whether you should be commenting on this kind of thing.
13/13
If you didn't learn "that impeachments are about politics, not law" until January 2020 you need to sit in a quiet room for a while and think about whether you should be commenting on this kind of thing.
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