What if Trump does not leave If He Loses in 2020?
There is a number of comments and commentary about the 2020 election and what if Trump refuses to leave. I put up a few and also a good article from Vox.
– A comment (ken_lov) stolen from another site I frequent and read from time to time:
“From time to time on other websites I’ve outlined a scenario where the Supreme Court agrees with Trump that the 2020 election was irreparably tainted by fraud and interference from abroad, and consequently issues an injunction ordering the electoral college not to meet. The constitution provides no guidance about what should happen in such a situation. Trump would therefore be free to act more or less as he saw fit, especially if Republicans had a majority in at least one chamber of Congress and resolved that he was the lawful president.
It’s disappointing how many liberals refuse to take this seriously, based on nothing more than faith in American institutions. I would have thought the last 19 years should have shaken that faith beyond repair. It’s terrifying that the survival of constitutional government may depend on Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s ability to live another 18 months.”
The comment does raise unanswered questions in how a nation would react to Trump defiance and a right-leaning SCOTUS might decide. The issue is whether the left as Ken_lov suggests takes this scenario seriously. Pelosi has already commented on the topic. Perhaps, we have answers or know better?
Trump joked about serving “10 or 14 years” during his rally in Panama City Beach, Florida, on Thursday. It wasn’t the first time he said something like that during a speech.
Trump: “This was an illegal coup attempt on the President of the United States.” Dan Bongino on @foxandfriends True!
Trump: “The election is absolutely being rigged by the dishonest and distorted media pushing Crooked Hillary – but also at many polling places – SAD”
Trump: “This election is a total sham and a travesty. We are not a democracy!”
The ground work appears to have been laid by Trump.
– Pelosi: “We have to inoculate against that, we have to be prepared for that,” Citing her concern as a reason Democrats should strive to “own the center left and own the mainstream” during their 2020 campaigns. And forgo the Green Deal and Medicare-For-All.
“If we win by four seats, by a thousand votes each, he’s not going to respect the election. He would poison the public mind. He would challenge each of the races; he would say you can’t seat these people. … We had to win. Imagine if we hadn’t won — oh, don’t even imagine. So, as we go forward, we have to have the same approach.”
Are we too naïve and trusting?
“If He Loses” doing a lot of heavy lifting there with uncle Joe the front runner. My mother in Kansas (70) told me this morning in my Mother’s Day phone call she’s just sure he’s “The best chance we’ve got to beat Trump”.
I love my mom but she couldn’t be more wrong about this. Joe Biden nomination = Trump’s 2nd term.
My thought — hope? — is that refusing to leave office after losing an election, no matter how many objections Trump raises, would be an immense shock to his partisans. Trump supporters purport to view him as a “normal” President, unfortunately beset by irrationally hyper-vocal liberals and socialists. Sending a state recount off to the Supreme Court for adjudication in 2000 was a departure from the ordinary, made acceptable to most of us by Al Gore’s acquiescence. If Trump holes up in the White House and tries to prevent the inauguration of a rival in 2021, that event will NOT be seen — anywhere in the world — as “normal American politics.” Even his most partisan supporters will not be able to argue that this is how our government is supposed to operate.
I’d expect the Second Armored Division (or more likely a squad or two of federal marshals and some high ranking Justice Department honchos) to seal off the White House on Jan 20, 2021, give the sensible inhabitants a couple hours to depart, and then enter to seize and arrest the “unauthorized occupants.”
I do not think we’d spend weeks or months screwing around with lawyers and lawsuits and Supreme Court deliberations and Congressmen screaming about committee hearings. And I don’t imagine angry taxpayers ringed about the White House throwing rocks at the windows. In a age of nuclear weapons and ICBMs the country can’t spend an indefinite period without an agreed national leader, so if no one else steps up to the task, I’d expect the Joint Chiefs of Staff or perhaps the outgoing or nominally incoming Sec of Defense to give the orders — using the military to replace a recalcitrant politician with an elected civilian president may be outside the Constitution, but it’s very far from being a coup.
He will be arrested. Nothing more or less.
Sorry AS, but your point is irrelevant
You may have misunderstood his comment?
Mike,
You may be naive here. The scenario I have been worrying about since Trump took office is much harder line than all this namby-pamby getting SCOTUS to order the electoral college not to meet after a close election. Why have an election?
When I look at the harder line of Trump followers, I often think; “What would they do if he were to declare a national emergency and martial law before the election and just cancel it?” Plenty would support him.
Now I do not think that would work now. The military probably would not obey the orders. But let there be an increase in international tensions, even a war or two, which could easily happen given Trump’s increasingly outrageous and haphazard foreign policies, and with an increase in terrorism. Such a situation might alter the atmosphere and let Trump and his allies make the case for this.
Maybe the SCOTUS scenario is more likely, but in fact in history declaring martial law has been how dictators take control, and quite a few governments in place right now have done exactly such, including some whom Trump admires.
Barkley:
Perhaps I am the naïve one in this case. I assume Trump always looked for justification for doing things. In which case, SCOTUS would give him the legitimacy for doing what he would do in declaring the election illegitimate. I believe we are at a junction where we must do something. It is almost as if the process of impeachment of the president is being forced upon us.
I hope Pelosi is wise enough to make the decisions.
Barkley —
Having elections is pretty well baked into American culture. I can’t imagine them being cancelled or even much postponed except in exceptional circumstances — widespread floods might delay voting in Louisiana for a week, that kind of thing. Plus national elections coincide with local elections everywhere — Trump might want to skip Presidential elections but all over the place people will be expecting to vote on governors, senators, congressmen, mayors, school board members, tax commissioners, etc. Is Trump going to put off all of that as well? Barring a war actually on USA soil — massive urban revolts, the Mexican army storming into Texas, Korean ICBMs falling on NYC and LA, that sort of thing — it’d be hard to make any case for putting off elections, even for Trump partisans.
Other hand, I can kinda see Trump or some future President in his set of shoes deciding to put off Presidential elections because he was absolutely certain he’d lose, and his supporters going along because they had the same opinion and would rather have an unelected Republican president than a vile satanic abortion-loving elected Democrat, That might be. But it’d virtually be the start of civil war — States like California would insist on having elections anyhow and reporting the results, and the internet will be filled with stories about Trump defeats. I don’t think the US military would sit it out either and I don’t think all of it’d come down as Trump supporters,
How is a president supposed to stop California putting the presidential candidates on their ballot and reporting their results?
Send in the tanks I guess?
Jeff —
I don’t think the tanks would go. Imagine you’re one of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or Secretary of Defense. Even if you loved Donald Trump like your wife and first born son, would you give the orders that caused US soldiers to shoot to kill protestors demanding that this country hold free elections? For all the fame you’d be certain to gain in future history texts, for all the prayers and thanks American clergymen and their congregations would send you the following Sunday?
Mike:
I believe he is being tongue in cheek in commenting.
As I mentioned in the post: “From time to time on other websites I’ve outlined a scenario where the Supreme Court agrees with Trump that the 2020 election was irreparably tainted by fraud and interference from abroad, and consequently issues an injunction ordering the electoral college not to meet. The constitution provides no guidance about what should happen in such a situation. Trump would therefore be free to act more or less as he saw fit, especially if Republicans had a majority in at least one chamber of Congress and resolved that he was the lawful president.
It’s disappointing how many liberals refuse to take this seriously, based on nothing more than faith in American institutions. I would have thought the last 19 years should have shaken that faith beyond repair. It’s terrifying that the survival of constitutional government may depend on Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s ability to live another 18 months.”
Trump declares a National Emergency claiming foreign meddling in the election process and invalidates the results of the presidential election. Blue States sue in SCOTUS and the court rules in Trump’s favor. It could be that simple. The election process occurs but is invalidated by Trump claiming massive illegal voting. He has been claiming illegal voting for the last couple of years now.
Accoding to the GAO in funding the ACA Risk Corridor Program, the administration can not fund programs although the Administration can allocation money from other programs. What stopped the Obama Adminsitration from allocating funding from other healthcare programs is the insertion by Jack Kingston (R-CO) of Section 227 in the (signed December 16, 2014) 2015 Crominbus Bill which was the budget. It stopped the administration from allocating other funds to the Risk Corridor Program. Congress does have pursue it can close off any funding for a National Emergency.
Democrats are too open and naive to pull something like this off. They could have stopped Kingston if they had read the bill. Democrats could have stopped it in the Senate by forcing them to go to Reconciliation through filibustering. Neither the House or the Senate Dems caught it and it passed.
Trump could declare martial law like Barkley suggests and use foreign meddling as the reason. You can get your own little message on your cell phone from Trump along with many more. He could cut off cell phone and internet service under martial law.
Trump is an issue and a scary issue at that due to his narcisstic ego and near insanity.
Yes, and see Jeff Greenfield’s comments on Politico about how the election could be derailed pursuant to the constitution’s actual provisions for state legislatures to empower their electors or an election thrown into the house to grant each state ONE vote. We live in anxious times.
Jack:
How the 2020 Election Could Go Off the Rails in Three Easy Steps
I would not place to much faith in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan voting Repub again in the presidential election. The first two went Dem since 1988 and Michigan since 1992 in National elections. The Koch Bros poured $millions into WI to defeat Feingold and elect Johnson. MI had 75,000 ballots which were never counted and in which red ink was used for the president, mismarked, or unmarked. Schuette made that decision. PA, I did not investigate. All three states had historically high votes for Libertarians, Green, and other candidates. Only Wisconsin had a lower turnout since 2012.
I am hoping people do not believe the lies from Republicans this time.
I’m not saying it will happen; I’m saying it could and these days it’s wise to live in awareness of Murphy’s law.
Jack:
I understand and am just correcting misconceptions about two states I have lived in and a third state.
“We can not have free government without elections and if the rebellion can force us to forgo or postpone a national election, it might fairly be claimed to have conquered and ruined us.”
Abraham Lincoln September 1864