Trump's Coup d'état.

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The major issue about Trump managing to win this is that if that happens, then Democracy is dead in the US because from that point on all a Republican that loses an election has to do is declare that they lost due to Election Fraud by the Democrats, and the other Republicans will overturn the result. This means that they will never be able to be removed from power because any election they lose will have to be because of Election Fraud and the results can be overturned, and the will of the people ignored. That's what the fight is about, and while it seems that there are still some in the Republican Party that believe in democracy in some form, that number seems to be shrinking and the number that believe in a fascist state under Republican control appears to be steadily growing.
What, you don't want me to sleep tonight?
 
If this went before the SCOTUS, all one need argue is if the 'originals' had wanted the Congress too have such power they would have explicitly given Congress the power to elect the POTUS.

And if that were true, the POTUS would never be a check on the legislative branch.

If you are going to go all "originalist" on this, doesn't it pretty much imply anything goes?
 
As an interesting aside:



We’re now living in an age of opacity, as Rudy Giuliani pointed out in a courtroom recently. Here was the exchange:

“In the plaintiffs’ counties, they were denied the opportunity to have an unobstructed observation and ensure opacity,” Giuliani said. “I’m not quite sure I know what opacity means. It probably means you can see, right?”

“It means you can’t,” said U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann.

“Big words, your honor,” Giuliani said

Julie Annie went to law school, passed the bar and doesn't know the difference between the words "transparent" and "opaque"? How is that possible?
 
If you are going to go all "originalist" on this, doesn't it pretty much imply anything goes?

I'm not following, what are you talking about?

Do I think SCOTUS members who claim to be originalists actually are?

No, Scalia proved that many times over.
 
What's weird about this is that the Pennsylvania state legislature, or at least its leadership, already said Pennsylvania would not make any attempt to appoint its own slate of electors, overriding the popular vote. Then you have a group of legislators trying to get Congress to invalidate Biden's electors.

I guess they want their names attached to a futile gesture, vs. a controversial decision to try to overturn the slate of electors at the state level.

Ooh, looky: Per Newsweek, Those people listed as signing didn't really sign?


Need to explore.

ETA:
However, a "clerical error" led to the signatures of at least six GOP lawmakers being included without their permission. The signatures of state Representatives Chris Quinn, Todd Polinchock, Megan Schroeder, Wendi Thomas, KC Tomlinson and Tom Mehaffie were all erroneously included in the letter, according to Pennsylvania Capital-Star reporter Stephen Caruso.

ETA2: The word of the day is "eviscerate" - it popped up in both a Michigan story and a Nevada story. (Re: Trump lawsuits)
 
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And I've just seen the third instance of the "eviscerate" word, this in the Nation article linked to above:

After all, can anyone really doubt that representative democracy as it once existed has been eviscerated ...

Three times in one day.
 
What's weird about this is that the Pennsylvania state legislature, or at least its leadership, already said Pennsylvania would not make any attempt to appoint its own slate of electors, overriding the popular vote. Then you have a group of legislators trying to get Congress to invalidate Biden's electors.

I guess they want their names attached to a futile gesture, vs. a controversial decision to try to overturn the slate of electors at the state level.

Ooh, looky: Per Newsweek, Those people listed as signing didn't really sign?


Need to explore.

ETA:


ETA2: The word of the day is "eviscerate" - it popped up in both a Michigan story and a Nevada story. (Re: Trump lawsuits)

Didn't they do signature matching?

ETA: In all seriousness, the letter appeared to have had real signatures. I suppose they actually used digital copies in a digital document, so no one actually "signed" anything at all, and then they used names of people who didn't really want to sign? The mind boggles.
 
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What's weird about this is that the Pennsylvania state legislature, or at least its leadership, already said Pennsylvania would not make any attempt to appoint its own slate of electors, overriding the popular vote. Then you have a group of legislators trying to get Congress to invalidate Biden's electors.

I guess they want their names attached to a futile gesture, vs. a controversial decision to try to overturn the slate of electors at the state level.

Need to explore.

Didn't they do signature matching?

ETA: In all seriousness, the letter appeared to have had real signatures. I suppose they actually used digital copies in a digital document, so no one actually "signed" anything at all, and then they used names of people who didn't really want to sign? The mind boggles.

This is ALL SHOW. The Pennsylvania State legislature isn't in session and cannot be called in to session without a super majority and the Democratic governor signing off. They will get neither.

Basically, they are appeasing the nutobs they depend on for votes.
 
This is ALL SHOW. The Pennsylvania State legislature isn't in session and cannot be called in to session without a super majority and the Democratic governor signing off. They will get neither.

Basically, they are appeasing the nutobs they depend on for votes.
The 75 (69?) signees are asking the U.S. Congress to toss out Biden's electors - which would have to be approved by both houses. So yeah, this is virtue signaling, not an expectation to change the outcome.
 
The 75 (69?) signees are asking the U.S. Congress to toss out Biden's electors - which would have to be approved by both houses. So yeah, this is virtue signaling, not an expectation to change the outcome.

Virtue signaling is pretty annoying, but sometimes it's at least virtuous.

I'm just totally appalled elected Americans could do this, even if it has no chance of winning.
 
This might be virtue signaling now, but what if the incumbent had a Majority of both Houses of Congress?
I think it would still be a very tough sell. As far as I can tell it is the very last of the obstacles before inauguration and it has never gotten anywhere. It could get a lot of people thrown out of office and is a terrible precedent.

It would be a highly risky and untested maneuver, and I don't see it happening without an absolute commitment to pull off a genuine coup, because at that stage there's no other word for it.

Really with Trump it comes down to if he really has the balls, and he doesn't. But someone else might.
 
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The 75 (69?) signees are asking the U.S. Congress to toss out Biden's electors - which would have to be approved by both houses. So yeah, this is virtue signaling, not an expectation to change the outcome.
You say. These people don't have a firm grip on reality, and they have seen what Trump has achieved by refusing to follow established norms (including respecting the law). I think they are arrogant enough to think that they could succeed, and I don't for a moment believe they would pull back if it looked like they actually were. Trump has injected a poison into our political system which will take a long time to flush out, if ever.

What amazes me most about these people is their sense of entitlement. Trump is the winner and nobody is going to take that way from them. How dare those 81,255,933 Biden voters conspire against their king! In 2016 we kept hearing about how Hillary didn't deserve to be president because she felt 'entitled' to it - turns out that was just projection as usual. Now we have a president who acts like he is a king and they are all for it.

They didn't care what the popular vote said, and now they don't care what the legal vote says either. They will do anything to keep their king in power, including promoting insane conspiracy theories or even just straight out lying to subvert justice, even though they know that they are in the minority. Democracy? Pfft! They don't care what's fair and right or about abiding by the rules, and disenfranchising millions of voters is no problem for them. They must be the winners of this election because they are entitled to it.
 
Either that, or they consider themselves to be the first, last and only line of defense
against the worst scum of the universe (aka Democrats).
 
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