Are you willing to consider the possibility that a second trump term might occur if mainstream thinkers refuse to prepare for the possibility that Trump and key groups of republicans lawmakers will ignore the election results and the courts?
As you will see, there is more than one pathway for Trump to continue in the White House after the Pentagon enforces a constitutionally allowed method for making the people’s votes irrelevant. And since Trump’s success in this anti-democratic endeavor will mean that any future losing candidate has more to gain by following his example, the end result is that letting this happen could create a precedent which ends democracy in our country.
Let us start off by considering some evidence which suggests that Trump sees a path to victory by taking the United States down the same road that his friends Putin and Endogan used to provide a fig leaf of legality to excuse their continued rule.
Although no previous losing presidential nominee has been willing to sacrifice democracy in order to win, our constitution provides two ways for this to happen. Because state legislatures can ignore the voting by choosing a set of electors who support the candidate that lost the vote count, it is relevant to know that Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania all have Republican-controlled state legislatures.
And if the electoral college result is muddied by competing electoral college delegations, the House makes the decision under a one state one vote rule. Because most republican house members are in low population states with very few house members, the huge weighting in favor of small state house members gives republicans a winning edge. If recounts and court challenges don’t work for Trump, he can either reverse the results in specific states through voting in state legislatures or he can ignore the voting altogether by winning under the House weighted voting system which totally favors small states.
In terms of the votes cast, Biden won by about six million votes and by what is normally considered a landslide in the electoral college. Hence, one would expect that the larger number of people who voted for Biden along with others committed to democracy would have the majority when they take to the streets. However, the fig leaf of republicans using the constitution to ignore the vote will create a rationalization for the smaller number of pro-trump gun enthusiasts to fight the pro-democracy crowd to a draw if it comes to a civil war.
Only if he foresaw such a scenario, Trump would know that he would need a Secretary of Defense who would be willing to send troops to help trump partisans defeat a much larger group of pro-democracy protestors. With this in mind, Isn’t it logical that Defense Secretary Esper’s reluctance to order troops to fire on American protesters is why he was fired?
When combined with the Trump syncophants installed as the new secretary’s assistants, the firing of Esper almost certainly telegraphs Trump’s realization that his willingness to ignore the vote would require him to order troops to fire on those who disagreed.
By comparison, the arguments which pundits have used to explain why Trump recently changed three of the four top Pentagon leaders while making no comparable changes in other parts of the government make far less sense.
To truly understand what Trump is contemplating, focus on the fact that a wannabe strong man like Trump would need to make the DOD changes he did only if he knew that his own attempts to steal the election could force him to order the Pentagon to put down the resulting insurrection.
Do I believe that most Republican House members and state legislators are eager to end our 230-year history of electing our president? Of course not.
To overcome their reluctance to vote to ignore the election results, Trump’s people and many supportive commentators are stirring up the base by exaggerating or creating a variety of claims whose total effect is to cause millions to believe that the Democrats have stolen the election. Particularly since none of his lawsuits have merit, it is perfectly logical to believe Trump is creating bogus lawsuits in order to stall until the electoral college meets. At that point, the 85% of the Republican voters whose primary loyalty is to Trump might turn on any Republican lawmakers who are reluctant to endorse Trump’s power grab. This will pressure fence sitting house and key state legislative lawmakers to go along or be unemployed themselves.
What logical basis is there for mainstream thinkers who usually have trouble thinking “out of the box” to assume that what is going on now could not lead to a civil war and a Trump second term? You are either assuming that Trump will stop his norm breaking and disruptive behavior when his own future hangs in the balance or you are assuming that most republican legislators are just too committed to democracy to ignore their own supporters greater loyalty to trump.
What about Trumps behavior convinces you that there are limits to his willingness to do anything to win?
Benjamin Freeman writes from Newton Square, Pa.
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November 25, 2020 at 09:27PM
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