No, but the opposition that the left once fronted to the NSA's surveillance has withered in the past ten years or so and (some) republicans have picked up the slack. Not too long ago the "war on terror" was considered to be the road to authoritarianism, now democrats are openly championing making it a new domestic war on terror. To those who opposed the war on terror from the beginning it's scary how quickly this opposition was abandoned by some once they could be the ones to wield it.
Democracy isn't a king of the hill match, if some loonies managed to take over the capitol they'd just get siege'd out.
How do you honestly think this would go? they take the capitol and trump shows up and says "im the president for another term" then everyone goes home and ignores the corpse of Mike Pence?
They destroy the certifications of the electoral votes from the states (as almost happened[0]), causing various states to (disingenuously) disagree about how to replace the lost documents.
Enough FUD (and lawsuits, and delays) would be generated during this period of public disorientation that the Republican party could exploit the ambiguity of the Constitutional phrase "a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed"[1] and trigger the contingent election procedure described in the Twelfth Amendment.[2]
Since a majority of states at the time had Republican representation, they would have elected Trump and the Democrats would have not been able to stop them, even if Trump did eventually let them back into the Capitol.
So your thinking is that the republican party, which by and large already disagreed with trump(to the extent a republican was the alleged "target" of the riot), would side with him after his supporters murder Mike Pence, said republican?
You can dislike republicans all you want but this is just another level.
I wasn't supposing that the insurrectionists would succeed in murdering Pence, or that the entire Republican party would unanimously back Trump, just that enough Republican-run states would raise questions about the legitimacy of the (replacement) electoral certifications (which they might refuse to produce) in order to trigger the contingent election.
In such a circumstance, it's hard to imagine the state delegations of Republican states deciding to throw away a perfectly legal and constitutional opportunity to elect their guy to the presidency. If it makes you feel any better, I would expect Democrat delegations to vote for the Democrat candidate if there were ever a contingent election, even if that candidate didn't have a plurality of electoral votes (perhaps at least justifying their decision by pointing to the popular vote, which their candidate might nevertheless have won).
If the US is so fragile that a box of paper is somehow key to the stability of an entire empire, we're pretty much doomed.
Also your statement that "Since a majority of states at the time had Republican representation, they would have elected Trump" is laughable. It's well known that Trump asked multiple Republican governors to "find some votes" and they obviously did not do this. Even if someone is a demagogue that doesn't make them willing to commit a career ending felony. After all, being a demagogue got them a long way. Not by falsifying election documents.
None of them did this because it has an absolutely awful cost v benefit ratio. In the present scenario they are likely to have a bright political future where the maximum downside is likely to be a political fizzle followed by a lucrative retirement whereas maximum downside of attempting to overthrow government is death or prison.
Comparatively playing for time, doing nothing, and then voting Trump are all low risk activities which is why it is entirely believable that they should come to pass.
>Also your statement that "Since a majority of states at the time had Republican representation, they would have elected Trump" is laughable.
Actually, it's not. The way this works (I really hope you're not an American, because if you are you really should know this) is that if the counting of electoral votes is sufficiently disputed (in this counterfactual case, the vote certificates were destroyed), deciding the outcome of the election rests with the US House of Representatives.
If that were (and it has, several times in US history), to happen the members of the House would vote (on a state by state basis, not each representative voting individually) on who was to be the President.
Since a majority (26 or 27 out of 50, IIRC) of states have Republican majorities in the number of House members, a House vote would likely have gone Trump's way[0].
This is something of a peccadillo of the US Presidential electoral system that probably should be reformed[1], but it currently is the law of the land.
[0] Which is why it was so important (at least for the Trumpists) for the proceedings to be disrupted. It was the final opportunity for them to overturn the clearly expressed will of the people.
[1] Because regardless of which party's state cohorts have a majority, that's a supremely undemocratic way to choose the winner and is a relic of the state of the states (as essentially separate nations banding together for defense) in the late 18th century.
>Under that logic, the US was over thrown back in 2000 when the supreme court decided the outcome of an election.
That's a really reductive (and, in my view, incorrect) take on the issues in Florida in 2000. It was a hot mess, and I think (IANAL, so I may well be talking out of my ass) the Supreme Court should have kicked this back to the Florida courts, but all such activity was within the bounds of the US Constitution.
The absence of the Supreme Court decision in Bush v. Gore, at least AFAIK, wouldn't have changed the outcome of the election.
I'd be interested to know what logical steps lead from what I wrote to "Bush v. Gore overthrew the US government."
Would you mind sharing that line of reasoning? Because It's not at all clear to me how you got from point a to point b. Thanks!
N.B.: I did not vote for George W. Bush in 2000 (or 2004, for that matter)
The government follows the processes of the government. That's how it works. Keep in mind, there is literally 1 mention of the Supreme court in the constitution. It says Congress can "ordain and establish it". It doesn't say anything about Congress authorizing the Supreme Court to decide the outcome of elections, which is what happened. So if we strictly stick to this idea that somehow one election is this critical, then the US government ended back in 2000. The electoral college results were basically just discarded by SCOTUS and Bush was appointed president.
Your argument is that "Republican governors" could follow the processes of the government to somehow influence an election. I don't even think what you're describing is possible. But if it is, well that is the government just following it's own processes. If that makes you upset, you apparently feel that our government is not legitimate. The Republican vs Democrat vs whatever is irrelevant. If the government decides it doesn't like the outcome of an election & throws it out, that's the governments choice.
You're in the same boat that somehow champion's the idea the Roe v. wade is the "correct" decision of the Supreme court on abortion. Guess what: the supreme court basically just goes with whatever is popular at present. You love the idea of the fairy tale high school civics course where the US is some bastion of righteousness & freedom. How many times did the Supreme Court rule that slavery was all fine & dandy? Apparently enough we fought a war over it and had to get Congress to authorize amendments explaining that slavery was in fact not OK.
Neither democracy, nor decency, nor legitimacy, nor corruption are binary. One can say that the 2000 election was decided in a corrupt way while understanding that even such a decision left the electoral process largely as functional as it was in 1996 and decisions on the relative merits of different courses of action are left to be judged on their own merits. All your arguments are games and non arguments that refuse to engage with any topic at all in a meaningful way.
Your comment doesn't reflect anything I wrote, nor does it even reflect the ideas underlying what I wrote.
So I'm still not clear what chain of reasoning you're using here.
I'll recap my statements to make sure I'm being clear.
You said:
>Your argument is that "Republican governors" could follow the processes of the government to somehow influence an election. I don't even think what you're describing is possible.
That's not my argument at all. Nor did I mention state governors (Republican or otherwise). Rather, I was referring to the 12th Amendment which states, in part:
"The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice."
[emphasis added]
As I stated in my initial comment, 26 states[2] had Republican majority delegations. Had the election gone to the House for resolution, it's likely that Trump would have been elected (Or maybe not, given the 10 Republican Representatives who voted to impeach Trump) by a vote of 26-23(or 24). Which, of course, would be in direct contravention of the November, 2020 election results.
That's to what I was referring in the comment[1] to which you originally replied. It's not clear to me how following the process set out in the 12th Amendment is akin (or even related, except that it concerned a Presidential election) to the events leading up to and including the 2000 Bush v. Gore decision.
As for the 2000 Presidential election, I'm not clear what you're getting at WRT to an "overthrow" of the government.
Since Marbury v. Madison[3] in 1803, it's been the case in the US that the US Supreme Court is the "supreme" court.
While there have been numerous (some of which you mention) "supremely" bad decisions by that court, and, in fact, as I stated in the second comment[4] to which you replied), I thought Bush v. Gore shouldn't have been decided by the US Supreme Court.
Whether you approve or disapprove specific Supreme Court decisions (I disagree with many myself, not least of which is the Dobbs decision BTW), that doesn't invalidate the decisions.
What's more, the results[4] of the Florida election, while having been reviewed repeatedly, show a really close election which could have gone either way, dependent on a multitude of factors.
All that said, for both elections, the circumstances and outcomes, while hotly debated, were certainly within constitutional bounds.
I still don't get the logical line of reasoning that takes you from the 12th amendment to the decision in Bush v. Gore. Primarily because you haven't provided one.
What's more, you seem to be ascribing a whole bunch of beliefs and attitudes to me which I do not hold.
Your complete original statement was "causing various states to (disingenuously) disagree about how to replace the lost documents"
If "various states" happen to "disagree" then it has to be a statement issued by the governors and legislature of those states. The members of Congress are most definitely not "the states". They are popularly elected nowadays and are not selected by the Governor or by the legislature of their home state. They have actually zero authority in their own state.
If a bunch of Congressional representatives happen to disagree, that's just Congress disagreeing. Congress can make whatever rules it wants with regards to a presidential election (see Bush v. Gore as I already stated) including delegating the results of that election to the Supreme Court. I suppose in fact they could actually explicitly pass Federal law determining the outcome of a local school board election if they wanted. In fact, I wouldn't even be surprised if such a law exists already in some form.
If you can't understand that "the states" is not Congress, you have no understanding of the United States.
Coups need weapons, you know. Preferably tons of them, and generally involve fun activities like killing or summarily imprisoning your political opponents.
Somehow a huge swarm of a generally armed demographic left their guns at home when attempting a 'coup'.
Or maybe they just went to protest what they thought to be a wrongful state of affairs, and the situation devolved into a riot. Who knows. Maybe you can pull off a coup against the United States with selfie sticks instead of F15s.
You're arguing against a strawman if you think the claim is "Every Trump supporter who turned up to the Capitol was part of an armed militia attempting to violently take over the government". The claim is merely that among the Trump supporters were some armed individuals who were prepared to do whatever it took to stop the process of counting the electoral votes, which would have potentially been enough to change the outcome of the election.
The fact that his supporters almost succeeded despite most of them not being armed should be a cause for more concern rather than less, since it shows what a soft target they were attacking (and presumably some were at least subconsciously aware of that, which might have influenced their decision to not bring their weapons).
Anyway, as for your specific claim that they "left their guns at home", I refer you to this[0] article from last year:
"At least three people arrested in connection with the insurrection are facing charges for carrying firearms on Capitol grounds. At least eight others carried knives or tasers at the Capitol, including two defendants who allegedly committed assaults with tasers, according to FBI and court documents. Multiple others arrested downtown and in the vicinity of the Capitol had rifles, pistols, explosive materials, and large supplies of ammunition. And communications among numerous January 6 suspects detailed in court documents indicate that many of their fellow insurrectionists were armed with guns."
> a sudden and decisive action in politics, especially one resulting in a change of government illegally or by force.
It is an attempted coup to ask election officials,courts, and then lawmakers to toss out legitimate ballots or wholesale discard or modify results in order to change the outcome of an election and then attempt to intimidate lawmakers with a show of force and violence intended to convince them in the presidents own words to "show some strength" by which it is meant illegally discard democracy in favor of fascism.
This statement by you reads like an apologist for a rapist disregarding allegations by virtue of re-defining rape to mean a stranger dragging a poor misdirected maid into the bushes.
It also reeks of a peculiar strategy that suggests we dismiss the actual by virtue of how little sense the strategy makes in the cold light of day. To this day I refer to this as the Connie defense in honor of an erstwhile house guest who while living in my home stole and then explained when caught that she wouldn't possibly have done that because it would be such an extreme disadvantage to do so for such a small gain. Indeed it was and I don't logically need to explicate her stupidity in order to allow the evidence of my own eyes to trivially convict her and put her out of my house like Fred Flinstone's cat.
The same women got a vehicle towed because she was speeding down the highway, while smoking a joint, and driving without a license. I doubt the Connie defense availed her then either.
We all saw the attempted coup on TV. Personally I watched it in real time on multiple monitors showing the news cameras view on one side and the insurrectionists on the other side. I saw months of blatant lies followed by a plea directly issued by the president to intimidate lawmakers and an organized if badly organized attempt to intimidate lawmakers. It happened. There was no stolen election and indeed only one side was working double time to steal it for Donald Trump.
If you think a plot to kill a governor is somehow destabilizing to the United States, you should probably read about Rod Blagojevich. The guy tried to sell a US senate seat. Corruption has a much farther reaching effect than any single assassination.
I'm really bothered by the way you casually conflate an actual war in the middle east---the longest war in American history, by the way---with a metaphorical war on domestic violent extremism and neonazism. these are two very different things.
I used quotes to indicate I'm not talking about the war itself but about the surveillance state established in the aftermath of 9/11 (and shenanigans such as the pushing of mentally ill people into acts of terrorism they would never have committed without interference), which is the clear parallel politicians themselves want to draw when they say "war on domestic terror" (unless you believe they want to start another civil war by deploying troops in the states). Same as one would with "war on drugs".
