ArkieDukie wrote: ↑September 25th, 2020, 7:32 am
[1] Our best hope is that he loses, and loses BADLY.
dudog wrote: ↑September 25th, 2020, 7:45 am
[2] The problem (for them) with tossing absentee ballots, it could just as easily hurt them. You really don't know if you're tossing one of your own votes.
ArkieDukie wrote: ↑September 25th, 2020, 7:32 am
[3] The only chance we have is if my colleague is correct about the Supremes.
From this morning’s discussion, I’ll focus on these points.
[1] AD is right. I’d go so far as to say the only way to avoid a constitutional crisis is for Biden to win so clearly, including winning several toss-up states by a solid margin, that it would be obvious even to a substantial number of “reluctant” Trump voters that Biden has been elected. Such a result isn’t entirely unthinkable. It would save the country.
But this optimum result isn’t likely to be known on election night. The longer it takes for Biden’s “obvious” victory to become obvious, the more mischief Trump fanatics can churn up. So although not unthinkable, an indisputable Biden landslide isn’t probable.
[2] I’m not entirely certain about the exact process by which Trump local and state election officials will implement Trump’s “Get rid of the ballots.” Although just dumping ballots in several battleground states would toss votes cast for both candidates, the working assumption is that a higher percentage of Trump voters will vote in person. Hence, chances are that “invalidating” a significant number of ballots will hurt Biden
Moreover, not only do I not discount the possibility that in selected areas Trump election officials will have found a way to distinguish between Biden and Trump ballots, I expect exactly that. I’ll guess that not all of our traditional safeguards will safeguard this election. Trump will do anything he can get away with, as will some of his supporters. Anything.
[3] I assume there’s a significant chance the Court will decide the election. Until RBG’s passing, Roberts had become the Court’s swing vote. I’ll guess Roberts will vote with the 3 liberals, and that Alito, Thomas, and the new justice will vote for fascism.
The keys, I’ll guess, will be Kavanaugh and Gorsuch. I worry that Kavanaugh will not be able to overcome the memory of what he sees as his outrageous treatment by Judiciary Committee Democrats. Will Kavanaugh want revenge?
If yes — this is all best-guess speculation — that would leave Gorsuch as the deciding vote. My worry there concerns Gorsuch’s judicial philosophy: “originalism” and “textualism.” I could see Gorsuch honing in on the following phrase in the Constitution, Article II, Section 1, Paragraph 2: “Each State shall appoint,
in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors....”. Because Republicans control the state legislatures in several battleground states, even if Biden appears to have won said states, these Republicans will appoint an “alternate slate” of electors, pledged to support Trump.
Even in cases of obvious attempts by Republican-controlled legislatures to overturn the vote in their state, Gorsuch’s “originalism” and “textualism” can amount to the narrowest, anti-democratic “literalism.” In which case, Gorsuch could argue that the Founding Fathers empowered state legislatures, not voters, to select the electors to the Electoral College. He could — “reluctantly,”I have no doubt — rule in favor of Trump electors.
I am not confident that 2 of Roberts, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh will uphold democracy. I just don’t know. I hope I am wrong, and that AD’s friend is right. I hope that both Trump and I are misreading the Supreme Court. As long as I’m hoping, I’ll hope for a 9-0 decision repudiating the fascists’ attempt to overthrow our constitutional democratic republic. Given the praise among Trump supporters for a “generational conservative Court,” a repudiation by that conservative Court of an attempted coup would go a long way to breaking our fascist fever.
