Trump Could Maybe Refuse To Accept A Loss in 2020

Redneck NASCAR driver Ray Ciccarelli wrote:

I could care less [sic] about the Confederate Flag but there are ppl that do and it doesn’t make them a racist all you are doing is fucking one group to cater to another and i ain’t spend [sic] the money we are to participate in any political BS!!

So honoring generals who fought AGAINST the United States, and FOR slavery, is just "politics"?  What a moron.

Quote :

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters Thursday that President Donald Trump will resume campaign rallies on Juneteenth, a holiday marking the emancipation of slaves.

She claimed Trump will "share some of the progress that has been made" for black Americans. "The African American community is very near and dear to his heart. At these rallies he often shares the great work he has done for minority communities," McEnany said.  "He's working on rectifying injustices ... So, it's a meaningful day to him, and it's a day where wants to share some of the progress that's been made as we look forward and more that needs to be done."

How can Kayleigh's head not just burst into flames when she lies so outrageously?


Meanwhile, back in reality:

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Texas congressman and Congressional Black Caucus member Al Green tweeted: "Trump rally with rebel flags (a symbol of slavery and racism) in Tulsa, OK (the place of #TulsaMassacre) on Juneteenth (a day of emancipation recognition) is more than a slap in the face to African Americans; it is overt racism from the highest office in the land."

"This isn't just a wink to white supremacists -- he's throwing them a welcome home party," Sen. Kamala Harris tweeted Thursday.

Quote :

The Republican-led Senate Armed Services Committee adopted an amendment that would create a commission charged with renaming Army installations that bear Confederate names and removing their Confederate symbols.

I guess "creating a commission" is something.

Not much.  But something.

Map of Confederate statues in the US:

FINALLY!  Biden's campaign is doing something smart.  This is fucking brilliant!

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/republicans-against-trump-lindsey-graham-joe-biden_n_5ee44eb3c5b675e4528547a6

They are STILL not writing Trump off.

Quote :

But above all, the incorrigible resilience of the break-all-the-rules character who has dominated American life for five years may be the most important reason to view November's election as still competitive, along with the unshakable bond Trump has with supporters, who, if they turn out in droves, could give him a platform to reach for a second term. Indeed, as CNN's Maeve Reston reported this week, many Republican strategists say it's too soon to know how today's climate will shape November

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/19/politics/election-2020-donald-trump-presidency-turmoil/index.html

"Post-policy presidency" indeed.  Post-facts, post-reality, post-caring.

Nobody should write Trump off.

Salon: Investigative Journalist Predicts How Trump Will Steal Election

Quote :

In our most recent conversation, {Greg} Palast warns that Joe Biden's chances against Donald Trump are worse than the polls suggest because millions of Democrats will have their votes thrown out on Election Day. Moreover, many of those voters will have no idea that their votes were purged and therefore not counted.

Palast explains how the Republican Party has refined its strategy of voter suppression, voter intimidation and vote theft in elections across the country. Palast also highlights how the planned chaos during the recent Georgia Democratic primaries is a preview of how the Republican Party intends to steal the 2020 presidential election for Donald Trump.

Finally, Palast issues an ominous warning: Trump and the Republicans, he believes, are plotting to use the 12th Amendment to the Constitution to declare the popular vote and Electoral College results invalid, so that the 2020 presidential election will be decided in the House of Representatives — which, believe it or not, may well vote in Trump's favor.

If Trump isn't able to steal the election, he may use the covid crisis to postpone or cancel the election.  He wants to be just like his hero.

The first step to canceling the election will be canceling the Republican convention.  If that happens, I'll give 2:1 odds the election will be canceled too.

richard09 wrote:

Salon: Investigative Journalist Predicts How Trump Will Steal Election

Exactly HOW this would happen appears to be a bit of a mystery which even Palast isn't able to explain.  This is what he says in the above-referenced article:

Greg Palast wrote:

What I am very worried about is how Donald Trump and the Republicans could use the 12th Amendment to the Constitution to steal the 2020 election. We have had two presidential elections in the United States in which a candidate won both the popular vote and the Electoral College vote but did not become president.

A quick aside: Really?  When?

Greg Palast wrote:

The 12th Amendment states that if the Electoral College does not reach a majority, which is 270, the election then goes to the House of Representatives. How could that possibly happen with Trump and Biden in 2020? The answer is the rabidly right-wing legislatures in Wisconsin, Ohio and Florida say that there is so much voter fraud and that the mail-in ballots are not to be trusted. Trust me, those states are going to do things such as misprint ballots. Many "mistakes" are going to occur in those red states.

So the result could be that Wisconsin, Ohio and Florida do not certify their electors, and Biden has lost those three states' votes. There are still not enough votes for Trump, but Biden does not hit the 270 threshold in the Electoral College to be elected president.

The 2020 election now goes to the House of Representatives, where every state gets a single vote. New York, California and Illinois each get a vote. Wyoming, South Dakota and Oklahoma each get a vote. Who wins? Most state delegations are majority Republican, even though the Republicans don't control the House and have far fewer voters in America. But by the rules of the Constitution, Donald Trump could be re-elected even if he loses both the Electoral College and the popular vote.

The 12th Amendment reads: "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."

According to this website -- and they were speaking of the 2016 election --

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If no candidate receives 270 electoral votes, the House of Representatives will pick the president. Each state delegation gets one vote, regardless of the number of congressional districts it has. 26 votes, representing a majority of the states, are required to win.  Republicans are very likely to control the majority of delegations in the new Congress.

In the comments section, the 2020 election is addressed when user ZoetMB wrote:

Yeah, there is at least one tie scenario. If Biden wins Pennsylvania, Michigan and the one Maine electoral vote that Trump won in 2016 and Trump wins all the usual Red states won in 2016, including Wisconsin, and there are no faithless electors, it's a 269 tie. If there are faithless electors, it would still go to the House because no one would have 270.

But I don't think that's going to happen. I think Biden wins PA, MI and Wisconsin, which would give Biden a 278 to 260 win. There's a good chance he also wins Arizona, which makes it 289-249 and right now he's slightly ahead in Florida, which would make it 307-231 without Arizona and 318-220 with. If the virus is still a factor in Florida in November, I think Trump could lose it, but if life is back to normal, I think he wins it. But based on the voting in Wisconsin a few weeks ago, I think Trump has already lost it, which means he loses the election (as long as I'm correct about PA and MI).

If Biden wins the popular vote and the electoral vote, but doesn't have 270 because of faithless electors (I think there were 5 or 6 in 2016) and then loses in the House because even though there are more Democrats, there are more Republican states, I think Democrats will be so angry, things could get violent.

In short, without a strong third party candidate emerging in the next four months -- which I don't see happening -- the likelihood that neither Biden or Trump will achieve 270 Electoral votes is approximately slim-to none.

Palast is rather well-known as an alarmist blow-hard.

Max Boot thinks it'll be the Supreme Court, rather than the House of Representatives, that decides the 2020 election.

If that's the case, I tend to think "originalists" like Thomas and Alito would side with the Constitution over this president, and Roberts has shown himself to be no lover of autocracy.

NoCoPilot wrote:

In short, without a strong third party candidate emerging in the next four months -- which I don't see happening -- the likelihood that neither Biden or Trump will achieve 270 Electoral votes is approximately slim-to none.

Kanye West would like to be that Third Party candidate and throw the election to DJT, but he's starting out way too late (can't even get on the ballot in  Florida, North Carolina, Texas, New Mexico, Indiana, Nevada, Michigan, Delaware, and South Carolina -- and so far has only managed Oklahoma) and he's also saying stuff guaranteed to will piss off Black voters, the very ones he needs to siphon off Biden to swing the election.  I mean, how fucking stupid is he?

Kanye West wrote:

“Everybody that has a baby gets a million dollars,” he said as an example.

Kanye West wrote:

[Harriet Tubman] never actually freed the slaves, she just had them work for other white people.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kanye-west-criticizes-harriet-tubman-at-his-political-rally_n_5f1566f6c5b619afc403dc67

Apparently, he is very, very stupid.

The RNC is going to live-stream the convention August 24, but no press or spectators will be allowed.  Delegates will be expected to attend in person.

Thoughts:

1. Maybe all the delegates will contract COVID
   
   
2. Maybe fear of contracting COVID will cause a last-minute movement, among some of them, for nominating somebody else to represent them
   
   
3. Maybe a GOP coup within the party is their only hope of remaining viable for the next generation or two
   

The only Republican I can think of that the party might nominate is Mitt Romney.

If they nominate Mitt, he'd still lose to Biden in a landslide.

This summarises some really bad stuff.

August 2, 2020 Heather Cox Richardson

I'm changing this thread title from "Trump Could Win Again in 2020" to "Trump Could Maybe Not Lose in 2020."

Crucial difference.

I no longer think there's ANY CHANCE IN HELL he'd win a free & fair election, but it's looking more and more like we won't have one.

John Dean explains Trump’s cult as a doomsday cult, an end times cult, where nothing matters anymore because we’ll all be dead shortly, and maybe Trump’s Army will ascend into heaven.

This theory admirably explains why the cult’s members don’t care about reality anymore.

Some random voter on the news last night wrote:

I think Trump has done a pretty good job as president.  I wish he would stop tweeting, but I think he's been a good president so far.  I'm definitely going to vote for him again.

I'm starting to get a bad, BAD feeling about this election.

NoCoPilot wrote:

Some random voter on the news last night wrote:

I think Trump has done a pretty good job as president.  I wish he would stop tweeting, but I think he's been a good president so far.  I'm definitely going to vote for him again.

I'm starting to get a bad, BAD feeling about this election.

Oh yeah. I'm openly saying Trump's gonna win now. The riots are so gonna mobilize his base that it makes me wonder is his crew funding them.

Oh, there's no longer any question about that Jennie.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/man-helped-ignite-george-floyd-riots-identified-white/story?id=72051536
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/authorities-suspect-white-supremacists-and-far-left-extremists-are-behind-violence-at-protests/
https://www.virginiamercury.com/2020/07/30/did-white-supremacists-really-orchestrate-riots-in-richmond-its-complicated/
https://www.courthousenews.com/minnesota-officials-link-arrested-looters-to-white-supremacist-groups/amp/
https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-53018201

The question is whether Trump portraying himself as "the law & order candidate" will motivate anybody outside his 41% base to vote for him, because you can't win an election with 41% of the vote.  The Democrats will do their utmost between now and November to emphasize Trump's lawlessness while in office, to undermine that contention, and will point out that the images his campaign is using to scare voters about what America will look like under a Biden Administration are actually footage taken under the Trump Administration.

As usual, turnout will determine the outcome of the election.  A couple months ago, during the height of the BLM protests, I would have said the Democrats had a more motivated base.  Now I'm not sure.

Another high-profile murder of an unarmed black person could tip the scales. Ironically, this could come from Trump's own Proud Boys / Boogaloo Bois / Neo-Nazi / white supremacist / Barr's secret army / bubbas with AK47s (who are all related) ranks.

Biden is STILL the worst Democrat in the field of 29 contenders and the very most awful choice they could've made, but up against this president?  Honestly, a bag of alligator poop would beat DJT if the world spun on its axis without wobbling.

But if Trump manages to manipulate the election successfully:

If Trump is unsuccessful in queering the election, he may well decide not to accept a loss.

Can you imagine what a mess that is going to be?  If you can, you're a better prognosticator than me.

Chris Hayes said last night that Trump's entire success is due to Citizens United and a firehose of dark money (much of it Russian) aimed at enriching the superrich at the expense of everybody else.

Sounds like a reasonable conclusion.

Another reason why a more centrist SCOTUS is essential for our continued democracy.

Ah, Rachel has Trump’s plan for the election.

The Atlantic reported today that the Trump campaign is laying the groundwork, by claiming that mail-in votes are wrought with fraud, and by appointing a new justice before the election. What they plan to do, according to several Trump campaign insiders interviewed by the Atlantic, is declare all post-election-day ballots invalid. The state legislatures of Republican-led states will then choose their Electoral College electors, as Florida did in Gore v. Bush in 2000, regardless of the public vote.


The controversy over this will go straight to the Supreme Court, of course.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/09/24/gellman-atlantic-trump-transfer-power-election-vpx.cnn