Tornado Alley (PROG)

[blackhawks]

So if Trump actually refuses to quit after losing the 2020 election — what happens then?

It's a nightmare scenario: His defeat was "fake news," and Trump tries to stay in power. Would democracy survive?

I like option #4 below. Let get the Joint Chiefs on the record about where they stand on this potential issue. You KNOW they're discussing it amongst themselves. "Let's hope the civilians dick around with this so that we can roll those tanks up PA Avenue for a purpose that Cadet Bone Spur never envisioned".

https://www.salon.com/2019/06/23/so-if-trump-actually-refuses-to-quit-after-losing-the-2020-election-what-happens-then/

A February editorial for CNN by Joshua A. Geltzer, the executive director and visiting professor of law at Georgetown Law Center's Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, offered some clues as to how our institutions might come through.


Geltzer argued that there were four ways in which the mechanisms of American democracy could save the day.

First he brought up the Electoral College, arguing that both parties could require anyone seeking to be an elector to promise not to delay, withhold or alter their vote based on the objections of a candidate. Then he suggested that members of Congress (and candidates) could make a similar pledge, since it's their job to count the electoral votes.

Geltzer also suggested that Congress could "pledge to hold public hearings with intelligence community leaders should those officials or any candidate suggest that vote counts were influenced by foreign election interference or for any other reason. That unvarnished testimony by intelligence professionals could debunk any claims by Trump (or any other candidate) that the final vote count shouldn't be honored."

Next Geltzer speculated that America's 50 governors — 39 of whom won't be up for reelection in 2020 — could vow to stand behind whoever the rightful winner is, regardless of whether they supported that candidate in the election.

Finally and perhaps most disturbingly, he suggested that the military could save democracy, writing that if Trump loses "the military would no longer owe its loyalty to Donald Trump as of noon on January 20, 2021. And it's worth asking the Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as they testify before Congress in coming months, to affirm that they understand that and would act consistently with it."

There is one more possibility that Geltzer did not take into consideration. If Trump contests the election results through the judicial system, the election could wind up being decided in the Supreme Court. This is not just conceivable but entirely plausible, since it happened before with the Bush v. Gore decision of 2000. But there could be a crucial difference. Al Gore clearly disagreed with the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision that put Bush in the White House, but he accepted it without question.

By contrast, one would expect Donald Trump to refuse to accept any Supreme Court ruling that goes against him, eagerly citing the words of any dissenting opinion to support his claims. Chief Justice John Roberts might then find himself in a position not unlike that of Chief Justice Earl Warren nearly 70 years ago.

When the Warren court decided the fate of segregation in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case, Warren understood that the ruling had to be unanimous. Warren himself was firmly against racial discrimination, but knew that defenders of racism would seize upon even a single dissenting vote as justification for defiance and confrontation.


Roberts, although a conservative, is well-known as an advocate for judicial nonpartisanship. One theory holds that he voted to uphold the Affordable Care Act mostly because he didn't want the Supreme Court to be viewed as a wing of the Republican Party, and may make the same choice in a vote on whether to overturn Roe v. Wade.

As Warren did, Roberts would need to convince the other judges to unanimously reject any spurious election claims by Trump — if only to ensure that the court retains some vague claims to impartiality. It wouldn't be enough for Roberts to side with more liberal judges in a 5-4 or 6-3 decision.

He'd somehow have to convince Sam Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas to set aside their obvious political preferences and go along with a 9-0 ruling on the legitimacy of the election results. How likely does that sound to you?

It's also possible, of course, that things will never reach that stage. Famed civil liberties attorney and former Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz insists that concerns about Trump not stepping down are exaggerated. "No president will refuse to step down if his opponent is elected in his place," Dershowitz told Salon. "It just will not happen, and the American public would never tolerate it." Dershowitz is known to have spoken out in Trump's defense on the question of impeachment and related topics, so perhaps he knows something the rest of us don't.