Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

Piss weak Pence. The guy who had virtually decided to forgo his constitutional duty because he thought it would be too hurtful to his good friend Donald Trump. LOL Imagine being afraid of hurting the feelings of a psychopath. Seems, according to that account, Pence did not stand tall so much for the constitution as he did for what his son might think of him if he didn't do his duty. Looks his son pulled Pence back from the brink. If the account is true then Piss weak, Pence, is fair. Even Piss Weak Pence would be.

""Not feeling like I should attend electoral count," Pence wrote in his notes in late December. "Too many questions, too many doubts, too hurtful to my friend. Therefore I'm not going to participate in certification of election."
P - Then, sitting across the table from his son, a Marine, while on vacation in Colorado, his son said to him, "Dad, you took the same oath I took" -- it was "an oath to support and defend the Constitution," Pence recalled to Smith's investigators, sources said.
P - That's when Pence decided he would be at the Capitol on Jan. 6 after all, according to the sources."

That's new.

"Pence told Jan. 6 special counsel harrowing details about 2020 aftermath, warnings to Trump: Sources "

Flashback to 1800 -- When Alexander Hamilton Tried to Steal the Election of 1800

Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election results isn’t the first effort to change the outcome of a close race. In 1800, Thomas Jefferson faced a similar and chaotic post-electoral problem.

November 19, 2020 •
Editor-at-Large, Clay S. Jenkinson

[...]

The Two U.S. Constitutions

What this extraordinary story tells us is that we have two constitutions — the capital "C" Constitution drafted in 1787, ratified in 1788, and amended just 27 times in the course of American history. That Constitution is a brief document of just 4,543 words, which provides a general recipe for American governance but declines to specify exact procedures for many important American political institutions. Many provisions were left, as one historian puts it, in “studied ambiguity.”

Then there is the lowercase "c" constitution of the ways and means and norms that have emerged in the 232 years since ratification, including the cabinet, executive orders, executive privilege, senatorial courtesy, and much more. Those constitutional norms include the gracious concession of the loser in a presidential election, cooperation in the transition from one administration to another, faithful electors, mutual acceptance that “the people have spoken,” the loser’s appearance at his rival’s inauguration, and a high degree of self-restraint by former presidents in not opinionating on the leadership of their successors.

Theodore Roosevelt actually left the country on a yearlong safari in 1909 to give his hapless successor William Howard Taft the chance to establish his own regimen and presidential style, without everyone looking over Taft’s shoulder to see how the former president — infinitely more energetic and charismatic — reacted to his every utterance and every decision.

In the election of 1800, Hamilton, who saw his life’s work slipping away with the coming of the “democrats” into power, assaulted the barely rooted norms of American political tradition. He attempted to void the results of the election by what even he regarded as unscrupulous means. His nasty pamphlet about his own party’s nominee for the presidency broke later President Ronald Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment, “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.” In doing so, Hamilton split the Federalist Party and weakened its chances of holding onto the presidency. By 1805, after Jefferson won a second term by a landslide, the Federalist Party essentially blinked out of existence, in part because of Hamilton’s misguided actions in the election of 1800.

https://www.governing.com/context/when-alexander-hamilton-tried-to-steal-the-election-of-1800.html

If Trump's GOP could go the same way the U.S.A. would have a healthier future.