The fear of many on the Left is that Team Trump will somehow steal the 2020 presidential election. He's a hateful bully, right?
Could the GOP do it? Sure. Could the Democratic Party? Sure. Theft has been a part of the political process for years, perhaps centuries.
Two thoughts from people who get paid to think (and write) about "taking the election."
Thought one: Will Democrats concede if Trump wins?(author Shadi Hamid of the Brookings Institute)
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/09/democrats-may-not-be-able-concede/616321/
I find myself truly worried about only one scenario: that Trump will win reelection and Democrats and others on the left will be unwilling, even unable, to accept the result.
I struggle to imagine how, beyond utter shock, millions of Democrats will process a Trump victory. A loss for Biden, after having been the clear favorite all summer, would provoke mass disillusion with electoral politics as a means of change—at a time when disillusion is already dangerously high. If Democrats can’t beat a candidate as unpopular as Trump during a devastating pandemic and a massive economic contraction, then are they even capable of winning presidential elections anymore? Democracy, after all, is supposed to self-correct after mistakes...Liberals have had enough trouble accepting the results of the 2016 election.
How could so many of their fellow Americans side with a racist and a fabulist, someone so callous and seemingly without empathy? It was easier to think that those Americans had been lackeys, manipulated and deceived, or that they simply hadn’t understood what was best for them. Moreover, the Russians had interfered, and tipped the balance in an extremely close election through propaganda, fake news, and collusion with the Trump campaign.
If Trump manages to win, recent polling data indicate, he will likely do so despite losing the popular vote. That will fuel disillusion not just with the election outcome but with the electoral system. The popular-vote numbers will be used to argue that Trump won without winning—again. In theory, this could be a good thing, if it birthed a mass movement to change the way Americans choose their presidents.
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Thought two: will Democrats use the "Nuclear Option" to blow up the election?
(author Kristin Tate)
But would Democrats accept such an outcome? There is a chance that legislatures in blue states could effectively overturn the election result through a means available in the Constitution. This nuclear option has never been tried before, but it could tear the country down.
If Trump has a narrow victory in one or more blue states, or a contested result, there is a chance that the process would be completely taken out of the hands of voters. A new precedent and a clause in the Constitution may lead us to the perfectly legal case where Trump wins the mandated number of states, yet Joe Biden is sworn in on January 20.
The electoral votes are counted by Congress on January 6, as the Constitution declares that if there is no winner of at least 270 electoral votes, the election is thrown to the House, which is divided by state delegations of representatives. The election for vice president is thrown to the Senate. Since the count of electoral votes comes after the new Congress convenes, the party with majority control of the branch could determine the fate of the president.
Democrats are already meeting to wargame what might happen if Trump wins in a narrow margin. Leaked strategy sessions suggest Democrats do not trust voters, under our current system, to select the president. In one campaign discussion, the former Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta was playing Biden and called for the governors to send their own delegations of electors in any states that Trump wins by a narrow margin.
Democrats have their fingers on the button to destroy one of the pillars of democracy. (which I think is over the top logically...but so is Trump "stealing" the election IMO)
You decide. What say you?
P.S. May be worth watching.
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