US Politics: The Roll Call Heard Across America

[Guest]

So, if Trump does manage to spark a succession crisis after the election, what happens with the presidency? 

I'm not talking in the sense of Trump refusing to leave the WH, because Roberts would just swear in Biden anyway, but in the sense of him managing to spark a genuine succession crisis where Trump and/or Republicans are able to drag out the SC decision into February, for example, where Roberts may be precluded from swearing in Biden.

[DMC]

3 hours ago, Paladin of Ice said:

A quick reminder of how actually, acutely awful many Republican candidates and Republicans who are about to join Congress are:

Loomer is not about to join Congress.  Her district is D+9 and Lois Frankel, the incumbent, won by 27 points in 2016 and ran unopposed in 2018.  Loomer will lose.

28 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

So, if Trump does manage to spark a succession crisis after the election, what happens with the presidency? 

I'm not talking in the sense of Trump refusing to leave the WH, because Roberts would just swear in Biden anyway, but in the sense of him managing to spark a genuine succession crisis where Trump and/or Republicans are able to drag out the SC decision into February, for example, where Roberts may be precluded from swearing in Biden.

I'd imagine Pelosi (or whomever is Speaker) would serve as acting president until the situation is resolved.

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, DMC said:

Loomer is not about to join Congress.  Her district is D+9 and Lois Frankel, the incumbent, won by 27 points in 2016 and ran unopposed in 2018.  Loomer will lose.

I'd imagine Pelosi (or whomever is Speaker) would serve as acting president until the situation is resolved.

That's what I was considering, but given that Trump has shown that an uncomfortable amount of the wielding and transfer of power in the U.S. political system is based on custom or tradition.

I know that Trump/Pence will no longer be president, but I'm wondering if the presidency passing to the Speaker in this instance will be automatic, or if it could be something else that gets drawn out.

[DMC]

9 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

That's what I was considering, but given that Trump has shown that an uncomfortable amount of the wielding and transfer of power in the U.S. political system is based on custom or tradition.

Not that, it's codified.  As long as the House elections take place and Pelosi is sworn in as speaker on January 3, she would become acting president on January 20 if the situation still wasn't resolved.  The law is clear.

[Kalbear]

16 minutes ago, DMC said:

Not that, it's codified.  As long as the House elections take place and Pelosi is sworn in as speaker on January 3, she would become acting president on January 20 if the situation still wasn't resolved.  The law is clear.

So is the hatch act and the emollients clause.

[DMC]

7 minutes ago, Kalibear said:

So is the hatch act and the emollients clause.

Violations of the Hatch Act found by the OSC have been ignored long before Trump, and the emoluments clause has always been meaningless.

[Kalbear]

19 minutes ago, DMC said:

Violations of the Hatch Act found by the OSC have been ignored long before Trump, and the emoluments clause has always been meaningless.

Why would the above codified rules not be treated likewise? When have we as a country ever failed to decide on a potus before? The notion that its settled law before it has ever been tested is wrong on its face. 

[HoodedCrow]

If one had enough clout, as Trump does with tweets, one could choose a target company, tell your friends and business associates to short that company and cash in when that companies stock goes down after bad mouthing.

[DMC]

12 minutes ago, Kalibear said:

Why would the above codified rules not be treated likewise? When have we as a country ever failed to decide on a potus before? The notion that its settled law before it has ever been tested is wrong on its face. 

Because you're comparing the succession act, which never has had to be activated, to two laws that have been violated - frequently and long before Trump - yet still not enforced.  The comparison is not valid.

[Zorral]

6 hours ago, GrimTuesday said:

In case anyone is wondering why California is failing to contain the wild fires that are burning basically out of control, turns out it was because Gavin Newsome released a bunch of inmates early because prisons are a major spreading point of covid. Here is a delightful bit from a New York TImes article

Corona Virus Limits California's Efforts to Fight Fires with Prison Labor

The fact that California uses an exploitative practice is bad, the fact that their ability to fight wildfires hinges on that practice is a whole other issue. It would be one thing if these inmates were being appropriately compensated for their service, or even just paid minimum wage, but the fact is that they are paid 2-5 bucks a day plus a dollar an hour to put their lives on the line w I'm sure some people comfort themselves with the idea that after they get out of prison these inmates can go out and become firefighters professionally, but aha nope. From this LA times op-ed from last year

California has systematically underfunded it fire fighting capabilities because they have been able to fill that gap wit laborers who are one step up from being slaves and now are paying the price. Congratulations Cali, your unethical practices have come back to bite you.

It's all connected historically -- economically, politically and socially, even down to emergency natural disaster crews, isn't it (most of the incarcerated populations are of color -- and poor).

This morning there's a Marine Dem retweeted on Bill Gibson's Twitter feed, who warns us from where he lives within a huge maga country enclave, that they hate 'us' with almighty passion, they are voting.... it's all about white vs everyone else -- and women. If you can only get it by giving over all power to the insane, and destroying what's left, and dying too, so be it. Long rage the covid-19 hoax! as proclaimed by relative undergoing chemo for cancer in a rally in a hospital waiting room of fellow unmasked cancer victims.

It merges well with Jon Meacham on the history of the revisionist Glorious Lost Cause history of the War of the Rebellion -- which bean immediately. (In truth, it began at least as soon as Vicksburg fell, with Davis and others suddenly dropping 'slavery' from their cause for fighting -- though it was top and center in their constitution as a 'nation' and the secessionist state constitutions.)

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/23/books/review/lost-cause-meacham.html?

Quote

 

Quote:
[....]Here, then, was the ur-text of the Lost Cause, of the mythology of a South that believed its pro-slavery war aims were just, its fate tragic and its white-supremacist worldview worth defending. In our own time, the debates over Confederate memorials and the resistance in many quarters of white America, especially in the South, to address slavery, segregation and systemic racism can in part be understood by encounters with the literature of the Lost Cause and the history of the way many white Americans have chosen to see the Civil War and its aftermath.

To Pollard, the Southern side had fought nobly for noble ends. “The war has left the South its own memories, its own heroes, its own tears, its own dead,” he wrote. “Under these traditions, sons will grow to manhood, and lessons sink deep that are learned from the lips of widowed mothers.” Pollard declared that a “‘war of ideas,’” a new war that “the South wants and insists upon perpetrating,” was now unfolding.

And in many ways it unfolds still. The defiance of federal will from Reconstruction to our own day, the insistence on states’ rights in the face of the quest for racial justice and the revanchist reverence for Confederate emblems and figures are illuminated by engaging with the ethos of which Pollard so effectively wrote. He enlarged on his thesis in “The Lost Cause Regained,” published in 1868. Pollard wrote that he was “profoundly convinced that the true cause fought for in the late war has not been ‘lost’ immeasurably or irrevocably, but is yet in a condition to be ‘regained’ by the South on ultimate issues of the political contest.” The issue was no longer slavery, but white supremacy, which Pollard described as the “true cause of the war” and the “true hope of the South.”

The Civil War, then, was to be fought perennially....

 

We're already fighting our second civil war -- but while they are using their guns and everything else already, we insist on pretending it hasn't happened yet and it won't happen because we are going to win (one) election.  Which latter is in NO WAY assured of happening either.

[TrackerNeil]

27 minutes ago, DMC said:

Because you're comparing the succession act, which never has had to be activated, to two laws that have been violated - frequently and long before Trump - yet still not enforced.  The comparison is not valid.

I feel as though this speculation, while an interesting intellectual exercise, isn't doing anyone much good. My suspicion is that if Trump refused to leave the WH, despite losing an election, he'd be laughed at and ignored and, come January, he'd slink away regardless. (He's got a track record of scuttling away from any conflict in which he's not championed by other, more experienced, politicians, and I don't think even Moscow Mitch is going to stick his neck so far as to defy an election.) I guess we'll see what happens or, if Biden loses, we'll never know.

That said, I think we should assume that Trump will violate any norm he dislikes, and the Republican Senate will fail to hold him accountable. So, for example, if a Supreme Court vacancy occurred in late December, Trump would nominate a replacement and the GOP would confirm that nominee, even with two days left in his term and without hearings. The media talking heads will scream, and the intellectuals will waggle a finger...and Americans will move on.

[DireWolfSpirit]

I hope any prison labor used for wildfire fighting is through voluntary involvement and not something they can mandate the incarcerated carry out?

That's far too risky a task to have forced on anyone.

[SpaceChampion]

And thus democracy in the USA was saved (if it spreads to every state):

Washington Postal Workers Defy USPS Orders And Reinstall Mail Sorting Machines

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, DMC said:

Not that, it's codified.  As long as the House elections take place and Pelosi is sworn in as speaker on January 3, she would become acting president on January 20 if the situation still wasn't resolved.  The law is clear.

If people follow it. What happens if Trump loses and contests the election if Republicans still control the Senate? Do you think they'd recognize an interim Pelosi Administration, should it come to that?

[Martell Spy]

51 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

If people follow it. What happens if Trump loses and contests the election if Republicans still control the Senate? Do you think they'd recognize an interim Pelosi Administration, should it come to that?

Many Senate Republicans are already looking past Trump. Also, Trump is directly in the way of the ambitions of some of them, such as Cruz, Rubio, Rand Paul, Cotton etc.

[Guest]

13 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

Many Senate Republicans are already looking past Trump. Also, Trump is directly in the way of the ambitions of some of them, such as Cruz, Rubio, Rand Paul, Cotton etc.

It's a pretty sad commentary on the state of America that whether or not a possible coup happens may depend on the naked political ambitions of a few right-wingnuts.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

4 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

It's a pretty sad commentary on the state of America that whether or not a possible coup happens may depend on the naked political ambitions of a few right-wingnuts.

That's been the case for a while now. Beto would probably be a Senator right now if he had the guts to call Cruz out regarding how Trump called his wife ugly and said his father may have been a coconspirator in the JFK assassination, yet he bent the knee. Seems mighty Canadian of him to do such a thing in deep red Texas....

[Tywin Manderly]

2 hours ago, TrackerNeil said:

That said, I think we should assume that Trump will violate any norm he dislikes, and the Republican Senate will fail to hold him accountable. So, for example, if a Supreme Court vacancy occurred in late December, Trump would nominate a replacement and the GOP would confirm that nominee, even with two days left in his term and without hearings. The media talking heads will scream, and the intellectuals will waggle a finger...and Americans will move on.

Should that happen, and the Dems would have taken control of the Senate again in the November election, they should pack the SC big time.

[TrackerNeil]

1 hour ago, Tywin Manderly said:

Should that happen, and the Dems would have taken control of the Senate again in the November election, they should pack the SC big time.

In my view, the Republicans have already started packing the court, with the Gorsuch appointment. Democrats should simply continue that practice.

[DMC]

3 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

If people follow it. What happens if Trump loses and contests the election if Republicans still control the Senate? Do you think they'd recognize an interim Pelosi Administration, should it come to that?

What the hell would be the point of that?  All that'd do is shut down the Senate and it'd look terrible politically.  Plus, as mentioned there's the political ambitions of many Senators.  Plus, all the Dems would need is enough defections to get to 51 Senators for a quorum, at which point they could proceed with business, which in turn would motivate the rest of the GOP Senators to attend so as to block the Dems from passing sweeping legislation.