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The Election That Could Break America

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Election That Could Break America

#11
post #3

Trump announces early victory, but mail in votes trickling in over the coming days reveal he lost. He claims fraud, and the case goes to the soon-to-be 6-3 GOP controlled Supreme Court. America has lost.

I think the prognostications of fear, uncertainty and doubt will end up wrong. Twenty years ago we had a controversial close election that had to be decided by the supreme court. Plenty of people did not want to see Bush in the white house and the country did not collapse.

I think the main difference is that 20 years ago you didn't have right-wing militias prowling the streets and allying with police. https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2020/09/23/patriot-coalition...

Irregular pro-regime forces taking to the streets is something you might expect in the middle east, but its happening in the USA right now.

Re: The Election That Could Break America

#12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supreme Court justices do not have party affiliations. They were appointed by a president who is a member of a party, but that is all. They don't have to worry about offending that president, or that party, because they don't face re-election. They are independent - very deliberately so. And Supreme Court justices go "against" the party that appointed them all the time . The most recent major example that I can recal…

I’ll add that the Electoral College ultimately ends up casting the votes that elect the president. If things really went sideways and completely broke, they could cast their votes against their state’s wishes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faithless_elector

There was an interesting Supreme Court decision on that just this year. Basically, states can remove faithless electors.

https://www.npr.org/2020/07/06/885168480/supreme-court-rules...

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