Trump's plan openly disregards presidential elections for determining who holds the presidency

[Tom Rinaldo]

Only members of Congress, and the Vice President, literally count. The Vice President, of course, serves as President of the U.S. Senate and presides over the official congressional counting of electoral college votes after a presidential election. The majority party in each house of Congress ultimately casts one vote per chamber for the presidency, when it either accepts or rejects slates of State presidential electors. Truth, facts, precedents, norms; none of that matters under the rules Trump plays by, just the ability to exercise raw partisan power.

The Constitution of the United States implicitly presumes that fundamental logic, informed by truth, facts, and precedents, will prevail when it comes time for Congress to certify a presidential election. Congress is expected to accept the votes cast by State certified slates of electors from each state, but that level of procedural specificity is lacking in the written Constitution. Which means, to Trump and the Republicans under his control, that Congress can vote to do whatever the hell it wants, under whatever pretense they choose, when it comes to seating a President.

Under Trump's concept of "democracy" there are 535 people in America (536 if you include the VP) whose vote determines who is elected President of the United States of America. November's presidential election, in which over 150 million Americans participated, was nothing more than "a straw poll" for members of Congress to consider (or not) however they wish. And if they decide to decide on strictly partisan grounds, according to Donald Trump, that is their prerogative.

[exboyfil]

1. Which begs the question

What if we lost the House? Would it have worked? What if it had been only one state like Al Gore? What would we have done if it had been one state in 2016?

[Demsrule86]

2. And what happens if we lose the House in 22? Will this be brought out again in24?

[Tom Rinaldo]

5. I think that may depend on how enduring a vice hold Trump keeps over Republivcan voters

once he is out of office. The other wild card of course is the Supreme Court. I am not qualified to knowledgeably speculate on whether the SC might play a role in potentially reversing a naked partisan power grab in Congress to overturn State certified Electoral College results.

[Tom Rinaldo]

4. Democrats tend to play by the rules as they were intended.

As an example we accept that a well functioning democracy does everything that it can to assure that all of it's citizens get to exercise the right to vote. Not so Republicans obviously. I don't suggest that Democrats should do otherwise than play by rules as they were intended, because that is a hallmark of accepting true democratic norms, which is a core belief for Democrats.

Were Democrats not to control the House right now I think the outlook would be far more perilous. Ultimately we have managed as a democracy this long because enough people across various party lines have shared a fundamental belief in the sanctity of core democratic norms and procedures. The more that shared set of values erodes within the Republican Party the more fragile our democracy becomes.

[Girard442]

3. So, in 2024 a Democratic Senate and House...

...could refuse to seat electors from TX, FL, and OH if they wanted to.

[Thekaspervote]

6. This goon always thinks he has a plan. Biden was duly elected and will be inaugurated 1/20/21

End of story...

[Tom Rinaldo]

7. Absolutely. But it is breathtaking how little regard he and many Republicans have for democracy now

Their bottom line literally is that the vote of 536 people determines the winner regardless of how 150 million citizens vote.

[MineralMan]

8. His plan is a complete fantasy..

The 2020 election is over. The Electoral College has voted. Trump has no path whatever to a second term.

Anything he suggests or tries to do will be quashed instantly by the SCOTUS, which already signaled its total rejection of Trump stealing the election.

It will not happen.

[Tom Rinaldo]

9. It's not the likelihood of the outcome, it's the ideology inherent in the attempt

and the number of Republicans in and out of office who are perfectly OK with this. Essentially this strips bare what is meant by those Republicans who like to stress that we live in a Republic rather than a Democracy. They literally are OK with a few hundred elected representatives being empowered to select who serves as President of the United States, rather than having that determined by a direct vote of the people.

[MineralMan]

10. They might be OK with it, but it's not going to happen.

That's good enough for me, really. I just want Trump gone. Then, we can work out the rest, one way or another.