Secret Service under Pelosis orders?

We could just pay a Dominatrix (who looks like Ivanka) to order him out.

Perhaps the most telling part of this poll, though not surprising is how as of right now 5% think Trump does the minimum necessary for a dignified transition. 95% think something else.

Or he could flee to one of his homelands: the UK or Germany.

US MIlitary? At noon (?) on inauguration day the former president no longer has the legal right to be in the White House, so technically he'd be trespassing and could be arrested.

I think at that point, we're past technicalities

SI

Yeah, at a point laws and regulations are just things written down on paper.

To an extent, but in the event Trump refuses to leave office on inauguration day (and I think the chances are incredibly remote), Biden still becomes the Commander in Chief and has the authority to direct the Chiefs of Staff of the service branches. I don't see clear unlawful orders being followed and I don't see lawful orders by the Commander in Chief being ignored. Even Trump isn't stupid enough to test that pissing match.

I suspect if Trump has to be removed the Chiefs of Staff would take great pleasure in doing so

I think they made that pretty clear a couple of months ago, thankfully

SI

Aside from litigation, I realized that Trump will probably order his cronies to fire or force retire anyone they can to hamstring the incoming administration (plus if the Democrats don’t get the senate then Mitch will block all appointments).

He’ll want to ensure major damage before he’s forced out.

Absolutely. That way he can spend the first 18 months of the Biden admin screaming incompetence when really it's just fixing all the problems.

I still think Trump is a coward that will slink away after a defeat, but after this I am the State! convention is making me a little less confident of that.

I think it's awfully optimistic to think he's going to lose the election even though he will get fewer votes and would lose the electoral college in a fair election.

SI

That's kind of what I am feeling this morning.

Anything short of a Biden blowout gives the GOP a chance to steal the election. And this does not feel like Biden blowout territory right now.

I mean, I think he's going to lose and lose by like 8 in a fair election, which would be a blowout. But I also think there are going to be ballots "lost in the mail", lots of closed voting places that are selected with evil precision, and some Diebold machines that just show some irregularities but there's nothing conclusive (for instance, in Texas, I don't get any receipt for who/what I voted for - I could have just recorded 1 vote for Biden or 6 for Trump in the computer and I have no way of knowing).

SI

I have the same fear, but I also think he's going to lose so badly that he can't stop it. For instance, there will be places where he thinks he's going to win and he won't. If he thinks he's going to win there, he won't mess with the results.

I absolutely agree with this. Incumbents mostly win.

I don't think we can use history as an example here.

Has there ever been someone so unqualified for the job and done such a horrible job as the incumbent?

And with typically red states like Texas and Arizona (where I live) in play this year I have concerns about the mail. Especially here where 67% of the votes came through early mail in voting before the pandemic. It was a shit show here in 2018 in the Sinema / McSally race and Trump was crying foul over that.

If people come out for this election, at the very least, there will be plausible doubt cast on the outcome if any issues come to light in these close states. And in the powder keg that is America right now, that worries me a lot!

I'm actually kindof hoping for this kind of incompetence.

Trump campaign: "We should win Wisconsin by 3 so don't mess with the results because that takes effort"
Election Night: "And we're calling Wisconsin for Biden after record turnout at the polls and a crazy number of mail-in ballots that had built him an near-insurmountable lead before the day even began"

SI

GOP v. DEM aside, this is insane to me.

In NC, we get a scantron form.

It is scanned in, so you can get a quick tabulation. But then you have the boxes of paper ballots which are sealed up so you can do an audit.

2000 was the first year I voted, so I have always done it here in Indiana. It was been the same every year. They are touch screen computers with a big red button to push when you're done. Then 1 or 2 confirmations that you're done.

The lack of a paper trail is insane. Just crazy. Makes no sense.

Since you brought that up...

Federal complaint force upgrade of Indiana voting machines

And a "better" outcome would be a clear win by a candidate who losses the popular votes by millions. I don't think that happens for the third time this century and things end peacefully.

If the GOP is so adept at stealing elections, why didn't they steal the '18 midterms?

They did. See GA.

I generally don't think actual votes are being changed, it's more about supression of voters, but GA looks fishy as can be. They mixed really blatant voter suppression with hard to explain voting system use. I think it's pretty likely that in a fair election Abrams would have won.

Or North Carolina

North Carolina GOP Operative Faces New Ballot Tampering Charges : NPR

I know there were cases like that, my point is that they weren't able to move the needle on the overall national picture. It wasn't for lack of trying. This idea that it's Biden blowout or they steal it requires a level of fraud/suppression/whatever several orders of magnitude higher to be vaguely credible.

I guess we'll know in November. But the stakes for President are much higher so you don't want to tip your hand too early. They've also had 2 extra years of practice.

I mean, the USPS stuff is blatant as can be.

SI

Who is saying that? If it's within 4 or 5 points, historically a pretty big margin, it's possible Trump could win the electoral college legitimately. Add in what we absolutely know, disinformation campaigns, Russian influence, threats of law enforcement at polls, threats f post-election lawsuits, voter roll purges, USPS problems, etc., and Biden could win by a greater margin than even Clinton and still lose. There isn't any need to change or throw out millions of votes, they just need to do enough to win two or three states they would otherwise lose narrowly.

This was posted at 9:28 this morning. I don't say that to single him out; similar thoughts have been stated going back months. Multiple posters have repeatedly stated that Trump is going to win, not might but is, because no matter what he'll find a way to steal it.

What I've been talking about purposefully understated that case as a guard against being hyperbolic.


Only in the sense that it's also possible Martians will invade tomorrow. Losing the popular vote and winning the electoral college has happened twice in modern history. One was razor-thin (Bush-Gore), and Hillary won by just over 2% and it still took a lot of things falling against her to lose the EC. I would take a thousand-to-one odds, and I'm not sure it isn't more like a million-to-one, against anybody losing the EC while winning the popular vote by 4%+ in, say, the next couple of decades.

Well it has to be a blowout when there's a decent chance that a +4 or +5 popular vote margin could lose the electoral college.

And it should matter that Trump and the GOP have already told us that they are planning to challenge voters all over the country, that we know the Russians are interfering again, that we know state level GOPers are purging voter rolls in multiple states. This stuff isn't even in contention.

Bumping this...

Dammit, Ben

SI

Also, it's kindof crazy that someone looks around at all this (gestures wildly at pandemic, economy, civil unrest, economy disparity, environmental disasters) and says "This. This right here. This is the world I'd give my life to keep from changing!"

SI

Humpty bumpty. Poll closes in one week. (10am Election Day)

While I remain worried about every path this could take, the rising-fast concern is that the actual electoral college - the meeting of the people selected by each state as electors to do their duty - will itself become a major point of contention this cycle. We saw a crack in the curtain last time with a handful of "faithless electors" and since we've been burning down norms for the last few years, why stop here? Of course there is a pending strategy to discredit, misdirect, or hijack this process. Probably several.

Very nice article that breaks down some of trumps behaviors, and looks at how he might respond in the event he is not elected to a second term.


What happens when a narcissist loses? Expect "rage" and "terror," psychologists warn | Salon.com

This is a matter of perspective I think. Modern, prosperous countries tend to easily forget how much worse matters can get and how little separates us from them getting that way.

He hasn't lost yet, but it's looking like options 3-6 above are in play.

Attention Required! | Cloudflare

I really cannot blame him for fighting this. This is massive.

Hillary 2016 ~66m votes
Trump 2016 ~63m
Trump 2020 ~68m

Forward to now a candidate that has problems remembering where he is. His mental acuity is slipping. The enthusiasm was not high for Biden, yet has he really honestly garnered- 72m votes and they're still counting?? Poll watchers are not allowed to come close to view ballots and have been sent away.

If you're measuring Dem enthusiasm strictly in relation to Biden then you've already fooled yourself.

+1

I would have voted 3rd party this year, had one of the choices not been a wanna be authoritarian despot with no regard at all for the constitution.

Biden at least has some respect across the aisle, will reach out to work with others and get us on a track to normalcy so we can hopefully reset in 2024.

And edit: How anyone can be sucked into the "steal the election" nonsense is beyond me. Everybody knew how this would play out, even Trump which is why he has spent weeks riling up the gullible to create unnecessary dissent and chaos. The system is not 100% foolproof, but it is certainly reliable enough to accurately deliver the will of the people far beyond any potential fraud (or honest mistakes which is the usual scenario for voting errors) would have played.

So yes, 72M and counting are sick of the carnival barker that has been running the country the last 4 years and want someone to restore the American way of life.

The mental health angle is what you want to hang your hat on?

Dems are so good at stealing elections that they can hardly win any.

Same. I didn't vote for Hillary in 2016, but did just cast a vote for Biden, and I certainly wouldn't ever have said I'm enthused about him.

Forgot to take the Senate while they were committing fraud. Morons.

I'm not sure you're real, but if you are...

Actually, enthusiasm was super high.