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On the one hand I agree that Trump was effectively stymied by checks and balances from doing many things he wanted to do in his first term. On the other hand it's not like got none of his goals accomplished. Trump's election (and subsequent Supreme Court appointments) are pretty directly responsible for overturning Roe, for one example. Many of his judicial appointments issue, frankly, insane rulings trying to enact conservative political priorities. Stopped only by the Supreme Court of the United States. The idea that Trump's presidency had no lasting impact on the United States is simply not true.
On the threat-to-democracy front I think the obvious angle is that Trump tried to stay in power despite losing the 2020 election and regularly disparages the legitimacy of any election he loses. Forget the riot on Jan 6th. Here are some simple facts, not reasonably in dispute:
1. As of December 15th 2020 all states electoral votes had been cast and transmitted to the United States federal government. These votes were sufficient to elect Joseph Biden as the next President of the United States.
2. Additionally, some other individuals in particular states purporting to be those states' lawful electors had transmitted their votes to the United States federal government.
3. Thereafter Donald Trump and some members of his inner circle started a pressure campaign to get Mike Pence to declare that, as Vice President, he had the sole authority to decide which electoral college votes were valid and should be counted. They wanted Pence to use this power to either:
a. Count the votes cast in (2) rather than (1) for particular states, ensuring Trump would be re-elected as President OR
b. Declare that no valid votes had been cast from certain states and therefore neither candidate had achieved the needed majority and the election would be decided by the House. Which Trump would almost certainly win.
Of course, the Vice President does not have the power to decide which EC votes were lawfully cast. No Vice President has ever claimed or exercised this power. The abuses it enables are extremely obvious. Why would any ticket ever fail to be re-elected? Indeed, this is obvious because I suspect approximately none of the theories proponents would accept Kamala Harris doing anything like this with the results of the 2024 election.
I think a lot of people freak out about Trump because there is a perception that there is a Way Things Are Done that he neither does not know or does not care about. Sometimes this leads to our system of checks and balances stymieing his policy goals (see the million cases his admin lost for not following the APA) but sometimes it comes down to the bravery of individual people like Mike Pence. This concern specifically is enhanced by Vance being on record that he would not have certified the 2020 results like Mike Pence did.
Yep. In all other ways, Trump is a candidate I could hold my nose for because the alternative is worse.
But, until he concedes the 2020 election, I will never vote for him or anyone who jumps on the Stop the Steal bandwagon, period.
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None of that seems much different than the democratic campaign to encourage faithless electors in 2016 though? Both were bad, to be clear; neither shattered the republic. (nor ended up having any impact on the results)
In addition to the various faithless elector attempts on 2016, I'll point to the 1960 Hawaii snafu, and where overturning the first set of validly-issued electors (... by unanimous consent as argued by one Presidential Candidate in his role as Vice President) was accepted.
I don't understand the relevance. Trump's alternate slate of electors were never certified by the governor of their state. It's also important that counting the alternate slate in 1960 was done with the consent of the joint session. The Electoral Count Act contains specific provisions allowing members of Congress to challenge electoral college votes. Trump's plan relied on Pence having unilateral authority because the majority Democratic House was obviously not going to agree to count Trump's alternate electors.
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Has Harris, who is specifically has the role of certifying the 2024 results, committed to doing so regardless of who wins? The optics of that particular person endorsing "the other candidate is dangerous for democracy" are, themselves, concerning as well.
Yes, Harris has committed to certifying the election results whoever wins.
Absent from this article: literally any quotes from Kamala Harris. "Advisors" say that she believes her role in certifying is ceremonial, and that she would certify even if she lost. Has she ever taken a question (and given a direct answer) about if she would meaningfully accept the results of the election in a timely manner, even if there were minor or moderate oddities?
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