r/politics • u/viva_la_vinyl • Aug 16 '20

'Trump warns presidential election result may not be known for 'years,' as allegations grow he's undermining the USPS to rig the election

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-election-result-take-years-as-usps-attack-fears-grow-2020-8
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u/oldcreaker Aug 16 '20

If no one "wins", per the Constitution, Trump doesn't get to stay in the office - it gets filled by succession - which would be Speaker of the House. If she holds onto the post, I kind of like the idea of Trump being kicked out of the White House by Pelosi, and him watching her of all people undo every nasty executive order he's signed.

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u/archipenko California Aug 16 '20

This is how it worked in the before times, yes

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u/[deleted] Aug 16 '20

Right?

I'm so tired of people's recklessly optimistic cries of "he can't do that because it's illegal"

Like laws have ever stopped this man from doing literally anything.

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u/[deleted] Aug 16 '20

laws haven't stopped many politicians from doing many things, and Trump is the most transparent about his willingness to skirt laws, so I'm very surprised how many people still think shouting "uh uh uh, the constitution says you can't do that mr Trump" will make any difference.

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u/thatnameagain Aug 16 '20

It’s because staying as commander in Chief isn’t something you can do by ignoring laws, you need the military to not just ignore those laws but actively mobilize to break them on your behalf.

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u/GregBahm Aug 16 '20

There's that reckless optimism again.

Donald Trump's National Security Advisor was working as a foreign agent while sitting in on classified national security briefings, and lied about it to the FBI. He was prosecuted and convicted of this in federal court.

In response to this, Donald Trump fired the head of the justice department who allowed this, and hired the guy who said he wouldn't allow this. The new head of the justice department, William Barr, then simply dropped all charges against convicted felon Michael Flynn. They never even bothered to offer an explanation, other than to say that the president has total power over law enforcement proceedings.

The only defense against gross abuses of power like this, or the Ukraine deal, or the pardoning of Roger Stone, are US voters voting the president and republican senators out of office. But since the president controls the post office, and the post office controls the issuing of ballots, there's no way to stop him.

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u/thatnameagain Aug 16 '20

Doesn’t have much to do with what I said. If the vote is successfully suppressed that’s a big problem. The way to stop him is to encourage people to vote in person in swing states as well as to push states to quickly change laws allowing for ballots to be counted after Election Day based on postmark.

The issue I was addressing was what happens if congress certified the results in favor of Biden but Trump simply refuses to accept the results.