It's a long article, but it's worth a read.
"December 8 is known as the “safe harbor” deadline for appointing the 538 men and women who make up the Electoral College. The electors do not meet until six days later, December 14, but each state must appoint them by the safe-harbor date to guarantee that Congress will accept their credentials. The controlling statute says that if “any controversy or contest” remains after that, then Congress will decide which electors, if any, may cast the state’s ballots for president.
We are accustomed to choosing electors by popular vote, but nothing in the Constitution says it has to be that way. Article II provides that each state shall appoint electors “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.” Since the late 19th century, every state has ceded the decision to its voters. Even so, the Supreme Court affirmed in Bush v. Gore that a state “can take back the power to appoint electors.” How and when a state might do so has not been tested for well over a century.
Trump may test this. According to sources in the Republican Party at the state and national levels, the Trump campaign is discussing contingency plans to bypass election results and appoint loyal electors in battleground states where Republicans hold the legislative majority. With a justification based on claims of rampant fraud, Trump would ask state legislators to set aside the popular vote and exercise their power to choose a slate of electors directly. The longer Trump succeeds in keeping the vote count in doubt, the more pressure legislators will feel to act before the safe-harbor deadline expires."
"If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?"
Being a lib means living in fear of people breaking the rules which you slavishly follow. They're less afraid of the consequences, than having it revealed that their precious rules are useless.
I've noticed more and more the people least equipped to handle this current climate are the "order" folks. This is not a deep revelation on a national scale, but what's surprised me is the people I personally know who have revealed themselves to be of the "order above all else" type.
I had no idea some of them were like that. Personally I've always enjoyed a bit of chaos in life (sometimes a bit too much, which is why I quit drinking), and seeing people I've known for decades reveal themselves as inveterate rules dweebs has been tough.
What's so funny about this shithole country is you can do so much undemocratic bullshit without even breaking the law. Not that they don't break the rules all the time anyway but this electoral college bullshit isn't technically illegal afaik.
There is another thing contributing to this which I have hardly seen anyone mention, which is that even if Biden's withered corpse legitimately wins, a lot of his votes are going to be mail-in, and probably counted way more slowly.
Which means that after Election Day, Trump might be ahead even if he winds up way behind. So on that Wednesday he can basically declare victory and act like any votes still coming in after that are a Soros plot.
I actually think this is the best outcome of this Lovecraftian nightmare election, since it would basically invalidate the presidency of either piece of shit that winds up occupying the Oval Office.
Oh OK. I don't listen to him that much even though he's generally good, because he has a bunch of shit takes that annoy me. I don't think he's doing a bad job, his heart is in the right place, but he's just very basic-bitch politics a lot of the time. Not in an intellectually challenging "I disagree but good point" way, but rather I find myself going "oh, shaaadup" way too often.
He's a lib for sure but he also platforms communists and other people to the left of him consistently. I think he works well as part of the pipeline to the left.
The thing I respect the most about Sam is that he has his beliefs and limitations thereof but he always knows his place and never judges or looks down anyone for harboring different opinions or being more lefty than him. It's why he and Michael (RIP) had great chemistry and why he always platforms some really badass left-wing personalities.
Contrast this with other libs who look down on people further left than them, like so many people in the MSM, hell even Cenk does this from time to time
Yes I agree, that's why I went out of my way to say he is good, but just too annoying to listen to regularly.
They are both incredibly weak, effete, pampered, silver spoon rich dipshits who never had a real job with their manicured hands, but if I had to pick, I think Trump could overwhelm Biden's frail body with the strength in his thicc-ass, white Cracker Barrel eating PAWG thighs.
The end result isn't new or interesting, but the mechanics of how to pull it off is, at least to me. Like, I read that and went, "oh yeah, I forgot that our elitist founding fathers deliberately made our system so that electors could just be appointed, and choosing them democratically is just one of those norms that don't really mean anything." IDK, maybe I'm dumb, but I appreciate being reminded of how stuff works, because I don't always put things together on my own.
The most recent episode of Bad Faith (recently-launched podcast hosted by Briahna Joy Gray and Virgil Texas) is mostly about this, it's worth listening to.
So Virgil a free agent now? Getting less of a cut ? Left because of no flavored vapes in Chapo Pod?
All the hosts except for Will have done secondary stuff. Felix E1, Matt and Amber had a podcast for a bit. Chris does a music podcast with his wife.
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Edit: oh it's a custom emoji: :shocked-pikachu:
Trump isn't going to steal the election and you're all libs for falling for this stupid narrative. He likes taunting and being ambiguous but that's literally what's done about everything since 2015. This is how he gets people riled up. The election is going to be at least as normal as the 2000 election, and no one was crying about Russian interference back then
2000 had some fuckery but it wasn't world ending back then. Sure there were people who griped about bush stealing the election, but it wasn't like half of the fucking country accusing trump of doing it when we haven't even had the freaking election yet.
trump is very self serving but what president hasn't been?
Bush also polled almost evenly with Gore the entire time and based on whatever info I have which could be outdated, he actually lost Florida.
I think it's going to be less normal than 2000 but I'm not sold on the stealing election thing that libs are pushing.
I agree he's probably not going to steal the election, because he's going to win outright and not have to steal it.
If the vote is close, sure, but this isn't 2000 or even 2016. Biden is up at least 6 points over Trump and has been for ages. This is the liberal version of blackpill apocalypse porn.
Edit: thanks, friends
Being up on the national scale is irrelevant when a handful of states are the actual battleground. Aren't things closer in those states this time than they were last time?
No, in fact, they're much more favorable to Biden in nearly every battleground than they were to Clinton in 2016.
Uh, what? Those graphs you linked to shows that Trump was doing way, way better in "battleground states" than in 2016, until coronavirus, and then since then he's been seesawing between better and worse than 2016.
With that, combined with Biden being within or close to the margin of error vs. Trump in these states... how is that "much more favorable to Biden"?
I think this is a moot discussion because the polls are a self-selecting sample of people who care enough to answer polls. They are ignoring tons of people who decide what they're gonna do 8.9 seconds before going into the voting booth.
That and the battlegrounds in 2016 aren't the battlegrounds of 2020, and polling is better in the Midwest overall, while it was largely neglected in 2016.
That's putting an awful lot of faith in "decideds" to (a) stay decided for 6 more weeks, and (b) actually go out and vote or mail their ballots in.
We make fun of libs for saying that the latest Trump scandal will surely sink him this time but then pretend like a couple Biden gaffes are going to convince the anti-Trump crowd to jump ship.
I don't think they're going to jump ship because of any individual stupid shitty thing Biden did.
I just think a lot of them are not that invested in who they are voting for, and won't decide till the last second, so what they tell a pollster in April or July or September doesn't have much bearing on what they are going to do later, so it isn't very valuable.
The Biden vote is pretty much locked in at this point as well. There’s barely anyone left who hasn’t made up their minds or is open to changing it.
I read this exact sentence about Hillary Clinton about three billion times in 2016.
It's just too much reliance on polling being accurate. I'm not saying it's impossible Biden could win, but if these polls correctly "predict" it, it will be of the broken clock variety.
Interesting, I thought it was the opposite. We'll see how that plays out then!
Yeah I think a lot of people around here want it to be true but Trump's general unlikability is going to be what swings this election more than anything else.
Clinton was up 8 points over Trump in August of 2016 and 7 points in October.
Fairy tales liberals tell themselves, #9719: the polling says everything's gonna be all right
I didn't say you were a liberal. I just was saying that this is something a lot of liberals tell themselves to feel better about supporting a withering, decaying dementia patient.
Biden is up at least 6 points over Trump
Where? National polls mean nothing in the face of the electoral college.
In most battleground states. If the election were held today, Biden would win the EC 353 to 185.
