a relevant this is hell episode. The past 20 years have seen the republicans party using the constitution to undermine the constitution. From Bush V Gore to Merrick Garland. Dozens of instances.
I think if we didn't live in a normalization era and if you asked somebody which is more unthinkable, the Merrick Garland scenario or a Republican state legislature refusing to accept the popular vote for president, I don't think they could say one is clearly more unthinkable than the other.
I've heard people suggest that if a state just replaced it's electors, it'd be tantamount to civil war. Merrick Garland wasn't.
And there's several Airbud style loopholes. Congress certifies the count and with a bipartisan objection, they can adjourn to discuss the results. McConnell: "well technically there's no rule that says we explicitly have end discussion before Jan 20"
My hot take: there is NO WAY Biden becomes president even though he wins. It won't be civil war because constitutional democracy already ended a good 20 years ago and everybody got over it. They will get over this too.
160/160 post title, never leave any character off the table.
The traditional conservative elites, definitely.
But the actual fash are different. They're emotionally motivated. They believe their own lies. When things are the worst is when they feel the largest urge to seize (or in this case, seize back, I guess) control and cleanse the impure. Failure is kind of their kink.
This is why you get Trump saying one thing, McConnell saying another.
So, how many people in the trump admin are fash, and how many are traditional elites working in uneasy yet effective alliance?
How many SC justices are traditional elites vs Trumpian loyalists? He's definitely got Kavanaugh. Not sure about the rest.
And when Trump pushes hard one way, are those elites going to follow? Or will they break the alliance?
Trump sucked at being a fascist, though, so my mind is saying nah, but this is Hellworld, so I still have that knot in the pit of my stomach.