I'm not sure what the consequences of him refusing to leave office would be. The military would stop taking his command, as you say. Foreign countries would start negotiating with Biden. He might sit around in the Whitehouse but would be impotent. And probably be immediately arrested for trespassing, among other things, and given his already pretty substantial legal liability situation he probably doesn't want to add on to it.
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I never suggested that Trump exiting would fix anything other than his continued entropic presence. Reed's point that president's "can't do much" is true in the positive sense but not the negative sense. Presidents can do lots of damage (or did anyone forget Iraq). Everything can be traced back centuries, the present question is what's going to break this camel's back.
I don't have confidence in anybody. All we've seen during Trump's "reign" is people who resist getting fired and everyone else playing along and enabling. The military won't do shit if they can be convinced that Biden wasn't legitimately elected. I think it's at least 50/50 the election is subverted.
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I'm suggesting that the consequences of Trump trying to not leave office might not be as great as we instinctively fear. We would be impotent, he would look impotent and pathetic.
The bigger fear for me is that they manage to sabotage the election itself even more than they usually do.
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The image of Trump holding the bible was bugging me all night. I just figured out why, it reminded me of Neville Chamberlain waving the "Peace in our time" document when disembarking from the plane. The pose of both was Moses bringing the tablets from the mount, and both looked equally pathetic.
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I think the GOP will try to run an election in which a decisive portion of the electorate is unable to vote, e.g. drastically reducing the number of polling places and opportunities to vote by mail. There will be a team working on that right now. I don't know what the strategy is to counter it, but the Dems need to find one.
Turnout will definitely be suppressed - the question is by how much and in which states. Florida will be one for sure.
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Which states is the big question. They have the power in Florida, and apparently in Wisconsin. But it's not clear that they have the power in Minnesota, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Nevada, Maine or even North Carolina. And dodgy though Arizona is, I think it has a fairly good record on voting rights. The most recent runs of mid-terms lost them a lot of very important governors who could help them out in the swingier states.
I think the only swing states with Republican governors are Florida, Arizona and New Hampshire. And the other states might not be as pliant as Wisconsin to letting the state legislature overrule the executive.
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Snapchat is refusing to promote Trump's messages:
"Radical Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel would rather promote extreme left riot videos and encourage their users to destroy America than share the positive words of unity, justice, and law and order from our President," Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale said in a statement Wednesday.
The company said in a statement that it took the action in an effort to "not amplify voices who incite racial violence and injustice by giving them free promotion." The move applies to Snap's "Discover" feature, a curated section of the app that allows people to find the accounts of celebrities, news organizations and other prominent users. — Politico
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It's better than him going to the church with Trump and then patrolling the streets, but I'm afraid that there are a lot of terrible things that could be done "consistent with national law".
That said, when read with Esper's comments and Mattis' piece today, there is a clear campaign by senior brass to broadcast their discomfort with his latest rantings (and the Cotton op ed).
If this was happening in a developing country, the CIA and State would be talking about the possibility of a coup.
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