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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Roberts was appointed in 2005...
Nobody is disputing that a 2000 style situation will go to Trump, what we’re disputing is the idea that all 50 states (or even enough states for a clear Biden win) could announce that Biden has won and the Supreme Court would go “lol don’t care, Trump is president anyway”.
Edited by Silasw on Sep 30th 2020 at 2:32:59 PM
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranI still think the greatest danger is widespread voter suppression and election rigging by the Republicans - a combination of discouraging mail-in voting; refusing or destroying mail-in ballots; severely limiting in-person polling stations in Democratic areas; and relying on minority voters being (legitimately) afraid to go to crowded polling stations due to minority communities having been hit far harder hy COVID.
In a normal year, Trump would lose. But nothing about voting this year is normal, and all those factors combined seem like they make it very feasible for him to rig the election without it being clearly provable that he did so.
Edited by Galadriel on Sep 30th 2020 at 10:55:47 AM
So, I mean, unless the result ends up very close, Trump probably won't be able to steal the election. If polling numbers we've been seeing hold up, he is going to be out of the White House in january, no matter how much trouble he causes.
But it's entirely possible for him to cause trouble in a way that does long-term damage the US's democracy. He's already done that, in fact, by not even bothering to hide the fact that he intends to steal the election. He won't succeed in stealing the election, because nobody seems to be willing to back him up on that and stealing an election isn't a one-man job, but a sitting president openly attempting that is establishing a very dangerous precedent, one that could be a huge problem in a closer election.
Normaly they don't but I was wondering if there was a way for the Dems to force a true recess, and thus allow Trump to make a Recess Appointment to RBG's seat.
The logic being that a recess appointment would only last until January 2021, so while it would be a short term loss... it would be a better situation long term then allowing a true appointment.
Edited by Imca on Oct 1st 2020 at 2:05:36 AM
Well, that depends on who the current president pro tempore, the longest serving senator, is.
In order to maintain the session pro forma, every four days, the president pro tempore (or a suitable substitute of their choosing) opens the session in front of an allegedly empty room, and immediately adjourns for three days. But, if the PPT were to do a roll call, thus revealing that indeed no senators had shown up, the session pro forma would end and congress would be officially in recess.
More on that in this delightful CGP Grey vid
.
Edited by Kayeka on Oct 1st 2020 at 11:32:16 AM
If my understanding is correct, there is a convention that the Senate and House adjourn at the same time because otherwise the president could do it for them. And that the Senate does pro forma sessions to impede recess appointments. And even the pack of depraved sycophants that is the Senate Republican Conference has kept these practices during the Trump era. So I wouldn't expect them to break with convention just now, unless Trump tries to pressure them. As for Democrats ... I think that goading Trump into a recess appointment of a SCOTUS judge seems like an oddball move.
The folks at 538.com
think that Trump's chances are going down, both because his polls aren't getting better and because he's running out of time to turn the race around.
Some of that probability come from the assumption that there's possible news that would shift the electorate in favor of Trump; one of their articles mentions that if the election was held today, Trump would only have a 9% chance of winning. (This works both ways, but moving the electorate towards Biden just means he wins 400-500 electoral votes, so is less interesting.)

@Wyldchyld - I've seen a description of Trump as the first (extremely) online President, and I think the Green New Deal thing is good illustration.
I'll preface this by saying that I don't really know enough about the Green New Deal to have much of an opinion (which maybe supports my point), but I definitely recall a vehement liberal/left split on it. At the same time though, at least as I understand it, it was a fairly "inside baseball" disagreement that wouldn't necessarily register to someone who doesn't follow political people on Twitter.
And so I assume that Trump or some handler thought it would be a good idea to bring up the issue, based on those online disputes, but it didn't make much sense, including to the audience, perhaps because as you get at, Trump might not have understood what the Green Deal was himself.
As similar examples, although this isn't really a liberal/left split issue (well, somewhat with the former), Trump has unusually strong and vehement opinions on the 1619 Project and anti-bias training compared to your average person.
Edited by Hodor2 on Sep 30th 2020 at 9:29:36 AM