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"The Vice President has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors." President Trump on Twitter

Deleted member 86105

Banned
Nov 18, 2020
1,408
Even if Pence had that power theoretically, he wouldn't act on that power. Pence has always been a guy who slinks into the shadows and hates when the national spotlight is all on him. That's why he's been fighting so hard in court to claim his role in announcing the electoral college votes is purely ceremonial, and why he plans to leave the country the moment he does it.
 
Barnak

Barnak

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,066
Canada
Why do I get the feeling Biden is going to need twice as much security as past presidents because Trump brainwashed his millions of (dangerous) followers into thinking he stole the election.
 
ToddBonzalez

ToddBonzalez

The Pyramids? That's nothing compared to RDR2
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
15,530
Bisnic said:
Why do I get the feeling Biden is going to need twice as much security as past presidents because Trump brainwashed his millions of (dangerous) followers into thinking he stole the election.
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I do worry about this honestly. Trump radicalizing the GOP base to such a degree makes me worried that some Kyle Rittenhouse type with a hero-complex will try to take matters into his own hands at some point in the next 4 years...
 
Spine E Lobster

Spine E Lobster

Member
Oct 27, 2017
289
daveo42 said:
I mean, you're missing the bit about him wanting to envoke martial law to delay the transition of power too, but yeah. They keep pushing these back in the hopes that buying time will magically invalidate the constitution and give their lord and savior the Presidency again.
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I'm pretty sure that's the Executive Order that I put in there about martial law. But I'm not fit sure it's no use fact checking these people. He kept pushing that so i put whatever comes up in the list.
 
Jakenbakin

Jakenbakin

"This guy are sick"
Member
Jun 17, 2018
11,880
Trump trying to get Pence killed man, because when he doesn't magically make Trump president again people are gonna be piiiiissed. They've almost hit the limit of their deluded reality and whiplash is gonna be a real bitch.
 
Sean C.

Sean C.

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,764
Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island
1.21Gigawatts said:
"Sovereign is he who decides on the exception." By "exception", Schmitt means the appropriate moment for stepping outside the rule of law in the public interest.

This is exactly what Trump is attempting.
What's going on here isn't unique to the US. It is the same exact process that undid every constitutional order that ever existed.

The rule of law is nothing more than convention. It is upheld by the commonly held belief that it is right and good. Trump called this bluff. And now the question becomes whether this convention holds or not.

I don't think Trump has the necessary standing right now. He has enough popular support (Hitler did it with only about 30% of the votes), but he doesn't have widespread support in business and academia. And Democrats, while generally pretty incompetent, do not seem as incompetent as the Weimar Republic party landscape was back in the day.

But the statement that Trump can't do X or Y because the constitution doesn't "allow" it just doesn't hold.
This isn't about what the text says. It is a test of the stability of liberal constitutional democracy.

Just look at how other countries slid into dictatorship. This is how it works.
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You're arguing something completely different from the original question, which was does the VP have the power Trump claims he does? The answer is unambiguously no, he does not.

Trump may well attempt to brute force disregard this, but that doesn't make it not a lie.
 
Soapbox Killer

Soapbox Killer

Member
Oct 28, 2017
27,242
The last 4 years will fuel the next 20 in book sales. The shit that people will write about this won't ever end!
 
Greg NYC3

Greg NYC3

Member
Oct 26, 2017
12,508
Miami
You have to be a special kind of brain dead to believe that that constitution would grant the power to the vice president to determine who the president will be.
 
flamingo

flamingo

Member
Oct 27, 2017
334
John Kowalski said:
Is that just a lie?
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0b4.jpg
 
TreeMePls

TreeMePls

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,258
Remember when people were tone policing those who just wished he'd drop dead from Rona to avoid all this nonsense?
 

DeltaRed

Member
Apr 27, 2018
5,746
A system where the current Vice President can ignore the votes and pick the next President themselves doesn't sound like a very realistic one
 

Spine Crawler

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
10,228
Hollywood Duo said:
He has no legal mechanism to do so.
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not legal but maybe the coup type of mechanism.
ned_ballad said:
Nothing, Biden is still president
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Kensation said:
Everyone will laugh and Biden will still be president.
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Heliex said:
Im gonna laugh really hard, either way this is gonna be funny as hell. Its a damned if you do damned if you dont for Pence.
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hope you are right.
 
Shadybiz

Shadybiz

Member
Oct 27, 2017
10,129
Spine Crawler said:
not legal but maybe the coup type of mechanism.




hope you are right.
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If I'm not mistaken, you have frequently doomposted since the election.

Nothing they've tried has worked.

Very little of what Trump says ever turns out to be true.

....What makes you think this time is any different from the rest of the shit he's said/tried over the past 2 months?
 
Joseph Joestar

Joseph Joestar

Member
Jun 19, 2020
1,133
At this point I hope the inauguration turns into an wrestling match and Trump and Biden are at it and Bernie Sanders comes in with a steel chair.
 
daveo42

daveo42

Member
Oct 25, 2017
17,251
Ohio
A reminder to everyone that while everyone supporting overturning the election should be tried for sedition and treason, this is 100% posturing by the GOP to appease Trump and his base. The only one thinking he has any shot of winning the election at this point is Trump himself because he's a fucking idiot.

Actually staging a coup for the GOP is bad because it's a hit to their and their donors pocket books. Coups are bad for business and the GOP aren't going to tank our economy for Trump.
Spine Crawler said:
not legal but maybe the coup type of mechanism.
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He'd have to get the military to take the WH by force and that is just not going to happen.
 
MIMIC

MIMIC

Member
Dec 18, 2017
8,345
Spine Crawler said:
so what happens if pence names trump the next president?
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To be honest, I don't know. Pence certainly has no authority to do so, but he does have a job to fulfill. So what happens if he refuses to fulfill his Constitutional duty? The VP has to count the votes, per the Constitution. And if he doesn't, will this step just be skipped? Will he be legally compelled to do so? Is someone authorized to replace him?

This sort of sounds like that GSA administrator thing where that woman alone held the keys to starting the transition process. But Pence will likely adhere to his Constitutional duty to avoid this hypothetical.
 
Version 3.0

Version 3.0

Member
Oct 27, 2017
11,242
MIMIC said:
To be honest, I don't know. Pence certainly has no authority to do so, but he does have a job to fulfill. So what happens if he refuses to fulfill his Constitutional duty? The VP has to count the votes, per the Constitution. And if he doesn't, will this step just be skipped? Will he be legally compelled to do so? Is someone authorized to replace him?

Pence will likely adhere to his Constitutional duty to avoid this hypothetical.
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Not entirely true. Pence can just not go, and Chuck Grassley would perform the duty. That's happened before; the VP just didn't bother. It doesn't matter who does it. Nobody's paid much attention to this process in the past, because it's just a formality.

And this is the actual choice Pence has: go, and name Biden. Or don't go, just let Grassley do it.

He won't go, and name Trump.
 
MIMIC

MIMIC

Member
Dec 18, 2017
8,345
Version 3.0 said:
Not entirely true. Pence can just not go, and Chuck Grassley would perform the duty. That's happened before; the VP just didn't bother. It doesn't matter who does it. Nobody's paid much attention to this process in the past, because it's just a formality.

And this is the actual choice Pence has: go, and name Biden. Or don't go, just let Grassley do it.

He won't go, and name Trump.
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Well this was discussing what would happen if Pence is actually there and does something other than count the votes, not if he just didn't show up.
 
1.21Gigawatts

1.21Gigawatts

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
3,278
Munich
MIMIC said:
It's a lie. Pence is not empowered by any law to arbitrate anything regarding electoral votes. His role is clearly laid out in the Constitution.
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But what if he just does it?

No democratic constitution gives explicit options to turn the respective democracy into a dictatorship. Yet, time and time again dictators manage to achieve just that.


The Albatross said:
I get the argument from the perspective of power politics, the idea that in governments of consent ultimately the one who holds the gun has the power.

But John Kowalski asked "Is trump lying?"

If the President of the United States makes a statement about the powers of the vice president, and someone asks, "Is he lying?" I think it's appropriate to state that as, yes, the president is lying -- the Vice President is not authorized those powers by the law the grants the Vice President his role in tomorrow's count. What Trump is saying is a lie.

But, of course, Trump also holds the nuclear football. Trump's power to launch thousands of nuclear weapons around the globe, aiming them at every state that voted for Joe Biden in this election, a power that he alone on Earth holds, does not suddenly make every lie a truth. Trump is lying.
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Trump is stating his intentions. Once he pulled through it would no longer be a lie.

I have problems with calling it a lie because it's only a lie if you measure his statement against constitutional scripture and convention. But why would you do that?

The real question is, what happens if the President just disregards the constitution (like he has been doing for the past 4 years)?
Who is there to enforce it? Will the checks and balances hold?


Sean C. said:
You're arguing something completely different from the original question, which was does the VP have the power Trump claims he does? The answer is unambiguously no, he does not.
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Why not? Just because the constitution says so? This is naive circular logic.
The very point of dictatorship is being able to ignore the existing constitutional framework.
A dictator stating his desired competencies isn't "a lie" but simply a statement of intention.

The question shouldn't be whether it is a lie by constitutional standards or not, but rather what will prevent him from following through with this stated course?

Trump is clearly attempting a coup right now. And just like with every other coup, there are now factors at play that increase the chances of success for the coup and other factors decreasing the chances of success.

These are the categories to think in. It really doesn't matter anymore what the constitution says, it matters whether or not the coup is successful or not.
 
Laurentius

Laurentius

Member
Apr 18, 2018
818
1.21Gigawatts said:
The real question is, what happens if the President just disregards the constitution (like he has been doing for the past 4 years)?
Who is there to enforce it? Will the checks and balances hold?
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The courts and the military, both of which have already signaled time and time again that they won't support a Trump coup.
 
Indiana Jones

Indiana Jones

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,177
Remember post 2016 when all those Resistance conspiracy grifters on Twitter cropped up like Louise Mensch and John Schindler? "My sources say the death penalty, for espionage, being considered for Steve Bannon." I'm just imagining what would have happened if Hillary Clinton had shared that tweet.
 
MIMIC

MIMIC

Member
Dec 18, 2017
8,345
1.21Gigawatts said:
But what if he just does it?

No democratic constitution gives explicit options to turn the respective democracy into a dictatorship. Yet, time and time again dictators manage to achieve just that.
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Well I'm reading that if Pence goes rogue, Congress would have to overrule him

There is no chance either the Democratic-controlled House or the Senate controlled by Republicans who oppose the challenge categorically (20 of them have publicly announced opposition) will vote to reject any state's Biden electors. If Pence does "go rogue" and change the dynamics by "announcing" Trump electors or leaving the choice between Biden and Trump electors to Congress, then a majority vote to overturn his determinations should not be any harder. So this whole exercise is a waste of time and attention, unless you consider a further effort to undermine confidence in our electoral system as time well spent.
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Sean C.

Sean C.

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,764
Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island
1.21Gigawatts said:
I have problems with calling it a lie because it's only a lie if you measure his statement against constitutional scripture and convention. But why would you do that?
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Because we're discussing legal processes, not whether Trump can just ignore the law (which he has been trying and failing to do throughout the electoral process). And there is no such power afforded to the vice president.
 
gaugebozo

gaugebozo

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,843
When on was on the 4th grade intramural basketball team, I didn't fully understand the rules. The other team scored and as the guard I tried to just start dribbling from out of bounds. Donald Trump has the same 4th grade knowledge of the process, and Mike Pence is the shooting guard sitting there like "WTF man?"
 
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