A Coup?.... It looks like it on the surface but the generals that take orders from the DOD political appointees can refuse an illegal order and have that ability to go to the courts... something Trump would not want. Congress would also be notified I believe. My guess is you take a step back and look at over the course of the last 4 years what is it that Trump, Barr, etc. are the most freaked out about and it tends to go back to the situation that SDNY has been investigating related to Turkey. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/29/us/politics/trump-erdogan-halkbank.html My guess is this has to do with destroying evidence or trying to put more roadblocks in the way of that investigation. Another darker theory is that Trump is literally helping Foreign Enemies by sticking a wrench in the entire chain of command at DOD. Russia could be planning missions in Georgia or Ukraine and needs to throw off the scent of the US’s capabilities to alert our allies, or aid ourselves through proxy’s. He could be helping a number of enemies or bad actors. But as a coup... I think if he calls on the 101st to drop into DC on Jan 20th to surround the White House he’ll get a hard pass from the generals taking orders from political appointees. If there’s a coup, he’ll be relying on Secret Service, national guard from red states, Homeland security, and friendly police forces. Then as soon as John Roberts swears in Joe Biden, Biden constitutionally gains the powers of the presidency and then he can order in the 101st to DC to wipe the floor with whatever militia Trump can muster up in an embarrassing last stand that I’m sure none of Trumps loyalist militias really understand at the last minute Trump is not worth losing their lives over. But boy would that be an embarrassment to have to witness. I think as soon as John Roberts swears in Biden and he gains the power of the presidency, that coup attempt will be over with. This is likely more about destroying investigations, helping our enemies in exchange for person assistance to Trump, or both.
If Trump tried a coup, he'd be ended before the coup started. It may start a civil war, but that would be ended swiftly as well, and his entire family would be exiled to mars. You think he wants that?
I would hope the American people and those with any balls left in Washington would stop a coup. But I don't truly know until we get to Inauguration Day.
Trump is flying by the seat of his clown pants on this one. If he were to follow the Nazi playbook, he would've set up his general cronies sooner and his reichstag would already be burning. Not expecting much from a 74 yr old geezer
Those are pretty damming percentages. And yet Trump once again is in the minority of lunatics that think it's rigged. Luckily Trump won't live to 90 or 100. He'll have a limited time to poison the American public.
Again any legal challenges are likely going to fail. The only legal chance is to convince Legislatures to vote against the popular vote of their states. I think that is a real longshot. Either Trump is in complete denial about his chances of wining this, which is very possible, or that he has decided that if he's going to go he's going to make it as difficult as possible for Biden to come in and govern. He doesn't care about transition of power and probably believes that the worse things are for the Biden Administration the better he will look.
Haha, you wish. There is no reason to at this point. Let the court cases play out. A concession shouldn't make a difference in fireball biden's pre-work.
Any chance of coup or damage done to the country from a disastrous transition much of the blame should be leveled at Trump's enablers. If they really believed in the good of the country, McConnell et al would be at the White House right now telling Trump it's over and speaking publicly about the need to move on. They don't because this is party of country and they see the 71 million that voted for Trump and don't want to get on the bad side of those voters. Further McConnell probably sees a benefit in a disastrous transition and likely if things aren't good in the first month of the Biden Presidency will blame the Biden Admin. for not having a good transition. In otherwords they will argue that the mess that Trump created and they enabled was the fault Biden and Democrats.
Yes it does. Not having access to the intel briefings and the rest of the work of government will make it that much difficult for the new Administration to step in and continue the work of the US government. This isn't a shift change at McDonalds, this is the changing of the top leadership of a super power. There is evidence that the delay in getting a transition going in 2000 may have made it harder to detect 911, that election was much much closer and the country wasn't in the midst of a crisis like it is now. The longer this is delayed the harder it will be for this country.
Trump is not much of a planner or leader, so his attempted coup will likely start out with a tweet and expect that to carry the day.
There a hundred reasons to concede for a successful transition of power, prestige of democratic elections as a World example, a statement to opposition States the the US is not distracted, a cooling if devisiveness. But mostly just to take the pettiness our of the seriousness of governing.
We will likely know by December 14. The EC vote becomes official. Trump and his crack legal team have until then to challenge each state's votes. link Electoral College electors in each state don’t vote until Dec. 14. Certificates recording the electoral vote results in each state must be received by the president of the Senate and the archivist no later than Dec. 23. The official results of the electoral votes are sent to the new elected Congress, which is set to meet in a joint session on Jan. 6, 2021, and announce the results.
