I have no interest in defending the lunatic Trump who played with the future comity of the Republic like a toddler playing with a crystal sculpture. However I agree with Paul that as beyond the pale as Trump's post election behavior is, these charges will not lead to a conviction and if they do will be thrown out on appeal. It's sad that Trump's enemies continue to give him red meat of persecution to throw to his brainwashed cult which somehow enhances his popularity. I never thought we would see the day where such a figure could garner even 1 percent of the vote let alone March to the nomination of the Republican party.
Of equal if not greater concern is the seemingly coordinated prosecution of the alternate electors in MI by Dana Nessel for, or all things, forgery. As you point out, none were presented as electors during the counting. The Trump campaign was doing exactly what the Kennedy campaign did in 1960 in Hawaii.
It is hard to believe that this prosecution (if not all the others) isn't the result of collaboration between states' AG's and the DoJ.
All of the 16 charged are citizens over 50, two of them octogenarians, who were asked if they wanted to be alternate electors in case the MI results were reversed. They did not advocate, lobby, or do anything other than sign a document that they would be willing to be electors.
These are orindary people without the resources to fight a federal indictment of this kind and if they are convicted they could die in prison.
With this, the prosecution of All Things Trump has crossed the line from aggressively partisan to sadistic.
If there's going to be a riot because a Republican loser of the popular vote wins the electoral vote, there will be a riot no matter who the Republican candidate is, for it's a virtual certainty that any Republican electoral victor would lose the popular vote. Harrison won the 1888 election even though Cleveland bested him in the popular vote because Cleveland got 86 percent of the South Carolina vote, and no doubt carried other Southern states by similar margins. In an electoral vote election all the Cleveland votes in a state over 50 percent were wasted, and statistically there are a lot more wasted votes in blue states today than there were in the 1888 face off, and far more than the wasted votes in red states. In general the red states have fewer voters than the blue states, and they carry their states by narrower margins than the red states. Compare the margins in Florida and Texas, for example, with the margins in the deep blue states. I don't think there will be riots if a Republican victor loses the popular vote because I don't think the general public loses sleep over the fact voters in small parts of New York and California can't elect the president.
There is something out there that should scare Republican voters. A number of blue states have entered into a pact that if parties to the pact have more than the 270 electoral votes needed for victory, the electors in those states will be cast for the national winner of the popular vote regardless of the result in their states. This pact is subject to Constitutional challenge, but a good case can be made that it is constitutional, and I believe it has garnered states with more than 200 electoral votes. The remaining states will be hard to get, since a state could join such a pact only if its governor is a Democrat and and both houses of its legislature are controlled by Democrats, and I think most every state that could meet that criteria have already signed on. Still, it's hanging out there. I think Virginia has signed on, so if Republicans get both houses in this fall's election, it would be well advised to vote itself out of the pact. Jim Dueholm
Good analysis. As Paul notes, backup electors would not be certified electors,, but would be in the wings if the official elector slate was ushered off the stage. And it's quite arguable this is in accord with the Constitution, for Section 1, Article II of the Constitution gives the state legislatures the power to determine the manner of electing electors. I believe the Trump people asked the legislatures in targeted states to exert this power.
As a general matter in this prosecution I don't think it matters whether Trump really thought fraud deprived him of reelection, for, as the indictment concedes, the Supreme Court has held that, as a general matter, lies are protected by the First Amendment. The question is whether speech, the statement that Trump was fraudulently deprived of a victory, edged into action. If he threatened state election officials, that would be action, but his First Amendment right would include the right to look for a hail Mary in the targeted states. And while every court he approached shot him down, many of them did so on procedural, not substantive grounds. If Trump's state of mind is an issue, as the indictment claims, his attorney's would have the right to go state by state to see whether there were grounds, no matter how weak, to challenge results in the state. Furthermore, I suspect Trump and the lawyers look at fraud differently. I think it's quite possible Trump would have won if states hadn't ignored voting laws and if the Hunter Biden laptop had been exposed for what it was. I suspect Trump in his mind lumps legal fraud with shenanigans and dirty pool when he thinks of a fraudulent election. Jim Dueholm
I have no interest in defending the lunatic Trump who played with the future comity of the Republic like a toddler playing with a crystal sculpture. However I agree with Paul that as beyond the pale as Trump's post election behavior is, these charges will not lead to a conviction and if they do will be thrown out on appeal. It's sad that Trump's enemies continue to give him red meat of persecution to throw to his brainwashed cult which somehow enhances his popularity. I never thought we would see the day where such a figure could garner even 1 percent of the vote let alone March to the nomination of the Republican party.
Well reasoned and spot on.
Of equal if not greater concern is the seemingly coordinated prosecution of the alternate electors in MI by Dana Nessel for, or all things, forgery. As you point out, none were presented as electors during the counting. The Trump campaign was doing exactly what the Kennedy campaign did in 1960 in Hawaii.
It is hard to believe that this prosecution (if not all the others) isn't the result of collaboration between states' AG's and the DoJ.
All of the 16 charged are citizens over 50, two of them octogenarians, who were asked if they wanted to be alternate electors in case the MI results were reversed. They did not advocate, lobby, or do anything other than sign a document that they would be willing to be electors.
These are orindary people without the resources to fight a federal indictment of this kind and if they are convicted they could die in prison.
With this, the prosecution of All Things Trump has crossed the line from aggressively partisan to sadistic.
If there's going to be a riot because a Republican loser of the popular vote wins the electoral vote, there will be a riot no matter who the Republican candidate is, for it's a virtual certainty that any Republican electoral victor would lose the popular vote. Harrison won the 1888 election even though Cleveland bested him in the popular vote because Cleveland got 86 percent of the South Carolina vote, and no doubt carried other Southern states by similar margins. In an electoral vote election all the Cleveland votes in a state over 50 percent were wasted, and statistically there are a lot more wasted votes in blue states today than there were in the 1888 face off, and far more than the wasted votes in red states. In general the red states have fewer voters than the blue states, and they carry their states by narrower margins than the red states. Compare the margins in Florida and Texas, for example, with the margins in the deep blue states. I don't think there will be riots if a Republican victor loses the popular vote because I don't think the general public loses sleep over the fact voters in small parts of New York and California can't elect the president.
There is something out there that should scare Republican voters. A number of blue states have entered into a pact that if parties to the pact have more than the 270 electoral votes needed for victory, the electors in those states will be cast for the national winner of the popular vote regardless of the result in their states. This pact is subject to Constitutional challenge, but a good case can be made that it is constitutional, and I believe it has garnered states with more than 200 electoral votes. The remaining states will be hard to get, since a state could join such a pact only if its governor is a Democrat and and both houses of its legislature are controlled by Democrats, and I think most every state that could meet that criteria have already signed on. Still, it's hanging out there. I think Virginia has signed on, so if Republicans get both houses in this fall's election, it would be well advised to vote itself out of the pact. Jim Dueholm
Good analysis. As Paul notes, backup electors would not be certified electors,, but would be in the wings if the official elector slate was ushered off the stage. And it's quite arguable this is in accord with the Constitution, for Section 1, Article II of the Constitution gives the state legislatures the power to determine the manner of electing electors. I believe the Trump people asked the legislatures in targeted states to exert this power.
As a general matter in this prosecution I don't think it matters whether Trump really thought fraud deprived him of reelection, for, as the indictment concedes, the Supreme Court has held that, as a general matter, lies are protected by the First Amendment. The question is whether speech, the statement that Trump was fraudulently deprived of a victory, edged into action. If he threatened state election officials, that would be action, but his First Amendment right would include the right to look for a hail Mary in the targeted states. And while every court he approached shot him down, many of them did so on procedural, not substantive grounds. If Trump's state of mind is an issue, as the indictment claims, his attorney's would have the right to go state by state to see whether there were grounds, no matter how weak, to challenge results in the state. Furthermore, I suspect Trump and the lawyers look at fraud differently. I think it's quite possible Trump would have won if states hadn't ignored voting laws and if the Hunter Biden laptop had been exposed for what it was. I suspect Trump in his mind lumps legal fraud with shenanigans and dirty pool when he thinks of a fraudulent election. Jim Dueholm