Tuesday, December 13, 2016

M. David — Harvard Professor Says GOP Electors Are Close To Blocking Trump Win

Harvard University law professor Larry Lessig just said on Tuesday that 20 Republican Electoral College voters are seriously considering flipping to vote against Donald Trump.

That’s more than half the number of anti-Trump votes that are needed to stall the president-elect from being sworn into office in January....

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Harvard Professor Says GOP Electors Are Close To Blocking Trump Win
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9 comments:

bbbar said...

Do they not know the furies that would be unleashed if they were successful? As I understand it there are some procedural obstacles that could prevent electoral college shenanigans. According to Wikipedia, "Members of Congress can object to any state's vote count, provided objection is presented in writing and is signed by at least one member of each house of Congress. An objection supported by at least one senator and one representative will be followed by the suspension of the joint session and by separate debates and votes in each House of Congress; after both Houses deliberate on the objection, the joint session is resumed. A state's certificate of vote can be rejected only if both Houses of Congress vote to accept the objection. In that case, the votes from the State in question are simply ignored."

Nonetheless, even if such a coup were defeated there would be civil unrest that would make the anti-Trump demonstrations after the election look like a walk in the park.

Now imagine if it worked. Hillary would literally not be able to travel within the country. There would be open calls for her assassination. The pressure on Republican representatives and Senators to impeach her immediately would be immense. Now on top of that throw in a confrontation with Russia over Syria or Ukraine.

They're mad to even try this foolishness.

Tom Hickey said...

There is almost zero chance that the EC would vote for HRC. The 37 GOP defectors are highly unlikely to vote for HRC. They would vote for some other Republican Not Trump.

The likely outcome would be that no one would get the required 270 votes and the outcome would be thrown into the House of Representatives, which is GOP controlled. The hope is that they would pick some establishment Republican.

bbbar said...

You're right. Still, imagine the outrage among Trump supporters if the House voted for some Republican other than Trump. What's more Trump wouldn't passively accept it, he'd raise hell. It would also validate his pre-election point that the system is rigged. It would still tear the country apart.

Unknown said...

^ Which may be exactly what is needed. The Deep State isn't about to let Trump change the channel. If they blow up the election all bets are off. It won't be pretty ... but maybe better sooner than later, while there is still something left to save.

GLH said...

Does anyone believe anything out of Harvard?

John said...

It's never gonna happens. But the mere possibility is hardly what a divided America needs! Street violence with armed gun nuts seeing socialists defeating the elected president.

Tom Hickey said...

Some time ago some Russian analysts suggested the real possibility of the break up of the US. At the time I thought it was an absurd notion. I think that no longer.

This is another paradox of liberalism. It is very difficult for large social groups to tolerate points of view that in fundamental conflict.

In my experience working with conflict resolution there are essentially two solutions. The first is to raise the level of collective consciousness, which is a daunting task in larger groups. The second is to subdivide.

This is a solution open to the US in a constitutional convention, scrapping the present US Constitution and returning to something like the Articles of Confederation, where different states and regions could adopt different laws and institutional arrangements.

India and Pakistan did something like this to address the problem of religious diversity. Now Pakistan is a Islamic country while India is still somewhat in turmoil. Hindus are the majority and Hindu fundamentalists are trying to establish India as officially a Hindu country.

Then there is the example of Israel, which is supposedly a liberal democracy but it is organized on ethno-nationalist principles that ensure Jewish dominance.

There are issues for both liberalism and globalization, especially the neoliberal globalization that the West is promoting.

I have been saying that this is likely going to occupy the rest of the 21st century and probably beyond. Tribalism dies hard, if only because kinship is a major component of evolution. Add cognitive-affective biases and antithetical traditions to that, and the mixture is explosive.

Peter Pan said...

Just eliminate Trump and nominate Pence. It's called compromise.

Malmo's Ghost said...

Fake News