State of the art progressive thought re: Trump refusing to leave office

[Horace]

Maybe you could take us step by plausible step through the process by which this happens? It would help identify our differences between what is or is not a legitimate concern, or maybe it will bring people to your side, as they understand the plausibility of the process.

[jon-nyc]

That's what I was doing. Waiting for someone to tell me what step they find implausible.

[Horace]

I am asking so I can understand more about the logistics of this:

Or do you think there's nothing he or his supporters could do to marshall a competing set of electors from GOP-led swing states? Or to just invalidate whole classes of votes?

I am presuming that you think the door to doing these sorts of things has always been legally open but that prior presidents have chosen not to do them because they are decent people.

[jon-nyc]

Well it would be state actors, not the president, but it happened in 1876. Different circumstances of course.

[Horace]

You provided exactly zero description of the logistics of doing this. As you are the one claiming this unprecedented thing is a legitimate concern, I think the burden would be on you to establish the plausible steps in some amount of detail beyond "invalidate a bunch of votes". Which I am temped to straw-man as "just invent your own vote totals". But that would totally be a straw man and you definitely did not say that.

[jon-nyc]

But if your response is 'This part won't happen, Jon, the state institutions are secure and well defined enough to prevent it. Secretaries of State don't have much leeway in vote validation and no one would bother organizing a competing slate of electors", then that's an answer.

[Horace]

I will definitely be supportive of riots and armed insurrections if Trump or anybody else manages to blatantly and illegally usurp the presidency.

[jon-nyc]

Right but if something like this happened, his supporters wouldn't say 'He's illegally usurping the presidency but I'm ok with it'. They would say 'thank god these patriots have undone yet another attempted coup by the democrat party'.

[Horace]

I back my contention that the concern is not legitimate not on any notion that he would lack any support from his base, but on the notion that he would have the weight of law enforcement and the military to contend with should he usurp the presidency.

[Loki]

@jon-nyc said in State of the art progressive thought re: Trump refusing to leave office:

@Jolly said in State of the art progressive thought re: Trump refusing to leave office:

No, the sane among us see you simply as playing silly booger...

Which part of that scenario do you see as implausible?

What percent likelihood matches your definition of plausibility?

[jon-nyc]

9.237

[Loki]

@jon-nyc said in State of the art progressive thought re: Trump refusing to leave office:

9.237

William of Ockham read this thread and smiled.

[Horace]

The rhetoric of "legitimate concern" requires only that the audience being appealed to has sufficient hatred for the source of the concern to nod accordingly at the grave, er, legitimate, concern. It does not do to try to quantify such rhetoric. But neither can anybody question the legitimacy, without providing a rigorous risk assessment of the unspecified details of the threat.

[taiwan_girl]

@Jolly To me, that doesn't make sense. I don't think that the Democrat are in love with Vice President Pence.

Anyway, I looked up the definition of coup
"a sudden illegal, often violent, taking of government power"