I guess I'm just feeling voluble today. But I think it's ironic that as much as it's true that TFG and many of his higher-level supporters look at their own voters as gullible, country-fried rubes, I suspect that they also look at their highly-educated opponents on the coasts as at least as naive, as also being gullible rubes. We don't s…
I guess I'm just feeling voluble today. But I think it's ironic that as much as it's true that TFG and many of his higher-level supporters look at their own voters as gullible, country-fried rubes, I suspect that they also look at their highly-educated opponents on the coasts as at least as naive, as also being gullible rubes. We don't sense the danger to ourselves and we continue trundling along into believing playing by the rules would save us, and academics debate coup vs. autogolpe or what an "electoral autocracy" or "partial democracy" is. "What suckers! What is it, six years later, seven, I still haven't obeyed the law compelling me to hand over my tax returns to Congress! Ha! I love the "rule of law! Openly obstructed justice, pardoned my co-conspirators, led a violent insurrection. Even Hitler went to jail for a little while after his putsch. I really am the smartest! Teeheehee!" Or we high-minded people of principle, or are we just rubes? Maybe we're both?
Another question I'd love to ask some members of SCOTUS and watch them squirm is what happens when the wording of the Constitution leads to results antithetical to the Framers' stated intent, and thus following it becomes internally contradictory. Is it truly a suicide pact for representative democratic-republican government? It's indisputable the Framers believed in majority rule with protection for minority rights. Majority Rule. Is a system that sometimes delivers a president and two chambers of Congress elected by national minorities a constitutional system? The EC as a system for indirect elections by the wise failed long ago, so shouldn't it just be a plurality winner? The House was always meant to be close to the people and reflect the popular will, so is a population imbalance that means votes in one state are far more valuable than another compatible with the original intent of the Constitution? Our system isn't proportional, true, but does a scenario where candidates winning less votes across the board govern the country really fit into the concept of democratic-republican governance? The Senate is explicitly different, so we can leave that aside. Please, solve this riddle, oh wise and learned legal scholar of pure heart and original intent! At least prior to ruling that a gerrymandered legislature that represents a minority of state voters can overturn the state popular vote! Alito or Thomas would just spit at me and laugh. They don't need to bother to answer, and they have nothing but contempt for the question and anyone who asks it.
What happens if DeSantis were to lose the governor's election to Crist and refuse to accept the vote? DeSantis will probably win, but hypothetically, if he lost, or some other R governor, and he or she rejected the outcome and the state legislature ratified that rejection, and then SCOTUS upheld the legislature's power to do so? In effect, Florida (or state X) is transformed into a little dictatorship, unquestionably. Should the federal government use the military if necessary to intervene, and ignore SCOTUS's validation? What if the Florida National Guard offers resistance? Should the US Army fight the NG and various militias? What if the federal govt. doesn't intervene? What should the federal government do? If it can't correct the situation, what does it mean for Floridians? Aside from leaving the state, is there any recourse for the citizenry? Should they continue voting in rigged elections? I hope this doesn't happen, but you wonder if some wild-eyed pol doesn't decide confronting the federal government in this way would raise his national profile and make him the hero de jour. It would be weird but maybe not irrational to see a governor tank his own re-election at some point just to establish the principle that he or she could throw out the result of the election. But without Trump's cult-like devotion, one wonders if enough state legislators would really be prepared to emasculate themselves that way. Probably not. And TFG would probably come out against it simply because little mini-dictators would be a challenge to his authority since they would have a somewhat independent power base, and he can't tolerate that. He and his backers want a strong, centralized dictatorship at the federal level. Still, it's an interesting hypothetical.
I guess I'm just feeling voluble today. But I think it's ironic that as much as it's true that TFG and many of his higher-level supporters look at their own voters as gullible, country-fried rubes, I suspect that they also look at their highly-educated opponents on the coasts as at least as naive, as also being gullible rubes. We don't sense the danger to ourselves and we continue trundling along into believing playing by the rules would save us, and academics debate coup vs. autogolpe or what an "electoral autocracy" or "partial democracy" is. "What suckers! What is it, six years later, seven, I still haven't obeyed the law compelling me to hand over my tax returns to Congress! Ha! I love the "rule of law! Openly obstructed justice, pardoned my co-conspirators, led a violent insurrection. Even Hitler went to jail for a little while after his putsch. I really am the smartest! Teeheehee!" Or we high-minded people of principle, or are we just rubes? Maybe we're both?
Another question I'd love to ask some members of SCOTUS and watch them squirm is what happens when the wording of the Constitution leads to results antithetical to the Framers' stated intent, and thus following it becomes internally contradictory. Is it truly a suicide pact for representative democratic-republican government? It's indisputable the Framers believed in majority rule with protection for minority rights. Majority Rule. Is a system that sometimes delivers a president and two chambers of Congress elected by national minorities a constitutional system? The EC as a system for indirect elections by the wise failed long ago, so shouldn't it just be a plurality winner? The House was always meant to be close to the people and reflect the popular will, so is a population imbalance that means votes in one state are far more valuable than another compatible with the original intent of the Constitution? Our system isn't proportional, true, but does a scenario where candidates winning less votes across the board govern the country really fit into the concept of democratic-republican governance? The Senate is explicitly different, so we can leave that aside. Please, solve this riddle, oh wise and learned legal scholar of pure heart and original intent! At least prior to ruling that a gerrymandered legislature that represents a minority of state voters can overturn the state popular vote! Alito or Thomas would just spit at me and laugh. They don't need to bother to answer, and they have nothing but contempt for the question and anyone who asks it.
What happens if DeSantis were to lose the governor's election to Crist and refuse to accept the vote? DeSantis will probably win, but hypothetically, if he lost, or some other R governor, and he or she rejected the outcome and the state legislature ratified that rejection, and then SCOTUS upheld the legislature's power to do so? In effect, Florida (or state X) is transformed into a little dictatorship, unquestionably. Should the federal government use the military if necessary to intervene, and ignore SCOTUS's validation? What if the Florida National Guard offers resistance? Should the US Army fight the NG and various militias? What if the federal govt. doesn't intervene? What should the federal government do? If it can't correct the situation, what does it mean for Floridians? Aside from leaving the state, is there any recourse for the citizenry? Should they continue voting in rigged elections? I hope this doesn't happen, but you wonder if some wild-eyed pol doesn't decide confronting the federal government in this way would raise his national profile and make him the hero de jour. It would be weird but maybe not irrational to see a governor tank his own re-election at some point just to establish the principle that he or she could throw out the result of the election. But without Trump's cult-like devotion, one wonders if enough state legislators would really be prepared to emasculate themselves that way. Probably not. And TFG would probably come out against it simply because little mini-dictators would be a challenge to his authority since they would have a somewhat independent power base, and he can't tolerate that. He and his backers want a strong, centralized dictatorship at the federal level. Still, it's an interesting hypothetical.