We now know that Pence was trying to find a way to obey Trump and hold up the election and throw it into the House of Representatives. If the House had voted to make Trump the president as Trump hopped, what would have happened to our country? It seems that we came close to that happening and still the GOP in states they control are trying to find or invent fraud so they can now give the election win to Trump. If this had happened, what would have the majority of mericans do and if they rose up, would the GOP have used the military to put down any insurrection?
I've posted about this before, how Democrats have no good answer to that question. There are scenarios we came close to where the election would have been 'stolen'. One involved a simple result which would move the election into the House where each state gets a vote, and trump would have won; another where a few state legislatures exercised their constitutional power to choose electors, and trump would have won.
Democrats don't really have (nor anyone) an answer to that 'what if'. We see the Republicans' answer now to the lie of it happening, which presumably is close to if it did happen.
At that point it really does enter a phase of:
- courts, who are loathe to get into the political issue, and partisan often when they do, see the terribly corrupt 2000 ruling
- A few officials like the Joint Chiefs of Staff deciding whether the military will settle the issue
- A big division in the country taking sides whether to support the coup or to criticize it as one, with a lot of 'talking heads' and media involvement
- Approaching the steps of violence - citizen attacks, martial law, and so on.
We are close to two threats: when public officials are willing to act in bad faith and betray the law to seize power, which the Republicans have shown clearly most elected leader are willing to do; and legal weaknesses, such as states very much having that power from the constitution to just end elections for president which they are now threatening to start using.
So what would have happened, is a loud public debate about the coup, lots of headlines about 'unprecedented' and 'America in crisis' and identifying leaders of each 'side', and the coup's side trying to solidify power and discourage any resistance, with growing voices of 'for the sake of the country, accept it' just as happened in 2000. Some calls for reforms that likely go nowhere.
And Republicans would have used the seized power to pass measure after measure to cement their power and prevent voters from voting them out.
There would be a widespread view that 'democracy ended', but people would 'get used to it', and recognize 'no democracy is perfect' and 'other countries are worse'. There would be ongoing opposition, but what could they do.
