Before January 6, 2020, Thom Hartman published a piece about how Republicans planned to steal the election. Democrats mostly responded to it with denial — essentially saying that the scenario he described was not possible because of the strength of our democratic institutions. Even a week after January 6, Democrats were still saying that there was no way that plan could ever work. Well, then people looked at it seriously, and it turns out that if the mob had been more organized and if Mike Pence had gone along with it, their plot to hand the election to Donald Trump would have worked well enough. A system designed to thwart democracy will sometimes thwart it in a way you don’t like.
For details on the 2020 plot, I will refer you to Wikipedia.
There’s a new plan now — designed to fit a new set of circumstances and compensate for past failures — and Democrats are again denying that there’s a danger. In short:
- Mike Johnson refuses to swear a few new Democrats into Congress on January 3rd, claiming there are “irregularities” in their elections that must be first investigated. This allows the Republicans to still be in control of the House on January 6. They’ve delayed swearing in representatives before, so it is an established practice and appears to be legal.
- Mike Johnson delays acceptance of the Electoral College certificates of election from a handful of states where Republicans claim there are “problems.” Republicans have repeatedly stated that they believe the House of Representatives is the ultimate arbiter of whether to certify electors from each state, and there’s no precedent regarding whether that is true. If Democrats fought this point in a legal sense, it would go to the Supreme Court, which is controlled by the Republicans; it would likely conclude that Congress should decide the question with legislation.
- Regardless of how many votes Biden won by, electoral or popular, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives simply refuses to certify the electoral college votes of enough states; as a result, the minimum of 270 isn’t reached. Under the 12th Amendment, like with the election of 1876, that throws the election to the House, where each state gets one vote. While a majority of Americans live in a state run by Democrats, a majority of the states themselves are run by Republicans. Even if Biden has the majority of 269 electoral votes, the Constitution still says the election goes to the House, and the House may choose literally anyone as President.
(Much of the text of the above 3 points is copy-pasted from Thom Hartman’s article.)
The way we would all experience this is that Biden wins on election night, but Republicans immediately start claiming the election was stolen. Over the next few weeks, they claim specific states have a problem. Legal maneuvering begins and continues all the way into January; Republicans successfully stall — they’re good at it. Before January 3rd, Republicans make claims about specific new Democratic party members of the House, and Mike Johnson refuses to seat them on January 3rd pending an investigation. On January 6, Mike Johnson claims that Biden doesn’t actually have 270 electoral votes and announces that the House will choose the President.
This new plan does not depend on a mob of crazed MAGA minions, nor does it depend on Mike Pence. It also avoids the need to send sets of fake electors from some states — a strategy that didn’t work out last time. Rather, it depends on a crew of Republican politicians who sometimes speak out against Trump and his authoritarian aspirations, but always end up doing the wrong thing in the end. If the Democrats want to fight any of this, the best course of action would be to get a time machine, go back to 1977 (for example), and eliminate the electoral college and the other procedural tricks that allow this strategy to work. Since that’s not an option, the Democratic party really needs to think outside the box.
I mean, really outside the box. Outside the box of always trying to get conservatives to like them. Outside the box of standard procedure. Outside the box of civility. Outside the box of preventing conflict by throwing vulnerable people under the bus. I predict that the Democrats will not think outside of the box. My understanding is that the Democrats would rather let the Republicans win than step outside the box. Since the Democratic party isn’t going to be saving the day, we will all just have to cross our fingers and hope that the MAGA’s are too disorganized even within the House of Representatives to make this plan happen.
Hopes and prayers!
PS: This post is in no way meant to dissuade you from voting. Please vote.