Thursday, July 30, 2020

Wha' fo' is all this brou-haha?

First, I will happily emend my earlier post. I could have sworn the date for federal elections is set in the Constitution. It is, instead, set by federal law. Congress, of course, is not going to change that date at this late date. But let's say they did.

The 20th Amendment to the Constitution ends Trump's term on January 20, 2021.  Without an election by that point, or without election results (more on that in a minute) by that point, Trump has "failed to qualify" and the vice-president has "failed to qualify," so the Speaker of the House becomes President.  Say hello to President Pelosi.

No, Trump is too stupid to have thought that far ahead.

As for the election results, that's already the "problem" some at FauxNoise are trying to raise as the "problem" with mail-in ballots.  I am not making this up:

Varney interrupted: “Hold it. Mr. Senator, I do apologize for interrupting you but if we have mail-in balloting the way it’s scheduled now, there is absolutely no way you will get an election result on election night or even in the first few days. That means confusion and endless challenges. That is a mess.”

“What do you think?” the Fox Business host continued. “Delay the election?”

“No, we’re not going to delay the election, Stuart,” Barrasso replied. “We’re going to have the election completed and voting completed by election day. It’s going to take a while to get all the votes counted. I am certain — we need to continue to do this state by state.”

Varney complained that mail-in ballots can not be counted as quickly as traditional ballots.

“It’s a mess, Senator!” he exclaimed.

“There’s a lot that’s changed because of coronavirus,” Barrasso admitted. “We have been focused and working making sure elections are secure and we will get results. It’s going to take a while, I believe that it will. We may not know on election night the balance of the House of Representatives or the Senate or the presidency.”

“But we will not delay the election,” he added.

I've said it before and I'll say it again:  we used to not know the election results before midnight on election day, and somehow the Republic struggled on.  I think we'll survive a delay of even weeks (NY is just now reporting primary results from a vote six weeks ago because of mail-in ballots and coronavirus related issues).  We'll be fine.  Even Sen. Barrasso won't agree with Varney that the sky is falling.  Trump has drawn so much attention to that kind of incoherence everybody is listening and nobody is buying.  A con always works on having the smallest audience possible.  That audience is now nationwide.  So why is Trump doing this now?  I don't think it's just because he saw new polls.



Yeah, he's trying to be sure we don't talk about how bad the economy is; as if, in not talking about it, none of the unemployed and those filing new jobless claims, will notice they are unemployed?

Such is the nature of our politics:  if we aren't talking about it on Twitter, it doesn't matter.  Of course, most of us on Twitter still have jobs  (internet access ain't free!).
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