So, if Pence had acted in defiance of the law and the Constitution, that’s when democracy in America would have ended?To the "He couldn't do anything else" crowd:
— S.V. Dáte (@svdate) June 10, 2021
While it is correct that neither the Constitution nor the Electoral Count Act gives the VP the authority to pick and choose which states’ votes to accept and to not accept, documents and laws by themselves are not self-executing. https://t.co/jFyn5t9c6T
Because Trump said, while he was POTUS, that he won. Did that end democracy? He still says he won. Has that ended democracy? It appears, from Don McGahn affirming his Mueller testimony, that Trump obstructed justice as POTUS. Does that end democracy?
Yes, laws are not self-executing. But the rule of law does not come to an end because one police officer fails to execute the law, or one office-holder breaks a law. And democracy is neither a document nor any single law. It is self-executing, but it doesn’t depend on complete agreement at every moment, any more than it rests on the actions of one person. If it did, Trump would have already destroyed it single-handedly.
Michael Pence would have failed his obligations as Vice-President if he’d done as Trump asked, but his actions would still have been a nullity. They’d have had no legal force or effect. Democracy would have survived, the same way it survived Trump’s 60 useless attempts to overturn the election, none of which had any legal force or effect, either.
We’ve really got to stop making everything a world-ending cataclysm.
No comments:
Post a Comment