Welp, here we are on another precipice. Tomorrow night we’ll get a good look at what our future may bring, if not certainty. We’ll get to see who’s been right all along and who’s full of shit. Are the polls right and this will be a photo-finish horse race? Will the Libs be correct that large pockets of undeclared Blue Voters have been keeping their leanings to themselves? Or will the MAGAs be right (shudder) and their guy wins in a landslide?
And if the Left is right, how far will TFG guy go to
overturn the election, and can such an effort possibly be successful?
Last week, Martin Longman at Progress Pond wrote one of the scariest “What-ifs”
I’ve seen to date, outlining the most likely chain of events that would lead to
The Former Guy becoming The Returning Guy.
The basic idea is that the Republicans win the House and
then with voter fraud accusations being thrown around (by themselves and their
proxies) stall on electing a speaker. We KNOW they won’t have a problem with
that, given how long it took them to come up with a Speaker under ordinary
circumstances. If they can stall until January 20th, when the
current administration expires, there will be no president or vice president in
office. Then they elect TFG as Speaker and the chain of succession elevates him
to the presidency. (There are other sub-factors, like having to win some court
battles, but that’s the gist of it.)
I find this scenario terrifying, not only because it
follows established law, but the GOP would have no qualms about seizing power
this way. The one giant snag here is that they have to win the House and that’s
a big IF. I’d be surprised if the Dems hold the Senate, but the House seems
attainable. Over the past two years the gap has narrowed so it won’t take that
many flipped seats to change the control. And because every House seat is up
for renewal every year, there can be big turnover when there’s a major change
to the status quo, like the Dodd decision.
Suffice it to say that every seat is important in this
election. Every win will be huge and every loss, devastating.
I don’t know what more there is to say about it; we just have
to wait to see if sanity will reign or we’ll be plunged back into chaos.
I expect that I’ll have another post out on Wednesday or
Thursday, depending on how and when things shake out. Although in fair warning,
if TFG wins, my post won’t be anything more than withering profanity and guttural
howling.
See you on the other side…
