Can Trump Actually Stage a Coup and Stay in Office for a Second Term?

Despite all of Trump’s machinations, it is extremely unlikely he can find a way to stay in power or stage a coup. Here’s an explanation of why.




November 11, 2020 Sam Levine THE GUARDIAN



https://portside.org/2020-11-11/can-trump-actually-stage-coup-and-stay-office-second-term




Trump refuses to acknowledge Biden’s win, but experts say there isn’t a constitutional path forward for him to remain president

Joe Biden won the presidential election, a fact that Donald Trump and other Republicans refuse to acknowledge.

There are worries the president and other Republicans will make every effort to stay in power. “There will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration,” Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, said on Tuesday. William Barr, the attorney general, has also authorized federal prosecutors to begin to investigate election irregularities, a move that prompted the head of the justice department’s election crimes unit to step down from his position and move to another role.

Despite all of Trump’s machinations, it is extremely unlikely he can find a way to stay in power or stage a coup. Here’s an explanation of why:

Donald Trump refuses to accept that Joe Biden won the presidential election. Is there a constitutional path for him to stage a coup and stay in office for another term?

Not really. The electoral college meets on 14 December to cast its vote for president and nearly every state uses the statewide popular vote to allocate its electors. Biden is projected to win far more than the 270 electoral votes he needs to become president. His victory doesn’t hinge on one state and he has likely insurmountable leads in Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Arizona.

There is a long-shot legal theory, floated by Republicans before the election, that Republican-friendly legislatures in places such as Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania could ignore the popular vote in their states and appoint their own electors. Federal law allows legislatures to do this if states have “failed to make a choice” by the day the electoral college meets. But there is no evidence of systemic fraud of wrongdoing in any state and Biden’s commanding margins in these places make it clear that the states have in fact made a choice.

“If the country continues to follow the rule of law, I see no plausible constitutional path forward for Trump to remain as president barring new evidence of some massive failure of the election system in multiple states,” Richard Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, who specializes in elections, wrote in an email. “It would be a naked, antidemocratic power grab to try to use state legislatures to get around the voters’ choice and I don’t expect it to happen.”

For lawmakers in a single state to choose to override the clear will of its voters this way would be extraordinary and probably cause a huge outcry. For Trump to win the electoral college, several states would have to take this extraordinary step, a move that would cause extreme backlash and a real crisis of democracy throughout the country.

“There’s a strange fascination with various imagined dark scenarios, perhaps involving renegade state legislatures, but this is more dystopian fiction than anything likely to happen,” said Richard Pildes, a law professor at New York University. “The irony, or tragedy, is that we managed to conduct an extremely smooth election, with record turnout, under exceptionally difficult circumstances – and yet, a significant portion of the president’s supporters are now convinced that the process was flawed.”

Is there any indication Republicans in these important states are going to go along with this?

Shortly after election day, Jake Corman, the top Republican in the Pennsylvania state senate, indicated his party would “follow the law” in Pennsylvania, which requires awarding electors to the winner of the popular vote. In an October op-ed, Corman said the state legislature “does not have and will not have a hand in choosing the state’s presidential electors or in deciding the outcome of the presidential election”.

But on Tuesday, Republicans in the Pennsylvania legislature said they wanted to investigate allegations of voter fraud. There’s no evidence of widespread malfeasance in the state, but the move is alarming because it could be the beginning of an effort to undermine the popular vote results in the state. The Republican-led legislature in Michigan is also investigating the election, as are Republicans in Wisconsin. There’s no evidence of widespread wrongdoing in either place.

Is this related in any way to the lawsuits Trump is filing?

Trump’s campaign has filed a slew of legally dubious suits since election day. The purpose of these suits appears not to be to actually overturn the election results, but to try and create uncertainty and draw out the counting process.

Each state has its own deadlines for certifying election results that are then used to allocate its electoral college votes. In at least two states, Pennsylvania and Michigan, Trump’s campaign is seeking to block officials from certifying results.

That certification timeline is important because federal law says that as long as election results are finalized by 8 December this year, the result is “conclusive”. That provides a safeguard against Congress, which is responsible for counting the electoral college votes, from second-guessing election results. By dragging out the process, the Trump campaign may be seeking to blow past that deadline and create more wiggle room to second-guess the results.

Even if that is the Trump campaign’s hope, courts are unlikely to step in, Pildes said.

“States are going to start certifying their vote totals beginning in less than 10 days, and there is no basis in the claims made thus far for the courts to stop that process,” he said.

Say the worst-case scenario comes to fruition and Republican-led legislatures override the will of the people in several states. Is there any safeguard to stop Trump?

Yes. Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Nevada all have Democratic governors who would refuse to approve a set of Trump electors with the popular vote clearly showing Biden winning their state. Instead, they would submit the electors Biden is entitled to as the winner of the popular vote.

It would then fall to Congress, which is charged with counting the votes from the electoral college, to decide what to do. The law that outlines the process for how Congress should handle a dispute in electors from a state is extremely confusing, but experts believe the slate backed by a state’s governor is the legally sound one. There is a rival theory that the president of the Senate, Mike Pence, could have control over the process. A dispute over electors between the US House and Senate is a worst-case scenario and the US supreme court would probably be asked to step in.

Regardless of however long a dispute is, the constitution does set one final deadline. Even if counting is ongoing, the president and vice-president’s terms both end at noon on January20. At that point if there isn’t a final result in the race, the speaker of the House – probably Nancy Pelosi – would become the acting president.

Trump & Biden -- TRUTH In The Streets

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYgOx-r9erQ&ab_channel=TheJimmyDoreShow

Democrats Need a Winning Message in Georgia. Bernie Sanders Says Fight for $15 Minimum Wage

The Vermont senator noted that "47% of workers in Georgia make less than $15 an hour and 71% of voters in Georgia support increasing the federal minimum wage."




November 11, 2020 Kenny Stancil COMMON DREAMS



https://portside.org/2020-11-11/democrats-need-winning-message-georgia-bernie-sanders-says-fight-15-minimum-wage




For Democrats to win both runoff races planned for January 5 in Georgia and secure a Senate majority, they're going to need a winning campaign message.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) shared a suggestion on social media: "If Democrats take back the Senate," he said on Monday afternoon, "we will increase the minimum wage from a starvation wage of $7.25 an hour to a living wage of at least $15 an hour."

Sanders' tweet implied that vocally fighting for a higher minimum wage could be the key to victory for candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock in Georgia, where 47% of workers make less than $15 an hour and 71% of voters support increasing the federal minimum wage.



As Common Dreams reported last week, voters in Florida—despite casting roughly 370,000 more ballots for outgoing President Donald Trump than President-elect Joe Biden—approved a ballot measure to establish a $15 minimum wage with support from nearly two-thirds of the state's electorate.

After Floridians passed a minimum wage increase by a margin of 61% to 39% while Biden lost the state by capturing only 47.8% of the vote compared to Trump's 51.2%, progressives criticized the Democratic Party for what some characterized as an inadequate embrace of progressive positions, ineffective communication, or both.

After all, critics noted, it is Biden, not Trump, who actually supports the $15 minimum wage policy that will give nearly 2.5 million low-income workers in Florida a much-needed raise.

With a major potential victory for progressives in sight, Sanders offered a campaign message for candidates Ossoff and Warnock that could prevent the Democrats from coming up short in Georgia and handing Senate control to the Republicans.

His messaging idea, which seeks to excite people about the possibility of a Democratic-led Senate delivering a minimum wage hike, reflects his desire to see Ossoff and Warnock champion a living wage policy that can generate enthusiasm amongst voters and spark a strong turnout for the special Senate elections in Georgia.

As TIME reported last week, Atlanta's above-average turnout among young voters (18-29 years old), and particularly young Black voters, 90% of whom voted for Biden, was instrumental in securing victory for the president-elect. If Democrats are to win a Senate majority, replicating a high turnout of voters who oppose the GOP's reactionary agenda will be crucial.

Data from Oxfam America and the Economic Policy Institute suggests that strongly advocating for a living wage, which researchers have pointed out would substantially reduce racial inequality, could propel a high turnout among working class populations that are electorally significant but often underrepresented at the polls.

In Georgia, 69.4% of Hispanic, 59.4% of Black, 41.9% of Asian American, and 39.9% of white workers make less than $15 an hour. Furthermore, of the workers in the state who make less than $15 an hour, 24% are under 25 years old while 36% are between the ages of 25 and 39.

In other words, Sanders is suggesting that many of the same Atlanta residents and other people around the state in young and nonwhite demographic categories who voted overwhelmingly for Biden are probably more likely to support Ossoff and Warnock in January 2021 if the candidates' campaigns make it clear that low-income workers in Georgia stand to benefit from a Democratic Senate majority.

As HuffPost reported last week, organized labor played a key role in successfully rejecting Trump at the ballot box in 2020, with union leaders encouraging members and other working class households, particularly Black and Hispanic voters in urban areas of swing states, to get to the polls to support a Biden administration, which organizers said "would protect their healthcare and do more to raise their wages."

Sanders is now highlighting how a Democratic-led Senate could pass a $15 minimum wage and advocating for the party to make the case to Georgians that they'll benefit from helping to defeat the Republican Party and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Pro-Trump Televangelist Handling His Loss Very Normally

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ejlpJAZMIM&ab_channel=SecularTalk

Progressive Rep. Rashida Tlaib Fires Back at Centrist Democrats: ‘I Can’t Be Silent’

Some Democrats have blamed progressives for unexpected losses in the House this election. But Tlaib and her fellow “Squad” members aren’t having it.




November 11, 2020 Hayley Miller HUFFPOST




https://portside.org/2020-11-11/progressive-rep-rashida-tlaib-fires-back-centrist-democrats-i-cant-be-silent




Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) on Tuesday spoke out against centrist Democrats who are blaming progressives like her for the party’s unexpected losses in the House this election.

Though Democrats managed to hold on to control of the House, Republicans have picked up at least six seats in the lower chamber. Some moderates have pointed the finger at progressives, claiming their calls to “defund the police” following George Floyd’s death in May and their opposition to fracking may have alienated voters.

But Tlaib and other progressive House members are pushing back against the criticism from their center-left colleagues.

“We’re not going to be successful if we’re silencing districts like mine,” Tlaib told Politico. “Me not being able to speak on behalf of many of my neighbors right now, many of which are Black neighbors, means me being silenced. I can’t be silent.”

She continued: “We are not interested in unity that asks people to sacrifice their freedom and their rights any longer. And if we truly want to unify our country, we have to really respect every single voice. We say that so willingly when we talk about Trump supporters, but we don’t say that willingly for my Black and brown neighbors and from LGBTQ neighbors or marginalized people.”

In a call with the House Democratic Caucus last week, Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.), who came dangerously close to losing her race this year, lashed out at progressives, chiding them for opening up Democrats to attacks about “socialism” and appearing to be anti-police.

“We need to not ever use the word ‘socialist’ or ‘socialism’ ever again,” Spanberger said on the call, audio of which was leaked to the press. “We lost good members because of that.”

Democratic infighting has grown in recent years with the arrival of progressives like Tlaib and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), whom House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has tried to distance herself from in an effort to appease moderates.

Pelosi and other Democratic leaders have catered to centrist Democrats, whose faction helped regain control of the House in 2018 by winning conservative-leaning districts.

Republicans have seized on figures like Tlaib and Ocasio-Cortez to paint Democrats as extreme radicals — which is a version of GOP attacks that have been used against liberals, including Pelosi, for decades.

A memo being circulated by top progressive groups ― including Justice Democrats, the group that propelled Ocasio-Cortez to topple 10-term incumbent Joe Crowley in 2018 ― lays out ways Democrats can rally more support.

“While we are all happy about President-elect Joe Biden’s resounding defeat of Donald Trump, Democrats are right to be concerned about their underperformance down the ballot,” states the memo, a copy of which was obtained by Politico.

“As we speak, Congressional Democrats are debating why they underperformed and some have been quick to blame progressives,” the memo continues, adding: “We cannot let Republican narratives drive our party away from Democrats’ core base of support: young people, Black, Brown, working class, and social movements who are the present and future of the party.”

The memo calls on Democrats to invest in that core base, connect economic justice to racial justice and adopt an economic message that “connects with all working people.”

“Scapegoating progressives and Black activists for their demands and messaging is not the lesson to be learned here,” according to the memo. “It was their organizing efforts, energy and calls for change needed in their communities that drove up voter turnout.”

Tlaib and other members of the so-called Squad ― a group of progressive members of Congress that includes Tlaib, Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts ― say their agenda is a way to win voters not lose them.

“If [voters] can walk past blighted homes and school closures and pollution to vote for Biden-Harris, when they feel like they don’t have anything else, they deserve to be heard,” Tlaib told Politico. “I can’t believe that people are asking them to be quiet.”

Trump Administration CRUSHING Iran On Their Way Out

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39QLtAbqkFs&ab_channel=SecularTalk

A TRIUMPHANT RETURN TO POWER FOR BOLIVIA’S SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

By Leonardo Flores, Popular Resistance.

November 11, 2020



https://popularresistance.org/a-triumphant-return-to-power-for-bolivias-social-movements/




Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Bolivia on November 8 to celebrate the inauguration of President Luis Arce. They would celebrate again the next day, as former president Evo Morales re-entered the country almost a year to the day after his government was overthrown in a coup backed by the Organization of American States (OAS). Almost a month ago, on October 18, the Bolivian people delivered a resounding 26-point electoral victory to the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party. They voted against the neoliberalism represented by candidate and former president Carlos Mesa and his Comunidad Ciudadana (Citizen’s Community), as well as against the fascism and white nationalism of candidate Luis Fernando Camacho and his Creemos (We Believe) party.

The most important victory, however, did not come at the ballot box, but rather on the streets. After the coup regime of Jeanine Añez had postponed elections multiple times in 2020, hundreds of thousands of Bolivians protested last summer to demand a fixed election date. Even after authorities set a date, protests continued, calling for justice for those murdered by the regime, insisting that those who had been jailed be freed, and denouncing the regime’s corruption and malfeasance. Had it not been for that massive display of people’s power against a coup government known for “summary executions and widespread repression”, Bolivians may have not even had the opportunity to vote.

América Maceda of the Bolivian collective Abya Yala Communitarian Feminism, interviewed by CODEPINK’s electoral observation delegation, explained why people were willing to risk everything: “Although on the one hand there was terror and fear, on the other there was hope and struggle, fundamentally by social organizations, to recover democracy and deepen the Bolivian process of change.”

This process of change can be traced to 1998, when Evo Morales and others founded the IPSP (Political Instrument for the Sovereignty of the Peoples) in an attempt to have a political party work in conjunction with social movements and labor unions. Banned from competing in elections, in 1998 the IPSP merged with the MAS, then a fringe party with virtual zero membership. By 2005, Morales was elected to the presidency under the MAS-IPSP banner, which began the country’s transformation and remains the official name of the party.

The call for creating a political instrument came in the late 1980’s from a conference that included five of the country’s biggest unions and social movements. Bolivian sociologist Juan Carlos Pinto explained that “the idea from the start was that a party is division, a party isolates some and separates others, it creates bosses and owners. The people are the revolutionary axis, and we needed [the IPSP] to enable us to fight for the revolution.”

Both Pinto and social leader Maceda noted an imbalance between the party and the social movements that comprise it in the years prior to the coup. As the party grew stronger following repeated electoral victories, social movements became bureaucratized and the IPSP became an afterthought. Despite the continued presence of “capitalism, patriarchy and colonialism… one couldn’t protest against a brother president [Morales],” Maceda mentioned in explaining the challenges for social organizations of having an ally in office.

This bureaucratization and demobilization would prove costly in the wake of the October 2019 election in which Evo Morales was elected but the OAS declared the election fraudulent. People were anxious to get out onto the streets to defend their democracy from the coming coup, but were prevented from doing so by state and party officials who urged restraint. “These errors were paid for by the Bolivian people,” she said.

There is some resentment towards the MAS leadership, Evo Morales included, for the fact that he and others fled or hid in embassies, while average citizens were gunned down by the coup regime. There is also the idea that the coup may not have happened had Morales chosen not to run for a controversial third term.

Yet Morales remains broadly popular and has a “mystique”; even those within the movement who are his harshest critics speak of him with a certain reverence. As the nation’s first indigenous leader after 500 years of colonial, then white settler rule, Morales will continue to have significant influence within the country, yet he has rejected the possibility of joining the government in any official capacity. He is still the president of the Six Federations of the Trópico, a grouping of agrarian unions in the department of Cochabamba and “the most important social movement in Bolivia,” according to journalist Ollie Vargas.

There is speculation that Morales might become the next president of UNASUR (Union of Southern American Nations), the multilateral organization that saved Bolivia from a possible coup in 2008. Following a failed recall referendum to remove then President Morales from office, there was an attempt to destabilize and delegitimize the Morales government as right-wing groups took over government buildings. UNASUR called an extraordinary meeting, declared its support for the Bolivian government, and subsequently investigated and condemned a massacre committed by right-wing civic groups. In the years prior to the 2019 coup, there was a concerted effort by the U.S. and its allies to weaken the institution, as Chile, Brazil and Colombia withdrew from its constitutive treaty. President Arce has already committed to rebuilding UNASUR and someone with the stature of Morales would grant it significant influence.

Among the grassroots, however, there is hope that he will dedicate himself to political education. Speaking about the important progress made by Bolivia under Morales, including a 42% drop in poverty and a 60% reduction in extreme poverty, Maceda noted that “material conditions for the people improved, [yet] this was not accompanied by a process of political education, consciousness and self-criticism.”

Despite the criticisms, the overwhelming MAS-IPSP victory is a sign that social movements will not abandon the party. Furthermore, the results of this year’s election are the final nail in the coffin for claims of fraud in the October 2019 vote, particularly since comparisons by CEPR (Center for Economic Policy Research) and CELAG (Latin American Strategic Center for Geopolitics) of last year’s tally sheets to this year’s in precincts with alleged “irregularities” show the MAS-IPSP getting equal or greater support. Morales won cleanly last year; arguments to the contrary are baseless and should finally be put to rest.

The immediate future for Bolivia is complex; the new government will be saddled with the coup regime’s mishandling of the economy (including taking on a $300 million loan from the IMF that was unauthorized by the Senate), and the economic downturn from the pandemic. There is also a question about accountability: although President Arce has promised not to seek vengeance for the regime’s crimes, he will not be able to ignore the clamor for justice.

This accountability should extend beyond the key members of the coup regime and include one of the key players in the 2019 coup: OAS Secretary-General Luis Almagro. Almagro has ignored questions about the OAS response to the 2019 elections made by four U.S. representatives. Immediately after the 2020 elections confirmed a MAS victory, President Arce, Morales and others in Bolivia called on Almagro to resign. They have been joined in this by the Puebla Group, an organization that includes some of the region’s most prestigious politicians, including former presidents Dilma Rousseff (Brazil), Ernesto Samper (Colombia), Rafael Correa (Ecuador) and Fernando Lugo (Paraguay). Additionally, Bolivian social movements and others throughout the hemisphere are demanding Almagro resign, including CODEPINK.