Election 2020 > Blue State Secession?

According to the Boston Globe (via the NYT because the Boston Globe has paywall): "...a group of former top government officials called the Transition Integrity Project actually gamed four possible scenarios, including one that doesn’t look that different from 2016: a big popular win for Mr. Biden, and a narrow electoral defeat, presumably reached after weeks of counting the votes in Pennsylvania. For their war game, they cast John Podesta, who was Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, in the role of Mr. Biden. They expected him, when the votes came in, to concede, just as Mrs. Clinton had.

But Mr. Podesta, playing Mr. Biden, shocked the organizers by saying he felt his party wouldn’t let him concede. Alleging voter suppression, he persuaded the governors of Wisconsin and Michigan to send pro-Biden electors to the Electoral College.

In that scenario, California, Oregon, and Washington then threatened to secede from the United States if Mr. Trump took office as planned. The House named Mr. Biden president; the Senate and White House stuck with Mr. Trump. At that point in the scenario, the nation stopped looking to the media for cues, and waited to see what the military would do."

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/02/...n-coverage.html#click=https://t.co/kDEzgI0ejl

WTF is this? Is the 'Transition Integrity Project' a bunch of fantastical loons, or does this sound plausible?

If WA secedes, eastern WA is seceding back, as I suspect large parts of CA and OR as well. There'll be a thin sliver of coastal blue on the western seaboard desperately trying to hock seafood and tech support for the worlds goods.

 

They are wargamming certain possible scenarios because Trump is not going to acknowledge losing if he does, in fact, lose the election. He has already admitted as much.

For the entire history of this country, we have seen a consistent peaceful handover of power based on electoral outcomes. For the first time in this country's history, rational, level-headed people are concerned that a sitting, but defeated president, may refuse to leave power if he loses.

 

Life is a very high risk endeavor. Nobody knows the future. The death angel is always waiting in the wings to harvest a bumper crop.

 

Let them go. Just don't let them back in when they get hungry.

 

He can have all the tantrums he wants but he goes at noon on the 20th no matter how hard he holds his breath if he doesn't win.

 

Sounds like some think tank found a way to get paid a ton to analyze a random hypothetical event. Capitalism!

 

Umm... except the scenario cited had him winning electorally and still 3 states seceded...

Thats not 'Trump losing the election.'

 

The House DECIDES who the next POTUS will be and the Senate and WH have NO SAY in the matter per the Constitution.

Furthermore regardless of whatever outcome you want to game the wannabe Fascist-in-Chief MUST leave the Whitehouse on 1/20/2021 unless the HOUSE declares him to be the winner.

That scenario makes the House Speaker the de facto POTUS given the line of succession.

The Military would NOT intervene in the scenarios above because they are all CONSTITUTIONAL and the military has sworn an Oath to uphold the Constitution.

If the FUGITIVE in the Oval Office refuses to leave then the Secret Service, the US Marshals or the FBI can arrest him for TRESPASSING on government property since he has no legitimate reason for being there after that time.

 

Secede hell! Can states be THROWN out of the Union? Serious question here, anybody?

 

That's really the disturbing part of this. That scenario was simply 2016 all over again. If Trump has an electoral college victory but a popular vote loss, it looks like the Democrats intent to use the threat of secession to swing the Presidency.

The person playing Biden isn't some nobody, it was John Podesta, who will likely really be playing at being Joe Biden during the election. So this seems like a scenario that could really happen.

If it does, goodbye republic. #CivilWarElection

 

The House would have to anull the electoral college in this scenario. That would cause a 'breach of contract' (floabt) situation between FedGov and many StateGovs that would also lead to secession.

 

I was responding to YOUR OP where you made this proviso;

Not my problem that your hypothetical scenario is full of holes.

 

Its not my hypothetical scenario, nor my proviso. I said so in the OP...

"...a group of former top government officials called the Transition Integrity Project" came up with this, not me.

I even asked in the OP: "Is the 'Transition Integrity Project' a bunch of fantastical loons, or does this sound plausible?"

so WTH is your problem?

 

Excellent question!

 

It does not sound plausible, and I can't imagine who is wasting money paying these people. Hopefully, it's not the taxpayer.

In the hypothetical, Biden "feels like" his party would not let him concede. Well, too bad. It doesn't matter what either party "feels" about losing. You can almost guarantee that whichever side loses this year, there willing be loud whining about a "rigged" election.

It doesn't even matter if the loser never formally "concedes" to the other side. Hillary still thinks she won 2016.

 

They can be re-divided and have new borders drawn. So California could break into several states, or have tracts of land merged with neighboring states to the east.

I don't think we'd want to throw out California and lose the coastline anyway. They'd invite Central America and the entire continent of S. America to immigrant and we'd need more wall and border security.

 

I do NOT have a problem because I provided YOU with FACTS.

That YOU cannot RECONCILE the facts that I provided with the hypothetical that you posted in your OP is definitely YOUR problem.

Why don't you just use the FACTS that I provided to ANSWER the question that you asked in your OP?

Why does that have to become my problem?

 

Here's another approach to the same problem:

"In a 55-page law review article published last year, Foley depicts in granular detail what could happen at this point, if Trump and the Republicans opt to challenge the Pennsylvania results. Here’s a spoiler: It’s a damn mess with no clear outcome. And this one case study of how the 2020 presidential race could become a disaster has caught the attention of academics, former government officials, and policy advocates who have been banding together in different forms to try to address the many ways the election might be disrupted or contested.

One such group is the ominously named National Task Force on Election Crises, a bipartisan collection of experts who are plotting out potential calamities and exploring possible remedies before anything hits the fan. This outfit is not predicting chaos, but it has considered dozens of scenarios beyond the Pennsylvania standoff in which the election could go awry and yield chaos and, perhaps, no easy resolution. It’s hair-raising stuff, and the fact that a number of the nation’s leading experts on elections are alarmed (to varying degrees) about what might transpire in November is in itself frightening.

There are laws and constitutional provisions that cover the management of a presidential election, but Foley, in this one example (which could apply to states other than Pennsylvania), shows that these measures are profoundly inadequate for resolving the sort of dispute that he envisions.

If the party makeup of the two chambers has not changed, the Senate, ruled by Republicans, could well accept the Trump slate, and the House, in Democratic hands, would presumably approve the Democratic candidate’s slate. In the meantime, there could be both state and federal court cases related to the competing slates, with the matter perhaps landing before the Supreme Court."

The rest is very much worth reading.


https://www.motherjones.com/politic...erts-prevent-an-election-catastrophe-in-2020/

 

If there is indeed a secession of certain states, then their votes no longer count in any future elections within the united states.

 

Fantasies abound.

What if a huge comet strikes Cincinnati on November 2?

What if Karen Pence has finally had enough, and drops a stone replica of the Ten Commandments on Dumpy's noggin?

What if he locks himself in his bunker and refuses to leave, shrieking that millions of bogus invisible people all voted against him again?

Contriving scenarios is rampant. Have you noticed how many wildly imaginary tales are being churned out by sports writers desperately trying to justify their existence lately?

I'm goin' down, down, down, down
I'm goin' down, down, down, down
I'm goin' down, down, down, down
I'm goin' down, down, down, down
​

 

Can you imagine, if it were possible to secede (which it isn't), how many people would flee the state? Every person on Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare and any other recipient of one dollar of federal tax money would be gone just like that. California has already driven out much of the middle-class in droves.

Who would that leave? A bunch of really rich Californians and millions of undocumented slave laborers. Socialism is great!!!

 

So many fallacious assumptions!

People would have the right to retain their US citizenship which would mean that they would still be eligible for Social Security benefits from the US government. There are millions of expats living overseas who receive SS benefits so that is NOT going to happen.

Secondly the FEDERAL taxes paid by workers in CA would could now be collected by the STATE and used to fund Single Payer healthcare for ALL workers which would be a massive BOOST to what is already the 5th largest economy on the planet.

So the OPPOSITE would happen to what you allege in your scenario. Businesses would no longer have to pay for healthcare and therefore be more competitive and profitable. Entrepreneurs would no longer have to struggle to pay for healthcare so there would be more startups.

FACTS matter!

 

I believe your "facts" are incorrect, but this is all hypothetical anyway, so it doesn't really matter. States cannot secede.

 

I uphold your right to believe your FALLACIES but they do not alter any of the FACTS that I posted.

However you are correct that there is no legitimate way to secede from the union however that does not mean that it cannot happen in other ways.

 

I uphold your right to believe your FALLACIES.