In the end, the president who got himself impeached attempting to extort a foreign leader to dig up dirt on a political opponent he knew could beat him in the general election, may well have landed himself in prison attempting to extort an elected official in Georgia to "find" enough votes to overturn that very same election against that very same opponent.
To quote Britney Spears, "Oops, I did it again."
Two "perfect" calls, almost two years apart, with one common denominator. Turns out Trump's instincts were correct. Of all the Democrats running for president, Biden was the one best suited to beat him. The national polling said so, and so did Trump's internal polling. And so it shouldn't have surprised anyone that Trump would go to any lengths to keep that from happening.
But despite all the extortion attempts, in just over two weeks, the inevitable will happen. Biden will be sworn in as the 46th president of the United States and Trump will become a private citizen. He can threaten members of his own party all he wants; he can continue to spew falsehoods on social media platforms to his heart's content; and he can, sadly, even incite violence among his deranged followers. But on January 20, the Constitution will have the last word.
But before we get to that point, there's one more "ceremonial" function that has to take place. Tomorrow, Congress meets to officially count the electoral votes. The reason I put the word ceremonial in quotations is that at least a dozen Republican senators and 140 Republican congressmen plan on objecting to the slates of electors in the swing states Biden won. Those states are Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Led by Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz from the Senate, and I'm guessing Louie Gohmert or Moe Brooks from the House - it's hard to keep track of who's driving the crazy train in that chamber these days - what should be at most an hour-long process could likely take anywhere from 10 to 12 hours to complete. And in the end, this stunt - and that's all it is - will change absolutely nothing. There's is no viable path forward for either them or this president that ends in victory. They know it, even if Bunker Boy doesn't.
No doubt by now you've heard about all the things that could go wrong. Mike Pence could challenge the electors himself if he wants: the so-called Pence card. If there's a tie between both chambers then we have a contingent election, in which case it gets thrown to the House of Representatives where each state's delegation gets one vote. If Republicans drag out the process all the way to January 20, Trump can remain in power. The date of the inauguration can be postponed. The answer to all of these scenarios is a resounding no. Let's take each one in order.
1. There is no Pence card. The vice president's role on January 6 is purely ministerial. He opens up the envelopes containing the certified slates of electors and then hands them over to the tellers. He doesn't even participate in the counting. The only thing he could potentially do is maybe cast the tie-breaking vote in the event of a 50 / 50 tie in the Senate, and that isn't likely since the Georgia runoff elections won't be decided in time for David Purdue - whose term expired on January 3 - to participate in the vote. In the event Pence is a no-show, Chuck Grassley, the Senate president pro temp, will officiate.
2. There won't be a tie. That's because Democrats control the House and there are more than enough sane Republican senators who have said they plan on voting for the Biden electors. But even if there were a tie, all that would mean is that the official slates of electors certified by the governors would prevail. And just in case you were wondering, there are no "alternate" slates of electors. The only way to get to a contingent election is if neither candidate winds up with 270 electoral votes and that is not going to happen.
3. If Republicans insist on dragging this out all the way to January 20 by objecting to each elector - and I doubt that will happen - at 12 noon that day, Trump's term in office expires and Nancy Pelosi becomes acting president until such time as this spectacle comes to an end, and then Biden and Harris get sworn in.
4. The date of inauguration is determined by the 20th Amendment to the Constitution and cannot be postponed, no matter what Peter Navarro says. This guy knows as much about the Constitution as he does about economics, which is to say nothing.
So you see, this stunt isn't going to work. All Trump and his sycophants in Congress will accomplish by objecting to Biden's win is to build up false hope among a lot of gullible people and erode what's left of the democratic norms of this country. And that is what is so appalling about this whole farce. The damage that is being done by these people will take years to repair.
Indeed, I'm more concerned about the period between the 6th and the 20th than I am about tomorrow's vote. So far, the system has held. The judiciary has rejected Trump's claims outright; Republican legislatures have rejected his calls to overturn the election, the Electoral College has met and certified Biden's win, and tomorrow a majority in both houses of Congress will put the final nail in Trump's coffin.
But what if we see violence break out in the streets of Washington D.C. and Trump uses that as an excuse for declaring Martial Law? What if he issues a command to the military to occupy the capital in one last, desperate attempt to cling to power? It's one thing for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to say that the military will play no role in the election, but what if Trump fires him and has one of the stooges he installed at the Pentagon issue the command anyway? What will the troops do? Will they obey such a command or will they interpret it as unlawful and stand down?
If you were looking for the motherload of all Constitutional crises this would be it. Tanks in the streets and an autocrat seizing power. Belarus, American style. You can say that's unlikely to happen, but then most of us didn't think a majority of House Republicans and a dozen or more Senate Republicans would humiliate themselves to defend a corrupt and disgraced president.
Just fifteen days to go, but they will be the longest, most gut-wrenching fifteen days of our lives.
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