President Pelosi: It Could Happen
By
Leonard Zwelling
Article 2, paragraph two of the US Constitution says: “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress.”
That’s right, friends, there is no Constitutional mandate that your vote for president needs to be counted at all. It has been by convention that the state legislatures have translated the popular vote into the Electoral College numbers. This is not written in stone.
Furthermore, the 20th Amendment ends the term of the current president on January 20 at noon on the year after Election Day. So what does all of this mean?
It means that Donald Trump has a route back to the White House that does not involve your voting at all if he persuades enough state legislatures to appoint his electors even if the popular vote of any of these states goes to Joe Biden. It also means that someone has to become president on January 20, 2021 at noon and if the Trump-Biden election gets tied up in court, which is possible as neither man is likely to concede in a closely contested race, Mrs. Pelosi, the presumptive Speaker of the House, is next in line for the presidency. Get over it! What? You don’t like this and this is not what you thought the United States stood for? Again, get over it. This is the law of the land.
I actually do not believe any of this will take place. Even if Mr. Trump now says that if he “loses” it’s rigged, and Mr. Biden wins. My guess is that loud Donald will step aside with his tail between his legs and go away if the world is convinced that Biden won. Trump doesn’t much like the job anyway and he does it so badly!
But as both parties gear up for the greatest fight for the White House in twenty years and as Mr. Trump will not vow to concede if he loses the Electoral College in the usual manner, it is worth considering what could happen particularly if Mr. Trump unloosens his untethered masses into the streets on the occasion of his defeat. All Trump voters are not white supremacists, but most white supremacists are Trump voters. No wonder gun sales are up.
In a normal society, both candidates would pledge to acquiesce to the people’s wishes as made manifest by an honest election. Instead, Mr. Trump is trying to undermine the election by declaring mail-in ballots are fraudulent (they’re not). He says that any election using such ballots if rigged (it’s not). And what many people know, the majority of mail-in ballots are likely to be Democratic and counted after Election Day, thus making the actual outcome tentative on November 3. This could lead to declarations of victory by Mr. Trump before all ballots are counted and undoubted court fights that may leave the country without a winner, maybe until January 20. If that happens, and no one knows who really won on January 20, 2021, Mr. Trump’s first term ends. If neither Biden nor Trump has a declared victory, Mrs. Pelosi steps in.
Is it any wonder then that Mr. Trump wants the ninth Supreme Court justice in place before Election Day? He is figuring that the result of the election may hinge on a Supreme Court decision and he wants six Republican appointees up there to make sure he wins.
There are a lot of moving parts in this election and, of course, none of this precludes one or the other man winning in a landslide and ending all of this nonsense. I just don’t see Mr. Trump winning in a landslide unless Mr. Biden completely blows the remaining debates—a possibility. I also don’t see Mr. Biden winning in a landslide unless Mr. Trump does indeed shoot someone on Fifth Avenue. That too is unlikely.
Strap on your seat belts. The flight is going to be rough and goodness knows how we prevent a crash landing.
Please also note our new web site at lenzwelling.com. It has a new and improved look thanks to Cousin Ben Shapiro. I hope you like it.
