Republicans have reached the Joseph Stalin phase of Donald Trump’s downfall
We all are looking forward to a time in a few weeks when the insanity will stop. If you are on Twitter, and you see that Stalin is trending, you might wonder why. Anniversary of something Stalin did? Nope, it has to do with the craziness that we have endured for just under four years now, and that will soon be at an end.
Rogue polling outlet Rasmussen, which always claims Trump is polling better than he’s really polling, tweeted this about January 6:
Come January 6th: (Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything. – Stalin). Come January 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence will be presented with the sealed certificates containing the ballots of the presidential electors.
At that moment, the Presidency will be in his hands. And there is nothing stopping Pence, under the (plenary and unappealable) authority vested in him as President of the Senate, from declining to open and count the certificates from the six disputed states.
If they are (as more than 70% of Republicans believe) certificates from non-electors appointed via voter fraud, why should he open & count them?” If the votes of all 7 contested states are registered as zero, President Trump will have 232 votes, Joe Biden will have 222.
Per the 12th Amendment: “[T]he votes shall then be counted[.] … The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President.”
Rasmussen is off base here, as this is not how anything works. Such a scheme will not be tried, and would not work if it were tried. However, even though it won’t go anywhere, anyone supporting this kind of sedition should be sent to prison to rot.
Daniel is a lawyer writing and teaching about SCOTUS, and is the author of the book “The Chief Justices” about the SCOTUS as seen through the center seat.