No, Trump does not have the legal authority or the practical ability to “nationalize” US elections, for all the same reasons he also didn’t when he issued an executive order a few months ago abolishing mail in voting.
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I could go into detail about what the limits on executive and federal control over US elections are, and what the president could do to exert influence over them, but it would be extremely tedious and irrelevant to the actual reality here, which is that this is a nothing burger.
@mattblaze what do you make of the DOJ and DNI taking possession of Fulton county GA's 2020 ballot machines?
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@mattblaze @dominykas you don't need to be rude. I wanted to note that political laws may change, it's the basis for an authoritarian regime.
@theklan @dominykas Wow! What an interesting and insightful point! I had no idea!
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@theklan @dominykas Wow! What an interesting and insightful point! I had no idea!
@mattblaze @dominykas why do you have that insulting behaviour towards nice comments?
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@mattblaze what do you make of the DOJ and DNI taking possession of Fulton county GA's 2020 ballot machines?
@pinsk not going to rehash this. I posted a lengthy thread about this it the weekend.
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@mattblaze @dominykas why do you have that insulting behaviour towards nice comments?
@theklan @dominykas Because when people aggressively insist that the sky is falling every time he hiccups, it becomes impossible to distinguish between actual threats and meaningless bullshit.
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@mattblaze the "practical ability" thing is the one I'm most curious about here.
He's broken laws (has he not?) so far, and people complied? Is that being mis-represented in [social] media? e.g. there's lawsuits around tariffs? People told Trump "you can't do it, it's illegal", and yet he still did it, and his goons followed through? Why wouldn't the same work with elections, given he still has a compliant base of supporters, incl. among officials?
@dominykas Why the president can't nationalize US elections:
In the United States, are *thousands* of separate elections departments distributed over 50 completely disparate states, each of which operates under its own election laws which are set by each state's legislature. The arbiter of national election law standards is Congress, and that's in the Constitution. The US election apparatus is not like a singular country's election bureau. Election officials are not appointed by the executive branch; they are chosen in local elections. They answer to the people. If there were an effort to nationalize elections, there would be an immediate lawsuit, and despite how far our Supreme Court has fallen, I don't think they're ruling in favor of nationalized elections against what is quite clearly stated in our founding documents.
Article I, Section 4, Clause 1:
The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S4-C1-2/ALDE_00013577/
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@theklan @dominykas Because when people aggressively insist that the sky is falling every time he hiccups, it becomes impossible to distinguish between actual threats and meaningless bullshit.
@mattblaze@federate.social @dominykas I'm not aggressively insisting on anything, just noting that the slope to authoritarianism makes things that are thought as impossible, at least, thinkable.
I didn't insult you, I didn't push any loony idea.
And yet, you were rude two times without any need for a civilized conversation on politics and historical precedents.
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@pinsk not going to rehash this. I posted a lengthy thread about this it the weekend.
@mattblaze I'll look for it again, didn't see it, thanks
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@mattblaze@federate.social @dominykas I'm not aggressively insisting on anything, just noting that the slope to authoritarianism makes things that are thought as impossible, at least, thinkable.
I didn't insult you, I didn't push any loony idea.
And yet, you were rude two times without any need for a civilized conversation on politics and historical precedents.
@theklan ok, bye
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@pinsk not going to rehash this. I posted a lengthy thread about this it the weekend.
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@pinsk @mattblaze there's so much news what happened hours ago is often a mystery
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@theklan @dominykas Because when people aggressively insist that the sky is falling every time he hiccups, it becomes impossible to distinguish between actual threats and meaningless bullshit.
@mattblaze @theklan @dominykas
Exactly this. People have limited time and other resources, and need to fight intelligently. Getting distracted by a myriad of unrealistic threats peels people away from united causes where they can have a real impact and risks burning them out on doing anything, especially when they realizing they've been tricked into fighting something that doesn't exist.Of course, Trump has made the situation more confusing by following through on various absurd threats. But the distinction is that he's been using existing federal powers to carry out those, even if inappropriately and often outright illegally.
Does he want to overthrow state governments and establish a literal dictatorship? Sure. But he's still a very very long way from having the capacity to do that, and it's not going to happen until long after we fail to reign him in on the existing issues.
Trump won't control elections outright, federal or otherwise, until resisting states lose a civil war.
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@dominykas It’s like asking why he can’t suspend laws of thermodynamics or declare himself to be eight feet tall. It’s simply not a thing he controls.
@mattblaze @dominykas Wait. So you consider human laws to be of the same order as the laws of nature? That seems like a very dangerous assumption, a luxury of privilege.
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@mattblaze @dominykas Wait. So you consider human laws to be of the same order as the laws of nature? That seems like a very dangerous assumption, a luxury of privilege.
@lastofthem @dominykas I may be rude, dangerously stupid, and endowed with unearned privilege, but Trump still has no ability to nationalize US elections.
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@lastofthem @dominykas I may be rude, dangerously stupid, and endowed with unearned privilege, but Trump still has no ability to nationalize US elections.
@mattblaze @dominykas He has no legal ability. He has plenty of illegal ones he may or may not risk.
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No, Trump does not have the legal authority or the practical ability to “nationalize” US elections, for all the same reasons he also didn’t when he issued an executive order a few months ago abolishing mail in voting. Elections are governed by states, and, to a limited extent, Congress. Not the executive branch.
There are plenty of very real, immediate threats to democracy to get worked up about right now. This isn’t one of them.
@mattblaze I don't have the legal authority to drive 75 in a 60 mph zone, but if nobody writes the ticket, I get away with it.
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@lastofthem @dominykas I may be rude, dangerously stupid, and endowed with unearned privilege, but Trump still has no ability to nationalize US elections.
@lastofthem @dominykas You know what’s *really* dangerous and full of privilege? Ignoring the details of how complex things you don’t actually understand(like how US elections work) work in order to make dramatic but unwarranted pronouncements of doom.
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@diasyy11 My point is what I said it was: Trump, for the reasons I mentioned, simply has no legal or practical ability to nationalize US elections.
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@mattblaze I don't have the legal authority to drive 75 in a 60 mph zone, but if nobody writes the ticket, I get away with it.
@hellomiakoda but if your car can’t go 75, you can’t do itnin the first place. And there is simply no mechanism through which a US president can nationalize US elections, which are run by state and local governments.
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@diasyy11 My point is what I said it was: Trump, for the reasons I mentioned, simply has no legal or practical ability to nationalize US elections.
@mattblaze @diasyy11 he may have no legal way to do it but that's never stopped him before...
as far as practical ability, i mean he now has a private army that answers to no one but himself called ICE that's larger and better funded than the marine corps... so i don't think it's correct to say he has no practical ability any more.
