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 Honest question:
What are the practical limits on these powers if Congress, the Supreme Court, and the entire Executive Branch is all aboard Trump's extralegal agenda?
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I dread when Trump makes these proclamations, because it’s a denial of service attack against me and every other election expert with better things to do than explain why this is BS over and over. But other than that, it’s just empty, meaningless blather.
@mattblaze Are you concerned that he will simply "make it happen," as he has with other illegal orders he's made over the last year? Apparently the Constitution and the law have no force against his will.
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@theklan @mattblaze @blasen You are an idiot, and he does. (Matt is a highly visible public expert on his day job and gets an ENORMOUS amount of abuse: he doesn't need random fools like you telling him to be polite to idiots.)
@cstross @theklan @mattblaze @blasen
Matt is an expert in cryptography, not in predicting what authoritarians will do, or whether they will get away with it.
Is he right that Trump has as much chance of circumventing election laws as he does changing the laws of thermodynamics? No, Trump has much better odds of doing one over the other. Will Trumo get away with it? No, likely not. But the fact that it is is something on his mind is itself a ramping of authoritarianism.
Any cryptographer on earth should be capable of seeing that very clearly.
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I dread when Trump makes these proclamations, because it’s a denial of service attack against me and every other election expert with better things to do than explain why this is BS over and over. But other than that, it’s just empty, meaningless blather.
@mattblaze reminder.
Nobody took Johnson's blabbering about "brexit", either, when his group of chuds *suggested* a non binding referendum about it. And ::motions at UK::
Law is only what people make of it, and only valid if they are willing to enforce and defend.
MAGAty trial balloons are dangerous.
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He incited Jan 6 without having to face any consequences, might he think he can incite something similar during elections? ( i.e. Violence from third parties incited by him but not part of any formal structure governed by him? )
If this was done in specific places as a form of voter suppression?
@FediThing @mattblaze They don't need to disrupt the vote. Just the counting like they tried last time.
This was in Detroit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLLMjud_Zf8From Jack Smith's investigation:
A co-conspirator wanted reasons to throw out Biden votes. When told it would risk creating a “Brooks Brothers Riot” — the co-conspirator responded, “Make them riot’,” and “Do it!!!,” the filing stated.
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@mattblaze Are you concerned that he will simply "make it happen," as he has with other illegal orders he's made over the last year? Apparently the Constitution and the law have no force against his will.
@jonkl no, for the various reasons I mentioned.
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But this is far fetched and almost certainly counter to Trump’s interests, which presumably include not getting himself killed in a coup if he fails. And again, disrupting elections isn’t really essential for this.
@mattblaze A vaguely related topic and question: how theoretically and practically possible is it for a state to leave the USA and become not united with the rest of USA?
I compare that UK left EU (I live in Sweden, EU).
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@inquiline @mattblaze @me_valentijn totally magic eight ball vibes
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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 @mattblaze POTUS has nominal authority over tariffs and immigration enforcement, as those are defined in the Constitution as Federal concerns. He ultimately controls the government structures doing those things.
Elections in the US are explicitly reserved (not 'delegated') to the States, which further delegate authority to counties and municipalities. No one in that hierarchy answers to POTUS.
His "demand" that states provide voter data to Federal authorities has so far failed. -
@mattblaze
It aeems to me that his "power" across the board (that is, irrespective of which elections & where they occur) appears to be theatrical declarations to the press & on social media — which do affect many people when they hear/read them — and the general ability to create chaos and more intimidation by, for example, putting any sort of "enforcement" agents on streets & around polling places. Those could be ICE, National Guard, regular military, et al., legal or not.Correct assumption?
Yup, Trump is a fucking chaos monkey.
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But this is far fetched and almost certainly counter to Trump’s interests, which presumably include not getting himself killed in a coup if he fails. And again, disrupting elections isn’t really essential for this.
The presidency is an extremely powerful office, but it’s not all powerful. There are limits - legal, structural, and practical - that shape what someone like Trump can and can’t do unilaterally. The fact that he can order thugish enforcement of immigration laws (something that was already almost entirely within executive control) doesn’t mean he can just unilaterally rewrite the constitution or usurp state sovereignty.
Not all abuses are equally plausible.
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@FediThing @mattblaze They don't need to disrupt the vote. Just the counting like they tried last time.
This was in Detroit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLLMjud_Zf8From Jack Smith's investigation:
A co-conspirator wanted reasons to throw out Biden votes. When told it would risk creating a “Brooks Brothers Riot” — the co-conspirator responded, “Make them riot’,” and “Do it!!!,” the filing stated.
@cwdolunt @FediThing @mattblaze
Or the Brooks Brothers riot that ended up stealing the entire 2000 election for Bush thanks to the corrupt SCOTUS. And it wasn't even as corrupt then as it is now.
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The presidency is an extremely powerful office, but it’s not all powerful. There are limits - legal, structural, and practical - that shape what someone like Trump can and can’t do unilaterally. The fact that he can order thugish enforcement of immigration laws (something that was already almost entirely within executive control) doesn’t mean he can just unilaterally rewrite the constitution or usurp state sovereignty.
Not all abuses are equally plausible.
@mattblaze
What they can and will do is spread doubt.
And I fear that Vance will do what Pence didn't and throw the election to the house. -
One (very risky) thing that Trump could potentially do would be to use federal law enforcement and/or military to *disrupt* elections to prevent them from happening altogether. It’s not clear that doing this yields him any benefit, or that enough people would obey his orders to have wide impact.
This is essentially a nuclear option. The outcome is no legitimate government, and likely civil war. And if he really wants a civil war, he can start one in other ways without taking over elections.
@mattblaze Trump can deploy ICE to drive around and pick up anyone "looking suspiciously like foreigner" in all counties that historically vote democratic.
Doesn't matter if they're really foreigners, just having ICE driving around and potentially arresting you is enough to suppress voters.
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@mattblaze Trump can deploy ICE to drive around and pick up anyone "looking suspiciously like foreigner" in all counties that historically vote democratic.
Doesn't matter if they're really foreigners, just having ICE driving around and potentially arresting you is enough to suppress voters.
@dascandy That would certainly be bad. But it’s not “nationalizing elections”, which is the thing he said he wants to do.
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@mattblaze Yep, just like he can't bom random ass fisherman without congressional approval. How's that working out?
@hellomiakoda @mattblaze the scale of what would be involved to nationalize the elections isn't impossible, but it gets kind of close to the level of difficulty associated with putting a functioning, practical solar powered AI data center in orbit. Nobody would be foolish enough to try *that*, I assume.
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@inquiline in my time we used the term “trolling”, but I guess “engagement farming” works as a synonym 8-D
i don't thnk it is what i'd call trolling, and if it were trolling i don't think i'd have said anything. i almost didn't, and @mattblaze certainly knows how to handle trolls--but this seemed weirder and like matt might want to know it was uniquely not worth replying/trying to educate them
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@mattblaze @diasyy11 i don't have to be an elections expert to understand that if a bunch of guys with guns show up and start beating people up and shutting down the polling station or seizing the machines, that nothing in the law can stop that and in a situation like minneapolis where the cops are outnumbered 5:1 by ICE guys with bigger guns, nothing in local law enforcement can stop it either.
@cryptadamist @mattblaze @diasyy11 Do you not realize that, if Trump actually sends goons to “seize the election machines" we're in a crisis far worse than “cancelling elections”.
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The presidency is an extremely powerful office, but it’s not all powerful. There are limits - legal, structural, and practical - that shape what someone like Trump can and can’t do unilaterally. The fact that he can order thugish enforcement of immigration laws (something that was already almost entirely within executive control) doesn’t mean he can just unilaterally rewrite the constitution or usurp state sovereignty.
Not all abuses are equally plausible.
@mattblaze but I think it's clear enough now that absolutely any executive authority contingent on "emergency" conditions can and will be abused, now that impeachment is no longer a credible deterrent.
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@mattblaze A vaguely related topic and question: how theoretically and practically possible is it for a state to leave the USA and become not united with the rest of USA?
I compare that UK left EU (I live in Sweden, EU).
