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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@mattblaze @dominykas I mean, a bit of voter suppression in purple counties (with much better information about who to target befause of state records), a bit of making sure some district has a huge "mistrust" in the mechanism, so you add one Trumpist to the board to "prove you have nothing to hide" (the logical thing to do in general, and wrongest in these adversarial settings), could fuel more conspiracy theories. >>>
@mattblaze @dominykas I mean - think of a scenario where one of the officials in the elections committee in Mariposa county (a Trumpist) insists that there was a miscount?
This will fuel all conspiracists, and Jan 6th would be a walk in the park.
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@mkilmo @dominykas Trump has done all sorts of terrible things. That doesn’t mean that his powers are unlimited, or that every terrible thing he might want to do is equally achievable.
What ICE is doing is terrible, but enforcing immigration laws has long (and uncontroversially) been an executive branch power. Running elections, on the other hand, simply isn’t.
@mattblaze @dominykas Again, I agree that Trump as the executive branch is not legally capable.
But a. Trump does not adhere to rule of law (think of ICE agents happening to run around Latin neighbourhoods in Arizona).
B. He has accomplices and allies in the local/state legal "playgrounds" -
@mkilmo @dominykas Trump has done all sorts of terrible things. That doesn’t mean that his powers are unlimited, or that every terrible thing he might want to do is equally achievable.
What ICE is doing is terrible, but enforcing immigration laws has long (and uncontroversially) been an executive branch power. Running elections, on the other hand, simply isn’t.
@mkilmo @dominykas Elections are simply totally outside of what the president controls, not to mention what anyone involved in them thinks he controls. This is very different from almost everything else he’s done, which involved misusing or abusing existing presidential power in some way.
It’s like if he declared that Rhode Island is no longer a state. Everyone would just shrug.
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@mkilmo @dominykas Elections are simply totally outside of what the president controls, not to mention what anyone involved in them thinks he controls. This is very different from almost everything else he’s done, which involved misusing or abusing existing presidential power in some way.
It’s like if he declared that Rhode Island is no longer a state. Everyone would just shrug.
@mattblaze @mkilmo @dominykas Serious Q: do you trust J. D. Vance to certify the election count is accurate on January 6th 2028? (Assuming Trump lasts that long.)
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@mkilmo @dominykas Elections are simply totally outside of what the president controls, not to mention what anyone involved in them thinks he controls. This is very different from almost everything else he’s done, which involved misusing or abusing existing presidential power in some way.
It’s like if he declared that Rhode Island is no longer a state. Everyone would just shrug.
@mkilmo @dominykas And he’s done this ineffective stuff before, including with elections. A few months back he issued an executive order “banning” vote-by-mail, which had exactly no effect whatsoever. This is the same as that.
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@mattblaze @mkilmo @dominykas Serious Q: do you trust J. D. Vance to certify the election count is accurate on January 6th 2028? (Assuming Trump lasts that long.)
@cstross @mkilmo @dominykas On that specific point I’m fairly unconcerned, because legislation post 2020 made clear that the VP’s role in the certification is entirely ministerial and non-discretionary.
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hi, longtime follower of yours, the daisy account joined a day or two ago and is engagement farming (if that is the right word), not even sincerely if annoyingly arguing. "her" handful of interactions are replying to a couple/few big accts including yours
@inquiline in my time we used the term “trolling”, but I guess “engagement farming” works as a synonym 8-D
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@cstross @mkilmo @dominykas On that specific point I’m fairly unconcerned, because legislation post 2020 made clear that the VP’s role in the certification is entirely ministerial and non-discretionary.
@mattblaze @cstross @mkilmo @dominykas
Serious sincere question: what is the mechanism for forcing Vance to certify if he refuses?
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hi, longtime follower of yours, the daisy account joined a day or two ago and is engagement farming (if that is the right word), not even sincerely if annoyingly arguing. "her" handful of interactions are replying to a couple/few big accts including yours
@inquiline @mattblaze
Lolz: -
@mattblaze @cstross @mkilmo @dominykas
Serious sincere question: what is the mechanism for forcing Vance to certify if he refuses?
@FediThing @cstross @mkilmo @dominykas in practice, they’d probably just ignore him, but it could presumably end up being resolved in the courts.
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@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?
@RunRichRun he has an enormous platform to promote chaos, as we saw on Jan 6. But that’s not unlimited. Being able to summon an angry mob to break things isn’t the same as being able to take over and actually run complex systems.
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@theklan ok, bye
Hi, historian here! Not the first time in history that a professor got the future wrong. Many colleagues from Russian studies were also saying that Russia wouldn't launch a full-fledged war on Ukraine and that Putin's Russia wasn't a dictatorship. Now they have become experts on Ukraine.
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Hi, historian here! Not the first time in history that a professor got the future wrong. Many colleagues from Russian studies were also saying that Russia wouldn't launch a full-fledged war on Ukraine and that Putin's Russia wasn't a dictatorship. Now they have become experts on Ukraine.
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@mattblaze @blasen and that's why I followed you, because the information was interesting (also the great BW photos). The problem is answering rudely to anyone making a valid point. You don't need to be harsh against people for that.
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@mattblaze @blasen and that's why I followed you, because the information was interesting (also the great BW photos). The problem is answering rudely to anyone making a valid point. You don't need to be harsh against people for that.
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@mattblaze @blasen not worth if you want to engage in polite discussion with people who thinks alike. If you want to have only people who want toxic relations, then it's worth.
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@mattblaze @blasen if you were uninterested you wouldn't be answering. That's the point. You don't need to be rude. You wouldn't answer like that to people in your workplace, grocery or village.
If you don't want to have interactions with people, the I have bad news for you from the Internet.
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@mattblaze @blasen if you were uninterested you wouldn't be answering. That's the point. You don't need to be rude. You wouldn't answer like that to people in your workplace, grocery or village.
If you don't want to have interactions with people, the I have bad news for you from the Internet.
@theklan bye bye little troll
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@mattblaze @blasen if you were uninterested you wouldn't be answering. That's the point. You don't need to be rude. You wouldn't answer like that to people in your workplace, grocery or village.
If you don't want to have interactions with people, the I have bad news for you from the Internet.
@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.)
