By Judi McLeod ——Bio and Archives--February 25, 2019
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It’s got to be the most bizarre, surrealistic and downright cunning “What If?” question of all time: Obama man Joshua A. Geltzer asking through a Saturday CNN op-ed followed up by a Tweet: “What if Donald Trump loses in 2020 but won’t leave the Oval Office peacefully?”
You can’t make this stuff up—even in an era when desperate times call for desperate measures.
Hillary Clinton never made it to the Oval Office as planned in 2016, but some two and a half years later, is refusing to leave it anyway.“President Donald Trump’s critics are increasingly focused on the question of which Democrat will challenge him for the presidency in 2020. It’s an important question, but another one might be even more important: Regardless of who runs in 2020, if Trump loses, will he leave the Oval Office peacefully? “Let’s start with why we need to ask this question: Trump is increasingly proving himself to be a President eager to overstep his authority. Just last week, Trump displayed his willingness to invoke unprecedented presidential power to declare a national emergency utterly without justification. This week has brought a startling report from the New York Times that, for the past two years, Trump has tried to undermine the investigations by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and other parts of the Justice Department in order to, in the words of the Times, “make the president’s many legal problems go away.” In light of these overreaching assertions of his own authority, it’s at least plausible that Trump might attempt to cling to power in ways previously unimaginable by an American president.”How convenient for Geltzer to forget that Hillary Clinton already did that, and it’s nobody’s mere imagination that she is still trying to do so by hook or by crook.
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…”Remember, when Trump was merely a private citizen running for President in 2016, he became the first presidential candidate in recent memory to refuse to commit that he’d honor the results of the election if he lost. Now, he occupies the Oval Office. He’s the commander in chief of the most powerful military on Earth. If he even hints at contesting the election result in 2020, as he suggested he might in 2016, he’d be doing so not as an outsider but as a leader with the vast resources of the US government potentially at his disposal.”The 2016 election campaign and what followed already proved that “the vast resources of the US government” were at the disposal of sore losers Clinton and Obama.
“Geltzer covers four areas of government he believes can be used to stop Trump: The Electoral College, Congress, state governors and finally, the U.S. military. Geltzer does not mention the Supreme Court as an actor with a role to play. (Gateway)
…”Thankfully, there are four key sets of governmental actors across the United States that can commit now to certain steps that would help to isolate President Trump should he refuse to hand over power peacefully.” (CNN)
“Geltzer calls for Electoral College electors to “pledge that they will not withhold, delay or alter their vote based on the claims or protestations of any candidate, including President Trump.”(Gateway) “Geltzer calls for a similar pledge by Congress and for hearings attesting to the validity of a contested election:
…These senators and representatives should make a joint pledge not to delay or alter counting of the votes based on any candidate’s objections. Moreover, they should pledge to hold public hearings with intelligence community leaders should those officials or any candidate suggest that vote counts were influenced by foreign election interference or for any other reason. That unvarnished testimony by intelligence professionals could debunk any claims by Trump (or any other candidate) that the final vote count shouldn’t be honored.” (CNN)What’s really at stake here is that come hell or high water, Barack Obama will push his wife for the 2020 presidency in order to regain the third term in office he lost through Hillary Clinton.
“…39 of America’s 50 state governors will not be up for reelection in 2020. They represent continuity in critical positions of leadership, and some command respect across party lines. Those 39 should band together now to make clear that they will serve, at least informally, as bastions of our democracy should a peaceful transfer of power look threatened by any candidate’s response to the election.” Geltzer says. (CNN) Geltzer is calling in the troops:…”our civilian and uniformed Defense Department leaders have a role to play. The health of our democracy rests, in part, on not involving the military in transfers of power. And that should continue. But imagine the most extreme scenario, with Congress certifying Trump’s defeat but Trump refusing to leave office. In those circumstances, the military would no longer owe its loyalty to Donald Trump as of noon on January 20, 2021. And it’s worth asking the Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as they testify before Congress in coming months, to affirm that they understand that and would act consistently with it.”The real question should be: ‘What if Barack Steals the 2020 Election for Michelle?’ What if too many dead register votes from the country’s massive cemeteries, what if Michelle voters vote multiple times, etc., etc., etc? Should that ever happen, it will be grassroots civil war with no CNN op-ed needed to call out the troops.
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