Today, on the van ride home, we discussed an interesting scenario: Suppose we hold the election in November, and the Democratic nominee resoundingly wins the popular vote, and wins the electoral college. Donald Trump refuses to accept the result of the election for whatever reason his ego comes up with, declares a “national emergency”, suspends Congress, and refuses to leave his office.
A large number of the Blue-leaning states consider this to be an unconstitutional act, and decide that he has abdicated his oath of office. They declare themselves to be the real United States of America, proclaim their loyalty to the original Constitution, and inaugurate the duly elected President and Vice President based on the electoral college results. They reconstitute Congress, with whatever Representatives and Senators from their states who wish to remain in the new Western United States of America and Eastern United States of America (from both parties), in a new location. They retain whichever Justices of the Supreme Court wish to come over. States hold special elections to fill vacancies, and (quite likely) DC and Puerto Rico are admitted as states. A good portion of the military would also likely come over, as they are more loyal to the Constitution than the President.
Is this secession?
After all, the “new” United States are loyal to the Constitution, have as leadership a President and Vice President that were elected following that Constitution. On the other hand, the United States of Trump have suspended the Constitution, and are following a President that holds office without authority of the vote, and only by virtue of his suspending and ignoring the election results.
Would we see a civil war where the “new” US (the USA) tries to regain the Trump-loyalists (UST)? Probably not. Would the UST try to wage war against the “new” USA, or would they have the attitude of “good riddance” to the Liberals and RINOs? How might property and facilities be divided?
One might think this is far-fetched, but I do think it is a possibility if Trump refuses to leave. Note that this is NOT the scenario where Trump gets elected and attempts to suspend the Constitution. A secession in that case is more problematic: although there is loyalty to the Constitution, you do have a duly-elected President. Although, if there is an investigation that shows the vote was tampered with and Trump really didn’t win the election, then it might happen.
Interesting thought experiment.
Honestly, this strikes me as a ‘Mandate of Heaven’ situation. Whichever group survives and prospers in the long term will have been the ‘real United States’ all along.
See also Ray’s Pizza
I came upon this blog from a search for ‘loyalty to the Constitution’.
Your background in computer security can relate to my concern. Irrespective of how the election turns out, the roots of the political process are on a very weak foundation at this juncture. In the absence of checks and balances to prevent improvisation of technology*, a decision maker, competitor/adversary in government, industry and other walks of life are vulnerable (due to the absence of safeguards) to give up high ground when victimized by the said improvisation of technology.
In essence, to evince trust in political leadership in a landscape of lawless with respect to negative use of technology described here, as a first line of defense, political leaders would inspire trust in them by providing a voluntary disclosure/self-certification which disclaims ascent in industry/politics is owed to condoning or actively using said negative technology to subdue competitor/adversary.
As a software engineer at Shiva Corporation (early remote-access product manufacturer in the 1990s), I have a healthy respect for ethical hacking to quell vulnerabilties in data/transaction systems, however it is surprising that mitigating risk from misuse of potent EMF is not pursued with the same zeal. This is based on the premise that not all electronics professionals can vouch to not exploit technology weakness.
Regards,
Suresh
* Re-purposing components sourced from common sources (microwave oven, outdoor high gain unidirectional microwave transmitters, X-ray tube mainly) emitting powerful electromagnetic fields (EMF) to function as a weapon is accomplished by anyone with expertise in circuit design/fabrication. Adding sophistication in terms of locating a victim needs expertise in RF signal processing (Ling H, Ram S. “Detecting Human Activities Through Barriers: Doppler Radar SignalsBecome Animation”. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080925094719.htm.). Placing such a weapon in an innocuous location at a place of work/recuperation is primed for health manipulation intent on subduing ethical/conscientious decision making with no legal implications to the perpetrator.