The Emerging Plot to Defend Trumps Next Coup – The New Republic

But there may yet be a flaw in reformers designs. House Democrats are pushing to make it harder for members of Congress to reject any slates of electors provided by state governors by requiring a two-thirds supermajority, rather than a simple majority, in both the House and Senate. Had this been in place in 2020, much of the drama that ensued among lawmakers during the certification process would have been avoided.

However, as Judd Legum points out in a recent edition of Popular Information, Democrats may not be thinking ahead. The next crisis may not come from challenges to legitimate slates of electors. Citing a new paper from Yale Laws Matthew Seligman, Legum warns that a future Congress may have to deal with a Trump-supporting Republican Governor in a swing state ignoring the results and submitting a phony certification to Congress.

In this scenario, a supermajority built to protect the integrity of the election becomes the means by which the plot to overturn the election is furthered. As Insiders Grace Panetta has written, Georgia gubernatorial candidate David Purdue is one governor who might consider carrying out such a plot; Legum points to Republicans running for statehouses in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin who also fit the bill.

All of which goes to show that no matter how exposed Trumps band of miscreants might be, the former president is still adding powerful allies to his corrupt cause. And the next coup, if it comes, will look very different from the last one. It wont be a ragtag mob trying to sack the Capitol or flailing efforts to enlist the Department of Homeland Security to swipe voting machines off the streets. Strong protections were already in place before Trump took those desperate measures. Rather, the next plot against the Republic would be much more subtle, painted with a sheen of lawfulness and mounted against more vulnerable spots, where democracy is held together only by long-standing norms and gentlemens agreements. But what happens when those gentlemen are replaced by rogues?

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The Emerging Plot to Defend Trumps Next Coup - The New Republic