Thread by @ZeeshanAleem

A lot of people are deeply concerned about how Trump could use his assault on the Postal Service to steal the election.

But what may be under-appreciated is that Trump does NOT have to succeed at giving GOP ballots a numerical advantage to do irreversible damage or win. /Thread

When I spoke with Lawrence Douglas, a legal scholar at Amherst College, he made a convincing case that there are scenarios in which Trump only has to succeed at creating *delays* to create politically advantageous chaos or trigger a "system meltdown."

zeeshanaleem.substack.com/p/just-how-dan…

On the day in July that Trump floated the idea of delaying the election, the reaction was a mixture of horror at his brazenly autocratic suggestion and mockery of his ignorance that any changes to Election Day can only come through Congress. But another tweet that day was darker.

Trump tweeted that results must be known the night of the election. As Douglas argued to me, that day Trump foreshadowed one of his most pernicious potential Election Day strategies, which would be to claim victory early & suggest delays are the product of fraud.

There's a specific set of optics that Trump wants to exploit. Polling and estimates based on public health concerns in urban areas suggest mail-in ballots are more likely to break Democratic. So in tight races in battleground states, Trump could possibly see early advantage ...

...start to fade as mail-in ballots are counted. Trump could argue argue, "That's what I predicted all along. Democrats are trying to steal the election!" For his hardcore political base primed to see things through his narrative, there could be widespread belief in rigging.

The longer and more tedious and litigious the delays, and the more stark the shift in voting trends, the more intense the conviction would be of rigging — especially when fueled by disinformation campaigns from Trump and possibly abroad.

One thing to worry about in this situation is simply irreversible damage to the legitimacy of the electoral process. Trump might not win the election, but it's important to think about what a shattering of trust might do to civil society or the Republican Party.

Trump could also use his post-presidency to continue to sow chaos, and help create fertile soil for a new demagogue that builds on that narrative. Widespread right-wing belief that Dems "stole the election" would intensify white grievance politics, cultivate Trump 2.0.

Douglas also warned of the possibility of a perfect storm that would lead to conflicting electoral certificates submitted by some states and a "system meltdown." It's not likely, but it's happened before in our history, and the preconditions are there.

zeeshanaleem.substack.com/p/just-how-dan…

The details are in the newsletter, but the preconditions are:

1. A president who is willing to engage in constitutional brinkmanship and to contest electoral defeat.

2. Uncertainty about results, allowing the contestation to gain traction.

3. Divided and extremely polarized government on the state level in the swing states and in Congress itself.

4. A very right race.

5. Republicans retain control of the Senate

1 through 3 are there. (Re: swing states - Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina all have the same political profile — they all have Republican-controlled legislatures and Democratic governors.)

4 and 5 are possible, certainly not far-fetched.

Basically this "meltdown" scenario involves GOP legislatures going to war with Dem governors over contested election results. As Douglas puts it, "If Republican lawmakers recognize Trump as having carried the state based on November 3 results, and the Democratic governors are ...

... recognizing Biden as a result of the final canvass completed weeks later, you can imagine these conflicting certificates being submitted to Congress in January."

If you have conflicting electoral certificates you need to have bicameral agreement (agreement between both chambers of Congress) as to which ones to accept. If the Republicans maintain control of the Senate in November, then you likely have a true deadlock.

Congress would then have two weeks to figure out a solution. By the terms of the Constitution, Trump’s term ends on January 20th. If they can't resolve it then Rep. Nancy Pelosi becomes acting president according to the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, Douglas explains.

Fulfillment of the preconditions are necessary but not sufficient for ensuring this scenario. A lot of things would have to come together. It's not likely. But it's also not inconceivable, and probably most importantly, it exposes how rickety the system we have is.

"There are two best cases for avoiding real trouble this fall. Beat Trump decisively. Or, if the Democrats capture the Senate, you'll basically have a bicameral resolution in favor of Biden," Douglas says.

More details in the interview: zeeshanaleem.substack.com/p/just-how-dan…

And if you're interested in more political analysis, sign up for my newsletter:
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The broader takeaway for me was not fear of the unlikely total meltdown scenario as much as it was just thinking through how vulnerable our primitive electoral system is to degradation, to being gamed, to serving as a springboard for disenfranchisement or perception thereof.