Silly Question on Quora: What happens if Trump loses in 2020, then on January 20, 2021, the President-elect and Vice-President-elect both refuse to take the oath of office, and everyone in the line of succession refuses to become the next President?

-
What happens if Trump loses in 2020, then on January 20, 2021, the President-elect and Vice-President-elect both refuse to take the oath of office, and everyone in the line of succession refuses to become the next President?
You’re joking, right?
First of all, this is one of the silliest “what if” scenarios about American politics, the Presidency, and how government works I’ve run across in my two years on Quora.
Why in the world would the President-elect and his Vice President decide at the last minute to chicken out at the very last minute at this late stage in the game?
Seriously, dude. Do you really believe that whoever ran against Trump in 2020 and defeated him after a bitter and hard-fought political campaign is going to all of a sudden stop the proceedings and say to Chief Justice John Roberts, “Er, excuse me, Your Honor, but my running mate and I have both changed our mind? We aren’t going to ‘solemnly affirm’ anything. Bye.”
Pish. Not. Gonna. Happen.
And, to make matters even worse, you posit that everyone else in the line of succession also refuses to take the hypothetically-abandoned reins of power.
Again. Read my lips. Never. Gonna. Happen.
Second, could you please stop using the acronym POTUS so much? You sound like you are trying to channel Tom Clancy, for Pete’s sake. “President” will do just fine.

Third, if you are trying to create a fantasy scenario in which Donald Trump stays on as President for another term by default, I’d say you need to take a couple of civics courses.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How many movies have been made based on Stephen King's 'It'?

-
Image
How many movies have been made based on Stephen King's It ? It  has been adapted twice for filmed audio-visual media. The first filmed version of  It was a TV limited series; the second was a duology of theatrically-released movies.  The first adaptation of Stephen King’s 1986 doorstop of a novel was a 1990 adaptation made as a two-part ABC miniseries for television. Among the cast members: Tim Reid, Harry Anderson, Annette O’Toole, John Ritter, and Richard Thomas. The miniseries also featured Tim Curry as the evil Pennywise the Clown. Adapted for television by director Tommy Lee Wallace and Lawrence D. Cohen (who also adapted King’s  Carrie  for director Brian De Palma in 1976),  It  was okay but a watered-down take on the scary novel about a group of friends who must face off against a monstrous entity known as “It” twice. Once as kids in 1960, then again as adults in 1990. (Like  11,22.63,  the TV version of It avoids the year 1958, which is where parts of  11/22/63 
Read more

Talking About 'Band of Brothers' (HBO Miniseries): Why were there no black soldiers in the Band of Brothers TV miniseries?

-
Image
Band of Brothers,  sadly, reflects one of the sad realities of American society in the 1940s - racial segregation in the armed forces. Although there  were  a few all-Negro (as blacks were referred to in those days) units in the U.S. Army and the Army Air Forces that served with distinction in the European Theater of Operations, most black servicemen were assigned to non-combat units in Supply of Services and other support forces. Most of these soldiers were truck drivers, anti-aircraft gunners, barrage balloon handlers, engineers, stevedores, clerks, cooks, corpsmen, and so on. Only late in the war (fall of 1944 and winter/spring 1945) did large numbers of black infantrymen see combat against German forces, and even then they served in all-black units commanded by white officers. © 2001 Home Box Office, Dreamworks SKG, and Play-Tone Pictures The 101st Airborne Division was an all-American unit made up of individuals from many different groups - Easy Company’s first C.O.,
Read more

Bolero: The One Movie I Have Seen That I Wish Could Be Erased From My Memory

-
Image
If you could have 1 movie that you’ve seen in the past erased from your memory, what movie would that be and why? That’s easy.  Bolero. © 1984 Cannon Film Group Now, I have seen more than my fair share of movies that, for one reason or another, I don’t enjoy at all or once liked but have changed my mind about as I have grown older.  Me Before You  is an example of the former;  Avatar  and  Midway  are exemplars of the latter. But writer-director John Derek’s softcore porn movie disguised as an “adventure in ecstasy” is still the dumbest, most boring film I ever paid a movie ticket to go see in an actual multiplex. It’s so bad, in fact, that my friends (yes, I went with a coed group of buds from college) and I decided, collectively, that as spectacular as Bo Derek looks naked, she was way too old to play a nubile if naive girl in her 20s. The story was just a barely-there plot woven together around a series of nude scenes (including the obligatory girl-girl scene) that
Read more