> Because politicians trying to have their political opponents harmed or killed is basically all one needs to have fake democracy.
I don't follow this logic. Assume for the sake of argument that politician A attempts to have politician B killed (also not a historian, but I feel there has to be at least one instance of this happening somewhere, at some point in US history). Based on this event, we now conclude that the entire democracy is fake? How? All of the votes for all other politicians are now invalid? The electoral process (largely out of the control of any single politician) just ... goes away? How do you figure? What's the cause and effect mechanism there?
Here are some questions based entirely on the procedural process of electing a president. We don't even have to get into any potential illegal actions by Trump.
The vice president presides over the counting of electoral college votes. Tradition says this role is largely ceremonial. Trump disagrees. What would a conservative Supreme Court, with 3 justices appointed by Trump, say about this?
What were to happen if the VP was murdered by a mob while the president is arguing in bad faith that he won the election and the VP is needed to certify the true winner?
Can the president pro tempore take the place of the VP in counting votes? We would likely be back in the Supreme Court to decide. What if they say only the VP can serve this role? Would Trump and Congress be able to agree on a new VP?
If no VP is in place, would the election end up in the House? Would they have time to vote before 1/20? Who would they vote for?
If we don't have a clear president by 1/20, the line of succession passes to the speaker of the House. What happens if she was murdered too? Would the House vote on a new speaker quick enough or would the line of succession go to the 4th person, the president pro tempore of the Senate?
Would this create perverse incentives for the the president pro tempore to reject EC votes if the Supreme Court decided in his favor several steps back in this hypothetical?
There are obviously a lot of hypotheticals there, but what they are meant to show is there are a lot of ways for this to go wrong and for the next president to be in doubt. Do you see how this is bad for a healthy democracy? Would you be confident that Trump would sit idly by and wait for this situation to play out without putting his fingers on the scale, inciting more violence, or potentially something even more drastic?
I don't follow this logic. Assume for the sake of argument that politician A attempts to have politician B killed (also not a historian, but I feel there has to be at least one instance of this happening somewhere, at some point in US history). Based on this event, we now conclude that the entire democracy is fake? How? All of the votes for all other politicians are now invalid? The electoral process (largely out of the control of any single politician) just ... goes away? How do you figure? What's the cause and effect mechanism there?