Though it wasn't going to happen, I wondered, during the impeachment trial, what events might occur in the aftermath of a Senate conviction. The vice president becomes president—but when? I remember Chief Justice Roberts announcing the verdict of "not guilty," but if it had instead been "guilty" would Pence at that moment have become president? Does the convicted president lose the powers of the office before the vice president actually takes the oath? Is there some kind of negotiable "schedule" of necessary events? So far as I know, the Constitution—25th Amendment—says only that "in case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President." Shall become President when?
Like I say, a conviction was never going to happen, and I think the reason I wondered anyway is that I worry about Trump not going away quietly in any kind of disputed or controversial scenario. In 2000, when the Supreme Court, in Bush v Gore, shut down the Florida recount, thereby handing the Presidency to W., Gore went on television to announce that, while he strongly disagreed with the decision, "for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession." Seems almost certain that in a similarly disputed outcome Trump would not do the right thing and we'd have a real crisis of the kind we tend to associate with what have been called shithole countries.
Along this line, it might be worth worrying, in case it has any preemptive effect, about the 2020 presidential election in Arizona. Arizona is a leading candidate for the "tipping point" state—the one that, in a very close election, will put either Trump or the Democrat over the top. It's also a state that allows voters to receive their ballot in the mail, which they then mark and return, by mail or in person, before Election Day. Not just some but most Arizonans vote by this method, with the result that the outcome of a close race is not known till after Election Day: too many ballots, mailed in a timely manner, keep trickling in and remain uncounted. This is what happened in the state's US Senate race in 2018. On election night, returns gave Republican Martha McSally a narrow lead, but in the following days, as the last-arriving mailed ballots were added to the tally, Democrat Kyrsten Sinema pulled ahead and was eventually declared the winner nearly a week after Election Day.
I shudder to think what would happen if Trump lost Arizona and the election in a scenario like that. What clearly happened is that in-person voting, and the in-person return of ballots received in the mail, favored McSally, the Republican, because this is the familiar and preferred voting method of a million affluent white retirees living in Arizona. With their votes largely counted, the ballots mailed at deadline belonged disproportionately to younger, browner, busier Arizonans, and they preferred Sinema, the Democrat. I remember that McSally released a video of herself sitting on her couch at home, next to her dog, in which she graciously conceded. You can watch it, here. Who thinks Trump is capable of anything like that? For one thing, he hates dogs! Who, besides assholes, hates dogs? No, the election result would be a "hoax" and a "Democrat scam" and he'd pump it up from there. It's impossible to know where, or if, he'd ever stop, but you can be sure the idiots at Fox would be right with him, cheering and leering.
I hope the Arizona elections people have their shit together. In a human enterprise such as an election, where more than a couple million people vote by different methods across a large state over a period of weeks, Trump and his goons will find something to bellow about. Things could get truly ugly. He's the first president you have to worry about in this way.
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