Let's talk about Trump, nationalizing, and reading the Constitution.... - Belle of the Ranch

[TexasTowelie]

Well, howdy there Internet people. It's Belle again. So, today we're going to talk about Trump nationalizing and reading the Constitution.

Trump was on a podcast and said something ridiculous and the media in pursuit of ad revenue treated a completely unserious and blatantly unconstitutional suggestion as something worthy of debate, and therefore actually increase the likelihood of it happening. This is not actually up for debate. Trump said, "The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over. We should take over the voting. The voting in at least many 15 places.’ The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.“

So, this is being said after it became ridiculously apparent that Trump can't cancel the elections and that any attempt to do so would actually hurt the states that went along with it, which by default would be Republican states.

So now that that plan is shot, Trump went on to the next one and really just showed he's either never read or doesn't understand the most basic aspects of the Constitution and that he doesn't believe his base is patriotic enough to have ever read the Constitution either.

Article 1, section 4. The time, places, and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof. But the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing senators.

The Constitution grants power to the state to handle their own elections. It gives Congress a secondary role to alter regulations, not nationalize the elections in 15 states that hurt Trump's feelings. In fact, beyond that, in Cook v Gralike 2001, the Supreme Court held that neither Congress nor the states can even attempt to dictate outcomes of elections. In the case, the state of Missouri just wanted to add a little notice to ballots, saying a candidate didn't support term limits. Even that was held to be too much influence over the outcome.

At this point, it's worth reminding people that to Trump, the Constitution isn't an ideal. It's an obstacle. It's something to be lied about and gotten around. Want proof? Remember the term independent state legislature theory? In 2020, Trump's team backed this idea, which gave 100% control of elections to the state legislature because at the time it was helpful to him. But now, just a few years later, the federal government has all the power.

It must be exhausting trying to support a man who doesn't have actual positions. Senate Majority Leader Republican John Thune immediately shot down the idea, saying he was in favor of ID at polling places, but "I'm not in favor of federalizing elections. No, I think that's a constitutional issue. I'm a big believer in decentralized and distributed power, and I think it's harder to hack 50 election systems than it is to hack one. In my view at least, that's always a system that has worked pretty well.”

That makes it pretty clear that Trump doesn't even have the votes to alter state regulations, much less attempt a constitutional amendment. It's bad when even Republicans are pointing out that Trump is trying to undermine election security. Look, you can't ignore this, but stop pretending like every outburst from Grandpa Trump is worthy of actual debate. When you debate it, you put it in the Overton window. No, he can't do this. Even Republicans know this. Supporting this is abandoning America.

Anyway, it's just a thought. Y'all have a good day.