49% of independents, 15% of Republicans think Trump should end campaign: poll

Sent a note to my Senators and Congressman:

"ATF Form 4473 is required for any gun purchase and it has an entire section regarding things that disqualify a purchaser from owning a gun, notably line 21, items c and d:

“c. Are you under indictment or information in any court for a felony, or any other crime for which the judge could imprison you for more than one year, or are you a current member of the military who has been charged with violation(s) of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and whose charge(s) have been referred to a general court-martial?

d. Have you ever been convicted in any court, including a military court, of a felony, or any other crime for which the judge could have imprisoned you for more than one year, even if you received a shorter sentence including probation?”

Currently, we have, running for President, a person who has just been convicted, qualifying them under line d, and, who is facing 3 other indictments, qualifying them under line c.

If they aren’t qualified to own a gun, and, in fact could be arrested for “felon in possession” should he obtain a gun, how on earth does that allow him to be qualified to lead the armed forces as “Commander in Chief”? Why would he be allowed access to the “nuclear football” which is, really, the ultimate gun?

Can we please get some kind of legislation dealing with this? Either barring convicted felons from the office of the President, or, alternately, highly restricting felonious Presidential access to the military and high order weapons?"

I'm opposed to the idea that being charged with a crime should disqualify someone from office. Simply put, it incentivises putting people in jail for political reasons.

No, Trump should be disqualified for treason and insurrection. Of course, that's not happening either.
- That's why we have a trial by jury of peers.
  
  An executive branch can issue a pardon, legislative branch can create a law making the crime no longer being a crime and impeach judges.
  
  If those things are not enough, then we have a much more serious problem.
- If being a felon bars you from owning a gun, why should a felon be allowed to command all the guns in the US military?
Being a convicted felon, can he even vote for himself now? I'm pretty sure Florida doesn't allow felons to vote.
- FL defers to the law in the state where the conviction happened, and NY allows felons to vote as long as they are not incarcerated when they need to vote.
- The thing I'm thankful for is that the fucker can't legally enter Canada right now.
Generally, because of his criminal conviction and his intention to run for office, there's a lot of interesting legal questions that will make for new law when we litigate them.

I do like your argument, unfortunately I'm pretty sure most courts will disagree. It's two fold: first of all if you make felons unable to run, you incentivize people to prosecute someone when they wanna run for office. Secondly, this form is pretty straightforward with what possession or acquisition of firearms means. There is not enough wiggle room to stretch that definition to fit the a guy in his role as president being commander in chief over the military. I think no reasonable court would greenlight that argument.

But in general there's gonna be very interesting implications.
- And they won't say no
  
  ...Because of the implications
Republican congressmen and women and Republican Senators will just say it's a hoax trial and a corrupt justice system. It's not a sane world right now.
Oh, well if you sent it, I’m sure they’ll listen…
- Oregon Senators and Representatives are remarkably responsive... But we need more people to message their Representatives.
Jordan spitting some logic. Love it. I'll do the same when I sober up tomorrow.
The Constitution clearly lays out the qualifications for POTUS. You can't make legislation that overrides it.
- The 2nd Amendment clearly says that the right to own guns can't be restricted and they passed legislation restricting it.
Well said

These are people who believe in the death penalty because "courts don't make mistakes".

Calvinist Predestination stans when something they don't like happens.
- Calvinism - the progenitor of capitalism (according to Max Weber)

What possible reason would he have to do that...? If he wins, he gets off scot free. If he loses then he'll claim that he won and is being suppressed for political reasons and then get of scot free.

If he were a traditional candidate, the answer is that the party needs to have a candidate who not only can win, but also supports candidates for lower level elections. A traditional candidate would step aside and nominate someone to take their place. Not sure if the GOP convention rules allow it, but they could possibly even direct their delegates to go towards someone else.

Since Trump is a narcissist who doesn't even get why downstream elections are important for building a political base of support, he'll of course ignore this.
He can’t pardon himself if he wins
- In the event he actually gets incarcerated, if he were to win the presidency he could sue claiming being locked up interferes with his constitutional duties as president. I think I know what this Supreme Court would decide on that
- We should not speak of Trump pardoning himself as if that's a legitimate power he would have, rather than a batshit crazy end run around the obvious intention of the Constitution.
  
  And in any case, he's been convinced to state crimes, and there's no legal theory to support the idea that he can pardon himself or anyone else for state crimes.
- He won't need to, it'll be his "independent" department of justice calling the shots. Sessions and Barr did everything in their power, without committing actual explicit crimes, to keep Trump happy while they were in charge.

In other words 51% of independents and 85% of Republicans think he should keep running

Hey now, there's a 5% section of people who just don't give a shit (yet still answer polls for some reason).

I know it won't happen, but what would happen if Trump dropped out after formally becoming the Republican candidate?

https://abcnews.go.com/538/biden-trump-suddenly-leaves-2024-race/story?id=106136493

From the conventions to when ballots are printed

The national conventions are a key turning point in our hypothetical calendar. Before them, primary voters, or delegates selected through the primary process, would still have the ability to choose their party's nominee. After the conventions, though, the Democratic and Republican national committees would inherit that power.

Both the DNC and the RNC have enshrined in their rules a process for how to fill a vacancy on the party's ticket after the formal nomination has already taken place. For Democrats, there is only one option: Chairman Jamie Harrison would confer with Democratic leadership in Congress and the Democratic Governors Association and would then take the decision to the DNC, according to the party's call to convention.

The 483 members of the DNC — who comprise the chairs and vice chairs of each state Democratic Party committee as well as members elected from all 56 states and territories, plus Democrats Abroad — would vote on a new nominee. There are no rules governing who the nominee has to be; the nomination would not, for instance, just go to the former nominee's running mate or the person who won the second-most delegates in the primaries. They just need to get a majority of party members to vote for them.

Experts say that could be a political mess, with various factions of the party pressuring members to choose one nominee or another. "They would have all sorts of internal politicking. There would be competition between various factions within the party," Richard Pildes, a professor of constitutional law at New York University Law School, told 538.

For their part, Republicans have two options for filling a vacancy, according to the party's rules. Like the Democrats, they could choose to have their committee members vote. There are three RNC members per state and territory, but they get to cast the same number of votes their state or territory's delegation was entitled to cast during the Republican National Convention. If members of a delegation aren't in agreement on who to support, their state or territory's votes would be divided equally among them. In order to become the nominee, a candidate must secure a majority of votes.

But the RNC is also "authorized and empowered to fill any and all vacancies" by reconvening the national convention.

In either case, the results of all of the primaries and caucuses would no longer formally matter. While the primary results would be one source of information for the members (if they vote) or delegates (if they reconvene the convention), they wouldn't be bound to choose the person who came in second in the primaries. They don't even have to choose somebody who ran in the primary.

Beyond their distinct rules, Pildes did not think there would be much difference between how Democrats and Republicans would deal with a candidate's death. The RNC is much smaller than the DNC, which could have an impact. "It's always easier to reach decisions in a smaller body than a larger body, and so that might be a significant difference in the way the two parties are governed," Pildes said. "But other than that, I don't think there's a dramatic difference."

[continued in child]
- [continued from parent]
  
  From when ballots are printed to Election Day
  
  However, if either party nominee dropped out or passed away after ballots were printed, then it would be too late to officially replace them on the ballot. In that scenario, millions of Americans would cast ballots for the inactive candidate with the understanding that their Electoral College votes would really go to someone else — probably someone designated by the DNC or RNC.
  
  "The reality is, when you vote for president, you're never voting for that person. You're voting for the elector to cast a ballot for that person at the Electoral College meeting in December," Brown said. "I would imagine what would happen is that parties would indicate to the electors who they should vote for."
  
  From Election Day to Dec. 17
  
  Next, let's say we make it to Election Day without incident and voters choose a new president — but then the president-elect passes away or becomes incapacitated before the Electoral College votes on Dec. 17 to make their win official. This could be a messy political situation as well.
  
  According to the National Archives, there is no prescribed process for what to do if the president-elect dies between Election Day and the meeting of the Electoral College. (It would not automatically be the vice president-elect, as, legally, the presidential line of succession would not have kicked in yet.) So the (ex-)president-elect's electors would essentially get to pick the president. "A whole bunch of Americans don't realize that the electors are actual, real live people," Kamarck said, who could theoretically choose for themselves whom to vote for.
  
  There is historical precedent for this: After the 1872 election, which was won by Republican Ulysses S. Grant, Democratic nominee Horace Greeley died on Nov. 29, and his electors' votes went to various other people. According to Pildes, whether this could happen again depends on the state, as some state laws address this possibility while others do not.
  
  There have also historically been "faithless electors" who have not voted for the candidate who won their state. Some states have laws prohibiting this, but in an emergency situation, state legislatures could change the rules to allow them to do so.
  
  It's possible that the party would coalesce around a new candidate (for example, the vice president-elect would be a logical choice) and its electors would vote en masse for that person. Brown said the DNC or RNC would likely signal to electors whom they should vote for. That could be Harris on the Democratic side or Trump's still-unannounced running mate on the Republican side. But Brown emphasized that some states would need to adjust their faithless electors laws to allow for this.
  
  If the electors cannot agree on a single alternative and no candidate gets a majority of electoral votes, the election would fall to the House of Representatives — a procedure known as a contingent election. The Constitution stipulates that each state's House delegation would cast a single vote for president, with a majority of states required for a candidate to win, and the Senate would elect a vice president based on a majority vote of its members individually. But Brown said that this is a highly unlikely scenario, as the electors would most likely listen to guidance from their party.
  
  From Dec. 17 to Jan. 20
  
  If the president-elect dies or is incapacitated after the Electoral College votes but before Inauguration Day on Jan. 20, 2025, the law is clear: the vice president-elect would be inaugurated instead. The 20th Amendment to the Constitution says, in part, "If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President elect shall have died, the Vice President elect shall become President."
- Okay, interesting, thank you. What a shit show that would be in either case.
They’d pick someone else, probably whoever was the #2 candidate or the VP pick (with them choosing a new VP, since the election hasn’t happened yet). The electoral college can pick whoever it wants, so as long as the party has consensus I don’t see it being a huge deal.
Nikki Haley stood down her campaign but didn't actually conceed. she's still technically in the running for president. so i imagine it would default to her
- Yeah, my theory for why she stayed in so long was because she was waiting to see if one of his trials caused him to drop out. Also, my understanding is that political parties aren't obligated to select the candidate primary voters choose, and the leadership could just go into a back room and pick whoever they like.
A lot of it depends on timing.

There's a really good fictional take from before Bush/Gore, called "The People's Choice" by Jeff Greenfield of all people.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_People's_Choice_(novel)

Candidate wins the election, but dies before the electoral college votes.

So... the VP guy wins? Yeah, no. He wasn't the candidate and can't assume the role of President because he was never affirmed as Vice President.

So... the other candidate wins? Yeah, no. They didn't get enough electoral college votes to be President.

So it all comes down to faithful and faithless electors.
Then the republican party would pick someone else.

If he or the GOP had any integrity whatsoever, he would. They don't though, which is really ironic since ya know, law and order, patriots, merica, ect. The republican party is a joke.

Honestly, if they were smart they would offer up a better candidate (if they had one) and that would be real trouble for Biden. If the candidate were opposed to the Israeli genocide and moderate or slightly left, he might win over some Biden voters that ate unhappy. Sadly, there is no such sane Republican. They are all just as nutty as Trump or worse.
- They could have potentially run DeSantis, he just lacked the party's backing. While he's basically a younger, less orangey Trump for the most part, the fact that he's a lot younger would have probably won a lot of people over. It wouldn't change the GOP from being the MAGA party or change their current values or the general situation with the election though.
  
  We should be grateful that Trump is rather incompetent. He's torn up the GOP as he can't allow anyone to overtake him in the hierarchy he's created. His own ego ensures that any competent ideas that could push his agenda forward are thrown out.
If he had any integrity he wouldn't be in this situation to begin with.

This election will be won at the margins. Shit like this matters. Our task is to stoke their discontentment.

Independents will be so important
- So will the extreme left.
  
  They seem to have this idea that holding their vote for Biden hostage over Israel is morally just in spite of a mountain of evidence that tells us violence within this country against minorities, women, and lgbtq folks (which is already openly on the rise) will sky rocket if Trump wins....oh and all the authoritarian fascist stuff that is straight out of a dictator playbook when seizing power with no intent to ever relinquish it.....but nevermind that.
So like every other election: A couple thousand people in some county in PA or MI you've never heard of will decide the presidency, regardless of what most people want.
- Yes. “Democracy”. My only dispute with your statement is that it’s a few tens of thousands of votes.

Trump's conviction isn't going to be the big turning point of this election. What happens after his conviction will. If he continues to spew vitriol about the judge, prosecution, and jury, eventually one of his followers will commit an act of retribution. That puts Trump in a difficult spot, because his core likes this kind of stuff. He will want to show his support, but if he does, it will again show he encourages domestic terrorism. If he does anything other than condemn the attack, his support among moderates will fall away, just like it did after Jan. 6th. If he does condemn the attack, his core may protest, like they did when he changed his opinion on the COVID vaccines.

Yeah that would be weird to see Trump forced into awkward rambling doublespeak that doesn’t make sense if you listen to the words.

XD
- I listen to the words and then arrange them into an order that doesn't contradict my preconceived notion that Donald is the good one.
Trump don't care.
- I look forward to seeing pics from his incarceration with no makeup and no hair stylist. It'll be epic.
Whatever he does his follows will either: say the attack was commited by ANTIFA and is a false flag or say Trump never condemned the attack or never showed his support
Why do you think it will be "the big turning point of this election" when he's already encouraged the Jan 6 insurrection? He literally could murder someone in NYC like he said and nothing would change in polling. It's a ridiculous situation.
- I think we’ve seen from recent Republican races the polls are way off, especially support for his brand.

How are those numbers so low. Jesus Christ

Man, you’re right. And here I was thinking “wow, 15% is more than I expected.” What a sad realization that is.
Your standard bell curve. Stupid people can't see things coming so they always try to act like no one can see something bad coming. Truth is that trump is everything he accuses biden of but worse.

I'm acquainted with a few felons who got the maximum sentences allowable for their crimes. Why? Lack of recognizance.

When your famous, they just let you do it

What do they mean by “independents”? Are we talking NPA, AIP, or both?

I'm more obsessed with the idea of being a republican this long, and only now changing your mind about 45. The list of things about him which are twice as bad alone is stultifying.
- A lot of people still have trust in the courts. They hear conservative media saying “these are just left wing accusations,” and don’t think he has done anything wrong.
  
  However, now that he has a conviction, a growing number of people are leaving him because they courts are infallible (to them).
  
  I know it’s wishful thinking to think he will get jail time in July, or that he will get any other conviction before November.
  
  But once you’re a felon, you’re a felon. And he’s a felon 34 times.
- I know a registered Republican who has never voted for the Republican candidate in the general election.
  
  She says she agrees with the concept of fiscal conservativism, but every candidate she votes for in the primaries always loses to some intolerable asshat. Except she did like McCain, but she liked Obama even better.
  
  Trump pushed her so far as to donate to the Democrats, but she is still registered Republican.
  
  I know another registered Republican who did vote Republican back in the 80s, but at least says he hasn't recently, similar reasons. He stays Republican mainly because he doesn't see any point in bothering to change. Where he lives is die hard red so he knows the Republican primaries are his only chance to influence any candidate as even if he likes a Democrat, they will automatically lose. He votes Democrat in the general, but considers participating in the Republican primaries his best shot at mitigating the bad of the modern Republican party.
- I'm registered as a Republican to vote in their primaries. In general, I can live with whoever the Democrats put up, I may not love them, they may not be my first, second, or even third choice of candidates, but they're OK enough. They kind of mostly fall on a spectrum from "meh" to "pretty good."
  
  Republicans, on the other hand, fall on a spectrum from "outright evil fascist psychopaths" to "meh," and I'd like to try to head off the worst of them before they get to the general election.
  
  With the way Republicans have been going for the last few decades (fielding very few "meh" candidates in the first place and electing even fewer while skewing further and further into crazytown) it's going to be a cold day in hell before I vote for one in a general election, but I'll try to pick the least bad one in the primary so hopefully it comes down to a contest of "meh#1" vs "meh#2" (or, dare I dream, "meh1" vs "pretty good") since roughly half the country is going to vote for whoever has an "R" next to their name, might as well try to leave them with the least offensive R possible.
  
  Ideally I'd like to push the Republicans to occupy pretty much the same space the Democrats do currently and have the Democrats move further left. In pretty much any other halfway functional democracy, our Dems would be considered a conservative party.
  
  There's a handful of Republican talking points I could kind of get behind if they weren't using them as covers for their personal greed, racism, religious fundamentalism, etc. but at best the things I would otherwise tend to agree with them on over the Democrats are only paid lip service at best, more often they outright work against them, and very often they take the absolute craziest possible interpretation of one of their supposed ideals and run straight off the deep end with it.
Independents are people who don’t identify as democrats or republicans.

Many independents are more progressive than mainstream dems. Some aren’t. But we’re a spectrum and it’s stupid to treat us as cohesive.
- Thanks. That’s precisely why I’m wondering. By their token I’m “independent” as a NPA… but I’m NPA because there isn’t really a home for leftists in American politics.

Hahahaha... When has he ever listen to the opinions of others?

Oh, all the time when it involves things that aren't centered around him. In those cases he will usually take on the opinion of the last person that he spoke to (that knew how to butter him up first)..