I have long thought that at least a third of the electorate in this country is smooth running crazy. It’s just that with the advent of the Internet and social media they can now talk to each other.
I try, for the most part, to avoid right wing (or left wing for that matter) conspiracy theories and/or theorists. Those people conduct business in an alternate reality where nuance and coincidence do not exist. Everything happens for a REASON. And only certain folks are privy to them. And, like I said, they talk to each other.
Of course the reality of the matter is that most real world conspiracies are tissue thin and tend to collapse due to the incompetence and/or the big mouths of the participants. Think of it. How many surprise birthday parties have you ever seen pulled off? Exactly. But Barack Obama could successfully achieve the Oval Office despite having a jimmied up Certificate of Live Birth allegedly issued by the State of Hawaii to hide the “fact” that he was really born in Kenya? Which was a “secret” kept by scores of people, some of them elected officials, over @ 40 years? More on this later.
Yeah right. I refer you again to the inherent difficulty of the surprise birthday party by way of comparison. But some people want to believe that Obama is Kenyan and that a massive secret conspiracy, unlike the average birthday party plans, held together with iron discipline involving the manufacturers of voting machines and what not propelled Joe Biden to the Presidency over Donald Trump.
OK. I try to limit my consumption of bat-shittery to a finite number of sources as I am easily overwhelmed. But I was turned on to one particular true believer out there by a friend who passed him along with the warning “Do. Not. Engage.” Sensible advice.
As far as I can tell, this fellow, mercifully unknown to me previously, is way deep off the deep end. He is a Q adherent-Q being poorly understood in his estimation-and routinely claims to be in possession of inside knowledge of what the future holds. Despite being, well, nobody as far as I can tell. Just like me and most likely you.
I have been following this cat since November sometimes with hands over my eyes. He routinely makes predictions based on the inside baseball he plays with the intelligentsia he’s hooked up to. And every prediction they have ever made about anything as far as I can tell has been completely, nay spectacularly, wrong. They predicted that Biden would lose. He didn’t. Really he didn’t. They predicted that the Vice President would not confirm the vote of the Electoral College. The VP did. They predicted that the SCOTUS would throw out the election results. It didn’t. They predicted that Biden would never take the Oath of Office. President Biden did(more on this later as well). And these are just the predictions I can remember.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Always wrong but never in doubt. But here’s the latest from the dark web. Evidently, there is a line of what passes for thought amongst the faithful that Trump will be restored to the Presidency by August. (I seem to recall that it was earlier supposed to happen last March.)I have seen this prediction other places out on the Net. So it must be a thing.
I have a question that I would put to the folks that believe this hooey if I were inclined to Engage. Which I am not.
“How?”
This question first-or one close to it-popped up back in the day when numerous lawsuits were filed seeking to remove Barack Obama from office due to the fact that he allegedly was not native born. A Federal Judge in California ruled that even assuming that the Plaintiff in this case was correct-and trust me, it is never good when the Judge prefaces his or her ruling with the phrase “even assuming you’re correct”-that once Obama took the Oath of Office he was the President. And as President, could only be removed from Office through Impeachment according to the Constitution of the United States of America.
Joe Biden took the Oath of Office. Do I have to draw you a map?
Speaking of the Constitution, let’s assume that Biden is no longer able to serve, resigns or is impeached even. The Founding Fathers took care of this for us. Article II, Section I of the Constitution sets out the line of succession to the Presidency if the President dies or resigns. If Joe Biden were to step down today Kamala Harris would be next in line. If she were not able to serve then the Speaker of the House would be eligible followed by the President Pro Tempore of the Senate. After those elected officials members of the Cabinet are next in line.
All in all, the line of succession extends to 18 people, none of whom are former Presidents. It’s in the Constitution (as modified by the Presidential Succession Act). “You could look it up” as reknowned constitutional scholar Casey Stengel might say.
Long story short, under the Constitution Joe Biden can only be removed by Impeachment as he has taken the Oath of Office. Even at that under the Constitution his replacement can only come from the line of succession prescribed therein. Not to put too fine a point on it, the only way under the rule of law that Donald Trump returns to the Oval Office is if he wins the next Presidential election. Period.
I don’t think these folks are much interested in that. They were pretty disaffected going into last November. They live in a fantasy world of magical thinking in which authoritarianism transcends such niceties as the rule of law.
They are the part of the electorate that is barking mad. And they talk to each other.
Here’s hoping they don’t leave the talking stage.
