brucejoel99
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Posts: 19,459
Political Matrix E: -3.48, S: -3.30
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« on: April 02, 2019, 09:33:36 PM » |
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If a defeated president decided that the election was illegitimate, & he was gonna resist actually leaving office, we honestly don't really know what he'd do: for all we know, he could try to have his (victorious) opponent arrested & stopped from appearing to take over the office, or he could just say on January 20th, "I'm not leaving."
At some point, the question would become: whose orders do law enforcement obey? Because it would ultimately become a matter of the use of force in one direction or another.
However, intense congressional & political pressure would also likely force the defeated president out of office quite quickly. Indeed, the first line of defense would be Congress, & the defeated president's party pressuring him out, telling the president that he must resign or leave. If he wants to stay in the White House, however, he would stay in the White House. But, hypothetically, you don't even need the White House. It's symbolic. It's not necessarily *the* seat of power.
Regardless, though, it would certainly still be a constitutional crisis to the first magnitude.
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