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I think there are a lot of people even just in this forum who would disagree with you about what centrists would and would not take seriously, and I'm speaking as one of those centrists.
I think Trump crossing the well established and easy to understand bright line in the sand that has existed in spirit since 228 years ago, and in law since 74 years ago would be far more of a damning behavior than the 2020 election craziness. It ultimately likely comes down to the plausible deniability of Trump's actions, whether it could be seen in any light as (yet again) something that was potentially taken out of context, just his enemies ganging up on him to make it seem like he's doing something worse then he is. Seeing language on Wikipedia claiming he "devised a scheme" doesn't do much to convince me of the neutrality of the sources reporting on it.
I consider myself pretty much a centrist. I don't like the left and I don't like the right. And I think Trump's actions during the 2020 election are inexcusable and, if not legally, then morally, disqualifying for holding the office of President. That was basically the line in the sand for me and my registered Republican family members who voted for him the first time around. They didn't vote for him again (as far as I know), and they might have if it weren't for 2020. So I do think I have at least some knowledge of what centrists think.
This seems overly uncharitable to me. Of course we can never truly know, but say he had done what the Wikipedia article says. What language would you expect or want them to use? "Devising a scheme" is just straightforwardly what one would call that.
"crafted a plan"
to be frank, there are many ways to more neutrally describe someone communicating with a group of people to come up with a plan to accomplish something
that you cannot even think of a way to describe such a thing without the negative connotation demonstrates what wikipedia is being accused of (which you're apparently blind to)
Let's assume the 2020 election was illegally stolen. What should Trump have done?
What he initially did: make his case in court, where he had the opportunity to show evidence of vote tampering or other forms of fraud significant enough to change the outcome of the election. It was his right to do that, and it's good that we allow it in our justice system. After he lost all these cases, he should have conceded and let it be. Instead he continued to pursue hanging onto the office via other means with much less legal justification behind them.
The contingent/alternative electors were appointed before he lost all of those court cases and their appeals. If they had not been, they would have missed the deadline for appointing electors and he would have lost even if the courts ruled in a way that would make him the winner. If you think court cases should have the power to affect the outcome even after that deadline, that implies support for appointing the "fake electors" (or for the more extreme measure of trying to outright ignore the deadlines and appoint them after the fact).
There's a reason Gore's lawyers were considering doing the same thing in 2000 before the Supreme Court rendered it moot. The whole complaint about the "fake electors" seems to me like something people ended up focusing on because it was easier to use as a pretext for prosecution of him and the electors themselves, because the thing he actually did wrong (be a conspiracy theorist who falsely believed the election was stolen) isn't illegal.
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Okay, so if the courts refused to look at evidence, and even refuse to put a statutorily required hearing to see that evidence onto the court schedule (e.g., in the case of the Georgia election contest), then still he should do nothing else?
He should just allow the illegal election be stolen and allow the criminals who stole it to gain power and wreak further havoc on the country?
Using the process explicitly defined in the Constitution of the United States to contest electoral counts from states who unconstitutionally and illegally conducted their elections resulting in fraudulent outcomes does have plenty of legal justification behind them.
I don't believe the fake electors plan falls inside of that explicitly defined process. The memos and testimony we have now show:
Your preferred "solution," of do nothing but file some lawsuits in deep blue, machine controlled towns (even in red states) and then if that fails because courts refuse to look at evidence or even break laws requiring them to do so, so you accept defeat is not a stable one. It's suicidal and will guarantee the worst people obtain power. As time goes on, it just guarantees things will get worse as criminals continue to illegally win and their victims concede defeat because they're the beautiful losers.
There is nothing beautiful about this sort of losing; to me, it just appears to be cowardice dressed up as something else. Allowing criminals to take power and make the country in their image is bad, actually.
the explicitly defined Constitutional process, not "defined process," as you are now attempting to morph it into
the electoral count act cannot constrain the Constitution in any way whatsoever
alternative electors are a time-tested and well-used requirement due to the safe-harbor dates required for the statutorily outlined process; without alternative electors, it is functionally impossible for contested election lawsuits to have a remedy at the electoral college without ignoring laws, something you imply to not like
that's one opinion; would have been nice for Pence to tell everyone that instead of doing what he did which was deceive them and then stab them in the back when the time came
if you would like learn more about the plan, here is an interesting reply by John Eastman himself discussing the topic
you can claim it was contested, but you cannot claim it's not well supported on both legal and historical grounds
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Very well, you may be a centrist, I may have misjudged the validity of your centrist card. You're just a different one from me. But I still stand by the fact that many people in the forum may agree with me but not you. The vice versa may also be true.
I just also want to put out there that I do specifically know people who claim to be centrists but always align on the leftist position. I'm guessing they do this to try to gain cred with people like me. I can't say if you are that or not, because I haven't seen your track record.
Sorry, but I just absolutely disagree with you here. Never ever use the phrase "devise a scheme" unless they're Snidely Whiplash. For reporting on real world events you say he "planned to" or "was alleged to" or about a hundred other obviously neutral ways. Let actions speak for themselves on neutral sources. "Devise a scheme" is loaded loaded language.
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