(Credit: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty)
It’s on. The Supreme Court has ruled that no state can use the 14th Amendment of the Constitution — which bans insurrectionists from holding office — to keep Tump off the ballot. Stand down, then, Colorado and Maine, the two states in the vanguard of moves to get him disqualified.
The decision to allow the former president to stand was unanimous, with the Court’s conservative majority and liberal minority in agreement. The conservatives actually went further, ruling that for the 14th Amendment to be brought into action (section 3, incidentally) something important has to happen: Congress would have to approve it.
This rather dry-sounding suggestion is anything but for some Americans. A small group of law professors told the Court, with alarm, that it should not pursue this course of action. They asked the justices to consider a perfectly feasible outcome in the presidential election: that Trump win the presidential poll — via an electoral college that hands it to him in spite of not winning a majority of Americans’ votes — only for the Democrats to overturn the Republicans’ tiny current majority in the House of Representatives.
Then, the professors argue, suddenly the 14th Amendment, Section 3 (the insurrection disqualification) is back in play:
“If Mr. Trump wins an electoral-vote majority, it is a virtual certainty that some Members of Congress will assert his disqualification under Section 3. That prospect alone will fan the flames of public conflict. But even worse for the political stability of the Nation is the prospect that Congress may actually vote in favor of his disqualification after he has apparently won election in the Electoral College.”
The professors add, with admirable understatement, that “neither Mr. Trump nor his supporters, whose votes effectively will have been discarded as void, are likely to take such a declaration lying down”.
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SubscribeI fondly remember the days when Presidential Elections didn’t have the malign influence of Donald J. Trump hanging over them.
Question is: is Trump’s influence more malign than that of his ultimate opponent George Soros, a man whose money has corrupted not just the political process but the judicial system as well and whose insistence that his candidates commit to open borders has resulted in a massive health crisis, a building crime wave and the further pauperisation of the working poor.
Looks like a no-brainer to me.
Do we live in a Bond-movie world now?
Well, there’s certainly no shortage of Bond villains.
Martin, there is a REASON that Trump got elected. It did not happen in a vacuum.
And fundamentally, that reason was that the democrats and republicans were ultimately owned by the same people pushing a neoliberal economic agenda and a neoconservative foreign policy. That left social issues to define the parties, issues fraught with emotion. Voters had no place to go to push back against free trade and foreign wars or regime change. Trump was the only outlet they found and it is why the republican establishment and the democrats and the bureaucrats hated him so much. He was and is a threat to the DC consensus and that consensus is set by K Street, the military industrial complex, Wall Street, the CIA, the State Department and Silicon Valley and with them, the MSM.
Mike Benz says it all.
If it wasn’t Trump it’d be someone else. Do you think the Democrats would have reacted differently to a Ted Cruz presidency, for example?
Absolutely. They never called Bush II, Bush I, or Reagan ‘Hitler’
Oh, wait…..
Not quite sure when it started, but the DNC smearing of Republican candidates is now standard procedure in the US. It may have been with Reagan, but it certainly would happen with any Republican candidate for President at this time except perhaps for a neo-con WEF globalist like Nikki Haley.
Don’t forget Mitt Romney. Also = Hitler.
They would turn on a President Haley in a heartbeat. Extraordinary irony is that they call their party “Democrats”. I wonder if they ever looked up the name in a dictionary?
What happened after those elections is the whole reason why Trump was able to find footing.
I take it you’re aware of the nefarious efforts undertaken by the Kennedy clan to get JFK elected in 1960?
Perhaps you should say ‘DNC maligned influences’ smearing Donald J Trump’
Nothing has stopped the Democrats pulling every trick in the book (and more so) in trying to ‘Get Trump’ so far. Feeding fake dossiers to the FBI. CIA/Five Eyes spying. Hobbling the administration with the Russian Collusion investigation.Two impeachments. The J6 committee. Breaching executive and lawyer-client privilege. Lawfare of multiple dirty hues. Lying in Congress. Suppression of legitimate stories and social media censorship. Corrupt prosecutors. Novel legal theories. Judges who become prosecutors. BLM riots. Dark money funding of election processes. Placing surrogates in leading media. Excessive sentencing. Attacking supreme court judges.
The only thing missing is there is no public proof of direct election manipulation. We just have close one eye and accept the Democrats are very, very good at elections post 2016, and they would never, ever cheat.
It should therefore be a total given that the Democrats will absolutely go for Trump if he wins, and they take Congress – not least to attempt to protect the Washington gravy train and their many vested interests. We have yet to find a limit to Democrat spite and viciousness if they don’t get their way.
Of course Trump could always propose amending the constitution to permit rebels and insurrectionists to hold office.
Insurrectionists have held office. Their names include Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison.
Unfortunately for all concerned, as we Brits would say.
😉
The nation was born in insurrection. 😉
The first and second paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence justified the American insurrection, and stated it to be a “right of the people” in the future.
Indeed. History is written by the winners. Who is the noble defender of freedom and who is the vile insurrectionist traitor is established by the winning side after the fact. Had those insurrectionists failed in their rebellion, they would have probably been tried and executed as traitors in full compliance with the laws of the time. Instead they won and became the founding fathers of a new nation. The ultimate historical judgement of Trump and Trumpism will be determined by the outcome of the larger scope conflict of populism and nationalism against the current globalist establishment of multinational corporations, international banking, and super rich oligarchs.
Add to the list ‘releasing Covid 19 from a lab in China”…
I’m curious what you would consider “proof of direct election manipulation”? Would it include things like
US postal service accepting mail in ballots received past deadline
Attorneys General acting in violation of their constitutions to alter rules for signature validation
Republican polling place observers being removed or otherwise not allowed to observe
Exactly. You don’t have to wear a MAGA hat to see that there are different rules at play for the candidates. Clinton tried to get the Electoral College to overturn the election in 2016. A slick video of Hollywood celebrities imploring the EC not to verify the vote. It’s linked in here. It’s actually funny, in a pathetic sort of way. https://open.substack.com/pub/lowstatus/p/topped-trump?r=evzeq&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Quote “The only thing missing is there is no public proof of direct election manipulation.”
‘None so blind as those who will not see’, my friend. The 2020 election was replete with evidence of criminal anomalies…..
Its all for the best.
As soon as they prove in Washington that they cant govern the earlier new governance will be looked for.
One of the ridiculous aspects of the ruling. It would take a simple majority in congress to boot the president out via 14(3) but a 2/3 majority to disapply it.
No t didn’t. SCOTUS ruled that legislation from congress was required to enforce section 3 of the 4th. That future legislation may prescribe a simple majority to oust a President, but it would be that legislation that is incongruous with the 14th, not this ruling,
Perhaps the conservative justices who did stray into the territory of saying how the Amendment should be enforced were simply underlining that the balance between federal and state law lay at the heart of this matter and that in this instance, federal law prevails.
This article in Time (https://time.com/6837636/donald-trump-supreme-court/) by a Chicago law professor criticises the conservative justices’ statements on the need for an act of Congress, relying on the historic application of the 3rd clause and stating that, in the past, in the situation for which the clause was enacted, disqualification was automatic for those officials who had participated in confederacy. Therefore, no act of Congress should be needed here for Trump.
This seems quite weak reasoning; Trump and confederacy participation are two very different situations.
To say “it applied this way in the past and so therefore it must be the same now” also misses the deeper point of the clause. From my (admittedly shonky, non-expert) reading, the purpose of this clause seems to be to hold the country together in fragile times, whether after a civil war or in a highly divisive, explosive election.
By flicking the enforcement to Congress and forcing lawmakers from both sides to really and honestly answer the question of whether to disqualify Trump or not – based on neutral, legal reasoning rather than just political screeching – will answer the question once and for all whether the USA is a functioning and mature democracy subject to the rule of law or not.
That process will be massively fraught, and it isn’t unreasonable of those critics to raise their voices and speak of “disaster for the Nation”. But if lawmakers manage to focus their minds, turn off their emotions and handle the process properly and well, the future of the USA might even look a lot more stable, faith in its institutions shored up, thus fulfilling the purpose of the 3rd section.
That’s just the way it’s struck me.
“…If lawmakers manage to focus…and handle the process well…”
Isn’t it pretty to think so.
This is exactly the point: the justices aimed to set up a framework whereby lawmakers have to pull themselves together, think of the bigger picture rather than just this election and this candidate and perform the function they are supposed to.
It is a framework which opens the door up to the car of the USA being pointed at a brick wall and the accelerator depressed, hoping that the people behind the wheel will wake up in time to avoid a crash. The risks baked into it are pretty huge.
But if you can say with utter certainty right now that they won’t be able to do that, then the system has de facto broken down already and the consequences of that aren’t going to be pretty either.
forcing lawmakers from both sides to really and honestly answer the question of whether to disqualify Trump or not – based on neutral, legal reasoning rather than just political screeching
Have you seen Congress? It’s full of screechers who get all the press. This is a pipe dream in today’s climate.
We need climate change….in DC
I think you are asking for a lot!
The only hope we have is for a CLEAR cut election and a smooth ratification of the vote.
Anything else is going to bring down all kinds of hell.
I include in that any convictions of Trump because they are going to be viewed, justifiably, as democrats abusing the legal system to get an opponent.
All this lawfare has been brought by democrats, all of it. The volume of it has been over the top and every now and then, as with the case in GA, we get hints of coordination with the White House. That is just too much for voters, Trump voters in particular, to accept.
It clearly looks like the weaponization of the legal system against people or organizations that the democrats do not like, something most Americans are terrified of.
(BTW….Letitia James is now going after beef producers for fraud. Her claim? That their claim to “aspire to Net Zero” is fraud. She is using the state’s legal apparatus to punish individuals and industries unpopular with the left — sacrificing the rule of law in the process.So, the NRA, Trump and now beef producers. Who is next?)
Being perfectly honest, I can say that I see not just a possibility but an actual probability of armed violence if things go sideways in November.
Your fantasy of armed violence is just fantasy. My fellow Americans are much too lazy.
Are your fellow Americans representative of the population in a way that would prevent a significant cohort from taking action in the scenario being considered in this article?
Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying.
The only “action” we’re likely to see is a) whining on social media and, b) standing up to take selfies. Lots of camo and tactical footwear, but no match for the cops.
The election is so split and divisive it will always be close. The Dem tried to (ab)use postal votes and that definitely affected the results in some states. Whether it affected the final results we would never know. Evidence comes out now that some Dem officials were caught red handed, gathering and posting votes surreptitiously at night!!!
I remember the hanging chads well, as I happened to be in Florida for a conference at the time. The joke then was maybe Serbia should put in some peacekeeping troops to help this fledgling democracy get its act together. Maybe that should be updated to Hamas should provide the support today.
If the Congress does anything after the election to prevent the result of the election from being implemented, the degree of disruption this would cause in the United States is extreme to say the least. Likely, the Constitution would not survive — it’s possible that the nation itself would not, either, but that’s really a question for the military more than anything else. Suffice to say, any Congress taking that step should be well aware that, either way, “Our Democracy”, as the currently in-vogue phrase goes, would not be preserved by it.
It is a sad day for democracy when the ordinary person’s vote is subordinated to legal technicalities. The US system seems even worse (if that is possible ) than the UK system.
The US system works well when everyone is required to vote in person or is a citizen requesting a ballot by mail. It goes haywire when votes are harvested and anyone in the country can vote.
But in what the writer suggests may happen in USA, we may see a forerunner of what’s coming in UK where the pace of lawfare is gathering. Perhaps we should take a warning and reign in this ever increasing power of the courts over parliament.
Yes.
Like in allowing votes for non citizens and 16 years old, which Labour proposes.
All to drag uk into Fourth Reich which EU really is.
But with votes of millions of low IQ savages Labour and Conservatives imported into this country, it will happen.
If the Supreme Court can amend the constitution by legal fiat, as they’ve done here, it’s a little rich to suggest that the democrats shouldn’t be allowed to follow their lead. This is such a one sided article. How many democrats have actually voted NOT to certify an election? I believe it’s two. Whereas MOST Republicans voted not to certify the last election. Maybe American’s are justifiably sick of minority government. If Trump wins the next election that will be the third time this century that a minority elected President has held office. It will be the norm.
How did they amend it?
Was there anything about the last election, anything at all, that might have given someone the idea that the voting was not on the up and up? Think hard now. It’s kind of amazing that voting stops almost simultaneously in six states where Biden is losing, but by morning, he’s ahead. You also forget that after the 2016 vote, the left put on a star-studded ad campaign aimed at the electors of the Electoral College in an attempt to intimidate them into voting for Hillary. But, no; Dems would never do anything.
“But that January, 2001, saw the first recent hard-line effort to get the result thrown out.”
And here I thought the Demrats were against trying to do precisely what they accused Trump of doing 20 years later.
“What if, say, some fake image of Joe Biden had been released, damaging him, in the run-up to the campaign? In other words that the campaign itself could be widely understood to be flawed. ”
What if some true, genuine, negative story of Joe Burden were suppressed before the election? Someone might understand the election to be, what was the term you used? Ah, right – “flawed”.
I wonder what is wrong with the Demrat base really. How can a group of people be as sanctimonious, as full of themselves and their self declared virtue, while being the exact opposite and being completely unaware of what they look like.
In a National Review article yesterday Andrew McCarthy (https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-supreme-courts-unanimous-5-4-decision/) wrote about the decision “What that means is that if Donald Trump were to win the presidential election, congressional Democrats would not be able — in the next January 6 joint session of Congress — to refuse to ratify his victory on the grounds that he is an insurrectionist.
Under the Court’s holding, it is now a prerequisite to enforcement of the Section 3 disqualification that a person must have been convicted under the insurrection statute. ”
In today’s fragmented political world I suppose anything is possible but if McCarthy is correct then it looks like the Supreme Court considered what might happen on Jan 6, 2025.
>Then, the professors argue, suddenly the 14th Amendment, Section 3…
A wild fantasy to say the least. Progressives refuse to face any reality they disagree with.
Insurrection is a very serious charge. Should it not be determined by a criminal prosecution, preceded by a presumption of innocence?
Not one of the people who were convicted for the events of January 6th were convicted of “insurrection.” And I’m still waiting for the answer to the following question: Where was the extra security on January 6th even though there was at least a week’s prior notice that there might be problems on that day?
Insurrection is a “right of the people” (second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence). Section 3 of the 14th amendment was an error, and should be corrected.
The intentionally provocative question in the title notwithstanding, nothing says “our democracy” quite like tossing out the results of the democratic process. The fear among some of a Trump presidency is palpable. It should also raise questions among the sane people in the electorate. Trump was president before. Absolutely none of the things we were told he would do happened. Also, 1776 was an insurrection. Jan 6 wasn’t even the Boston Tea Party.
“via an electoral college that hands it to him in spite of not winning a majority of Americans’ votes”
The electoral votes are the voters that count in this contest, you fool. The fact that you either did not know this, or are purposefully spreading a lie, so that anything you say after that bit of idiocy, are going to be full of lies, half-truths, and blatant misunderstandings of American jurisprudence and politics.
The US is a constitutional Republic. The electoral college award each state with a number of electors based on the votes gained in that state by each candidate on the state ballot. The Presidential election in decided by the number of state electors won and not by the total of american votes. This done to prevent the States of California and New York due to their population size deciding who shall be President. I’m not totally sure from your Comment Aaron, whether what you are saying is the same thing. I suspect not. I don’t think it is terribly appropriate to call someone a fool, especially when you, yourself do not seem (I say seem) to be in total command of the facts.
But is not the case that at least some states allocate all electoral college votes to a winning candidate?
So if someone wins the state with 60% of votes, should he get 20 votes in electoral collage or just 12?
If think it should be the latter, while accepting your point about large states not dominating the state.
Yes you are right, states vary in the apportionment of electoral college votes. However it is definitely not based on the total number of individual votes each candidate receives. If this were the case then the US would be a democracy and not a constitutional republic.
Aaron, please be respectful. This isn’t the Washington Post.
Thank you Justin, a good essay. A few comments:
Trump can only be an ‘insurrectionalist’ if he is found guity in a court. A State’s Attorney General, or its Assembly, cannot play God.
I would love to see the names and colleges of the learned professors on the amicus brief(s?). Haha!
Bill Clinton was elected twice by WAY less than 50% of the popular vote, but that’s moot. Arguably, he is the creator of both the Mexican and Chinese messes.
The Electoral College, per Article II, has as its main purpose the premise that the 50 States, not the US Congress, run elections, take votes and send certified votes to Washington.
Tennessee, my home after Scotland, has 11 votes of the 537(8?). However, and it’s a huge deal, if the State electors voted 6-5 Trump versus Biden, then ALL 11 votes sent to Washington are certified for Trump. An all or nothing system within each State. Seems queer?, not when you study the potential, national effect of a handful of States (e.g. CA, TX, FL, NY, NJ, GA, PA, OH, etc.) housing half the population and suppressing smaller States.
(Meanwhile, the country crumbles under the crushing debt- spending of the US Congress, two houses packed filled with corrupt, career-pols, the foxes guarding the hen-house path to Constitutional amendments to make 537 people act responsibly, FOR, WE THE PEOPLE!)
Don’t forget the Senate acquitted him in formal impeachment proceedings.
I suggest the author actually read the SCOTUS opinion!
They make clear that Congress has the exclusive right to enforce the 14th amendment through legislation – in fact, it is this requirement in the decision that causes the leftist triumvirate to write a separate opinion.
This is not to say that if Trumps wins the electoral college and the Dems win the House, that the Dems will not try some absurd extra-legal shenanigans – they most certainly will have their insurrection but it will be called a different name by the media, possibly “Rescue of America Democracy”.
I thought it was interesting; I ask Chat AI what they thought of the 2021 Presidential results and evidence that it was fraudulent.
The answer came back. ‘we are not allowed to discuss the 2021 election results’ . So one can draw one’s own conclusions.
American electoral processes are backward and chaotic compared to Canada, EU and UK. I recall watching an immigrant Indian woman at a polling station describe the disorderly processes. She was dismayed at how backward the American processes are.
How’s that calm and order working out in Canada, the EU, and the UK?
Canadians often vote foolishly, but the election mechanism itself works pretty well.
It really is. The problem in the US is the vote is conducted at the municipal level by partisan hacks, both Dem and Rep, instead of little old ladies with blue hair.
She should be grateful that she was not burned at her deceased husband funeral.
Some of the things English stop savages doing.
She wasn’t Sati-sfied.
If Trump gets 270 electoral votes but is later deemed to be constitutionally ineligible (SCOTUS would probably have to decide), the Presidency would fall to the VP-elect. End of story. Congress would have no authority to choose a new President.
What “fake image” of Biden could possibly compare with the straw-man caricature of Trump mainstream media has been foisting on the public daily since 2016? If these qualify as grounds for disputing election results, Trump is right to claim that electoral contests have been “rigged.”
One thing’s for sure: Democrats who pursued any of the strategies outlined in the article could no longer plausibly masquerade themselves as defenders of democracy. “We’re going to kill the disease (Trump), even if we have to kill the patient (the country) to do it.” Talk about monomania.
‘But what if it were close? What if, say, some fake image of Joe Biden had been released, damaging him, in the run-up to the campaign?’
This is almost literally what happened to Trump in 2020. But rather than release a fake image, the Democrats suppressed a real one. The image of Hunter Biden talking about kick backs to the Big Guy on his laptop. Also in 2016 Clinton enlisted Hollywood celebs to lobby the Electoral College to refuse to certify Trump. It’s all here. https://open.substack.com/pub/lowstatus/p/topped-trump?r=evzeq&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Not sure the Hunter Biden laptop and the suppression of same is equivalent to ‘some fake image’,
I have no love for Joe Biden. I think he’s a doddering old man functioning as a figurehead and a placeholder for the bureaucracy and business as usual in Washington, but in a lot of ways, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The House and Senate are stalemated there’s no indication that 2024 will produce a large majority either way. It’s hard to say who will win the House, but with so many districts being basically decided long before the election, neither side will enjoy a commanding majority. The Senate is very likely to be Republican controlled with narrow majority of one or two seats. Both parties are fractured by numerous intra-party squabbles as well. It’s hard to get anything substantive done in such an environment and governance in the USA is an exercise in keeping the wheels turning and hoping nothing too important break.
This is part of the reason I’m actually hoping for a Biden victory this November. This author brings up a lot of bad things that can happen if Trump wins and frankly, for a number of these scenarios, we’re talking about the end of America as we know it and the beginning of a protracted domestic conflict whose results would be impossible to guess. As the author points out, Trump’s voters would absolutely NOT take it well if some way was found to prevent Trump taking office. They would take it as a confirmation of their worst fears about a small group of elites taking power away from the people and it would be hard for anyone to dispute them in light of the facts. We all grew up being taught that America is the land of the free, the birthplace of modern freedoms, the democracy that turned a world ruled by kings and lords upside down. For a congress or a court to reject the results of a political process established by the Constitution would be constitute committing symbolic if not actual national suicide. Moreover, it would mean that after accusing Trump of trying to subvert democracy for four years, they would prove themselves hypocrites of the highest order, immediately turning to subterfuge and intrigue when the results were not to their liking.
If Biden wins, nothing changes. Congress is still gridlocked. The establishment continues to look weak and helpless. The fractures within the parties get a little deeper. The big sort continues to group people into more homogeneous states and regions within an increasingly dysfunctional nation. Globalism is still dying a slow death by attrition due to international conflict and small concessions granted to mollify angry citizens. Americans respect for and trust in the government continues to decline. More Americans begin to look to solve their problems at the state and local levels. The best way to resolve the current populist/establishment conflict with a minimum of violence is a slow decay of federal power/authority and a corresponding rise in power/authority at the state level. The federal government is expected to do less and less, leaving less room for conflict and controversy. Controversial issues are handled differently by different states according the popular will of those voters, and the states in the US are allowed to be as different, or even more different, than say, France and Hungary. As a pacifist with deep misgivings about engaging in violence for any cause short of defense of life and limb, this is the result I’m hoping for.
If Trump wins though, well, God have mercy upon us all.
So you think that win for Biden who surely should not have a driving licence, never mind nuclear codes, is great for USA?
Whatever you think about Trump, Putin or Xi, they are mentally there.
They could be narcistic, murderous, dictatorial or whatever but they are not completely useless old git.
You could argue that USA system works because some people around Biden design and implement policies, whether you agree with them or not.
That is how the USA system works and how all large organizations work. Even great leaders can’t be everywhere, know everything, and make every decision. The best leaders articulate a vision and a set of policies and then choose competent and committed subordinates then delegate tasks to them, and they then do the same. With Biden, he has very few faculties left so nearly everything is delegated. It’s government by committee and while it is not ideal, it’s probably not going to start WWIII, instigate a second civil war, or some such. Further, most of the American bureaucracy that supports the executive branch is not replaced every administration and has come to have it’s own outlook and methods that are resistant to change from above or below. They are entrenched and they would keep on doing things the same way even if nobody was in charge, which is basically the case with Biden. With Congress also being gridlocked, the government can’t do much of anything, and as a Libertarian, that’s a good thing. The status quo is likely to see current trends continue, populist sentiment continue to rise, states continue to challenge the national government, people continue to lose faith in the government. That favors populism and a slow return of popular sovereignty to the people. Biden is too weak to do anything about it.
Ideally, in a saner world, where one side wasn’t scaring the crap out of me by using the legal system to try to eliminate a political opponent, I probably would prefer Trump. Ideally, the press and the establishment wouldn’t be using base fearmongering to scare people because they have no real solutions to any of the people’s problems. We don’t live in an ideal world. I don’t like violence but the stage has been set for a lot of it if Trump wins. Moreover, I don’t know how far the anti-Trump establishment will go to defeat him. Some of the scenarios in this article there is no coming back from. We can survive another Biden administration and rally behind another populist leader in the future who might be more politically savvy and command a true majority that would force the establishment to be silent and take their medicine. On the other hand, the US probably can’t survive an attempt by Congress or the courts to remove a candidate who actually wins the election. Regardless of how senile or incompetent Biden is, a second civil war is worse.
You are absolutely crazy. Which do you think was best for the USA.
Trump in 2016 to 2020 or Biden in 2020 – 2024.
You say ‘No change with Biden’, except for an escalation of all the disasters currently afflicting the USA, plus the possible inclusion of WW111 .
My first reaction is, don’t give them any ideas. Now on with our show. I think this is plausible and have the possibility of driving up left leaning news shows. Imagine Trump winning the electoral college and not the popular vote, and the Democrats keeping the Senate and winning the House of Representatives. Democratic leaders or media attracting ones would be interviewed regarding their intentions. To keep the drama and the ratings, there would be talk about, “we’re thinking about it,” “we have to keep the will of the majority of the people in mind,” through November and December while the idea gets market tested. If it’s the surveys are close or out and out support the idea, then they will not certify the election. To save democracy they will thwart democracy. Then if Trump’s election is not certified, then I am not sure where the election or should I say appointment of a President goes from there.
There is no national popular vote. The President is elected, state by state. The Electoral College is the vehicle by which each state’s election is reported.