Not this November--but soon?

Not this November

Not this November, but soon. (Or a few Novembers ago)

After an election mired in scandal, a president and congress are elected. The new ruling party passes unpopular laws on all fronts, and overall has a poor to terrible administration. People already believe the election was rigged, and wish the administration was gone.

News reports come out, covering some of the dirty tricks used to fix the election, and one or two of the most effective snoops die in mysterious circumstances. There are no indictments.

The mid-terms have a lot of bad things happening, too, including the demise of one challenger, along with key supporters, in an unfortunate plane crash. The administration loses a few seats, but keeps control of the senate, and the house is almost split.

One outspoken anti-administration senator’s family dies in a car crash when the brakes fail.

Several senators resign over the next two years—always the more outspoken anti-administration ones. All of them have children they’re close to, and are from states with governors that support the administration

Two years later, the incumbent party narrowly retains power, officially. But the challenging party has a vast majority of the popular vote, and many congressional races come out close for the incumbent—despite all indications being that the non-incumbent party had a massive majority in electoral votes.

As the challenges start, a key supreme court justice is struck by a car. Another one kills himself, and several news organizations get suicide letters from her, saying that her family had been threatened if she didn’t vote in favor of the administration in the challenges to the election.

Several challenges to results are struck down by the supreme court on 4-3 votes.

The result: By the time the new president is inaugurated, most of the population is feeling very sure that the election was outright stolen. This isn’t like Bush-Gore, where many favored the outcome, and there was legitimate controversy, but instead is a massively fraudulent election. The government’s checks and balances have failed, and everybody knows it. Although Washington wants to lean on the press, it can’t do too much. (Though the New York Times’s main office is blown to bits, allegedly by Islamic Terrorists, as is the Boston Globe’s main office.) BBC reporters and other major international news organizations have correspondent’s visas revoked for specious reasons.

How will the American people react to this blatantly stolen election. More and more hard, documented facts are being released, clear proof of the fact that the government has been stolen. Congress is, for the moment, tied up with Senatorial filibusters, but the ruling party is getting ready to change the Senate rules.

More laws suppressing civil liberties are on the table as soon as the senate is whipped into line, akin to the sedition acts of the past—and the surviving members of the supreme court will rubber stamp them.

I have deliberately left out which party stole the election, as I don’t want to start a flame war “Our party would never do that, but the other one would” type of thing.” I know that this happening would be tough to near ASB, but I’m trying to get a feel of how people think the nation would react to a total breakdown in faith that the government is actually elected. In short, the American people do not believe the government in power has any legitimacy.

What would it take for the military to accept that the government is not legitimate?

Here’s the oath:

I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."

Likewise, when do states start defying the Federal Government in a meaningful way, or people stop obeying? When do the wheels come completely off, and how?

I know that this is a very unlikely chain of events, but things do happen.

And is it worth trying to make a timeline?
 
I know you want to avoid talking about parties and I respect that, but it does make a difference in terms of the military reaction.

If a scenario like this was orchestrated by a Democratic administration, I have no difficulty seeing the military launching a coup, since most military officers are at least nominally pro-Republican. In fact, if a Democratic administration was even going to attempt something like this, they would probably have to purge the military leadership before even starting. They couldn't be obvious about it of course, but some well placed "retirements" and "reassignments" coupled with some "unfortunate accidents." You know, that sort of thing.

If it's a Republican administration, the military will be split. Many will want to take action against an obviously corrupt administration, but others will be hesitant because they generally agree with Republican policies. A lot would depend on the individual personalities of the people running the Joint Chiefs at the time. They would probably try to ride it out and avoid making any big decisions for as long as possible, but ultimately there will be some sort of popular insurrection and the military will be called upon to put it down. That's when the rubber meets the road and people have to pick sides.
 
Military...

Which ever party is doing this will be carrying out a purge of the military leadership, with early retirements, moving people around, etc. Some in the administration are very willing to arrange accidents, so they'll certainly purge a few, one way or another. In short, I suspect that the military will sit on the fence at first, due to both its nature, and personnel transfers that weaken its ability to intervene.

The difficulty for the corrupt administration is that it's blatant in some cases, but hard to prove, especially with the occasional accident. In short, most of the population is against the government, but no one's done anything irreversible--yet.

I consider the possibly of armed conflict to be relatively low, at least to start. Instead, I can see one or several states simply refusing to obey some new edict or other, especially if it went through a regulatory agency of some sort.

Another possible point of a breakdown of federal authority could come when the government attempts to mobilize part of the national guard...and is told , "NO." by the state involved.

When do other nations start fishing in troubled waters? (There's probably some foreign policy problem or economic crisis already ongoing--that's always a good time for suppressing civil liberties in the name of national unity and defense. But this time, they've gone so far that the people as a whole (perhaps 75%) consider the government illegitimate.
 
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