Imagine seeing what the Court has done in the last two years and thinking the plain text of the constitution is an impediment to action. Peak lawyer brain.
Explicitly written into the constitution is cold comfort when the person in charge of the transition of power has shown he's not interested in doing so and has been granted absolute immunity by a pliant Court.
I've been a big fan of the "you and what army" approach for quite a while. It's just another escalation in the constitutional crisis that has been building a boil since Bush v. Gore.
I think the explanation is people don't like a really old guy who presents as really old and also he's deeply deeply deeply unpopular. I don't buy race/age dep, but also you don't need that to lose the election, just need 130k fewer votes in 3 states.
I think "fundamentals" as a general thing, call it incumbency advantage and economy are not particularly useful when the incumbent is historically unpopular and people hate the economy (rightly or wrongly)
"At this point at this Supreme Court, originalism is a dead letter, to be resurrected and employed only when it suits the court's purposes," said Michael Luttig, a conservative former federal judge.
Josh Marshall made a good point which is if he was in good shape he'd have been on the offensive on Friday. He's been basically nowhere except for right after the debate and a few scripted appearances. Take some questions for fucks sake!
