With the US election coming up on the horizon there is still no indication that anything significant is going to change soon in the monetary system. That's the main topic this blog follows. However, since the election outcome will be of interest for most people and the outcome could eventually impact the monetary system, here is a potential election outcome scenario you won't see discussed very many places.
This scenario comes from Jim Rickards who admits this would be a strange and totally unexpected outcome for most everyone. But he does view it as potentially possible and I can't rule it out since things just as strange have been going on in US politics quite often lately. Basically it involves Trump winning the race in the electoral votes, but the Democrats winning the House of Representatives. If that were to happen, some Democrats have threatened to pass a resolution in the newly elected House (just before the election would be certified on (1-6-2025) to declare Donald Trump an insurrectionist. If passed, that would disqualify Trump to be certified as President despite winning the electoral votes to become President.
Since no candidate would then have the 270 electoral votes to be certified as President, the House then decides it under the 12th Amendment to the Constitution. The House can only vote for a candidate who received electoral votes so if the House met they would have to vote for Harris as President. However, a reasonable assumption is that Republicans in the House would likely revolt if this were attempted and refuse to meet to certify, denying the House a quorum. That means no one would be certified as President until the House changed it's mind and resolved things. Jim Rickards explains all this in some detail in this recent interview.
Based on this potential outcome there are some questions that come to mind very quickly:
Who becomes President if this were to happen?
JD Vance would become acting President under this scenario until the matter was resolved in the House.
What would prevent this from happening?
If the Republicans maintain control of the House, this will not happen. We can also assume that litigation would ensue likely going all the way to the Supreme Court over any resolution declaring Trump to be an insurrectionist. The Supreme Court could rule in Trump's favor eventually. That of course would take some time.
Who would become the VP if JD Vance became Acting President?
I asked Jim this question directly and he informed me Vance would serve as both Acting President and the VP until the House resolved the matter.
Bottom line: Jim Rickards believes there is a good chance the US election will not get resolved until 2025. That would be prevented if either candidate wins more than 270 electoral votes and no one attempts to challenge the outcome. If either party wins both the White House and the House of Representatives, this scenario likely will not happen. Markets may react to the uncertainty in a poor way if this scenario does unfold. There is still no indication major fundamental monetary system change would take place soon regardless.
Update 10-30-2024: In a new video today intended for his newsletter subscribers, Jim altered his election forecast as described above. He is now projecting a comfortable Trump win and also that the Republicans will hold the House of Representatives based on how the election is trending. So, this would mean there would be no bill passed to declare Trump an insurrectionist under that scenario. He bases this on a combination of his own forecast models and the fact that large amounts of investment dollars are flowing into certain stocks that would benefit from a Trump win. Nothing he presented today would suggest any major change to the present momentary system soon regardless of who wins the election.
Update 11-07-2024: With the election results now in, Jim did hit his forecast again this year. We'll have to see if the results impact the monetary system, but I have not seen anything from Trump indicating he plans any kind of major change. Likely just more of the same as we have had, at least for now.
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