In 2020, even the cynical pessimists are too optimistic.
I predicted Trump would attempt to overturn the election. He is giving it a shot.
Today's news demonstrates how fragile democracy is. It counts on the integrity of people we never hear of simply doing their jobs honorably, people like the county clerks in courthouses all over America.
Trump told us in advance he would ignore and overturn the election if he lost. He said that absentee voting in states other than Florida, where he voted absentee, would be completely fraudulent and the vote could not be trusted. He said it repeatedly. He tweeted it. He pre-sold the idea that if he won, the election was OK, but if he lost it would have been stolen.
Trump pre-announced his plan. It required others to get on board. His campaign urged the legislatures of battleground states not to open ballots as they came in, so there would be a big backlog that would take a couple of days to open and count. They were urged to do otherwise, but they complied with Trump's request. Then he said he would announce on election night that he had won, based on the early, very incomplete count. (Trump did just that, at 2:30 a.m. election night) Then he would say that ballots that were counted the next days--which timing was inevitable, since they had not been done as they came in--would be absolutely illegitimate because anything that was not announced early on election night would be fraudulent. (Trump did just that)
Then, with the votes called fraudulent, stop the vote from being counted or if counted from being certified and ask--demand--that Republican election officials, and then legislators, ignore the election result and award him the electoral votes. He is doing that now.
At first it appeared that the Biden margin of victory was big enough that local officials could not ignore the reality of the vote. Georgia is working out that way. It has a Republican Secretary of State who refused to be bullied and an audit shows the original count was almost perfectly correct.
Trump lobbied the local election officials in Michigan and Pennsylvania that we know of. (Lindsay Graham called and lobbied Republican officeholders in multiple states.) Two Republican election officials, with the ministerial job of submitting the Wayne County results to the state, rescinded their vote to do so after hearing from Trump, thus putting a cloud of inclusion of the vote in the largest county in Michigan. Now Trump has invited the Republican legislative leadership of Michigan to the White House. Michigan leaders had previously said that, of course, they were not going to overturn an election that Biden had won by 150,000 votes. That was before the White House visit. Now the pressure is on them. The members of the legislature have the power to do what 160 million American voters cannot do: make Trump president. That is an awesome opportunity. Mr. Legislator, didn't you personally vote for Trump in the election? Don't you think Trump is better than Biden? This isn't sabotage of an election. Do your duty and retain Trump in office and Make America Great Again.
Meanwhile, Trump is lobbying the Pennsylvania legislature to do the same thing: Ignore the vote count and simply award the votes to Trump.
Will this work? We will see.
What we already know, though, is that this is an open, transparent effort to delegitimize an election and for a sitting president to retain office notwithstanding the election where his opponent won elections in states with 306 electoral votes and the popular vote by some five million votes. That fact won't go away. Americans have seen it. Elections can be overturned by a few partisans in the right spots, and a president who says not to trust an election to express the will of the people.
Trump has a superpower. He has no shame.
5 comments:
"We'll see"? C'mon, man. Everyone knew the polls going in. Everyone knows that DTJ cannot admit defeat. The whole post election drama is for the purpose of giving DTJ a grievance to launch his 2024 election campaign or his media campaign to compete with Fox (or both, as one feeds the other). Of course the whole thins was pre-planned.
Now nearly 6 million popular votes. To quote Georgia’s Republican Secy of State: “numbers don’t lie.”
The conventional wisdom is that this is all just a ploy to punish Democrats for the Mueller investigation and impeachment.
I was of the opinion that Republicans were secretly ok with it all, but now it seems they are going to play this game of brinksmanship out for as long as they can, for their own self service.
Michigan leaders may be corrupted, which would be unprecedented, not to mention political suicide. In order to overturn the election they would need two other states to go along as well, something that's pretty unlikely, but not impossible. Perhaps seeing this the few remaining Republicans who have some decency left will finally see what their party has become, and speak up.
Is there really no bottom?
Anyway, it appears we will have to endure this absurdity right up til noon on Jan. 20th. It will be a somber inauguration because it's possible that half a million Americans will have died from COVID by then.
After that, I hope that those who threatened the integrity of our election, impugned election officials with brazen lies, ignored the will of the people and enabled an attempt to establish a dictatorship will be held accountable, or this will happen again in 2024.
It's a long list.
"Having no shame" seems to have worked out quite well for him do far in this life. Banks issue credit they would never otherwise underwrite , suppliers still supply him even when they get stiffed, and voters love him even when they get shafted by him. That's his "superpower"
All Donald Trump needs to become dictator of the USA (a style his inherited millions allowed him to adopt to the fullest extent in private life) is just one disgruntled general agreeable to successfully performing a Nazi style "Putsch". And there has never been a lack of disgruntled generals available amongst that far-right brain washed group.Thanks to his inherited millions Donald Trump has been empowered during his lifetime to lie at will on every and all subjects and those employed or used by him have closed their eyes, ears and mouthes and accepted the money he pays them to do so. During the past four years Donald the liar Trump has displayed every attribute of a dictator, countenancing no criticisms of his sordid personal life or questionable business dealings, not to mention his complete botching of the Covid-19 crisis. It would be dangerous in the extreme to underestimate the depth of Trump's fears in respect to a Democratic administration exposing a tax situation he adamantly refused to share with the nation'e electorate. While the man may be pure scum, we should not underestimate the lengths to which he might feel necessary to protect his self image of perfection. Please, let's be on guard until we can move this boob out of the political landscape of America.
Bob Warren
Post a Comment