Stealing The Election 101

[Alli]

McConnell doesn't appear to be in great health, so I doubt he will be in charge much longer. Let's just hope that Georgian Republican voters make good on their word to not show up for runoff elections. It's their right to vote if they want to, but that whole "earn your vote" nonsense brought me an enormous amount of amusement.

Every day I check to see if Mitch is still on our side of the ground. I look forward to his departure since his state has a D governor, and will unquestionably be replaced by a D. I’m not rooting for Mitch.

 

[Eraserhead]

Despite what Trump thinks, this piece pretty much pegs the last gasp Texas suit as DOA..

5 glaring problems with Texas' bid to overturn Biden's win at the Supreme Court

"This case is hopeless," said SCOTUSblog publisher Tom Goldstein, who argues frequently before the court.

www.nbcnews.com

Begs the question of why so many GOP honchos at federal level are still playing stupid games. Are they just treading water until after the electors all meet in their respective states, so they don't trigger Trump into doing even more stupid things in the meantime? The chance of 37 Biden-pledged electors turning up faithless on that day and casting for Trump instead is approximately zero.

Look on the face of it the best GOP strategy post election was to accept the loss, accept the potential loss of the Georgia run-off and move on with life and hope you could make a comeback in 2022 with politics as usual. The coup stuff was only likely to work if Biden won 271 electoral college votes or it was very close in the closest state. Besides the ”coup” energises the Dem base and probably de-energises the Republican base because whats the point in voting if its not legitimate.

The only reason not to do that is because too many people in the Republican party want a pardon, and they need it because they’ve committed big crimes not small ones.

Take the senator from a southern state who is alleged to be gay, the Democratic Party can’t use it against them, so the only risk is a primary and they aren’t up for one of those for 5 years - and besides mostly incumbents win those. Plus at that point they’d be in their 70s.

 

[lizkat]

Every day I check to see if Mitch is still on our side of the ground. I look forward to his departure since his state has a D governor, and will unquestionably be replaced by a D. I’m not rooting for Mitch.

I keep getting these flashbacks to the mid-1990s when Saudi Arabian royals were hauling in best possible advice from USA medicos to keep a declining and almost completely incapacitated King Fahd alive longer --breathing, one member of the royals was said to have stipulated-- despite the fact that Abdullah had already been acting as regent, so that competing family members could finish trying to cement their uneasy alliances amongst their clan factions and so settle on prospective further succession plans.

Mitch on the wane and looking at Dem Governor Andy Beshear, yeah. How did that even happen, eh Mitch? Stuff happens when you're so busy filling court slots w/ ideologues that you forget to give your old nemesis but compatriot Republican and erstwhile governor Matt Bevin some advice on how far is too far to push Kentuckians in hard economic times. Beshear was paying attention.

 

[Eraserhead]

I keep getting these flashbacks to the mid-1990s when Saudi Arabian royals were hauling in best possible advice from USA medicos to keep a declining and almost completely incapacitated King Fahd alive longer --breathing, one member of the royals was said to have stipulated-- despite the fact that Abdullah had already been acting as regent, so that competing family members could finish trying to cement their uneasy alliances amongst their clan factions and so settle on prospective further succession plans.

Mitch on the wane and looking at Dem Governor Andy Beshear, yeah. How did that even happen, eh Mitch? Stuff happens when you're so busy filling court slots w/ ideologues that you forget to give your old nemesis but compatriot Republican and erstwhile governor Matt Bevin some advice on how far is too far to push Kentuckians in hard economic times. Beshear was paying attention.

Mitch isn’t as bright as he thinks he is.

 

[lizkat]

Mitch isn’t as bright as he thinks he is.

Happens to all who run a fiefdom and surround themselves with loyalists.

I just hope Biden isn't in the process of setting himself up that way.

Of course I voted for Biden-Harris but today was the first day I thought to take my Warren "Persist! But First, Coffee" mug out of the cupboard since the primaries... not that I expected her to get a cabinet slot, and I'm not unhappy with names like Gary Gensler etc. being floated for financial posts but grabbing the Warren mug this morning was a little sign to myself that I have some concerns now as I see some of Biden's picks. It was a conscious choice, not "OK grab a coffee mug..."

Vilsack to head up Agriculture woke me out of general enjoyment of just knowing I was watching a Dem pick agency heads. I understand the politics of that post but I still expected him to pick... well, just not Vilsack I guess. Someone and maybe a person of color who thinks about food insecurity and "food deserts" and nutrition and public health problems related to obesity and picks up the phone and talks to HHS about it but also ramps up pressure on the private sector to be more responsive to American food-related health issues. The choice of Vilsack just screams I know I can get this guy confirmed again and he's a good guy and he's not Sonny Perdue but he's middle road no-surprises and everything's gonna be fine at Agribiz Agriculture, no problem.

Sure we can live with that. Vilasack's not gonna be trying to ditch food stamps and Biden's not gonna be trying to wish food box recipients well with special letters from the White House. I'm just not convinced Vilsack's up to speed or especially fascinated by small specialty agriculture and etc., and that K street's lobbies for megacorporate ag regards Vilsack same as Biden does, OK no worries. Does that mean poultry processors will have to live with increased line speeds from the Trump era that are killing and maiming them? Inquiring progressives will be asking.

In theory I don't mind if progressives aren't leading the charge in agencies, so long as they have a hand in the deputy slots and a genuine input to policymaking. Right now I feel like that remains to be seen because of some pretty retro picks by Biden for top spots. There are thousands of slots to fill so imma shut up now and see, but...

 

[SuperMatt]

Every day I check to see if Mitch is still on our side of the ground. I look forward to his departure since his state has a D governor, and will unquestionably be replaced by a D. I’m not rooting for Mitch.

His lifetime goal has been to make the world such a bad place that when he dies and goes to hell, it will seem nicer in comparison.

 

[Huntn]

Look on the face of it the best GOP strategy post election was to accept the loss, accept the potential loss of the Georgia run-off and move on with life and hope you could make a comeback in 2022 with politics as usual. The coup stuff was only likely to work if Biden won 271 electoral college votes or it was very close in the closest state. Besides the ”coup” energises the Dem base and probably de-energises the Republican base because whats the point in voting if its not legitimate.

The only reason not to do that is because too many people in the Republican party want a pardon, and they need it because they’ve committed big crimes not small ones.

Take the senator from a southern state who is alleged to be gay, the Democratic Party can’t use it against them, so the only risk is a primary and they aren’t up for one of those for 5 years - and besides mostly incumbents win those. Plus at that point they’d be in their 70s.

Good to see you here!

Addressing the group, keep in mind that while we pat ourselves on the back about how good US courts were in rebuffing Trump lunacy, 50+ lawsuits without merit*, keep in mind that this depends on corruption , surrounds himself with trusted corrupt henchmen and the only reason even with the GOPOS going to bat for him across the country, his win-in-court scheme only failed because his corruption was not far reaching enough and his malignant ego underestimated his personal ability to sway the system towards his personal benefit.

* I can hope for but will not hold my breath for multiple disbarments. The rule of law was broken by a score of lawyers on behalf of The Big Shit.

This kind of a person is a dire threat to a any honest democracy. His touch, breath, poison is caustic to Democracy. This is why he adores tough guy dictators, he wants to be one badly. And at this point, not to harp like I am , I’ll maintain that 70m votes says we will continue to be in dire trouble for the foreseeable future.

 

[lizkat]

I’ll maintain that 70m votes says we will continue to be in dire trouble for the foreseeable future.

You're likely correct about that although I maintain that a big chunk of that 70 million votes represents people who held nose, voted for Trump (even again, yeah) because they are Republican-leaners on policy matters like taxes and deregulation.

I know it's hard to get one's mind around the idea of tolerating the behavior and motivations of this crew in the White House for the sake of policy expectations, but some voters do just see tax cuts and dereg as the linchpin of their political frameworks.​

​

And...some voters see religious / social issues as determining their votes, even though they may not approve in the least of Trump as he presents personally.​

​

Personally there's no way I can compartmentalize to quite that extent. Trump was always going to be a bridge too far for me, in so many ways. But I can almost understand it.​

We've probably all voted for a presidential candidate in the past at least once or twice where their expected policies were preferential to those of the opposing party's candidate, even if looking at the candidates themselves we might even have felt like voting for the other guy.

Back in 1988 I was very conflicted before the election because I had a lot of respect for Bush 41 as a person. But I preferred the policies of the Democrats to what looked like could be an extension of Reagan policies by Bush, although "maybe not", I told myself. And I didn't much care for Dukakis personally; I thought he was wrapped way too tight, although I admired his progressive track record in Massachusetts.

Then Bush throws a wrench into the picture with that Willie Horton ad, which made me loathe him and his campaign staff and his party. Then Dukakis answers an outrageous question in debate about a hypothetical rape and murder of his wife: would he favor the death penalty, and Dukakis answered it with about as much emotional engagement as if he'd merely been asked what he thought of last year's Farm Bill, or did he like chicken or tuna salad better and why. I was like WTF man, why are you not shouting at Bernard Shaw to have some f'g respect for Kitty Dukakis. I felt like Dukakis was wrapped way too tight.​

​

I voted for Dukakis anyway. I told myself he'd been a good governor in Massachusetts and he wasn't going to run 4 more years of Reaganomics on his watch. I wasn't unhappy on Election Night that he lost though. I always liked Bush 41 better than Reagan, so if the country was gonna roll with the GOP again in 1988, at least the guy in the WH was someone I felt was far more informed and engaged than Reagan ever was.​

So when I think about trying to sort out why people voted for Trump v Clinton or Trump v Biden, I still do look back at 1988 when I had all kinds of reasons to vote for the Dems and yet was not unhappy they lost, because honestly just the personalities of the two men was looming as the differentiator for me that year. It was not quite enough to make me vote for Bush (because I really am a policy person) but very damn near it. I think if it hadn't been for 8 years of Reagan before that, I would have helped elect Bush 41 myself, even being a Dem and while being pissed off about the Willie Horton ad.

In a way my reaction to Bush winning in 1988 is a little like Biden winning in 2020... sheer relief that someone actually engaged and competent although awkward sometimes would be in the White House again.

As far as the 70 million Trump votes though, I expect we will see fairly soon how much of that was hardcore Trump cult followers and how many voted to acknowledge preference for Trump picking conservative high court justices or doing a lot of deregulation plus the tax cuts. The people who went for him on policy will accept Biden's presidency but then just lean on their congress critters to fight the House tooth and nail, and will expect McConnell to shape Biden's agency picks and try to keep legislation to the right of center where it's been for so long already.

The unknown factor is whether the extreme right in the House will act the same without having Trump as their foil every morning on Twitter, or whether Trump will try to play head of a shadow government.

It could get uglier than most of us would like to think right now because a lot of norms about new administrations --surface civility and honeymoon periods, previous admin figures staying low profile for awhile except for consulting behind scenes if asked, etc.-- are not things that would stand in the way of Trump pretending he's still the president, and so addressing only his supporters the way he does now, as if they and they alone are "Americans". I'd like to think Fox et al would not enable that but I'm not really hopeful about it. Some fair chunk of their audience won't even think Trump isn't speaking as the President any more; it's not like they're all that connected to reality outside the screens of the Fox shows or Fox wouldn't have been playing this post-election game so long...

Still I think more of the Trump voters of 2020 are policy people than they are the vociferous and fringe extreme right helping Trump write a dramatic exit from his one term Presisdency right now. The clothespin-on-nose voters just have really good clothespins. The platform in 2020 was far simpler: "Trump!" -- and aimed at glossing over deep fractures in the GOP-- but that still translated to policy in the minds of those fans of tax cuts and deregulation who had clothespins in their pockets ready to use again.

 

[Thomas Veil]

And now 100+ US Republican representatives have signed a brief supporting the treasonous Texas lawsuit.

More than 100 House Republicans sign brief backing Texas lawsuit challenging election results

More than 100 House Republicans on Thursday signed an amicus brief in support of the Texas lawsuit aimed at overturning the election results in four swing states — Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania a…

thehill.com

Traitors, all of them.

 

[SuperMatt]

And now 100+ US Republican representatives have signed a brief supporting the treasonous Texas lawsuit.

More than 100 House Republicans sign brief backing Texas lawsuit challenging election results

More than 100 House Republicans on Thursday signed an amicus brief in support of the Texas lawsuit aimed at overturning the election results in four swing states — Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania a…

thehill.com

Traitors, all of them.

These are enemies of the state. If the Dems get both Georgia senate seats, pass a progressive agenda quickly and forcefully. Ignore EVERY protestation from the right. They’ve forfeited the right to “stand on principle” for any issue whatsoever.

 

[lizkat]

Well they're going to need a lot of ACLU lawyers in Georgia in both early voting and on Jan 5th. There'll be no end of efforts to keep those seats red. I'd like to think some R voters in that state are going to bolt the party and try to send a message putting Democrats in those chairs. Can't quite get there in my head though.

 

[JayMysteri0]

What we may have to look forward after this side show
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1337246958327574529/

 

[JayMysteri0]

Speaking of 'fail'
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1337118483646009346/

 

[thekev]

And now 100+ US Republican representatives have signed a brief supporting the treasonous Texas lawsuit.

More than 100 House Republicans sign brief backing Texas lawsuit challenging election results

More than 100 House Republicans on Thursday signed an amicus brief in support of the Texas lawsuit aimed at overturning the election results in four swing states — Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania a…

thehill.com

Traitors, all of them.

The only upside to this is that if you want to punish them at the polls, you have a list of names. This is the kind of thing that I think deserves a lifelong ban from public office, because the filing is entirely predicated on sympathetic ears.

 

[lizkat]

What we may have to look forward after this side show
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1337246958327574529/

Ugh. Gee. Someone just stand up and say it was over by Nov 7th and now all 50 states attest to their totals and have so certified, so here's the EV count: Biden over Trump, 306 to 232.

Maybe reason w/ those 106 GOP House idiots from where those high profile evangelical pastors are always willing to preach: ship them all a Bible. Put bookmarks at Matthew 12:36-37 (NRSV)

​

"I tell you, on the day of judgment you will have to give an account for every careless word you utter; for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned."​

​

​

Add a personal note like

Dear Congressman, with all due respect, the End Times might show up on short notice, so maybe get up to speed while there's still time.​

 

[Eraserhead]

Happens to all who run a fiefdom and surround themselves with loyalists.

I just hope Biden isn't in the process of setting himself up that way.

Of course I voted for Biden-Harris but today was the first day I thought to take my Warren "Persist! But First, Coffee" mug out of the cupboard since the primaries... not that I expected her to get a cabinet slot, and I'm not unhappy with names like Gary Gensler etc. being floated for financial posts but grabbing the Warren mug this morning was a little sign to myself that I have some concerns now as I see some of Biden's picks. It was a conscious choice, not "OK grab a coffee mug..."

Vilsack to head up Agriculture woke me out of general enjoyment of just knowing I was watching a Dem pick agency heads. I understand the politics of that post but I still expected him to pick... well, just not Vilsack I guess. Someone and maybe a person of color who thinks about food insecurity and "food deserts" and nutrition and public health problems related to obesity and picks up the phone and talks to HHS about it but also ramps up pressure on the private sector to be more responsive to American food-related health issues. The choice of Vilsack just screams I know I can get this guy confirmed again and he's a good guy and he's not Sonny Perdue but he's middle road no-surprises and everything's gonna be fine at Agribiz Agriculture, no problem.

Sure we can live with that. Vilasack's not gonna be trying to ditch food stamps and Biden's not gonna be trying to wish food box recipients well with special letters from the White House. I'm just not convinced Vilsack's up to speed or especially fascinated by small specialty agriculture and etc., and that K street's lobbies for megacorporate ag regards Vilsack same as Biden does, OK no worries. Does that mean poultry processors will have to live with increased line speeds from the Trump era that are killing and maiming them? Inquiring progressives will be asking.

In theory I don't mind if progressives aren't leading the charge in agencies, so long as they have a hand in the deputy slots and a genuine input to policymaking. Right now I feel like that remains to be seen because of some pretty retro picks by Biden for top spots. There are thousands of slots to fill so imma shut up now and see, but...

I would love Biden to nominate Warren or Sanders but there are GOP governors in their states so you just can’t unfortunately. The risk is far too high.

You're likely correct about that although I maintain that a big chunk of that 70 million votes represents people who held nose, voted for Trump (even again, yeah) because they are Republican-leaners on policy matters like taxes and deregulation.

I know it's hard to get one's mind around the idea of tolerating the behavior and motivations of this crew in the White House for the sake of policy expectations, but some voters do just see tax cuts and dereg as the linchpin of their political frameworks.​

​

And...some voters see religious / social issues as determining their votes, even though they may not approve in the least of Trump as he presents personally.​

​

Personally there's no way I can compartmentalize to quite that extent. Trump was always going to be a bridge too far for me, in so many ways. But I can almost understand it.​

We've probably all voted for a presidential candidate in the past at least once or twice where their expected policies were preferential to those of the opposing party's candidate, even if looking at the candidates themselves we might even have felt like voting for the other guy.

Back in 1988 I was very conflicted before the election because I had a lot of respect for Bush 41 as a person. But I preferred the policies of the Democrats to what looked like could be an extension of Reagan policies by Bush, although "maybe not", I told myself. And I didn't much care for Dukakis personally; I thought he was wrapped way too tight, although I admired his progressive track record in Massachusetts.

Then Bush throws a wrench into the picture with that Willie Horton ad, which made me loathe him and his campaign staff and his party. Then Dukakis answers an outrageous question in debate about a hypothetical rape and murder of his wife: would he favor the death penalty, and Dukakis answered it with about as much emotional engagement as if he'd merely been asked what he thought of last year's Farm Bill, or did he like chicken or tuna salad better and why. I was like WTF man, why are you not shouting at Bernard Shaw to have some f'g respect for Kitty Dukakis. I felt like Dukakis was wrapped way too tight.​

​

I voted for Dukakis anyway. I told myself he'd been a good governor in Massachusetts and he wasn't going to run 4 more years of Reaganomics on his watch. I wasn't unhappy on Election Night that he lost though. I always liked Bush 41 better than Reagan, so if the country was gonna roll with the GOP again in 1988, at least the guy in the WH was someone I felt was far more informed and engaged than Reagan ever was.​

So when I think about trying to sort out why people voted for Trump v Clinton or Trump v Biden, I still do look back at 1988 when I had all kinds of reasons to vote for the Dems and yet was not unhappy they lost, because honestly just the personalities of the two men was looming as the differentiator for me that year. It was not quite enough to make me vote for Bush (because I really am a policy person) but very damn near it. I think if it hadn't been for 8 years of Reagan before that, I would have helped elect Bush 41 myself, even being a Dem and while being pissed off about the Willie Horton ad.

In a way my reaction to Bush winning in 1988 is a little like Biden winning in 2020... sheer relief that someone actually engaged and competent although awkward sometimes would be in the White House again.

As far as the 70 million Trump votes though, I expect we will see fairly soon how much of that was hardcore Trump cult followers and how many voted to acknowledge preference for Trump picking conservative high court justices or doing a lot of deregulation plus the tax cuts. The people who went for him on policy will accept Biden's presidency but then just lean on their congress critters to fight the House tooth and nail, and will expect McConnell to shape Biden's agency picks and try to keep legislation to the right of center where it's been for so long already.

The unknown factor is whether the extreme right in the House will act the same without having Trump as their foil every morning on Twitter, or whether Trump will try to play head of a shadow government.

It could get uglier than most of us would like to think right now because a lot of norms about new administrations --surface civility and honeymoon periods, previous admin figures staying low profile for awhile except for consulting behind scenes if asked, etc.-- are not things that would stand in the way of Trump pretending he's still the president, and so addressing only his supporters the way he does now, as if they and they alone are "Americans". I'd like to think Fox et al would not enable that but I'm not really hopeful about it. Some fair chunk of their audience won't even think Trump isn't speaking as the President any more; it's not like they're all that connected to reality outside the screens of the Fox shows or Fox wouldn't have been playing this post-election game so long...

Still I think more of the Trump voters of 2020 are policy people than they are the vociferous and fringe extreme right helping Trump write a dramatic exit from his one term Presisdency right now. The clothespin-on-nose voters just have really good clothespins. The platform in 2020 was far simpler: "Trump!" -- and aimed at glossing over deep fractures in the GOP-- but that still translated to policy in the minds of those fans of tax cuts and deregulation who had clothespins in their pockets ready to use again.

One other issue is that as we haven’t been able to hang out in person much this year it’s hard to persuade conservative voters to change their minds informally and offline.

Anyone who in 2016 was wavering over Trump but voted for him anyway should have been persuadable by going over what has happened. And people spending too much time on Facebook getting paranoid about socialism should have been persuadable to switch back. But without real human conversations that is hard.

I said to one of my conservative/libertarian friends who is pretty open minded is say “what have conservatives delivered for you over the past decade?”

 

[Thomas Veil]

The only upside to this is that if you want to punish them at the polls, you have a list of names. This is the kind of thing that I think deserves a lifelong ban from public office, because the filing is entirely predicated on sympathetic ears.

I think whoever runs against these 106 quislings in the next congressional elections should run ads specifically calling them out as traitors. Refer to them constantly as “the traitor Steve Scalia”, “the treasonous Jim Jordan”, and so on.

Or...maybe we should all start doing that right now.

 

[rdrr]

These are enemies of the state. If the Dems get both Georgia senate seats, pass a progressive agenda quickly and forcefully. Ignore EVERY protestation from the right. They’ve forfeited the right to “stand on principle” for any issue whatsoever.

So if we do get the senate, here are thing top of the list things that need correcting. They have mostly been traditions, now need actual laws/rules.

1. Presidential Candidates MUST release their taxes for the past 7 years minimum.
2. Presidents MUST divest themselves for their term(s) in office.
3. Nepotism laws need to be shored up. No direct family members (except for first spouse) or spouse of family member can work for the administration in any capacity.
4. You have one legal challenge to a voting issue.
5. The term between the election and the swearing in needs to be shortened.
6. The certification of the vote needs to be it. Electors cannot be faithless.
7. Presidents, Secretary of (XXX), Whitehouse Administration needs to respond to subpoenas.
8. Presidential records act needs to be enforced.
9. Justice Department needs to be independent of the Executive Branch.

Edit
10!!! can't believe I forgot this. Pardons cannot be a blanket get out of jail card. They have to be for a specific crime and you have to admit you are guilty of that crime. One PARDON only. If you did multiple crimes, well... You are screwed.

 

[Eraserhead]

I’d like elected officials in congress and for elections to pass security clearance as well.

 

[lizkat]

Anyone who in 2016 was wavering over Trump but voted for him anyway should have been persuadable by going over what has happened. And people spending too much time on Facebook getting paranoid about socialism should have been persuadable to switch back. But without real human conversations that is hard.

Yep. I think some of that did probably happen. Data though seems mostly anecdotal. Vote totals are fungible so we don't see overall who shifted from Trump to Biden in 2020 on track record disapproval, vs who didn't vote in 2016 and voted for Trump in 2020 without a clue what was in the EOs that weren't publicized.