,
12 tweets,
4 min read
Read on Twitter
Some worst-case scenarios on 2020 Russian election interference from @jonathanchait. They could happen; the Republican Party will take no steps to make them less likely to happen. A couple of things follow from this. [thread]
2. One should be obvious. Most Americans didn’t take Russian election interference seriously in 2016 because it hadn’t happened before — no Facebook ads, no stolen e-mails, no hacking of state election systems as documented by the Senate Intelligence Committee. None of that.
3. The Russian regime’s assistance to Trump will be a campaign issue in 2020. Putin, Fox, Trump, and every Republican backing Trump will be on the same side. The rest of the country will be on the other. The #MoscowMitch hashtag is just the beginning.
4. The sooner & more clearly this line can be drawn, the better for the anti-Russian side. The second thing, therefore, is that Senate Democrats had best take the initiative I suggested not long ago as soon as the Senate returns from its August recess.
5. In this connection, a word to Presidential candidates @SenGillibrand @SenatorBennet & @amyklobuchar: I mean no disrespect, but your candidacies are going nowhere. That is not going to change. You’ll do more good (& get more media exposure) joining other Senate Democrats...
6... this September in a procedural brawl on the Senate floor over whether the Senate should debate and vote on election security legislation (also gun safety legislation). You & the other Democrats may well lose. Republicans may stand united behind Trump & McConnell...
7... against doing anything to inhibit Russian election help for Trump, and against doing anything to make gun massacres a little less common. If that happens, Democrats have their election issue. If Senate Republicans crack and Trump vetoes election security...
8....and/or gun safety legislation, Democrats will have their election issue. And if Senate Republicans crack and Trump folds — well, in that case we may get more secure elections and fewer Americans shot, and Democrats can find other election issues.
9. What @jonathanchait’s article ought to clarify for some people is that there will be no rewards for not treating the next 15 months as a struggle for power. Putin will. Trump will. And McConnell will. The American system provides tools for waging such a struggle...
10...that do not involve street demonstrations, sit-ins or any of that kind of thing. Among them are Senate procedures. Senators have to know them, and be on the floor to use them (McConnell, of course, will also have to be on the floor. A lot).
11. The US Senate is often called — sometimes by its own members — dysfunctional. It doesn’t deliberate, they say, or legislate; Senators have become mere backbench Congressmen with nicer offices closer to Union Station. Only the Majority Leader’s opinion matters.
12. This won’t change unless Senators change it. They can’t count on luck, the media, or the voters to do their work for them. If they want to defend American Constitutional democracy, this is it. Why else did they get into politics? [end]
