All respect to Dan, but the bar for “right” here shouldn’t be set at “Trump attempts procedural coup and fails,” or “Dem landslide buries Trump’s election stealing ambitions.” Both of these standards are actually testaments to how far we’ve slipped.
The first normalizes shocking abuse on the grounds that it’s unlikely to work out the way Trump wants, the second creates the unacceptable expectation that the liberal party needs to win landslides to claim power uncontested. This is a broken discourse.
Trump could lose by 10, rendering him unable to steal the election in court, but then turn around and fan (more) street violence and sabotage the transition, and under the incompetence standard this would just stand as evidence that the hysterical libs worried too much. Really!?
As I and @theplumlinegs and others have pointed out, nobody has taken for granted that Trump’s schemes will work the way he imagines them. Quite the contrary. washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/…
The problem is that simply setting them in motion is degrading and destabilizing and undermines the fairness of elections. Incompetent or not, it’s authoritarian to even try. A 1 percent chance of success is unacceptably high, not something to shrug off because the odds are low.
More on this point here, from May. crooked.com/articles/trump…

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More from @brianbeutler

13 Oct
My position has been: 1) no rescue that doesn’t include election protection, 2) no stimulus that isn’t tied to conditions and thus of equal benefit no matter who’s POTUS, 3) no paltry GOP stimulus devised to expire before Jan. A thread on why 1.8T (structured right) is worth it.
The window for 1 has closed completely, reflecting big strategic errors by Dem leadership. The window for 2 is also closed at least for now, reflecting similar errors and failure of imagination.
But it’s so late now that 3 is also no longer a concern. 1.8T in late October–again, structured right–really will span administrations and come too late to radically alter the trajectory of the election.
Read 9 tweets
11 Oct
We have not advanced nearly far enough toward not pretending to believe Republicans when they pretend to care about stuff they manifestly don’t have any principled view about.
After four years of bullshit, I personally wonder where to find all the stories about Biden voters in Biden country who don’t care about his contingent views on expanding the judiciary.
The story is that Republicans invented a slander to deflect legitimate concerns about the nominee they’ve chosen to cement illegitimate control over the court. But to tell it you have to be willing not to pretend to believe Republicans when they pretend to be mad about stuff.
Read 4 tweets
10 Oct
Hoarse from screaming: if he waits until the court shows its true colors it‘ll be too late.

There are elections every two years, justices serve for life. If they know Biden will only change his view when they do what they intend, they’ll wait til he loses concurrent majorities.
Judges aren’t senators, courts are not legislatures. If right-wing judges, with lifetime appointments, believe Biden will refrain from court packing until the court acts abusively, the court will wait until he lacks concurrent majorities to act abusively.
Read 4 tweets
9 Oct
It’s too long to screen grab, but the short version is @mattyglesias is wrong and I’m right. mailchi.mp/crooked.com/bi…
There's another facet to this argument that I didn't have space to get into, but it's about a different lesson from 2009-2010 that many people have somehow forgotten.
It's common to shorthand that stretch as the period where Democrats had a historic 60 vote supermajority. But what really happened is they had fewer than 60 votes, then they had 60, then they didn't again. And the reason It worked out that way is that an elderly senator died.
Read 6 tweets
8 Oct
Yup, as noted to a friend last night, they don’t mind lying outrageously about their agendas and their opponents’, so trying to outsmart them by seizing the inoffensive center will often not work out great.
At the first debate in 2012, Obama pointed out that Romney wanted to give rich people a huge tax cut, and Romney just said no that’s not true (it was true) and Obama lost the debate in devastating fashion.
Fortunately he recognized this was a mistake and came prepared in debates two and three to do what the whole point of these things is: make your opponents look small and ridiculous by contrast to your confidence and charm.
Read 4 tweets
6 Oct
Trump decides to outdo Hoover and intentionally inflict further damage on the country out of spite for rejecting him.
Trump is the decisive figure here but worth remembering that the broader GOP strategy all along has been to try to optimize stimulus to juice the economy until after the election, then pull the plug if Biden won anyhow. They undershot, and it’s on them as much as Trump.
Maybe Republicans panic, or maybe some other force will intervene. But the real nightmare isn’t waiting 4 more months for the rescue America needs. It’s McConnell keeps the Senate and completes Trump’s revenge. Absolutely can’t let that happen.
Read 4 tweets

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