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Angus Johnston Profile picture
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31 Oct, 5 tweets, 2 min read
Fascinating about-face here.
Folks are offering this quote as a counterpoint to my read on the above, but I don't think it is. (Stipulating, of course, to the fact that searching for an intellectual throughline in a Trump speech is a mug's game.)
Trump has been saying for weeks that the outcome that matters is the Election Night outcome—that whoever's ahead then is the legitimate winner and that if the lead shifts thereafter it's not just suspect but presumptively illegitimate. But that's not what he's saying here!
In each of these quotes—particularly the first one, but in the second one as well—he's laying groundwork for a Biden Election Night lead and encouraging his people to ignore such a lead if it emerges.
Maybe it doesn't mean anything. It wouldn't be the first time something Trump said didn't mean anything. But it sure sounds to me like he's a hell of a lot less optimistic about the Election Night tallies than he was a few days ago.

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More from @studentactivism

Angus Johnston Profile picture
31 Oct
My favorite Connery movie ever is Robin and Marian (1976), which imagines what happens when Robin Hood comes returns from two decades on the Crusades to a Nottingham in which he's been turned into a myth.
Richard Harris plays Richard the Lionheart as an addled, vicious despot and the movie's Crusades are a genocidal, pointless war of empire, and that's just the first fifteen minutes.
When Robin gets back to Nottingham, he reconciles with Marian—a transcendent, angry, and age-appropriate (!) Audrey Hepburn in one of her last roles—and tries to construct a life of meaning and honor out of the pieces of his legend.
Read 6 tweets
Angus Johnston Profile picture
30 Oct
Any idea what "4 Justices (plus1)" is supposed to mean here? I mean, other than "five justices." I feel like there's a secret Trumpworld code thing I'm missing in this tweet.
Before RBG's death, I'd have assumed that if Trump was talking smack about "4 Justices (plus1)," he meant the four liberals and Roberts, but that doesn't work anymore, and no obvious alternate explanation springs to mind. Maybe liberals plus Roberts are the four?
I guess that's it, right? The four justices he assumes will vote against him, plus whichever of the loyal five happens to defect in his nightmare scenario.
Read 5 tweets
Angus Johnston Profile picture
28 Oct
A robust and comprehensive new Voting Rights Act would do more to hobble the GOP in the years to come than killing the filibuster or adding DC and PR as states, simply because minority rule is so central to their electoral strategy.
If we were to simply let people vote and let their votes determine who holds power, the Republican Party would experience an implosion that would likely take them a decade or more to recover from.
And yes, SCOTUS is a barrier, and no, statehood, filibuster reform, and voting rights aren't an either-or (either-or-or) proposition. But it's underappreciated how dramatic the effects of simply implementing basic democratic procedures would be to dismantling Republican power.
Read 5 tweets
Angus Johnston Profile picture
28 Oct
I'm seeing some magical thinking about circumstances in which Trump or SCOTUS could steal the election, specifically folks saying that if the Electoral College is close, it's categorically doom for Biden. I think that's a huge oversimplification, and a dangerous one.
SCOTUS was able to rig the election in 2000 because Florida was essentially a coin flip. Give Gore ten thousand more election-night votes, and he'd have been president. Period.
Are there states where we need to worry about even a one or two point Biden lead this time? Yes. But those are specific states where we need to worry for specific reasons.
Read 4 tweets
Angus Johnston Profile picture
28 Oct
The lead story in Omaha's daily paper right now is Trump's abandoning of thousands of elderly supporters in the cold, without shelter, miles from their cars, after last night's rally. omaha.com/news/local/gov…
Not the kind of news you want to be making in a congressional district that could swing the electoral college six days before voting ends.
Also, fun fact: Omaha is the primary media market for much of western Iowa. Trump won Iowa by nine points last time, and is essentially tied there in polls right now.
Read 5 tweets
Angus Johnston Profile picture
27 Oct
If the Dems win the presidency, which they are very likely to do, and win the Senate, which they are very likely to do, then they will have a series of decisions to make. And the GOP has made it absolutely crystal clear yet again tonight what happens if they choose poorly.
All the Dems need to do in 2021 is to embrace and protect democracy. That's it. If they do that, the voters will do the rest. If they fail to do that, the collapse of the system will soon be complete.
There's a lot of people in my mentions saying "what makes you think the Dems will do the right thing?" But I didn't predict that they'll do the right thing. I predicted what will happen if they don't.
Read 6 tweets

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