This is a lie and they know it. The only reasons I can think of to do it are to a) intentionally cause social strife for no good reason other than make Trump feel less sad, or b) create a pretext for the PA-leg to attempt a version of the scenario @bartongellman wrote about.
@bartongellman When the results prove Eric et al wrong, they ask the PA-leg to ignore the results based on fabricated allegations of fraud, name a slate of Trump electors, and then, when the gov vetoes it, beg ACB to install Trump over the will of PA and national voters.
Is this their plan? I have no idea. But are they above trying to steal the election? Absolutely not. So we need to lay a marker down now: What their actions point to is consistent with an effort to steal the election and destroy the country.
The answer is to insist that every vote be counted, and Republicans at all levels need to be called upon to disavow any effort to ignore the results in the state.
When every vote is counted, it’ll be checkmate. Trump’s only move then will be to overturn the game board: i.e. ignore the result; get PA Republicans to appoint Trump electors anyhow, roll the dice that it works. It can’t be allowed to. That’d be a coup.
Keep in mind, Trump could attempt the insane PA scenario I outlined above in MI, too. The votes need to be counted, the races called, and then Trump must concede, even if it requires millions of people to flood the streets.
Anyhow, this weak label isn’t enough. Twitter needs to take down this tweet from the son of disgraced lame-duck president Donald Trump, and all other tweets that make the same false claim.
Nothing indicates one way or another whether they’ll try this, but in addition to the campaign and administration laying official groundwork, influential Trump world voices are now openly promoting a coup attempt.
Remember how data science convinced many key decision makers that campaigning against “the world-historical corruption of our opponent” would be an unsound political strategy?
Here’s my global pre-bedtime take: I still think Biden is favored to win. But this is a really shitty outcome against the most corrupt president in U.S. history, who presided over hundreds of thousands of unnecessary American deaths.
I’m less mad about any polling error than I am about a) the baleful effect pseudoscientific models have on voter behavior and b) two years of Dem decision-making on the basis of data pseudoscience that, among other things, convinced them “running against corruption” is bad.
Trump is still gaming out ways that GOP judges might steal the election for him, and he and they seem to be circling around this strategy. crooked.com/articles/trump…
In their just-filed brief, PA-Dems endorse segregating late-arriving ballots, which would moot any GOP hope (detailed in the above piece) of claiming the whole Pennsylvania election is tainted. Note, a solution like this is unavailable in Florida.
Closing the loop on this, it prevents a potential catastrophe in PA. Now we await on the other potential catastrophes.
The “prioritize popular things” school doesn’t account for issues like court expansion and impeachment where public opinion follows elites. If Dems unify, it’ll become a 50-50 issue. If they let polls determine their position it’ll remain underwater and democracy will collapse.
This phenomenon is a bigger general problem in the context of McConnell’s strategy of reflexively denying the opposition votes for bills. His insight: unify the opposition and the governing party, obsessed with finding bipartisan cover, will splinter.
If Dems approach governing that way again, they won’t just leave themselves and the country at the mercy of illegitimate Republican courts. They’ll find that even the popular aspects of their agenda will lose popularity, and they’ll accomplish much less than they otherwise would.
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!?
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.
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.