Fox News propagandists are now relentlessly pushing the idea that the election is being stolen from Trump, to provide cover for invalidating countless lawful ballots. What's funny is those Fox personalities helped lure him down the path to his likely loss: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/…
Fox personalities helped construct the bubble of unreality that defined Trump's record and case for reelection.
So it's a fitting end that they're engaged in a frantic effort to prevent voters from rendering their verdict on what they themselves wrought.
An overlooked Biden achievement: He embraced racial justice protests and offered a robust agenda to combat systemic racism while *also* expanding Dem support among working class whites.
Destroys the idea that retreat on racial issues was needed for that:
If Trump prematurely declares victory and tries to halt the count of lawful ballots, networks should treat it as a monstrous crime in progress. They should place heavy emphasis on the numbers of *uncounted* ballots, not just precincts reporting. New piece: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/…
A few things we can do:
* Heavily emphasize numbers of uncounted ballots remaining
* Stop treating Trump's schemes as mere campaign tactics
* Stop casting pro-voting rights rulings as wins for Dems
Pennsylvania state officials are in the position of taking active *defensive* steps to prevent SCOTUS from helping Trump invalidate millions of lawful ballots.
I talked to the Pennsylvania attorney general about this:
I suggested yesterday that the Wisconsin decision didn't necessarily mean SCOTUS would do the same in Pennsylvania, and you all mocked me mercilessly for it: wapo.st/3kGwD46
However, I should be clear, this doesn't remotely mean all future threats are averted, as @steve_vladeck explains here. There's still reason to doubt that SCOTUS will swing the election, but it's certainly not impossible.
@steve_vladeck Notable: I think this, from the PA decision, may make it harder for Republicans to get the court to order a full scale halt to the vote count. If the late arriving ballots are segregated, it's harder to say the whole pool is tainted by commingling. Nightmare less likely now:
A remarkable thing is happening: Trump is sliding bigly among white voters across the board. Coronavirus-denial and open racism are failing him. It's a far cry from the post-2016 pundit awe of his mystical grip on the Real American White Voter. New piece: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/…
It's a perverse end to all this that coronavirus is ravaging Wisconsin while Trump basically shrugs, potentially putting it out of reach for him.
Meanwhile, his LIBERATE MICHIGAN! fake-populism has flopped: Voters blame Trump over Whitmer for their feud:
A new analysis from @Nate_Cohn and The Upshot shows Biden making very broad gains among white voters, both college educated and non-college, with notable shifts in the industrial Midwest.
The analysis also shows Trump's race-war strategy has failed:
Trump is in a panic and a fury this morning. He's clearly hoping the Supreme Court will save him. But this is very unlikely to happen. I gamed out various scenarios with help from experts. Here's why this scheme is also likely to blow up in Trump's face: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/…
After WI decision, fear is SCOTUS might nix late ballots in PA, too.
But to do that, the conservatives would have to change the rules in the middle of the election, rules *they themselves* helped establish.