Thread by @jholbo1

This is going on - and on, and on - because the interests of R establishment figures and Trump align. Republicans want obstruction. Merrick Garland, but for Joe Biden! No norms, dude. Trump has a variety of financial, legal and pathological incentives. 1/

R's have a new monkey wrench. What if 20% of the country never admits Biden won, because fraud-something-something? Are elected R's going to stick with that? Eh, no - yet it will be brandished symptom of left perfidy. No one trusts the media! No one trusts Washington! 2/

Establishment R's are deliberately killing democracy because they need to wave the poor guy's bloody shirt, as a prop, as a sign of how democracy's murder means R's need special accommodation. 'How can D's expect to govern when the people don't trust the system?' 3/

The fact that 2-% of the country will maintain - until doomsday - that it is totally reasonable to believe Biden stole the election, will be offered, seriously, as a reason why D's need to meet R's half-way even before any negotiations about anything begin. 4/

If 'good Americans' believe X, you have to respect X. You don't have to believe it. But you have to respect belief in X. If Biden doesn't half-admit he wasn't duly elected, it's like he's disrespecting Real America. So that's another reason he's only half-President. Respect! 5/

Observe the pushback against FOX News - FOX News! - for cutting away from lies, from the White House. You aren't allowed to disrespect belief in X, if 'good people' believe it! So you are obliged to feed the falsehood. Anything less would be tearing us apart as a country! 6/

Now, it's hard to separate the fact that I'm a hopping mad partisan from my analysis. Am I pathologizing a difference in opinion, a difference in values? Am I the asshole? 6/

No. Establishment R's know this fraud line is a crock. So they are sticking with this 'well he's got a right to see his valid challenges through' legalistic line. But they also know the point of delay is to cause 20% of the country to have this permanent, false belief. 7/

The R establishment wants their base to be ideologically defined by a core commitment that they themselves - the establishment - know to be flatly, a lie. No question. Not some difference in values. Just: not true. 8/

Admire how the epistemology of testimony and pseudo-proceduralism affords perfect belief laundering. Why will 20% of the country believe Joe Biden won only via massive fraud? Because Tucker Carlson and Newt Gingrich and - he ain't gone! - Donald Trump told them so. 9/

Viewers can tell themselves: if Tucker and Newt say so, I can believe it. Believing because a trusted authority figure says so is having a reason. Of course Tucker and Newt don't believe it, and - if you listen - don't claim to. But they say things to let others believe. 10/

So the belief gets leveraged up on the strength of ... nothing. 'Trump wouldn't have been able to drag legal challenges out that long if there were no fraud.' But also: 'the legal challenges are a pure formality and he's going to leave office on schedule.' 11/

It's like some pre-2008 financial crisis collateralized debt obligation (cdo) but epistemologized. You have beliefs that are allegedly backed by some asset - 'real Americans', or an important guy like Tucker. It can't be junk! It's got to be worth something. 12/

But it's absolute junk. It's not worth anything. The trick is to keep it moving, as-if worth - oh, 20 cents on the dollar, when it's really worth zero cents on the dollar. That's the GOP, and that's why Trump is the perfect Republican. 13/