Still believe a terse letter to Emily Murphy of GSA from the House promising a subpoena, and (failing immediate compliance) a criminal contempt referral to the incoming DOJ, would end this sabotage. Leadership, as usual, is nowhere on this, but busy attacking its own members.
The one time in all of history when a Sternly Worded Letter might actually accomplish something, and they can’t even muster it.
Here‘s James Lankford, extremely conservative Republican senator, promising to do more with his power to help Biden access at least some of the transition materials he’s entitled to than House Democrats have bothered to try. It’s inexcusable.
House Dems abdicated solemn oversight obligations for two years because, we were told, that’s what was necessary to defend the majority. They lost several seats clinging to this belief. On what grounds can they justify continued passivity in the face of these ultimate abuses?
It gets at the core conceit of Trumpism: that mass deception—the warping of public perception—is the predicate for everything. Because once a large enough minority is bought in to a lie, you can get away with almost anything. Including, they hoped, stealing an election.
In the empirical world: right, who cares. The votes are what they are. In the world Trump thought he inhabited, where Fox would back up his lies one last time, he might actually have gotten away with it. That’s why he’s mad.
Another example here: In an empirical sense, who cares who calls it first? Losing is losing and eventually all the networks, even Fox will be unanimous about it. But you can’t steal the election through the window of doubt without partners in mass deception.
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.
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.