Yes, this is dangerous--not because a military coup would succeed between now and Biden's inauguration (Biden will be president) but because a major political party and so many voters continue to back Trump.
The danger going forward is that so many voters are OK with this.
The end game is a successful disinformation campaign, by which I mean that a significant portion of the population either believes (or for political expediency pretends to believe) that Trump would have won the election if not for massive fraud.
A Pinochet-style military coup was more common in the 20th century.
21st-century would-be autocrats have an easier and less bloody method: They overthrow democracy by undermining truth and disrupting accurate dissemination of information.
The danger is that Trump will keep a portion of his base radicalized.
There are no quick fixes. This has been building for decades while many of us (thinking the Civil Rights movement succeeded) were lulled into complacency.
Or consider what life was like for an African American woman in 1860. She didn't own her own body. Literally.
Think about life for a worker before the New Deal.
No minimum wage. No 40-hour workweek. No social security. No protection against injury.* Injured workers were left to starve.
*The GOP wants to bring this back.
Make America Great Again means go back to those days.
That's the goal. It's in the slogan: The word "again" in MAGA signifies reactionary (regressive) politics.
Go back to the days before regulations outlawing insider trading, and manipulating markets. You know. Good old days.
It's definitely stressful, and I didn't mean to discount the stress all of this causes.
The elements of defamation claim:
🔹 a false statement purporting to be fact
🔹publication or communication of that statement to a third person
🔹fault amounting to at least negligence
🔹damages, or some harm caused to the person or entity who is the subject of the statement
I don't see why. The heightened standard in New York Times v. Sullivan doesn't apply.
News stations get no special treatment unless they're talking about public figures.
How the NRA helped get us into this mess, and how we can get out.
I read these two books⤵️ and I’m ready with a Twitter Book Report.
The NRA was founded in 1871 by a former Union general and a soldier who were appalled by the terrible marksmanship of Union soldiers.
2/ Before the Civil Rights movement, the NRA was an apolitical, gun safety group. Members were gun enthusiasts from both parties.
When the National Rife Act of 1934 was debated in Congress, the NRA lobbyist said this ⤵️
3/ Then after the Civil Rights movement, everything changed.
There was a power struggle within the NRA between the “old guard” and the radicalized extremists who advanced the [new] idea that “conservatism” meant unfettered access to guns.
To think there may still be people out there who don't know who Barbara Johns was.
What?! YOU don’t know who she was?
Well. On April 23, 1951, in Farmville, VA, Barbara Johns led a walkout of her segregated high school in protest of the deplorable and unfair conditions.
She was 16. She led her walkout more than 4 years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus, and before MLK, Jr. embraced nonviolence as the way to equality.
After she and her classmates turned the rural town of Farmville upside down, she called in the NAACP.
2/
The NAACP took their case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Barbara and her classmates became plaintiffs in Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark case that ended segregation in America.
Their case was combined with cases from other states.
3/
Trump retweeted Lin Wood, who informed @BrianKempGA and @GaSecofState that Trump will throw them in jail.
Wood is the guy who told GA Republicans to boycott the Senate runoffs.
(Both Kemp and Raffensperger say they voted for Trump)
Trump can't throw them in jail, but he can endanger their lives.
So much is stunning.
🔹It's now GOP officials who supported Trump, who are being targeted.
🔹Trump is targeting Georgia GOP, where early voting has started in the runoff election.
The firing of Barr is supposed to make you think that in the few weeks remaining, Trump can weaponize the DOJ to jail Kemp and Raffensperger. He can't: there are procedures for arrests and indictments, including judicial oversight.
This is equal parts horrifying and absurd. These are not real electors. There is not a "competing" slate of electors.
It's the Nevada GOP showing that they are completely unhinged from reality.
You see, Nevada certified its election for Biden on 11/24. forbes.com/sites/alisondu…
Nevada law requires that the electors are legally bound to vote for whoever wins the presidential election in NV. apnews.com/article/electi…
Dear Nevada GOP:
It's time for Election Law 101.
Because of a complicated system we have called the electoral college, when you vote for president, you don't actually vote for president, you vote for a slate of electors.
The GOP electors lost when Trump lost the election.