Thread by @SethAbramson

Political analysts who didn't understand what Trump meant when he said, in Phoenix, that certain legislators in Arizona want to go "several steps beyond" what anyone would expect them to do are AWOL from their jobs.

There is a plot afoot to try to "decertify" Arizona's electors.

Can Arizona decertify its electors? No—of course not. But was Arizona Senate president Karen Fann lying when she said the audit was about 2024—not 2020? Yes. Arizona legislators plan to decertify Biden electors—forcing a lawsuit to prevent other states from trying to do the same.

Trump's plan is to promote fake audits in every battleground state he lost that's controlled by Republicans, ending in a decertification of electors in those states. That'll force lawsuits that have to go to SCOTUS. Trump says SCOTUS can't overrule legislatures (which is insane).

So what we're headed toward is a SCOTUS decision on whether Biden is president, with Trump having convinced tens of millions that if the Court rules against him, it didn't actually have the power to do that—because *state legislatures*, not voters or SCOTUS, decide the president.

So you have an ex-POTUS trying to not just figuratively but literally delegitimize our government in the context of an ongoing insurrection and rise in Trumpist terrorism. He wants America to be in a state of civil war. But I just heard an analyst on MSNBC say he's "unconcerned."

The reason I call Donald Trump a "domestic terror leader" is because right now the only possible defense against what he's doing is action by law enforcement. Our politicians and our media—after 5 years of not understanding the threat this man poses—continue not to understand it.

He's not going to stop. Ever. The only thing that'll stop him is incarceration. Unlike him and his cult, I only want anyone incarcerated if a charge can be proven against them beyond a reasonable doubt. Here—based on years of writing and research—I know that a case *can* be made.

When Trump lauded legislators who want to go "several steps beyond" what anyone expects, those words should've been national news. We should've spent today unpacking a coordinated plot to illegally decertify Biden electors. But we're not. Because the threat isn't taken seriously.

You know what else wasn't taken seriously? Russian collusion, which we now know occurred. You know what else wasn't taken seriously? Collusion with the UAE, which we now know occurred. You know what else wasn't taken seriously? An attempted coup, which we all now know occurred.

At every turn, he does everything his critics say he'll do—and even worse. And yet he continues to be seen in media as something less than an urgent existential threat to America.

I fear—and millions of us fear—that we will soon understand the threat he poses in terrifying ways.

(PS) My—and other analysts'—understanding of what Wendy Rogers and her insurrectionist thugs are doing are based on their public statements, which indicate they want to go well beyond writing new election laws to decertifying electors.

Trump's statements confirm *he knows this*.

(PS2) What many don't understand—prompted by bad legal analysis in media—is that just because something is illegal doesn't mean it won't happen. You can do it, it just results in legal action. So decertifying electors being illegal has *nothing* to do with whether it'll be tried.

(PS3) The number of folks in the comments to this thread saying something along the lines of, "None of this matters, because you can't decertify an election" is terrifying. People don't understand that the danger we're facing has nothing to do with the law—it's about lawlessness.

(PS4) Anyone saying, "I'm not worried about Trump doing X or Y because it's illegal" is saying that they believe, after *six years* of watching Trump, that he can be stopped by someone calling his actions illegal. I'll repeat: only incarceration via legal process ends the threat.

(PS5) As a Trump biographer, I can tell you that his M.O. is to develop all his backup plans *in public*. He's already developed the narrative that legislators decide elections, not judges. Even if the decertification issue gets to SCOTUS and Trump loses, he will stoke civil war.

(PS6) Almost as bad as those who say Trump isn't a danger because "rule of law" are those who say he isn't a danger because it's all a grift. Of *course* it's part grift—but the trajectory of the grift is the *collapse of America*, so what's the point of dismissing it as a grift?

(PS7) Moreover—and again I say this as a Trump biographer—people misunderstand how Trump's avarice works. It exists alongside a deep anger and bitterness that manifests as a penchant for *chaos and destruction*. Trump's desire to destroy is—every time—the other side of his grift.