Interesting discussion in this thread about how worrying the "state legislatures steal the election" scenario should be.

I'm of two minds here. On the one hand, state legislatures can be some of the most crudely partisan bodies in American gov't (cont'd)

On the other hand, state legislative partisanship is usually deployed for ends of state power, not to fulfill a national mission. But that could change with the continued nationalization of our politics
Furthermore, state legislatures were usually central to the pre-2020 nightmare scenarios of a disputed election.

Yet they basically sat on their hands in late 2020. No state legislature even came close to taking action. No measure to overturn results went to a vote or anything
What we got from state legislatures was a lot of hot air. Mostly from backbenchers, some pandering from leaders. But no leader was eager to participate in Trump's scheme.

This is another example of how many GOP elites in key positions actually defied Trump
One comparison is to how certain GOP state legislatures like to talk about assigning their electoral votes based on gerrymandered congressional districts. This seems like an obvious thing a ruthless party could do, but no swing state has actually gone for it. But they could!

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More from @awprokop

6 Jan
The short-term career incentive for almost every Republican is to pander. Speaking out will get your head cut off.

The distinction I prefer is "who will do the right thing when it counts." (Raffensperger, etc.) But that's impossible to know in advance.
I wrote about this problem last spring. Though I think in retrospect Liz Cheney did make a worthwhile move because she's really added some authority to the 1/6 commission. She is getting purged from the party, but she's making it count

vox.com/2021/5/5/22419… Image
But if you are a Republican who loathes what happened at 1/6, if you want to be in a position to do something about it next time the thing to do might be... not to talk about it right now. Or else you'll get purged and replaced by a Trumpist.

vox.com/2021/5/5/22419… Image
Read 5 tweets
5 Jan
My issue here is, where is a stolen election threat most likely to come from in the future?

If it's from Congress/VP, then Electoral Count Act reform is urgent.

If it's from state legislatures, Electoral Count Act reform might actually *enable* theft (by tying Congress's hands)
This would obviously be hypocritical, but if Dems are inclined to fear election theft from Trumpist state legislatures, they might actually want to *keep* the current ambiguity about the VP's power, so Harris can kinda play chicken with them
It would have to be a majority of both the House and Senate to throw out any state result. Again, maybe this is a serious threat, maybe it's plausible in a post-2022 Senate. However, many GOP senators refused to go along with this last time

Read 5 tweets
4 Jan
Hannity says there's a path to "land the plane" in 9 days (let Trump finish out his term rather than be removed, seemingly). To get there means Trump "can't mention the election again. Ever." (Doesn't seem like that latter bit worked out)
Pre-1/6, Hannity worried about White House Counsel's office resignations, urging caution, saying Trump should "Go to Fl and watch Joe mess up daily" rather than continuing to dispute the results. Good advice! ImageImage
One thing that was going on when Hannity sent the 1/10 "land the plane" text is that there was a possibility McConnell might actually back Trump's impeachment. Leaks suggested that. But on 1/13 McConnell announced he wouldn't hold the trial while Trump was in office ImageImageImage
Read 4 tweets
29 Dec 21
Thread: Best films I saw for the first time in 2021 (released any year). I mainly focused on Japanese, Hong Kong and Chinese art films this year. Disclaimer: I like "difficult" stuff that takes big swings. Here we go...
MERRY CHRISTMAS, MR. LAWRENCE (1983, Oshima) - Japanese officer running WWII POW camp becomes obsessed with his prisoner, played by David Bowie. Theme is radical empathy. Excellent score.
EROS PLUS MASSACRE (1969) - Four-hour maximalist epic about 1910s anarchism, 1960s disillusionment, and how we retell and alter history for our own ends. Wild, over-the-top, ultimately shattering. Stunning photography in this Arrow Blu-Ray

amazon.com/Kiju-Yoshida-A…
Read 8 tweets
23 Dec 21
Many Dems have wondered about the hypothetical of, "what if they'd won 1-2 more Senate seats?"

I'm also interested in the flipside — what if they'd won 1 fewer Senate seats? How would Biden's first year have been different with a McConnell-run Senate?
Obviously no BBB. Stimulus would have had to be bipartisan and looked quite different. Would infrastructure still have happened?

Probably a few differences in the Cabinet but not too much (he had mostly moderate picks anyway).
Judicial confirmations slowed to a crawl, of course. Macro conditions probably mostly the same. Biden probably still unpopular, but much more commentary would blame that on McConnell.
Read 4 tweets
21 Dec 21
Democratic leaders have tried everything to win over Manchin — everything except actually addressing the key demand he's made for months.

(Yes they've made significant concessions to him. But they tried to handwave past this one.)
Here’s a key moment in this saga.

10/24: Biden, Manchin, and Schumer meet in Wilmington. WH later claims Manchin agrees to support Biden’s new BBB framework here.
10/28: Biden announces framework
11/01: Manchin trashes the framework

So what happened?
I see two possibilities here.

1) Manchin was inconsistent. He told the WH he'd be fine with all this. But a week later, he decided he wasn't.
2) The extent of the framework's reliance on temporary programs to meet the cost cap was not made clear to him in the private meeting
Read 7 tweets

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