That’s when all this Trump election lunacy has to stop
Trump won’t stop, we know that. But this country cannot afford those who have abetted him with their silence–especially high ranking members of his party–to be silent anymore. And need to step up and choose Democracy over Dictatorship. After all, they’ve pledged an oath to protect the U.S. Constitution, not Trump.
Why today specifically? Because Trump and his lawyers have now resorted to spewing utter conspiracy theory garbage, of course with no evidence. Giving up all pretense of making sure all votes are properly counted. In fact, this approach succeeds only if legitimate votes are not counted: if Trump wrests control of Republican controlled state legislators in several states, who in turn wrest control of an election process they themselves approved, and cancel their states’ voters out and replace them with a result that results in a win for Trump. Simply because Trump bids them to and says so.
So really, really, really there’s nothing left to say except this:
And that’s not any kind of extreme statement, even. That’s the way it is. What Trump’s doing is un-American. And the way any sane, non-seditious person would respond to the situation. Yet none but a small handful of other Republicans has, to this point. And even among that minor handful, there are major caveats. And that has to change now. Because it’s WAY past time for Republicans to tell Trump he’s gone too far. And not doing so in the face of this latest filth, abets the President in his direct attack on Democracy. The most disgraceful we can remember. And that’d probably be true even if we were two-hundred-something years old.
Especially Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. And we’d suggest he take another look at his original assertion that the President is “100 percent within his rights to look into allegations of irregularities and weigh his legal options.” Which was at its best, cowardly, but now is irrelevant because Trump’s moved so far beyond. And what’s McConnell worried about anyway? He just got re-elected for 6 years. This country will have had another presidential election before he would have to run again.
You might say “what do you expect?” from McConnell after he rammed a new Conservative Supreme Court Justice through just days before the presidential election, after refusing to consider a nominee from a Democratic President with 9 months to go, 4 years earlier. But it’s not at all the same. McConnell did what he did with the Supreme Court because the rules said he could. Both ways. But there’s no rule that says Trump gets to stay in office just because he demands it. In fact, McConnell was big on citing another rule during Trump’s impeachment. If Americans thought what Trump did was wrong, they had a strong tool at their disposal: their vote. And the appropriate recourse would be to vote him out.
Yet McConnell’s cleared out of Washington for the Thanksgiving holiday, along with the rest of the Senate, leaving the city wide open for Trump to do things like bring in a couple of state lawmakers from Michigan today for a chat. Which could be for no other purpose but to subvert the election. As far as we know, they’re coming. Why? Courtesy? To stand up to Trump?
One of them, just a few days before the invite, commented to a local reporter on the idea that Republican legislators might decide the election on behalf of Trump: “That’s not going to happen“. But didn’t we already say, when everybody was telling us “don’t worry”, that all that meant to Trump is he’s now got a window to soften that guy up. And Trump called a couple of other Michigan Republicans tasked with certifying votes on the phone, just to see how they were doing one of them said… After which they tried to rescind their certification of votes.
Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State is expected to certify its votes today, after a hand count of all the ballots that he ordered after the initial electronically counted votes came in. The numbers changed very little. Biden still wins. Trump will probably ask for a third recount anyway, which he can do. But Georgia certifying will be huge.
Trump still has a few cases pending in various courts as well, and is threatening to file more, but he’s lost nearly all of the ones he’s already done. That’s mostly because the cases were built on complaints like Republican poll observers had to stand a few more feet away from ballot counters than they would’ve liked, or in some places an unlimited number of Republican observers were not allowed into places where votes were being tallied. Either that or they said certain voting rules were unfair, even thought they totally knew about those rules before the election, and only complained after they lost. Or they out-and-out admitted they had no fraud evidence, but if the judge agreed to delay the certification, they’d be sure to go out and find some.
And that’s good. Because a judge issuing an injunction to stop certain votes from being counted or stop certain results from being certified, could substantially boost Trump’s efforts to change the results of the election to what it isn’t.
And it’s not even like Biden won the states Trump is disputing by a few hundred or even a few thousand votes. It’s tens or hundreds of thousands. Trump for some reason has got his hopes up on Michigan. Maybe because he got some traction there with some Tweets against its governor over the summer. But it’s not like it’s even close there: Biden won by more than 150,000 votes.
But Trump wants state legislators, or the courts, or whoever, to throw out all the votes in the whole city of Detroit, and that’d give him his win. The self-described “least racist” person also asked for a recount in Wisconsin, and since he had to pay out of his pocket there, in advance, he limited it to what are only the most Black areas in the state.
This is the President saying he actually doesn’t care if he lost, he wants to win anyway.
Trump always litigates the hell out of everything to annoy and distract. And get his lies repeated, even if it’s in the context of debunking his lies. Because a whole bunch of people in this country won’t hear those lies as lies. Or won’t care.
So the question of whether Trump’s supporters think President-elect Biden won the election far and square or not doesn’t really matter at all. The pollsters are asking the wrong question. Because Trump cultists don’t care if Trump lost. They want him to be President anyway.
And Trump’s now hoping he has enough cultists on state election boards and in state governments to act on that demand. But Republicans at the state level will take their lead too from national party politicians. If it was being given. Strongly, on the basis that the American electoral system will crumble if they decide to go along with Trump’s proclamations and please him.
Elections in this country do belong to the states. Still, it’s shameful national politicians don’t at least have the backs of those local legislators, leaving it completely up to them to be the ones to stand up for voters not just in their states, but all across the nation, even though some in some states are rising to it. In some ways, if Trump does not succeed in his effort, it may be because peoples’ pride in their home states is greater even than their unquestioning devotion to this President. Or not.
So we’re tired of people telling us “don’t worry”. That Trump’s crazy train isn’t going to gain enough momentum to stay on the rails and deliver him to his destination, really. And maybe that’s still probably true.
Yet in doing and saying nothing, the most high ranking Republicans in their party are fueling that train with hot coal, and setting all the signal lights to green.
The next week or so is a crucial time because we’re getting into the stretch where states are starting to have to certify the presidential election results. Or who are we fooling: anytime between now and January 20th will be a crucial time because Trump can always pull another stunt. But this is a particularly crucial time. In each state, the procedure is a little bit different. And as they do certify their states’ result, it makes Trump’s efforts to de-legitimize the election less powerful. Sure, he can still ask for recounts, but the more books in which the official vote is officially recorded, the less of a possibility it’ll be purged from those books.
But for that to happen the way it’s happened for the several hundred years this country has existed, Republican party officials and legislators at the state level have to be the grown-ups here. Because those at the highest level of government won’t be. Will they? Not necessarily if local politicians think the cowardice of the higher-ups in their party means they got just green-lighted to wreak all kinds of havoc, just like the President wants. In that case, hell no.
There’s never really been a time this time to sit back and watch it all unfold because deep down you feel Democracy will prevail. Trump lost on Election Day because people voted. Those votes count.
The President won’t rest until he exploits every single shameful loophole and unfounded accusation. Tries every single shady angle.
People who are Patriots need to be out now telling and re-telling how people got together and Trump was beaten. Need to be modern-day Paul Reveres. Nobody else is going to.
Our voices are louder than Trump’s, they already were when we voted him out of office. Our strength is greater: took 79,685,131 of us, but we beat him. And not just by a little.
We’ve already proven our collective voices are louder than Trump’s when they need to be. And our belief in Democracy is unwavering.
Vigilance. And loud voices. Not fear.