Impossible to change the inevitable electoral outcome, but it’s going to put yet more strain on our political system.
The statute actually requires the session to continue until the count is complete, and limits the ability of the session to recess. There’s just no way to stretch this out beyond a few days. And even if they did stretch it out past Inauguration Day, they would just make Nancy Pelosi president. The House only gets to vote on who becomes President if the joint session finds that no candidate received a majority of electoral votes.
Look, I have no doubt the Republicans will turn the joint session into a shit show – outraged speeches disguised as “points of order,” objections to electors from every state where Trump was remotely within striking distance. One under remarked factor is that the session will be chaired by Mike Pence, who will actively connive with Congressional Republicans to turn the who thing into a circus. But it’s extremely, extremely unlikely that the joint session could be used in such a way as to hand Trump the Presidency.
So I browsed back about 20 hours worth of posts and don’t think this has been covered here yet-- the head of the Ohio Tea Party (the ‘We The People Convention’) published a full-page ad in the Washington Times yesterday calling for martial law to be invoked, and the Constitution temporarily suspended, so that the military can oversee a revote. This idea is being heartily endorsed by Sidney Powell, Lin Wood, Michael Flynn and Ret. Gen. Thomas McInerney.
Now don’t get me wrong-- I don’t for one minute think this will actually happen, but the very idea that this is being batted around in MAGA circles is batshit insane. I’m posting a twitter link to JJ MacNab (fellow, George Washington University’s Program on Extremism) who’s posted excerpts of the ad. It’s a deeply nutty read. one quote:
Then there are admitted Democrat/Socialist federal officials plotting to finish gutting the US Constitution after 100 years of trying.
The bitter irony of claiming this while endorsing martial law and suspension of the Constitution in order to give trump a mulligan is palpable. WTF. WTF indeed.
Washington Times is not exactly mainstream, but it’s mainstream conservative, a la Newsmax. Not quite Breitbart on OANN. So my take is that this is an attempt to ‘mainstream’ fringe ideas, which has been the pattern of behavior on the right wing these last few years. To be clear, there have always been right wing kooks that have advocated military rule, jailing liberals, and whatever, but this is an attempt to prime and condition fringe ideas to be part of mainstream conservative conversation.
It seems so outrageous that it can’t be taken seriously, until you realize that they are simultaneously selling a myth that the election wasn’t fair and that the country was effectively taken from them by coup. If you believe that, if you believe that the election wasn’t fair, then you effectively easily buy into the idea that the Biden regime illegitimately seized power and that it’s only fair that power be wrested by force in return to restore the equilibrium. And then you realize that, according to a number of polls, anywhere from 70 to 85% of those 74 million adults who voted for Trump believe that Biden is illegitimate. And probably others believe that he won legitimately, but that this was probably because the media and deep state had it out for him and unfairly maligned him in the eyes of impressionable, foolish “other” voters who really shouldn’t be voting anyway.
It’s a very serious situation that is damaging in the long term. But don’t simply look at this example; there are other examples of violent ideation among the right. Look at the threats against Krebs, threats against Georgia election officials, threats against ordinary people walking into and out of an elections office not even knowing whether or not they have anything to do with the vote counts at all. These “people” have given up on democracy. They want to impose their will on us. And they fantasize openly about violence because they believe they are the only ones capable of it.
More people on the right like Gabriel Sterling need to grow a conscience and / or a backbone and speak up against this. From the ‘Election Day [Week]’ thread, this link to his speech was a beautiful thing to hear:
Right on cue, noted Trumpist and the world’s strangest adoptive father Matt Gaetz has said “anything is on the table.”
I don’t think American democracy will survive. Biden might get made President, but too many Americans don’t want democracy anymore. There will be a dark age starting soon.
No prominent Republicans have said anything negative about the calls for martial law. Not one. It’s got the support of most Republican voters from what I can see.
The USA is fucked.
Do I see Gaetz succeeding? Ultimately, no.
But this will add fuel to the fire; it will be part of the lost cause narrative. These kinds of lost causes metastasize with each increasingly outrageous call to arms and act of aggression. Extremists have a way of normalizing aggression and inspiring others to act.
Let’s be clear about this: we’re not talking about a bunch of semi-retired formal corporals and ex-police officers running around the woods in Montana playing soldier. We’re talking about a movement that has mainstream acceptance in one of the two major American political parties. This effort has serious money behind it. No it’s not organized – not yet. But over time, that can easily change.
The president’s lawyers are telling Republicans not to vote for the Republicans in the Georgia Senate race because the election is fraudulent.
That is difficult to believe, but if Republicans really want to boycott the election, more power to them.
Not really. Parties calling on their followers to boycott “fraudulent” elections is a standard tactic used in half-assed semi-democracies worldwide to discredit the winning side.
If indeed a hefty fraction of Republicans stayed home, as reflected in the vote count versus other recent elections, that makes it totally truthful, if a contrived truth, that the election was not democratically representative because it doesn’t reflect the will of all the people.
Yes, it’s sophistry. But it’s a tactic used all around the world because it works. At least on their own followers and any fellow-travelers.
By not voting they are refusing to legitimize the fraudulent process of the rigged “elections”, not real elections. And are further legitimizing the idea that redress for their legitimate concerns can’t come through the “elections”, so must be sought via other, more active means.
That’s their story and they’re sticking to it through thick and thin. The national Rs would be more than happy to sacrifice this one Senate seat to firmly implant the idea in at least half of all American’s psyches that here in the USA we don’t have elections. We have rigged “elections”.
The last 4 years have been moving up all the pawns. The last almost 30 days have been the knights and bishops moving into attack alignment. Of which this is simply the latest and most ominous move. If we see signs of a castling, we know the fireworks are about to begin.
By contrast, the Left’s piece development has been very weak and fragmented.
(bolding mine) But it’s two seats, and control of the Senate for two years. In your chess analogy, that’s a rook sacrifice – just to make a warped statement.
It’s weird because there are two games here - playing by the normal rules of law, and playing based on the fascist playbook. And this last set of moves might be a winning play in the latter book, but it’s a rather severe losing play in the former. It’s my understanding that if they cede both the Georgia senate seats the the Democrats could dramatically change how the senate works to basically destroy the Republican dominance tactics they’ve been using for the last twenty years. So to me it sounds like a rather big gamble - and I’m not sure they have the clout necessary to change the game to the one they’re hoping to win.
Unless they somehow literally cause a revolution, handing over the complete government to the Dems sounds like the stupidest plan ever.
Sacrifice one seat? Sure. Lose control of the Senate for 2 years? Maybe the big corporate money boys are willing to play the long game, but I can’t imagine Moscow Mitch being willing to wander in the wilderness for two years when he could maintain his present power. When the polls looked like Trump was going to go down harder than he actually did and was going to drag the Senate down with him, Mitch was mostly likely planning to obstruct and fuck everything up for two years, then ride into the 2022 midterms with “See… you need a GOP Senate to get anything done”.
But now that he has a lifeline and a chance to keep his sweet, sweet money and power, I can’t see him willing to make the sacrifice. Mitch cares about Mitch. Period. Not Trump, not the national party.
It seems like there’s upside in the short term, but the toxic message behind it is that the democratic process is hopelessly flawed, so fuck democracy, we’ll do this our way - I’ll let you guess what the alternatives are.
The Republicans will continue to burrow deeper until their party dissolves or until they impose fascism over their enemies. It’s getting pretty binary at this point.
ETA: Everybody else between here and begbert2 as quoted here slipped in while I was typing this mess. Good points all, but not addressed here.
Well said.
One way to square this perplexing circle is to expect that despite their call for boycott, they’ll be able to prevail in court that the election had so many problems that it isn’t valid. And will either need to be redone, or … something.
Another idea I just had which might be pure stupidity on my part or might be genius on some unknown R strategist’s part. I’m figuring this out as I type, so don’t expect great things here.
There is indeed an epic fight going on under the blanket right now for the soul of the R party, as distinct from the R electorate. The nihilists and authoritarians seem to have the bit in their teeth and are making all the yardage.
Perhaps some in the traditional wing have decided to in effect set a back fire. By seeding the nihilist wing with this boycott idea they expect the nihilist wing to approve of it and run with it. And thereby lose those seats and the Senate majority.
With the hope that the Ds flail for 2 or 4 years trying to run the fragmented country while they try like heck to recover control of the Right while the authoritarians aren’t actually in power and the short-sighted nihilists can be blamed for losing the Senate.
The traditionalist Rs know a D government is not to their liking. But in their heart of hearts they also know it’s not the Socialist BLM-led Hellscape Breitbart et al say it will be. And they know they can still do a lot to blunt or slow the “worst” instincts of a D government.
IOW, it’s a Hail Mary by the traditionalist wing to sabotage the authoritarian wing and to buy breather enough to put a stake in the authoritarian heart. Or so they desperately hope.
Either that or it’s simply Putin trolling the shit out of everybody.
No, not just a warped statement. Mainstreaming the idea that elections can’t be trusted and setting up a movement to ignore future election results and seize power.
And the way things are going you can play on those two games without ever really fully committing to either. Starting lawsuits with money that isn’t yours, Making half-assed preparations to declare martial law : putting very expendable cronies in key positions. All while keeping the base stoked. I wonder if they have the balls to really pull the trigger on the the second (or third if you count the “intimidate/bribe election officials” in Michigan) option now that the first has been put to bed by the judges.
How many friendly generals and proud boys do you really need if you are sitting in the oval office and the SoD is a crony?
I’d say the biggest question mark facing the Republicans is what happens when Individual 1 croaks? The base is loyal and devoted to him, not to the party. So what happens if he chokes on a hamberder next summer? The kids won’t be able to do squat. They rely on Cheeto more than anybody. Politically they are zeros without his active, on-going support. What happens when the factions really have it out?