Moderating
That’s rather inappropriate for this forum. Knock it off.
And I’m adding a spoiler for bull penis
(A phrase I never thought I’d type)
My apologies, then.
The same thing will undoubtedly happen with Communism when the fall of the Soviet Union is in the rear-view mirror a few more decades.
I agree that the political calculus for most Republicans is pretty lopsided, particularly in the short term. They’re likely to pay little or no political price for supporting the objections, whereas they are likely to be targeted by Trump and his loyalist in their next primary if they fail to back up Dear Leader. I would expect all but maybe 8-10 Republican Senators to vote to sustain the objection, those holdouts being a few old bulls, Senators who’ve already decided they’re in their last term, and the Collins/Murkowski/Romney caucus.
The risk, in as much as there is any, of this posture is if there’s any backlash to all of these shenanigans. Probably not. But there could be if there’s some significant incidents of violence by Trump supporters, or if Washington descends into utter gridlock and people blame Republicans.
Again, unlikely, but if there’s one thing that a politician strives to do it’s cover his or her ass against all possible outcomes. That’s why McConnell didn’t want it to come to a vote – it would allow his members to pretend they were on whichever side of the issue that it later turns out was more popular.
The cost for the Trump loyalists would be that Trump is currently challenging McConnell for leadership of the party. If they keep going along with Trump now, and the Republicans win the Senate, then McConnell uses his power to freeze them out.
McConnell has made the January 6 vote a referendum on him or Trump by telling people not to object.
Sure, they may think Trump will remain the main power broker, but it’s no longer without any downside.
Beau of the Fifth Column, who has been accurate so far, has said that he expects some newer Senators and/or Congresspeople to object, but for the older ones who have been through power transitions before to realize what they have to do.
One effect of this attempted coup is of course the harm to America’s standing in the world.
A lot of the damage done by Trump is somewhat reversible when Biden comes in and changes the rhetoric entirely (although many governments will from now on may only assume treaties can last as long as the current administration).
But, whether or not other countries buy the idea that there was election fraud (and mercifully, it seems most of the international news is debunking republicans’ nonsense), republicans are not going anywhere and will continue these bad faith behaviours. So the US will be an example of a broken democracy; Biden may not be able to export principles of democracy, and no leader may be able to do that for some time.
(And by “export principles” this is not code for invading other countries, I’m purely talking about soft power)
A couple state boards of elections, or legislatures or governors that would be willing to override the vote of the people and send in their own opinion on who should win. A couple few SCOTUSes or maybe even some state Supremes, and we are very fortunate that the house is majority democrat, if it were republican, I would expect the objections to electors from Biden voting states to be upheld, which would put the election in the hands of congress, where they would have a large advantage.
I don’t think that they “refused” to work to flip the election, not on any sort of principles, anyway, but only that the calculous wasn’t quite right, there was not enough coordination and pre-planning to pull it off, and a failed coup can have consequences.
I’d be a bit more worried if Trump had not done as much as he has to personally annoy the military. I don’t think that the military would support him in any sort of autogolpe scenario. Someone the military likes and respects more, OTOH, may have a better chance of being supported in such actions.
As I said, this was a test run, a trial, they were feeling out the weak spots and vulnerabilities. If things had been just a bit different, it may have worked. The next Republican authoritarian to come along will have this all mapped out.
Why are we pretending this is something new? This is nothing that hasn’t been done regularly in previous elections:
" So… in the last three decades , every time a Republican won, Congressional Democrats challenged the certification of the election, and every time a Democrat won, Congressional Republicans did not challenge the certification."
No one is saying this is entirely unprecedented, but what is happening now has NOT been done regularly in previous elections. Since 1887, there has been only ONE instance where both a Senator and a House member objected to a state’s certified slate of electors (the requirement for the objection to be considered). There are always dumbass House members on both sides of the aisle that would go along with something like this, but only in 2004 did a Senator (Barbara Boxer) sign onto an objection to Ohio’s electors, thus forcing both chambers to vote on the objection. She was outvoted in the Senate 1-74.
“A republic not a democracy”
Example: Sen. Mike “liberty not democracy” Lee.
I envision that ultimately Trump will handcuff himself to one of the legs of the Resolute desk. Secret Sevice will lift up one corner of the desk to raise that leg an inch or two off the ground, and the hancuff will fall to the floor.
They will lead him out, then. Trump’s marks think he’s a fighter, but he couldn’t fight his way out of a wet paper bag.
I think the last four years have been devastating, but the entire year of 2020 will be viewed in history’s rear view mirror as the the year that American power went into a tailspin.
We can start with America’s handling of COVID relative to China’s. It’s not that America was simply slow; it’s the realization that America’s citizens and their leadership together are making an outstanding argument against American-style democracy. It’s easy to look at America and conclude that the business of running a country and a society is too dangerous, too destabilizing to be influenced by idiots from the nation’s interior.
But the attempted coup brings to the surface another reality, which is that it’s not just China that’s really doubting democracy’s value; it’s half of America itself that has those same doubts – the reasons may be different, but the doubt is all the same.
I love how from 2000 to 2020 became three decades. I guess they back extended to Clinton’s elections, because…
2000 was a very significant event with very specific reasons to question the outcome. It was a watershed event. 2004 was beginning to look at the issue of improperly purged voter rolls, something that Republicans took on as a strategy to limit voters. We’ve seen that pattern continue.
Yes, it has caused something of a precedent for Congressional actions. But don’t pretend that even 2016 calls against Trump’s victory are equivalent to what is going on this year. For starters, no Senator jumped on board that train. VP Biden shot it down hard. Will Pence be so strong?
This is an escalation. I know slippery slope arguments are questionable, but serial escalation does happen. The more something becomes seen as “commonplace” and accepted, the more the next step becomes seen as only a small variation.
That’s the pattern found by the CAIB report on the Shuttle Columbia crash. The pattern of damage to the underside of the Shuttles from foam on the external tanks during launch was spotted at the beginning, and noted on many flights since. It was recognized early on as a risk, some modifications made, but because the Shuttles were landing safely, it became seen as acceptable levels of damage. Then there was some more extreme events, but they were seen as small variances “in kind” to previous damage. Then a chunk of foam breaks the leading edge panels on Columbia. One of the declared findings was the need to actively resist that incremental acceptance.
It’s a natural human thought pattern. It doesn’t just affect engineering, it affects everything we do. So of course politics is not exempt.
The process won’t end on the 6th anyway. The Trumpists will object to every slate from NV, AZ, GA, PA, WI, and MI and maybe a few others. EAch can take two hours, plus some frictional time. It could easily drag into the 7th.
But after all that is done and Biden still wins 306-232, will it end? HA HA HA HA HA.
The Trump cult is totally insulated from reality. At every stage of this process they’d just created a new point of victory down the line:
- Trump lost the election? No problem, we’ll win it back in court.
- Court cases failing en masse? No problem, THE KRAKEN!!!1! will win.
- There’s no Kraken? No problem, the Texas lawsuit will win
- That failed? No problem, somehow we’ll win on Dec 14 anyway.
- The electors chose Biden? No problem, we’ll win on January 6. Pence will win it for us!
There’s no chance whatsoever the count will change this. After Biden’s victory is confirmed, Trumpists will come up with a new saviour, one or more of the following three likely possibilities:
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Kraken 2.0. Somehow, they will say new lawsuits, featuring immense amounts of heretofore undiscovered evidence, will cause the election to be reversed.
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Inauguration Follies. It will become orthodoxy amongst many Trumpists that the electoral vote doesn’t matter; what matters is the inauguration, and if Trump is sworn in by a judge, he’s still President.
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Martial law. This remains a popular idea with Trumpists; they’ll continue supporting this move.
It’s also becoming a tactic that’s being borrowed in other elections across the country now. Case in point, Loren Culp, who lost the Washington governor’s race by a pretty wide margin:
What this does is communicate down ballot in state after state, that votes are diminished in value. The entire Republican party is essentially rejecting democratic results outright. For the time being, they’re taking their tantrums to the courts, but keep in mind that they’re using an idea that’s a few years old. A newer idea is to reject democracy through violent rhetoric or perhaps even violence outright. For now, that’s just talk, but violent ideation eventually becomes violence.
The snswer to your question is “Yes”:
Let’s see whether or not Mickey Mouse calls in sick on January 6.
Depends on what Minnie tell him.
The difference is, that except in 2000, the challenge was just a gesture. It didnt do anything. But if a Senator joins the GOP challenge, it will force a vote, like in 2000.
In 2020 there is no proven fraud, except by the GOP.
Lin Wood is now accusing Chief Justice Roberts of being a pedophile and that Jeffrey Epstein is still alive