It seems, to me at least, that the Republicans desire the form of autocratic capitalism which has been developed by China.
Wargaming here. What is meant by “hold”? A 5 memember majority in the Senate, 10-20 majority in the House? Not very likely in the near future. But let’s say that has happended by 2024. Objections are raised like the ones are that are soon to be raised, and the House and the Sentate vote to accept faithless electors, or vote not to certify, I forget all the details. It would require that 95% of whatever the exact number is of Repubs voting for this.
So that happens. I believe in the days after Trump was elected there were something like 5 million people protesting around the country and it only lasted for a few days , and a few weeks ago I think there were about million that showed up for the MAGA march. The exact numbers don’t matter, if in 2024 the Congress voted to overturn, there would be tens of millons out in the street across the country, the George Floyd protests would seem minor in comparison.
Biden would be commander-in-chief. The defeated Republican candiate would have no power, except for militia groups. But what would happen next. As I understand it, if the Congress certified the losing Republican candidate, they have a right to do so under the Constitution, and whoever they say is President is President
But again, this all would require almost all of the Republicans in the House and Senate to vote for overturning the election. Well the fucking Ted Cruzes would, I would certainly hope that there would be at least a couple dozen who would realize the fucking chaos they would be unleashing. Armed conflict in the streets.
I have relatives who are freaking out about Georgia. “We lose Georgia, the country is doomed to be the next USSR.” They don’t realize that for any “radical lefist bill” to be passed, it would require all 50 Democrats, and 10 Repubs to approve, to overcome Moscow Mitch’s inevitable filibuster.
I am not known in my family to be an optimist, I am optimistic enough to believe that in 2024 there will not be a Repub majority in Congress, and even if there is, that there would be at least a couple dozen with a conscience
Of couse all this becomes moot if the Dems keep control of the House. I think that is a pretty good bet.
Self-licking ice cream cone:
You forgot, or didn’t notice, the footnote which cites an earlier mention from ten years previous:
They don’t have a shot at changing the electoral college voting — that happened. What they do have a shot at — and one that should be taken seriously — is in creating confusion and encouraging political radicalism, including the incitement of violence.
We’re getting close to zero hour. The republican hijackers are on the tarmac, waiting for takeoff.
Well, two things, no three-
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Biden has no radical leftist agendas.
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If Moscow Mitch tries using the filibuster to block things if the GOP has a minority, then the Dems will just dump the filibuster. The GOP already dumped it for SCOTUS nominees.
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Why are you replying to me?
I wasn’t trying to criticize you. I was responding to “Even if this coup fails, Republicans will overturn future elections if it happens to hold both chambers.” And went on there in general about what might happen if that happens.
I know BIden has no radical agenda, many uninformed people do. Some are in my family . I was using the fillibuster example to say that radical bills being passed require almost 100% approval from the Democrats, not happening in the next 4 years, just like overturning an election in 2024 would require almost 100% approval of the Repubs
I think people need to look at the social dynamics at play. A few weeks ago, few people were talking about the idea of an actual House and Senate challenge of the actual electors as a serious possibility — it was more like disaster porn type speculation.
Then a handful of house members signaled their intent to challenge electors. Then it became more than a hundred. Then it was just Sen Hawley. Now it’s 11 senators, even after McConnell said that the electoral college has spoken. I fully expect that there will be more senators to follow.
See, that’s the real danger - it’s not that they’re loyal to Trump. They are loyal to the radical rejection of democratic norms that has become the GOP identity. I expect more reps and senators to follow not out of loyalty to Trump per se, but because his behavior has become the standard by which their behavior is now judged. Voting will be a test - a test to see who is really a Trumpo-fascist and who is a RINO
One last thing to keep in mind for the evening: look at the GA senate races. The GOP is unsurprisingly attacking elections there and they will certainly write the fraud narrative if they lose — this increases the buy in to party-wide anti-democracy.
Senator Ted Cruz
America is a Republic whose leaders are chosen in democratic elections. Those elections, in turn, must comply with the Constitution and with federal and state law.
When the voters fairly decide an election, pursuant to the rule of law, the losing candidate should acknowledge and respect the legitimacy of that election. And, if the voters choose to elect a new office-holder, our Nation should have a peaceful transfer of power.
The election of 2020, like the election of 2016, was hard fought and, in many swing states, narrowly decided. The 2020 election, however, featured unprecedented allegations of voter fraud, violations and lax enforcement of election law, and other voting irregularities.
Voter fraud has posed a persistent challenge in our elections, although its breadth and scope are disputed. By any measure, the allegations of fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election exceed any in our lifetimes.
And those allegations are not believed just by one individual candidate. Instead, they are widespread. Reuters/Ipsos polling, tragically, shows that 39% of Americans believe ‘the election was rigged.’ That belief is held by Republicans (67%), Democrats (17%), and Independents (31%).
Some Members of Congress disagree with that assessment, as do many members of the media.
But, whether or not our elected officials or journalists believe it, that deep distrust of our democratic processes will not magically disappear. It should concern us all. And it poses an ongoing threat to the legitimacy of any subsequent administrations.
Ideally, the courts would have heard evidence and resolved these claims of serious election fraud. Twice, the Supreme Court had the opportunity to do so; twice, the Court declined.
On January 6, it is incumbent on Congress to vote on whether to certify the 2020 election results. That vote is the lone constitutional power remaining to consider and force resolution of the multiple allegations of serious voter fraud.
At that quadrennial joint session, there is long precedent of Democratic Members of Congress raising objections to presidential election results, as they did in 1969, 2001, 2005, and 2017. And, in both 1969 and 2005, a Democratic Senator joined with a Democratic House Member in forcing votes in both houses on whether to accept the presidential electors being challenged.
The most direct precedent on this question arose in 1877, following serious allegations of fraud and illegal conduct in the Hayes-Tilden presidential race. Specifically, the elections in three states-Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina-were alleged to have been conducted illegally.
In 1877, Congress did not ignore those allegations, nor did the media simply dismiss those raising them as radicals trying to undermine democracy. Instead, Congress appointed an Electoral Commission-consisting of five Senators, five House Members, and five Supreme Court Justices-to consider and resolve the disputed returns.
We should follow that precedent. To wit, Congress should immediately appoint an Electoral Commission, with full investigatory and fact-finding authority, to conduct an emergency 10-day audit of the election returns in the disputed states. Once completed, individual states would evaluate the Commission’s findings and could convene a special legislative session to certify a change in their vote, if needed.
Accordingly, we intend to vote on January 6 to reject the electors from disputed states as not ‘regularly given’ and ‘lawfully certified’ (the statutory requisite), unless and until that emergency 10-day audit is completed.
We are not naïve. We fully expect most if not all Democrats, and perhaps more than a few Republicans, to vote otherwise. But support of election integrity should not be a partisan issue. A fair and credible audit-conducted expeditiously and completed well before January 20-would dramatically improve Americans’ faith in our electoral process and would significantly enhance the legitimacy of whoever becomes our next President. We owe that to the People.
These are matters worthy of the Congress, and entrusted to us to defend. We do not take this action lightly. We are acting not to thwart the democratic process, but rather to protect it. And every one of us should act together to ensure that the election was lawfully conducted under the Constitution and to do everything we can to restore faith in our Democracy.
I disagree with this. Trump and his minions started talking about this as soon as SCOTUS threw out the silly Texas law suit. That’s the thing: there is no plan. Trump just careens from one “solution” to the next.
Republican pols aren’t loyal to radical rejection; like Democrats they’re hunting for votes and unfortunately that means sucking up to Trumpists. If Cruz really considers himself a presidential candidate then he’s probably thinking he doesn’t want Trumpists to remember his disloyalty if he doesn’t support this nonsense.
I’d like to think that in 4 years it won’t matter but I’ve been mostly wrong about Trump’s support every time.
Yes, but these attempts have failed miserably. We need a new word to describe abject, utter, complete failure, with not a single court upholding even one bullshit lawsuit, the arguments not even heard by the Supreme Court and ultimately rejected by even Moscow Mitch.
Trumpenfreude (taking pleasure in the misfortune of an asshole and his party). In 2024, when Ted Cruz loses to Kamala Harris, and it probably won’t be either one, I just can’t see the losing Repub trying to challenge. There will be no precedent. Now if the country goes all to hell in the next few years, and the Repubs are able to elect enough fascists, it could happen here.
Not “a party”, the Republicans.
The Democrats aren’t perfect but there’s scant example of them throwing away principles long enough to come 10% of the way to doing something like this. Also they lack backbone but in the case of them not trying a coup, that’s a good thing.
Maybe. Maybe not. Saying he “welcomes the efforts” of these individuals sounds to me like he supports their efforts. I don’t see that as being as neutral a statement as you do. I read it as encouragement.
And the last part where he mentions them sharing “evidence before the Congress and American people” indicates to me Pence is onboard with the bullshit being peddled by nutjobs like Sydney Powell, Lin Wood and others. We know there is no evidence but it appears Pence will do all he can to help spread the lies far and wide. I hardly see this as distancing himself from this con job.
I don’t see how this will succeed but I still get a sense there is more going on here than is on the surface. These dicks aren’t dimwits like DJT. Cruz in particular is a sneaky shit and they are up to something.
They won one.
The Trump campaign and GOP’s only win struck down an extended deadline the Pennsylvania secretary of state set for voters to cure mail-in ballots that were missing proof of identification, and likely only affected a small number of mail-in ballots.
One out of 50 filed by the trump campaign and none out of dozens filed by trump supporters.
“There are an unprecedented number of allegations that Ted Cruz not only sells heroin to school kids disguised as a nun, he also committed voter fraud to steal his election win.”
“Due to the sheer number of these allegations, Ted Cruz should stop doing everything and anything until a 10 day review and evaluation of the charges can be made.”
I’m aware of what packing the court means. I contend that what he did is perfectly reasonable to call packing. The point of packing is putting one party in the majority. McConnell stole the majority just as surely as if they added 2 seats.
What a shoddily constructed argument! And he dares to use the word “tragically” in there?
Ninth Circle of Hell for you, now!
Well said. This is key, and it is horrific.
This is how I am interpreting the Ted Cruz statement.
Since we have made “unprecedented allegations of voter fraud, violations and lax enforcement of election law, and other voting irregularities” and since a lot of people have believed it, now we have a problem with credibility of the elections. So, now we need to challenge it.
Am I interpreting that correctly?
So let’s say that Republicans in Georgia lose not one but both senate seats next week. Suppose further that Trump and the entire Republican party then claims that these elections were rigged? In the minds of Republican voters, that’s three major elections that Democrats have “stolen” from Republicans. Democrats will have “stolen” the presidency and “stolen” control of the senate, too. This isn’t something that talk radio, Breitbart, OANN, and Fox are just going to move on past; the “they stole it” narrative could potentially cripple politics. It will color every bill, every executive order, every resolution that Democrats try to pass, every nomination they try to get through the senate.
Go back to 2012 and 2008 when Democrats won those elections. Republicans had an opportunity to change back then, to be a little less toxic; instead they doubled down on their toxicity because they won the election in 2010, which gave them the power to draw the political district boundaries, and I got bad news for you: they did it again in 2020, despite losing the WH. There is no incentive for them to come back to their senses; they will continue feeding their urge to engage in political obstruction, and eventually, that will turn into more behavior that’s more desperate. Why? Because they are, in truth, a political minority that has become obsessed with keeping its disproportionate levels of power.