Mitch McConnell now says that any new pandemic relief might take “a few weeks” to put together. What the fuck have he and the rest of his party been doing for the past 3 months??? 
I’m only speculumatin’ here, but I suspect they are biding their time on purpose. It’s about voter disenfranchisement.
Republicans drag their heels, many evictions/foreclosures occur, voters are displaced (mostly those who will vote for Democratic candidates), few will remember to re-register to vote once they’ve managed to land elsewhere.
The cruelty is secondary in this instance, whereas it’s usually the point.
I don’t think that strategy will work out the way they think it will.
I certainly hope so. A few hundred disenfranchised, tens of thousands enraged.
In many places most voter registration and ID changes are through the Department/Bureau of Motor Vehicles… many of which are closed or are on sharply reduced hours. So if you’re evicted or have to move good luck getting that done in a timely manner!
I believe in most places, a person can go directly into their Board of Elections and re-register with a new address. But while they are dealing with such flux in their lives, few will think to do it.
I heard statistics that said as many as 20 million persons may be affected by the evictions. Obviously not all those will be eligible to vote… but if even a quarter of them are, that’s a lot of people.
Timely op-ed in WaPo today on this topic:
I think we’re ascribing malice where incompetence is a better bet. They have been and are hoping that “and then, a miracle occurs”. They’ve been preaching a rapid and sudden economic recovery for months.
And a sudden, miraculous recovery, in line with the predictions of nearly all (non-shill) economists and despite an overwhelming amount of prayer and wishful thinking, keeps not happening.
Their Plan A of hoping things would improve despite their non-efforts had no chance of success but they relied on it. There is no Plan B.
There are signs McConnell realizes the hole they’ve dug themselves, but he’s never been a Senator to develop or implement a real agenda. He’s always been the guy to get judicial appointments and stand in the way of Obama’s agenda. Now that he’s got to pull something together, he’s not revealing anything new - he’s simply acting exactly the way he’s always acted. This should come as no surprise.
Thread in the Elections forum:
Why not both?
GMTA!
I hadn’t seen the WaPo article, so thanks. Timely indeed.
I think people will need to stay right on top of their voter registration/vote this year. I haven’t moved in 16 years and have voted in every election in that time. I still check my voter registration status about 4 times a year.
When I receive my ballot, I intend to complete it and personally deliver it to a ballot drop box by the following day.
I’ll check each subsequent day to ensure it was received by our Board of Elections. We have paper ballots, so I’m not worried about an internal manipulation of votes once the ballot is received.
Sorry, but I disagree. Plan B has always been to steal the election.
McConnell refused to bring legislation to the floor that would have punished Russia for 2016 interference.
McConnell refused to bring to the floor legislation that would have provided funding to harden our election infrastructure from foreign interference.
McConnell has refused to allow additional funding for the US Postal Service in any legislation that has so far come before the Senate in advance of the election.
So we already know about/can expect:
Russian (and Chinese, North Korean etc.) interference.
Misconduct resulting in weighting voter turnout in favor of Republicans in states where Trump ball lickers such as DeSantis, Abbott and Kemp are in positions to mess with elections.
Slow mail service that will disenfranchise no small number of vote-by-mail voters.
40,000 Republican “poll watchers” assigned to polling stations ostensibly to keep an eye on things. Want to bet how many of those will be openly carrying guns?
Chaos in major cities right around election time as Herr Barr dispatches his private troops to various Democratic cities to “maintain law and order” Portland style.
20 million dollars already set aside in Republican coffers to litigate close election outcomes after the election.
Moscow Mitch has done his part. Taken altogether, will the above be enough to divert an honest outcome in 2020? We’d best assume it will and take any and all steps to avoid that outcome.
True. 
I figure the more exposure this gets, the better.
Doesn’t Congress go on break after next week for a couple of months?
Oh, don’t worry yourself over things like that. As long as you just follow orders, everything will be fine.
Destroying America
And unless you visit the BMV anyway, your address won’t match.
Good point. 
I see that as Plan Zero rather than Plan B. They were always going to try a number of, if not illegal, then unethical and immoral tactics to do so, but their absolutely wretched performance this year only intensifies the necessity to pull out all the stops.
It’s not exactly like 2000 or 2016 were free and fair elections in the sense most people mean. And it’s not like there hasn’t been an election in several cycles where some kind of suppression of votes hasn’t occurred. I’m not sure it’s happened in living memory. In another example of American ‘exceptionalism’, our elections are notorious among developed nations for practices that no other would-be democracy would allow.
Thing is, most of the Forces of Darkness’ plans were cobbled together in a different time, before Trump lurched onto the scene. It was a time when many of the most important elections were very close, a time when trimming a percentage point or two from the voting population could have a major impact. Like when Florida fought so hard against re-enfranchising ex-felons, because a couple hundred thousand votes was a big hairy-ass deal.
Now? To oversimplify, Trump has his base and that’s it. They love him and everybody else hates his guts. That is a whole different kettle of piranha. There is no subtle way to overwhelm that. And Trump would fuck up a free meal, and his minions are no better. The old playbook won’t work, and innovation is not their strong suit.