One thing that I’ve commented with people back home in PR, because they are having their own shyteshow with their vote count, is that as usual, something that used to be just the way things are done is being approached from the angle of “so, who can MAKE me do it like others used to?”
Certification of count and canvass always did take weeks to become truly official, as in signed off on and sealed by actual officers of the state. Just that historically, you’d get enough preliminary reports with clear numbers that you’d assume there would be no change on who won the post, just on by how much, and you could rely on the “call”. Now you’ve got the man at the Top claiming that no, that is wrong and it must mean something’s fishy.
And yes, it is an effort to discredit the process. Stand by to see red states next year amending their election laws to flat out do away with anything but in-person ID’ed voting at minimal locations, and mandating a “call” for whoever’s leading 12 hours after poll closing.
Well, it’s both. It’s like a tenant with the mental age and immaturity of a toddler facing eviction. A lot of damage has already been done, and a lot more will be. My hope is that he is so obviously revealing his evil malignancy and so thoroughly discrediting himself that he’ll become irrelevant after this except as a history lesson, supported only by a tiny and dwindling base of the usual lunatics and bigots.
This is what concerns me. I think due process will prevail and Trump will have to exit the stage, or be dragged off it, but it’s all the things he’s actively fucking over right now, and for the next couple of months, that are the problem. He’s screwing over your country, your people.
True enough, but we’ve been screwed over by lots of presidents before. As long as he is forced out in January, we will survive.
If he manages to burn down Fox News (already started - have you seen those ratings? ouch!) and the GOP (possible if only a fraction go along with the coup and Trump’s supporters turn on the ones that don’t) on his way out then all the better.
The biggest long-term damage (assuming he eventually leaves) will be to the perceived integrity of our elections and the attempts to further restrict voting access in response. I don’t think those will go very far, as pretty strong majorities approve of more voting access. Right now, in the heat of this, only about half of Republicans are willing to say Trump won (with maybe 2/3 saying there were issues with the election).
I ask again, what can I/we do to get this maniac out? He is putting the country in danger from a security perspective, with the pandemic, and undermining the votes of 79.6 million people who lawfully voted him OUT.