+ Seventy percent of the red-hatted Descamisados think the election was stolen from el Caudillo de Mar-a-Lago.
+ The Caudillo fires his secretary of defense, who defied him on something, and appoints a new one with less personal clout.
+The secretary of state says the Caudillo will have a second term and takes off at taxpayer expense to tell other countries what they can do with their doubts.
+ The justice minister, breaking longtime written policy,
announces his bloodhounds will prosecute any voter fraud they can find. (His top assistant for such investigations quits in protest -- not the first assistant to do so.)
+ The officer in charge of releasing transition funds refuses to release them to the person with the most Electoral College votes.
+ All of this is because El Caudillo – as he repeatedly shouted – could not lose the election unless he was cheated by the liars in # many states’ offices, # uncountable numbers of local election offices, # liberalleftwingsocialistdemocrat party members and , of course # lyin’ media , who all ganged up against him.
+ And the head of the upper house of the Legislature, a crony of El Caudillo, says keep calm because it will all work out.
Trump's buddies are now offering "rewards" for evidence of election tampering. I am reminded of James Carville's comment about dragging a dollar bill through a trailer park.
ReplyDeleteTrump is also on Twitter now suggesting that pre-election "suppression polls" by MSM are illegal.
How about we talk about the calls made to voters in Detroit and Flint telling them the polls were too crowded and they could vote Wednesday. This happens every four years. And those calls aren't coming from the DNC.
Wonder if the phrase "suborning perjury" means anything to yhem?
DeleteThat Carville line is great!
DeleteJim, you have insisted all along that trump would respect our democracy and leave quietly.
ReplyDeleteApparently that is not going to be the case. I never thought it would be. He had been preparing for this quite openly since last spring - sending out a constant stream of lies about how the Dems would steal the election through voter fraud. He has been preparing his base for this fight knowing that they turn to twitter, Fox, Breitbart, and an entire galaxy of right-wing websites for their (dis)information.
What do you think now? Especially given his mis-use of DOJ when there is no evidences yet of any election fraud.
Barr has very often seemed to think he is Trump's personal attorney and so was all too willing to let DOJ be used as part of trump's political machinations. Does he still? He infuriated trump (and shocked me - pleasantly for a change) when he refused to investigate Biden and Obama. But - what now? Does he fear that trump will pull it off and that he will be canned in a tweet as so many others have been? If so, why is he going along with this? Maybe he figures he has already tarnished his reputation badly,and he wants to be sure he can still get a high-paid job on K street after this is all over. Sessions assumed that he would - but he was frozen out by the lobbying groups and law firms he had assumed would hire him. Is Barr just trying to make sure he still have a lucrative job after DOJ?
So - what are you thoughts on this article?
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/william-barr-can-stop-donald-trumps-attempted-coup
What do you think of him cleaning house at the Pentagon and replacing top level staff with "loyalists" - who might come to his aid if he doesn't want to leave the WH? Will he really try to take this to the Supreme Court? Alito's judgment already seems impaired.
He faces possible criminal trials and he apparently is not in good shape financially. He has a lot of reasons to try to become "President for life" - as he signaled he would like to do more than 16 times.
Do you still think he will go away politely on Jan 20?
Many in the MSM are getting a bit worried. So am I.
A few stories for you to read and respond to if you would.
https://tinyurl.com/y4m9kvao
And even though the 2000 election wasn't decided until Dec, Gore never tried to undermine the process
https://tinyurl.com/y67tbqub
Or maybe the plan is simply to continue to destroy the underpinnings of our democracy. Maybe he will leave - but only after destroying information that a new administration would need to get a fast start.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/11/11/you-can-deplore-republicans-nothing-is-being-stolen-its-far-worse/
I just read the last one, by Jennifer Rubin. I thought she had some good points.
DeleteWhat bugs me is the overweening sense of arrogance and entitlement these people have. That they *should* stay in power because it is their right.
And Barr and Pompeo are the worst ones of the lot for arrogance, IMO.
Delete"Jim, you have insisted all along that trump would respect our democracy and leave quietly."
DeleteHuh? Whaa? Hey, why drag me into this? :-)
For the record: I've assumed all along that he would disrespect our democracy and leave noisily. Perhaps I didn't say that explicitly in these precincts, but it's what I've expected. For him to do anything with dignity and decorum would be so out of character that we'd all suspect a stunt double had been smuggled into the Oval Office.
What I have said is that he will cease to be president on January 20th, and there is nothing he can do about it. I think and expect that any/all of these appeals, lawsuits and recount requests he's undertaking won't amount to a hill of beans.
I also think there is nothing dodgy or illegal about those appeals/recounts/lawsuits. State laws provide those avenues to him. He's got a right to request that states take a second look, even if it is a complete waste of everyone's time and our money. If he gets thrown out of court on his ear in every single court action, as seems to have been the case so far - well, so be it. Why should he exceed our expectations at this late date?
Regarding the New Yorker article - ugh. I had seen the headline in a daily enewsletter but hadn't clicked on it because I only get a few free reads a month from them, and the word "coup" in the headline seemed a clue that this one probably was overwrought. But on your recommendation, I took a look at it. I'm not persuaded. Anne, I know you are a world traveler and I am guessing you have been to places that have experienced actual coups. Usually, they involve tanks in the streets and men armed with automatics storming the palace. Whatever this is we're experiencing now, this is not that.
I read Barr's memorandum (of which I hadn't previously heard). I guess the key sentence is: "While serious allegations should be handled with great care, specious, speculative, fanciful or far - fetched claims should not be a basis for initiating federal inquiries." I agree with whomever it was in the New Yorker article said that Barr wrote it to get Trump off his back. I can't think of better adjectives for Trump's case for contesting last week's elections than "specious, speculative, fanciful or far-fetched." Except I probably would have used "spurious", too. And "evidence-free". I'll be surprised if that memorandum triggers a single investigation.
As for Trump's 11th-and-a-half-hour staffing changes: apparently he's bringing on some new rats to go down with the sinking ship.
We're in a strange news period right now, in which all the media and their consumers have been wound up as tight as a snare drum on a sugar high. It's hard to come down from that. Consequently, these stories about Trump's flailing about in the battleground states are receiving more play than they deserve. My advice to anyone and everyone whom those stories upset is to ignore them. None of this stuff is going anywhere.
We're witnessing death throes. They're always distressing and grotesque. It's okay to turn away.
Jim, I hope you are right. But The Don will not come to the conclusion it is time to go by himself. Who will help him decide to do the right thing and cry about it from Palm Beach? The kids? Big laugh there; their incomes and careers are at stake with him. Who does he listen to? Rudy? An adviser who will advise him to lash himself to the Resolulte desk. Pompeo? Barr? They are enablers. Might as well wait for Mark Zuckerberg to help you give up Facebook.
DeleteWhat I am saying is that I do not see any likely scenario that will make the four-year-old let go of the toy.
Look, Trump will likely run in 2024. He has said as much. He will likely start a committee the day after he leaves office. I am sure that he will raise enough money to allow him four years of jetting around the country to talk to his adoring fans. And of course for the next four years he will be telling people that the Democrats stole the election, and questioning the legitimacy of Biden just like he questioned the legitimacy of Obama.
ReplyDeleteHe has already set up a PAC like organization that will allow him to support selective Republican candidates. While the government will be getting rid of him, the Republican party is going to have a much more difficult time.
Actually I think Trump may enjoy campaigning for four years free from all dull briefings of being President. My impression was in the first two years he gave most of the governing off the House to solve. He just likes to be the center of attention.
If he continues to attract crowds and media attention he may become a Harold Stassen like figure perennially running for president either as a Republican or Independent. The latter might really make it difficult for any Republican to get elected.
Harold Stassen, a blast from the past, I had forgotten all about him.
DeleteYou're probably right that Trump enjoys campaigning much more than actually being president. Which could make things difficult for the Republican Party. Maybe the non-Trump Republicans should take Jennifer Rubin's suggestion and re-form as the Conservative Reality Party.
I really want that ranked choice voting so we can get more parties. We need a progressive party broken off from the Democrats. The Repubs can split into a conservative party and a bat guano crazy party with Trump as god emperor
DeleteI'm ready for the split. I think it would need a critical mass of party leaders to (a) bolt and (b) agree to work together. Those are two difficult requirements.
DeleteIt has happened at least one time previously in our history, sort of, when the Whig Party fell apart. But to describe that as "a split" is to greatly oversimplify things. For one thing, the country's two-party system wasn't quite as dominant then as it is now. The Democrats and the Whigs were the two primary, national parties, but there were also various abolitionist parties; and the Know Nothings were, for a decade or so, a nearly-national party with quite a few state-level offices under its belt - and I think some Congressmen as well.
When the Whigs dissolved, and the Republican Party formed, some but not all Whigs joined them. Until the end of the Civil War, the Republican Party was a regional party (the region being the North, of course); no Southerners had an interest in joining an abolitionist party prior to the war. There had been Southern Whigs, but they either became Democrats (which at that time was a pro-slavery party) or joined other parties; if you recall, when Lincoln was elected in 1860, it was a four-way race.
Slavery was such a toxic issue by then that it busted up the party stability which had prevailed for much of the first half of the 19th century. The Whigs had skirted the problem of slavery by focusing on other issues; their specialty was running former generals as presidential candidates.
My personal view is that abortion is similarly toxic. So far, it hasn't broken our two-party system; in fact, it has reinforced it, as over the last four decades or so, party membership has more or less sorted itself into pro-abortion and anti-abortion parties. I understand that, when Roe v Wade first was promulgated in the early 1970s, both major parties had room under their tents for pro-life and pro-choice candidates and members.
It has occurred to me that a Supreme Court decision that cancels out Roe v Wade case law could be quite destabilizing for the country, because it could spur pro-choice radical activity which has laid dormant. And alternatively, if the current court configuration declines to make major changes to the Roe v Wade case law, it might awaken dormant pro-life radicals. What those circumstances would mean for the two-party system, though, I am not certain. But the fundamental fact seems to me that a huge chunk of Americans are neither as stridently pro-choice as the Democratic Party nor as rabidly pro-life as (much of) the Republican Party.
The abortion wars are a proxy war, since the actual views of most Americans play out over a more or less bell curve. Both sides have approached it as primarily a supply problem, and neither has addressed the extern to which it is a demand problem.
Delete"extern" should be extent.
DeleteI can't see anyone enlisting to go to war over either side of the abortion fight. I do see it as a big suppurating wound in the body politics. Dumbest thing the Ds did was lash their flag to abortion. One of the sleaziest things the Rs did was drape their flag over the issue when they planned to nothing substantive about it.
Delete“the actual views of most Americans play out over a more or less bell curve”
DeleteYes when specific cases are evaluated most people agree most of the time, there are very few people who are always pro-life or pro-choice.
One social scientist said that we Americans are all both prolife and prochoice. That is Americans basically believe in life, family, God and the rule of law (i.e. traditional values) , but also believe in freedom, that individuals and families not the government should decide how that works out in practice.
The abortion debate is a great mobilizer of funds and volunteer efforts on both sides. Each side organizes its base through perceived threats from the other side.
DeleteThe reality is, unlike other issues like same-sex marriage, public opinion has changed very little on this issue. Young people's views are about the same as the elderly.
If anything abortion has became less supported among the young now that we have abundant pictures of fetuses in the womb whose humanity is difficult to deny.
The point of departure for this abortion digression was someone's suggestion that anti-Trump Republicans form a new party. I don't know what will happen to the GOP, but there is no doubt that Trump has put more stress on it than any other person or set of events I can recall. (Perhaps Watergate was similar in its stress. I was in grade school and middle school so wasn't very tuned in.)
DeleteDavid Leonhardt is reporting this morning that at least some party leaders apparently have reached the end of their patience with the president's alternate-reality show:
"More Republicans and their allies have begun acknowledging Biden’s victory, including Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio, the veteran party operative Karl Rove and the editorial board of The Las Vegas Review-Journal, a newspaper owned by the family of the Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson.
"Several more Republican senators — including Chuck Grassley, Lindsey Graham and John Thune — said Trump should let Biden receive classified intelligence briefings."
If it's been a solid red wall of enabling presidential fantasies previously, it seems it's starting to crumble. Mr. President, time to get the suitcases out of the garage or the attic or wherever they're stored in the White House.
Differences between Watergate and now: The vote of the House impeachment committee was bipartisan. (The earlier findings of the Senate -- Ervin Committee -- investigation was similarly bipartisan with a minority report as well.) The president was persuaded it was time to go by a delegation of top Republicans in Congress -- Sens Hugh Scott of Pa., and Barry Goldwater of Ariz., and Rep. John Rhodes of Ohio, if memory hasn't failed me. After the House impeachment committee vote, they went to the White House and told Nixon he had no more support in Congress. He threw in the towel.
ReplyDeleteBut in those days there were "liberal" Republicans and "conservative" Democrats, and most members of Congress had backbones and could stand upright as themselves.
Tom - I may have mentioned already: on a recent episode of Firing Line, I listened to Margaret Hoover interview Angus King, the Independent Maine senator who caucuses with Democrats. He really impressed me. He seemed quite old-fashioned in the seriousness of his temperament and the way he eschewed over-the-top rhetoric. He even has a mustache which makes him look like a dignified older gentleman from the 1950s. I told some friends that, 40 years ago, he would have been a Republican and we would have been glad to have him.
DeleteCharles Pierce calls King "the Mustache of Righteousness." You are right; 40 years ago he would have been an "eastern Republican," like Jacob Javits, John Lindsay, Clifford Case or, for that matter and going back a little farther, Teddy Roosevelt. They never would have let Trump happen.
DeleteYes, I blame the Republican "leadership" for letting Trump mount his hostile takeover of the party in 2015-16.
DeleteIt is possible that Republicans have won more elections in Trump's time than they would have without him. He very nearly pulled off the presidency again - seemingly despite a political death wish. Trump is both cause and symptom of what ails the party and the country.