Joe Biden would be the oldest person ever elected president and Kamala Harris would be the first woman, the first Black person, and the first Indian American to be elected vice president. Those on the left can
debate her
merits. And the campaign has already turned
ugly.
But Amanda Marcotte has a stark
warning:
This election, at the end of the day, is coming down to one single question: Will [von Clownstick] be able to steal it?
It doesn't
help that the U.S. Postal Service is now
alerting states to make adjustments for
late ballots. Marcotte is hopeful people will be prepared to do something about it.
Organizers and journalists, thankfully, have considerable resources when it comes to convincing voters that this threat is real and must be taken seriously.
Having [Dear Leader] confess to his nefarious plan on TV helps circumvent that reluctance to believe that, yes, he really is trying to steal the election.
For journalists and pundits, the most important thing is to break long-standing habits of viewing everything in electoral politics through the filter of standard horse-race analysis. That stuff just doesn't matter as much in an election where there's only one way [Fuckface] can possibly win: by cheating.
How something will "play" with voters doesn't much matter if voters can't vote. And that's what this election will come down to: Whether people get a chance to vote at all.
The only way we get back to normal is by facing this problem head on: The president is trying to steal the election, he has the means to do it, and he very well may succeed unless he's met with massive, organized resistance.
Update (August 15): Representative Bill Pascrell has
made a "criminal referal" to New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal.
I call upon you to open a wide-ranging investigation of [Dear Leader's] actions to interfere in our elections and to empanel a grand jury for the purpose of considering criminal indictments for [Fuckface von Clownstick], U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy .... [who] are participating in ... the subversion of New Jersey state elections.
We do not have much time to prepare and our state, like others, will rely absolutely on the USPS’s efficiency. Amid this ongoing pandemic, the USPS will be the electoral heart and engine of New Jersey’s and America’s electoral machinery.
American democracy is today in question.
Update (August 16 ): Democrats in the House of Representatives are
calling on Louis DeJoy to testify at a committee hearing.
Update (August 17): Heather Digby Parton
reminds us that voter suppression is a Republican tradition.
[Dear Leader] is taking it to a new level, however, by attempting to suppress Republican votes right along with Democrats. For years the GOP has been pushing voting by mail to help their senior and rural constituencies who have tended to prefer it.
All of this is downright self-defeating if he wants to get out his vote, but that's clearly not what he's trying to achieve.
It appears that all this nonsense is in service of a plan to contest his defeat if the vote count is delayed or if there's any significant confusion, regardless of the vote margin. And he won't have to go it alone. The New York Times reported last May that the Republican Party was gearing up to help him.
This isn't a [Fuckface] thing. It's a GOP thing. And it's been going on for a very long time. At some point, this country is going to have to come to terms with the fact that the Republican Party is fundamentally hostile to democracy and do something about it.
Have
lawsuits caused Agent Orange to change his tune?
SAVE THE POST OFFICE!
Also, Amanda Marcotte
argues that impeachment worked to get more people to actually pay attention to this latest attempt to steal the election.
Yes, he was technically acquitted by the Republican-controlled Senate, but it's unlikely there's a single soul in this country that actually mistakes that vote for an assertion that [Manbaby] is innocent. On the contrary, the evidence of [his] guilt that was brought to bear was overwhelming, and the acquittal was really more a demonstration of the widespread Republican embrace of cheating in service of winning elections.
In other words, the sustained attention to the Ukraine scandal made one thing absolutely clear: [Fuckface] has no compunction about cheating to win in 2020.
The question is no longer about whether [he] is corrupt, but more about whether or not voters care about that. Now that his corruption is threatening their ability not just to vote but to receive all the things ordinary people get by mail, there's good reason to believe it will finally come back to bite him.
And Zach Carter
says von Clownstick must be held accountable.
[He] admitted to a serious crime last week — one much more severe than his effort to coerce the Ukrainian government into attacking his political rival, which rightly resulted in his impeachment.
[T]his is not a moment for the theater of public questioning alone. It demands action — subpoenas, investigations and documentation that state lawmakers can use to bring legal action against the administration swiftly. Time is running out.
Update (August 18): Bob Cesca
lays out the plan to steal the election--convince the MAGAs not to worry about the pandemic so that they'll be willing to vote in person, challenge absentee voting everywhere as fraudulent, sabotage confidence in the U.S. Postal Service, and limit options even further by getting rid of ballot drop boxes.
The ultimate goal here is to disenfranchise his opposition while corralling his supporters into voting booths on Election Day. Any absentee ballots that make it through [Dear Leader's] gauntlet will face legal challenges before they're counted. As long as the options are narrow, he can control the process.
[T]hat's on top of the voter ID laws, voter purges, voting booth restrictions and all the rest of it. The party of [Agent Orange] knows its days are numbered, so it's doing everything it can to rig the process against the growing majority of Americans who are done with [Fuckface] and all his insanity and fascism.
There's still time to stop him. We have to. Once he's gone, former U.S. attorney Glenn Kirschner's concept for a [Fuckface] Crimes Commission should be launched, investigating a wide range misdeeds, up to and including the sabotage of the USPS. I hope [Manbaby] and his adult children have picked out non-extradition nations and packed their go-bags. They'll need 'em.
Update (August 20): Amanda Terkel and Brooklyn Wayland have a
collection of Fuckface statements aimed at undermining the election.
And what's this? Republicans
failed to produce any evidence of election fraud related to
mail-in ballots for a Pennsylvania lawsuit? Could they be inventing the whole issue of election fraud?
Update (August 21): It sure is infuriating. Rather than take
steps to prevent problems, Fuckface would rather
rant about the evils of mail-in voting every day until the election and beyond.
You’ll never have an election count on November 3rd. You’re not going to be able to know the end of this election, in my opinion, for weeks, months — maybe never.
Alan Blotcky
says Dear Leader is growing increasingly desperate and that "[h]is psyche will continue to unravel before our eyes
".
[Agent Orange] is now trying to steal the election by crippling the Postal Service. He is fueling a campaign of voter suppression. He knows it is his only chance to win. He is adamantly opposed to national mail-in voting. Such voting would defeat him for certain. No matter what happens with mail-in voting, [Manbaby] is already setting the stage for claims that he is the victim of voter fraud. This could conceivably allow him to confound and even paralyze the whole election process.
The next 11 weeks will be unsettling and scary for all of us. That is not presidential leadership; that is psychiatric disturbance breathing unrest and disarray into our daily lives.
Update (August 24): After Louis DeJoy's testimony to the House Oversight Committee, Amanda Marcotte
says Democrats need to continue to urge people to vote by mail early and use drop boxes.
DeJoy's scowling performance on Monday did little to dissuade fears that he's deliberately undermining the post office, either partially or entirely for the purpose of helping [Dear Leader] steal the election.
Update (August 28): As Fuckface himself rants against mail-in voting, it seems Junior
made a recorded call to supporters.
I’m calling on behalf of the Republican National Committee because my father, ... has already made you an official absentee ballot request which may have already arrived or will soon arrive. [He] is counting on you to make a plan to return your absentee ballot request.
Meanwhile, Julia Conley
refers to a CBS poll to argue Biden is wasting effort trying to appeal to moderate Republicans. At this point Biden is winning a lower percent of Republican votes than Obama or even Clinton.
Among Republicans, Biden trails 5 to 93 percent. Among Independents, Biden trails 37 to 47 percent. Among Democrats, Biden leads 95 to 3 percent. Overall, Biden leads 52 to 42 percent.
Conley quotes David Sirota:
Three things stand out in this new CBS poll:
1. Biden has a solid overall lead (good!)
2. [Agent Orange] has a disturbingly big lead among independents (bad!)
3. There's basically no such thing as a Biden Republican, which means defeating [Dear Leader] is all about Democratic turnout.
But then Amanda Marcotte
says the only Republican strategy is to "actively
incite and encourage violence, and then turn around and feign outrage while promising voters '
law and order'". Reed Galen
explains the contest will get closer and come down to swing voters in key states. The hope is that Republicans are doing nothing to appeal to those voters.
[Fuckface] and his campaign look at their polling and know he can’t win a majority of the vote. They’re not even trying. Instead, [von Clownstick] is hoping to do nothing more than keep the election from being a total blowout on Election Day. That way, he has a chance to roll the dice and hit the Electoral College the hard way — or, failing that, utilize his goon squad to stir up trouble, contest the election and make the transition from his administration to Biden’s incredibly disruptive and painful.
Update (September 3): Agent Orange is stirring up the
chaos by telling people to vote twice. Karen Hobert Flynn, president of Common Cause,
responds:
The Department of Justice needs to make absolutely clear to the public that what the president is encouraging his supporters to do is to commit a felony punishable by jail time. This cannot be the cable news fumbling of Attorney General William Barr trying to not to offend the president by excusing his urging of Americans to commit crimes.
What [Fuckface] is suggesting his supporters do is not only nonsense, but it is also a felony meant to undermine the integrity of our elections. You cannot test election integrity rules by breaking them any more than you can rob a bank to make sure your money is safe.
Also, in North Carolina it is
illegal for "any person with intent to commit a fraud to register or vote at more than one precinct or more than one time,
or to induce another to do so". [Emphasis added]
Former FBI special agent Asha Rangappa has a
theory.
[He] knows he’s going to lose in a fair fight. So he tells his supporters to vote twice, knowing some of them are dumb enough to try. When they get arrested, he’ll claim that [his] voters are being targeted, deep state, rigged, etc. but Democrats are getting away with "fraud".
But it's just one part of the plan to steal the election. Amanda Marcotte has an
update.
[T]he sheer number of schemes in play is all the more reason to worry, because it shows [Dear Leader's] team is flexible and capable of adapting to changing circumstances.
1. Keep as many Democrats as possible from voting in the first place.
2. Declare victory on Election Day before final results are tallied.
3. Disqualify as many mail-in ballots as possible.
4. Build an ad hoc right-wing militia to intimidate election officials or pro-democracy protesters.
5. If all else fails, reject the election results by declaring the election "rigged" and refuse to leave office.
We're hoping to find out that at least somewhat less than half of all voters are insane. But then there's this:
A YouGov poll taken in January 2020 shows that a majority of Republican voters agree that the "traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it" and only 22% were willing to disagree. Similarly, 41% believed that "a time will come when patriotic Americans have to take the law into their own hands" and only 22% disagreed. The rest were "unsure," which likely means they will either softly support such violence or at least will do nothing to stop it.
Update (September 14): Heather Digby Parton reiterates what we know:
It's obvious by now that [Fuckface] is no longer trying to win the election by legitimate means.
The idea here is to end election night with [Dear Leader] in the lead and cement the idea that he's the winner, no matter what.
But there is reason to hope things might work out better than we imagine.
Democrats are well aware that Florida counts its mail-in votes quickly, so winning there is more important than ever. If that happens [Fuckface] will find the tables turned on him and will suddenly have to tell his voters to wait for the mail-in votes in other states to be counted. He'll still cause chaos and declare that the vote was stolen elsewhere, of course. But it sure won't look good if his "perfect" state goes the wrong way.
Update (September 23): The focus now is on election day and only counting votes on that day. Lawsuits will be filed and the courts may end up deciding the winner of the presidential election. Filling a Supreme Court seat before the election is now crucial to the plan. Heather Digby Parton:
I thought [Dear Leader] was being shortsighted in his desire to "win" this battle before the election — but maybe I was wrong. Frankly, I'm pretty sure that if the Republicans thought he could win the election outright they would have persuaded him to use the open Supreme Court seat to help him get out the vote. But they all know that he's extremely unpopular and highly unlikely to win a free and legitimate contest. So they've decided to try to re-run the disastrous 2000 election and have their partisan majority on the Supreme Court install [Fuckface] for another term instead. It worked marvelously the first time around — and it's probably their best shot.
We're left with the hope that the rush to appoint new justice is motivating enough to produce a landslide win for Democratic candidates.
Update (September 24): While Joshua Geltzer offers some reassurances about the law, it's hard not to be nervous when Agent Orange gives this answer on whether he's committed to a peaceful transfer of power should he lose in the election:
We are going to have to see what happens.
Amanda Marcotte says Fuckface is giving up the advantage of surprise by announcing his coup plans in advance, but Joshua Holland suggests the election is already in the process of being stolen--if people assume that's what he's going to do, they are less likely to vote.
[Dear Leader] is banking on Democrats coming to believe that their votes won’t count, becoming demoralized and not putting in the effort to jump through the necessary hoops to participate.
Update (September 25): Dan Froomkin notes that some of the mainstream press is finally taking notice of Dear Leader's threat to democracy. There's also a memo circulating on options for Democrats to delay the confirmation of a new Supreme Court justice. Heather Digby Parton emphasizes that Republicans only care about raw power.
They are craven opportunists who have observed the way [Fuckface] has exposed the weaknesses in our system and showed them how liberating the simple act of blatant shamelessness can be. They see how easily power can be seized, and that if the opponent doesn't have a countervailing institutional strength, there is nothing to stop them from keeping it.
Republicans know they could afford to wait until after the election is decided — in fact, under the normal terms of political self-interest, that would probably be smarter. But they are ready and willing to install a new Supreme Court justice before the election for the express purpose of handing [Agent Orange] a second term. If they succeed in doing so, they will irreparably destroy the legitimacy of the court, and quite possibly the legitimacy of our democratic system altogether.
Yet Sophia Tesfaye doesn't see much hope in Democrats actually doing anything about it.
Republicans lie, cheat and steal. Democrats pretend to "resist" with weak appeals to the nonexistent conscience of Republicans who long ago sold their supposed principles down the river.
Whether they boycott hearings, bring impeachment articles against Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, or use Senate rules to slow down normal business, Democrats have more than a few arrows in their quiver. But despite Pelosi's brave words, Democrats' actions this week suggest they have no real intention to pull them out to save our democracy.
Update (October 1): Amanda Marcotte lists five ways to prevent a stolen election.
1. Don't panic.
2. Vote! Early and in person, if possible.
3. Volunteer to get out the vote — and consider focusing your efforts on Florida.
4. Volunteer to be an election protector.
5. Prepare yourself now for the post-election fight for all votes to be counted.
Update (October 28): The Supreme Court is already dropping hints about limiting the count of mail-in ballots. From Justice Kavanaugh:
States want to avoid the chaos and suspicions of impropriety that can ensue if thousands of absentee ballots flow in after election day and potentially flip the results of an election.
So maybe partial results shouldn't be publicized because the actual results aren't known until all the legitamate votes are counted.
Update (October 29): Fuckface literally wants courts to stop the states from counting ballots after election day. And several justices are ready to comply. Rick Hasen is somewhat hopeful though.
It is unlikely the Supreme Court will decide the 2020 elections because it would have to be so close in a state pivotal to the Electoral College that litigating could make a difference. That's what happened in 2000 and it could happen again, but odds are against it. If cases do get to the court, we have seen the court divide along ideological and party lines in some key election cases. I hope that would not be the case in 2020.
Update (November 2): Because he's such a fucking asshole, Dear Leader needs to continue to keep us on edge--Heather Digby Parton outlines all the ways Republicans might screw with the election.
None of this may come to pass, or at least not in a way that changes the outcome of the election. A lot of what Team [Orange] is doing can be seen as hype to get their voters out and work the refs, meaning the media, state officials and the federal judiciary. Whether [Fuckface] is able to seriously contest the election results will remain unclear until we see how the votes come in, but there's every indication that when he told some of his extremist fans to "stand by," they heard him loud and clear.
Let's hope that the results are decisive and that [Manbaby] is persuaded to behave like a mature, responsible leader for once. It would be a welcome irony if the night he loses the election is the night he finally does become a president.
Update (November 4): As of this morning, six states are undecided and still counting millions of votes. As expected, Fuckface declared victory overnight. Heather Digby Parton:
It's simply impossible to understand how 45% of our fellow Americans could actually admire and respect someone who would do such an inexplicably un-American thing. How could they possibly want such a person to lead this country? That's the question that will haunt all of us for a very long time.
