I’ve now reached the white-hot rage point of the political transition:
After failing repeatedly in court to overturn election results, President Trump is taking the extraordinary step of reaching out directly to Republican state legislators as he tries to subvert the Electoral College process, inviting Michigan lawmakers to meet with him at the White House on Friday.
Mr. Trump contacted the Republican majority leader in the Michigan State Senate to issue the invitation, according to a person briefed on the invitation. It is not clear how many Michigan lawmakers will be making the trip to Washington, nor precisely what Mr. Trump plans to say to the lawmakers.
Trump is clearly going to request that the Republican leaders from the Michigan legislature take some extralegal action to prevent the certification of the state’s election results. Even if he is persuasive, this effort will fail. The legislators do not have the power to prevent the certification, and even if they did it wouldn’t prevent Biden from having won a majority of the Electoral College’s votes.
But the degree to which the current president is willing to go to divide this country, undermine our faith in our elections, and sandbag the incoming president is so extreme that I now want the severest penalties meted out against him and anyone who has committed crimes in his name.
Furious doesn’t even begin to describe my mood.
There’s also a great editorial in today’s Times from Wajahat Ali about reaching out to Trump supporters. He’s done. So am I. That 73 million people voted for him and believe the conspiratorial bullshit that Trump, his media supporters, and the unhinged pour out every day is a sad commentary on America. As Wajahat Ali said, work in your local communities, organize and get out the vote, and make changes locally. As for Trump and his norm-and-law shattering behavior…wherever they can, prosecute the bastard.
There is no reaching right-wing authoritarians who have found their rightful authority figure who demands their loyalty.
They literally become a Death Cult. This isn’t exaggeration. They are a Death Cult.
I’ve been done with these fools for a long time.
“Neither prison nor exile can make his an innocent existence.”
(Robespierre)
I’d be at my breaking point too if I knew what to do after I’d reached it. What gets me is how many rank and file Republicans support him and how many of their leaders would choose autocracy over democracy and rule of law. It’s shocking but shouldn’t be surprising. It’s happened elsewhere so why not here?
How can you be furious at Trump without also being furious at his supporters and his enablers? Where do we draw the line? How does this not end in a Civil War?
Weaponized Federalism.
Create a soft Blue States of America and Red States of America.
Let Republican voters fully get what they actually vote for without Blue State of America rules and regulations saving their ass while they punch us in the fucking throat.
https://www.politicalorphans.com/democrats-should-weaponize-federalism/
I read the article, and while I agree with it in theory, in reality the brunt of this would fall on the poor and vulnerable. The wealthy and middle class of these states would not feel it (or even see it) at all.
“Bait Republican Governors or Legislatures into stripping wage protections from workers and watch what happens at election time.” Nothing would happen. Wage protections and employment protections are extremely weak/nonexistent in many of these states. They’re already used to it.
“In other words, dangle in front of them the chance to eliminate Medicare and Medicaid in their states. Would they turn that down? Hell no.” And the elderly and vulnerable—including children—would suffer, while the people you’re hoping to stir to action wouldn’t feel it at all.
“Place bait on that hook by offering opt-out states compromises on charter schools or some other stupid Republican priority. Adopt Biden’s impressive unemployment insurance reforms by offering Republicans an opt-out allowing them to gut their states’ unemployment insurance systems.” And again, the folks you want to punish won’t feel it, and the folks you want to protect will be destroyed.
The simpler way is national dissolution. I don’t think there’s a need for a war to preserve the union. I think we should just let them go, and offer resettlement assistance in the north for people who don’t want to live in the new confederacy.
That’s the rub. There are thousands of nuclear weapons and military bases at play here.
There’s no way that there can be a hard break without fighting and a lot more death than simply giving Republicans the Federalism they’ve been screaming for, good and hard.
There are enough “swing states” that do not receive their Red States of America polices due to Blue States of America rules and regulations.
Give them the policies that their representatives lust after. Let the swing states actually get their laboratory of democracy. Let them eat cake.
It will be painful for a lot of people, but that’s the point.
I used to believe that a hard break, secession, whatever, was inevitable. And I still do. But first, we need a soft break. And Federalism IS in the Constitution. Make a soft Blue States of America and Red States of America. Let the Red States that are Purple decide whether they want a higher QOL as a Blue State and let them elect Blue State Politicians. And then after the Blue States and Red States sort themselves out, a hard break will be a lot more palatable and more likely a lot less violent.
Funny you say that. Wanna bet there are not already many would be fighters on both sides? I may even know a few. This is a terrible time in America, a pandemic and possible war. I wonder if Trump and the republican party even consider that.
No one would fight. Most northerners would be glad to see them go.
If the red states wanted to secede or allow the blue states to do so, I would be happy to let it happen. Yeah I know there are military bases and such. Some states would have to vote on it but look at the map and it seems pretty clear which are ready to go. Maybe then we can toss the electoral college.
It all makes me wonder what Trump could possibly be planning, if planning anything is possible for him, or if he’s just sowing chaos and hoping he can pull the system down and somehow come out on top? What with this and Covid spiking at the same time, the next few weeks are going to be close to unbearable. I wish I could just knock myself over the head and wake up in 2021 already. I’d trade the headache for missing this crap.
All the talk I’m hearing about looking forward and not back needs to stop. The ship of state isn’t merely off course. It’s navigated up a narrowing channel without room to turn around. Looking back at the lawlessness of the soon to be former administration needs to be done immediately while memories are fresh. We saw Hatch Act violations on live TV! There has to be much more below the surface. Break up this current iteration of the Republican Party and let the five law-abiding conservatives pick up the pieces.
Yes, this.
If the previous administration isn’t fully held accountable for their various crimes, this country is completely finished. It will have proven to every last Republican that there are NO REPURCUSSIONS of breaking the law openly and demanding loyalty while doing so.
Criminals need to be held accountable, and Biden has to work to decrease the power of the Imperial Presidency. Otherwise, the next Republican President WILL NOT turn over power and the experiment in democracy will be over.
At this point, Martin, I’m taking unseemly pleasure in watching the beast writhe in pain and enjoying his futile efforts to avoid his fate as erstwhile allies abandon him. He’s smashing precious things, including lives, on his way out and we’ll need to repair it as best and fast as we can but will not forget the damage done and who did it.
Trump’s autogolpe should be taken seriously insofar as it will set the stage for some of his paramilitary allies will haul off and do something stupid, and to the extent that it makes repairing a very broken system all the more difficult going forward. I seriously doubt it will succeed. Most self-coups that succeed (or at least partially succeed, as in the case of Venezuela’s Maduro) have the backing of the military. Trump doesn’t have that. He has maybe border patrol and customs, as well as the aforementioned paramilitaries that have sprung up in recent years. They’d never last if they got into a shooting war with the actual US military. I doubt I’d lose much sleep over it. Let’s still hope it never happens. Any behaviors that Trump and his cronies engage in to interfere with this election should be documented, and anyone who participated actively (or even merely aided and abetted) should be held fully accountable, and that includes hard time in a supermax (Trump, Giuliani, Graham, the whole lot of them). Biden may want to move on, but I sure hope that Federal law enforcement do their due diligence regardless, given just how serious the damage Trump has done has been. Unless examples are made of this particular crime syndicate cosplaying a political organization, things only get worse. And forget talking to or listening to the cult. Run of the mill conservatives are one thing. The kool-aid drinkers are something else. They’re gone.
I am legitimately petrified. The assault to our democracy has been so multi pronged due to the dance between trump and McConnell. There is damages at two extremes- one of active sabotage and manipulation (eg judiciary) and one of malignant neglect (Eg deregulation and massive deficits in appropriate staffing and funding)
how do we fix the actual future the way we need to AND run these fuckers aground? I would love to do both but am so scared because our resources are limited and our relationship is ruined with our allies
just, … how?
I have only slightly less rage against all the Democrats who you just know are going to urge against seeking substantive criminal prosecutions.
The adjective which best describes my mood these days is “incandescently angry.”
Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?
— Joseph Nye Welch
Decency? Such a quaint idea.
In our modern and I believe healthy efforts to eliminate toxic shame, we’ve reached a place where shame itself has become unfashionable. I think it would be great if our society began to recognize the distinction between toxic and healthy shame. That people should have a conscience and a sense that there are lines decent people do not cross.
That’s part of what ails us. The other part is a long legacy of racial apartheid which has gone largely underground but is by no means finished. White folks on the lowest rung of the social hierarchy have long clung to unconscious notions that they are at least better than “those people”. That’s a hard thing to give up and it’s not surprising that people would sooner give up wealth and opportunity to advance. Losing privilege can feel terrifying. A black man in the White House was a huge signal to many that their world had become unsafe. It was of course just another step in the direction toward equality, a path we’ve been on for some time. Gay rights, a woman of color a heartbeat away from the presidency and a whole bunch of other changes can seem terrifying to those locked into the racial caste system that predates our county and dates to the mid 17th Century.
In the long run, I think we’re in the death throws of a culture which makes for crazy times. It would not surprise me if we descended to some horrible places for a time. It would not surprise me if we became an autocracy for a time. Even concentration or death camps would not surprise me. We committed genocide on Native Americans. Best estimates are about 8 million died. If it happens again, it could be on an industrial scale that makes that look like nothing. Anything’s possible but I hope we don’t go there. If we can get through the next 50 years, I imagine demographics shifts will carry us through to the other side of this rage over lost privilege. I still dream of a time when people won’t see themselves as better or worse over something as banal as skin color any more than they do now over shoe size. Bodies come in all shapes, sizes and colors and those differences are meaningless.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svUyYzzv6VI