- [A]pparently believing it would be too cruel to cut Trump off from his institutional support base completely, conservatives decided to arrange for him a sort of Make-a-Wish Foundation version of Bush v. Gore. Before he is out of his misery, everyone will expend a lot of energy creating the appearance of challenging the results of the election in order to appease the president.
I'm getting so tired of this shit. Coup, putsch, autogolpe, whatever definition allows you to triangulate to clutched pearls requires extralegal maneuvers. The reason everyone says "coup but not really coup autogolpe look it up ITS BAD GUYZ" is that coups have invariably involved military force. No military force? 'k then it's a revolution. But it's not a revolution if it's the government staying in power but our panties are still in a twist so obviously it's a 2020 MAGApush Autogulp Coupe XT Gran Turismo with three cupholders WHY AREN'T YOU SCREAMING YET There's the Trump administration, and there's the Trump administration in exile. Team Trump is currently trying to shape the exile into a financially lucrative position. Nobody knows how much debt the Trump campaign carries; we now know that Trump himself carries a billion in debt and he's sitting on a brand that's radioactive as far as more than half the world is concerned. The only thing Team Trump can do right now is put on a great show of putting up a fight because it's gonna draw more attention to the sequel. Everyone dancing for the cameras right now? They want a role in that new movie because it's abundantly clear that walk-ons become starring roles as the attrition kicks in - Gestapo Barbie was an intern on the Mike Huckabee show and bailed when it was clear she wasn't gonna earn any camera time but lookitthat sweep out enough deadwood and you, too, can be press secretary for the most powerful man in the world. Everything we're seeing now? That's opportunists and grifters clawing their way to the top of the credits. Why the fuck does a Mike Huckabee show intern have a wikipedia page? Shameless opportunism. The only. Reasonable response. To any of this shit is to let them do what they're legally allowed to do, stomp on shit they aren't legally allowed to do, and recognize that if they had any juice to do anything else they would have used it by now. Yeah - they're definitely gearing up for more malfeasance but the only thing you can do at this point is give them air. There is NO response that benefits anyone but Team Trump. And that's why none of these articles have any suggestions as to what to do about it, other than get scared and share on Twitter.
I think it's a bunch of patronizing republicans humoring a terminal child floating a coup. Fuck the new york times for burying that shit down in a pithily-titled article. That is a headline. Blows my mind that he thinks he'll get multiple states to pull that shit. I know we talked about how the PA GOP was considering the possibility of sending 20 GOP electors regardless of their popular vote outcome, but good fucking luck with getting another few states on board.
I came across an article on Twitter today that was written back in August that imagined just that scenario, with the election then going to the House, which, given its tilt toward the GOP in numbers of state delegations controlled, would vote Trump. However, they proposed a trick Pelosi could pull to counter that move, which is to have Democratic challenges come forward to dispute House races. Apparently, the Speaker (or Senate majority leader) is the final arbiter of a disputed congressional race, which was news to me. It is used so seldomly that no one really knows this. The author of the article had to go back to Mary Landrieu in like 1996 to find the most recent time the Majority Leader sat a member of a disputed election (though it was easy because it was clear she won the vote). So Pelosi could just say, "Fuck you, GOP, John Smith says he won, and I say he did, too." Obviously it won't come to that, but it's fun to learn what doomsday scenarios could await.
Didn't know some of that, thanks. It's not clear to me how the results of the SCOTUS ruling on this earlier this year would impact this scenario. Is the PA GOP state legislature planning to use the ruling to say, "See, it's ok that we ordered what we considered to be faithless democrat electors to vote republican!"? Guess we'll find out.
PA's electors are not in the slightest bit beholden to the legislature. They are selected by the winning candidate. As the law is currently written, meaning the law as it applies to this election, whoever is certified the winner of the election submits their list of electors to the governor, who is a Democrat, who won by a 17% plurality in 2018. Everybody wants there to be all this drama but as I understand it, and I've looked it up three times now for panicky liberals on Hubski, PA votes go to the winner of PA's general election and if PA wants different votes it needs to overturn the election.
Thanks, man. I dunno if I missed the last two times or just didn't process them, sorry. Edit: What do you think an electoral college vote fetches? Like, money wise? Asking for Rudy Giuliiiii.... just someone I overheard asking a guy on the street about it. No no no, I'm motivated to put the drama to bed. Shit, I'm motivated by being able to better put myself to bed, but I can understand if the result is indistinguishable.Everybody wants there to be all this drama
No one who might be able to break the spell of Trump seems willing to rip off the Band-Aid. It's revealing that the Republican Party acts around Trump the way people acted around Stalin or Hitler. No-one dares to be the bringer of bad news. Except with these men there was proven reason to be afraid. To behave this way around Donald Trump, of all people, just makes Republicans look pathetic.To sum up the current situation, the U.S. is experiencing a fake self-coup that requires the administration to do exactly the things a regime would do if it were attempting to stage an actual self-coup, with millions of people sincerely believing the stated justifications for the strongman’s consolidation of power and with the regime’s legislative allies playing along, under the apparent belief that eventually the courts, which are stocked with unqualified loyalists, will soon say the game is done.
A coup is a coup, for you, for you, And no one can speak to a coup, for you, Unless, for you, the coup is the bigly Mr. Trump! --- P.S. I write pro-Trump memes only now, pays better