Trump's Plan Isn't Merely Cheating. It's a Hijacking.

[mcar]

A rare weekend Pierce.

Trump's Plan Isn't Merely Cheating. It's a Hijacking.
The president*'s campaign is stating, flatly, that it intends to pretend he won re-election because only votes cast on Election Day are legitimate votes.

By Charles P. Pierce
Nov 1, 2020

Tout les 'Toobz were abuzz on Sunday with this scooplet from Axios about the nice shiny gaslight that the administration* is polishing up for your Election Night viewing pleasure.

Many prognosticators say that on election night, Trump will likely appear ahead in Pennsylvania — though the state's final outcome could change substantially as mail-in ballots are counted over the following days. Trump's team is preparing to claim baselessly that if that process changes the outcome in Pennsylvania from the picture on election night, then Democrats would have "stolen" the election. Trump's advisers have been laying the groundwork for this strategy for weeks, but this is the first account of Trump explicitly discussing his election night intentions.

...

Campaigns never make it quite this plain. Every campaign believes in winning by any means, fair or acceptably foul. But this is so far out of bounds that it's out in Lot C grilling burgers for the tailgate. The president*'s campaign is stating, flatly, that, given the right set of circumstances, it intends to pretend to have won re-election because only votes cast on Election Day are legitimate votes.

The president*'s campaign is saying right out loud what it plans to do. There is brownshirt thuggery in the streets and a remarkable number of local police seem to be on board with vigilante electioneering. On the more polite side of things, the infrastructure of partisan finagling in the courts is in place. (The idea that there even is a hearing in a federal court on Monday that may result in over 100,000 legitimate votes in Houston being thrown out is a towering outrage, especially now that the Texas Supreme Court, which never has been a fraternal organization for democratic socialists, has for the third time declared that it wants no part of this decision.) This part of the operation, of course, was born when Chief Justice John Roberts declared the Day of Jubilee. Since that day in 2013, over 1,000 polling places have been closed in the states previously covered by the Voting Rights Act of 1965. After four years of installing Federalist Society bots at all levels of the federal judiciary, the architecture of a mockery is all in place. It is no wonder the president*'s campaign can announce so plainly that it intends to bumrush the entire process. This isn't "cheating." It's more violent than that. It's a hijacking.

This reality puts a massive responsibility on the shoulders of the legitimate political media. (Fox News, we can assume, will be happy to go along with the program.) They have been warned. The precedents from 2000 are not encouraging, god knows. But that year, at least, a lot of the ratfcking took place offstage. For example, the infamous Florida purge list didn't come to widespread public notice until it already had purged. Some of what went on—the "Brooks Brothers riot," to name one famous episode—was very nearly an improv. This time, the president*'s campaign is sharing the entire playbook in advance, and every bit of it should be factored into the coverage of the election. One side of this election doesn't care for democratic self-government, and is committed to sabotaging it from the streets to the courtrooms. That's the only story that matters.

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a34544704/trump-declare-victory-election-night-hijacking/

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. Yeah, like some of us said, he aint going nowhere, the gop and putin will take over by force

and so on.

I hope I am wrong, but we wouldnt even have to discuss it if it werent for all those HILLARY BASHERS out there, they know who they are

I hate them and they brought this to us...

You fucking whiners have killed me and family members, we arent dead yet but some of us will be BECAUSE of that.

Too bad we didnt just UNITE to defeat that fucker

[mcar]

2. I will never forget or forgive, Eliot

I feel strongly the result will be different this time but I am nervous.

I'll be poll watching all day Tuesday; have done several shifts of early voting. Also text banking and my Democratic Women's Club activities. I volunteered for HRC's campaign but didn't do that much.

I will not wake up on Wednesday and wonder if I should have done more.

[Eliot Rosewater]

4. ON my end it is money, I have donated more than in many past combined, i figure my money

is no good if putin wins anyway.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

3. Most states have already started counting absentee and

advance voting ballots. And those will generally be the very first results released at the close of polls in each state. Trump apparently thinks every state is exactly like Pennsylvania, where seven counties won't start counting the mailed in ballots until Wednesday. The rest of the state will start counting those ballots Tuesday morning. Which means a lot of them will have been tallied before the polls close, and again, may be the first vote totals announced.

And in all honesty, and with all due respect to the Great State of Pennsylvania, I'm going to doubt that it will be the one and only one that will matter in the end.

[mcar]

11. My home Commonwealth, Pennsy

My hometown, Scranton. And I agree completely.

[kurtcagle]

5. This is why Biden has been quietly lining up lawyers

The problem with Trump is that he telegraphs. He's a lousy poker player. People who gaslight usually are. So long as he can keep people reacting, that isn't a big problem for him - which is why he tries to overwhelm with bullshit. However, this strategy only works when people are not prepared for it. Biden's prepared for it. He knows full well that Trump is going to try to claim the election as soon as possible, and I would be vastly surprised if he doesn't have a strategy to counter it already well worked out.

The thing about elections is that it isn't over when a politician says that it's won. It's over when his opponent concedes, when there's evidence that the race is truly unwinnable, and Biden is not going to concede a thing until the votes have been counted.

[enough]

6. If the media had covered Bush v. Gore in realistic terms, the outcome would have been different.

Instead they acted as if this was some form of ordinary politics.
Also, mainstream establishment Democrats were telling Democrats to remain calm and polite, not to demonstrate, to let the process play out.

Pierce is right on here.

[crickets]

9. +1

[mcar]

12. This!

[brer cat]

7. I always enjoy Pierce.

Thanks for posting, mcar.

[Blue Owl]

8. Grand theft larceny

n/t

[JI7]

10. Didn't Trump himself vote before election day ?