THREAD. Since there’s so much [waves hands everywhere] crazy coming up all of a sudden, let me break down the theory of how the overturning of the election was supposed to go down:
— Asha Rangappa (@AshaRangappa_) January 15, 2022
Rangappa is an editor at @JustSecurity, which I recall as a reputable outlet:
STEP 2: GOP operatives/officials in those 7 states in fact create a false slate of electors and submit them as official, so they can be used in the scenario above https://t.co/I8mBuCzer2
— Asha Rangappa (@AshaRangappa_) January 15, 2022
***I should note here that, as with the quid-pro-quo with Ukraine, it wouldn’t have mattered if these states did not actually investigate voter fraud — the DOJ letters would have been enough to create *the appearance* that the outcome in these states was still in the air
— Asha Rangappa (@AshaRangappa_) January 15, 2022
STEP 5: Plan for all of these angry and agitated individuals to come to D.C. on January 6, the day that Eastman’s plan will be put into effect. The protesters are sent to march on the Capitol, to further put pressure on VP Pence and lawmakers, as stated in Oath Keeper indictment pic.twitter.com/2ZDWqDLwZZ
— Asha Rangappa (@AshaRangappa_) January 15, 2022
STEP 7: ??? I’m not sure what was supposed to happen at this point. Presumably, Pence would somehow declare Trump the winner, or if not, the Capitol would remain occupied until they found a way to make him do it. Seems like they planned to continue the siege pic.twitter.com/TY6dPHWGLD
— Asha Rangappa (@AshaRangappa_) January 15, 2022
The point is that there are a lot of moving parts and evidence surfacing in a lot of different areas but they are all connected to one overarching goal: Keep Trump in power by subverting the counting of the electoral votes and preventing the transfer of power to Biden /END
— Asha Rangappa (@AshaRangappa_) January 15, 2022
From a reply thread by one of the first people on twitter to use ‘narcissistic personality disorder’ regarding Trump:
In a way, Trump is the Mr. Magoo of Mussolini’s.
He is a fucking idiot. He is a legitimately stupid human being. However, his primitive little lizard brain is good at manipulating people and turning them into worshipful little servants.
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@TheRealHoarse) January 15, 2022
His involvement throughout puts him in the thick of it but that dumdum couldn’t hatch a clever plot if you gave him a map, all of the world’s crayons, and a copy of Idiot’s Guide to Hatching Clever Plots.
He wound up all the toy soldiers and then sent them off.
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@TheRealHoarse) January 15, 2022
debbie
If the Trump administration had put that kind of planning and energy into fighting COVID back at the beginning, we wouldn’t be in the middle of a fucking pandemic now.
Josie
There was also the hope that Antifa would come out and fight with the patriots(?), giving Trump the opportunity to declare martial law.
Ajabu
And they came too fucking close to succeeding. If anybody from our side has shown up in numbers they would’ve had their martial law excuse. I am very concerned about the next time… And there’s going to be a next time.
Cameron
Sounds like the Qanon version of Blackadder, with a whole regiment of Baldricks to provide cunning plans.
hells littlest angel
Trump is good at being a manipulator like a rattlesnake is good at being a rattlesnake. A rattlesnake doesn’t need to be smart.
Geminid
A few weeks ago Cheryl Rofer referenced another story from JustSecurity regarding the delay in deploying the D.C. National Guard on January 6. The authors posited that the Pentagon’s senior military and civilian leadership may have feared that once the Guard was deployed, Trump could have tried to “repurpose it” to support his coup. I expect this will be examined by the January 6 Commitee, perhaps in it’s public hearings.
germy
@Josie:
And TFG was so stupid he told antifa to stay away. He warned them not to come! That must have pissed off his handlers. “No Mr. President, we want them to come!”
John Revolta
@debbie: They probably would’ve won the election too. But noooooooo…………..it was all “We’re gonna grab all the masks and make bank while killing all the poors & browns”. Some evil masterminds.
EDIT: Bringing Dan Quayle back for a guest appearance to save the day- that was a masterstroke on the part of the writers, I thought.
germy
germy
Laughter and applause from the sitcom audience when he enters the stage and waits to deliver his first line “I don’t think you can do that, Mike!”
Then more applause and cheering.
Van Buren
Every major R politician could admit that this is exactly what happened and the village won’t give a damn.
Layer8Problem
@Cameron: As cunning a plan as if it had been devised by a Robert and Rebekah Mercer Senior Fellow in Cunning Republican Overthrow Plans at Claremont Institute.
VOR
Every single rock which gets turned over will have creepy crawlies underneath. The USPS. Census. DOJ management. DOD management. You name it, there will have been corruption.
germy
@VOR:
I thought DeJoy was DeFinished, but apparently not.
New U.S. Postal board chair backs DeJoy, urges Congress to approve reforms
(Reuters headline)
Mike in NC
@Ajabu: So long as the Fat Orange Clown is still breathing, he’s going to plot another coup.
trnc
IIRC, DT and his minions were gleeful during the early part of the November vote count because the mail in ballots first tilted toward him, which is just one more indication that republican complaints about mail in ballots were spurious.
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
I thought so too. His Wikipedia entry hasn’t been updated in 25 days. That seems odd.
debbie
@germy:
It’s that turtle and scorpion thing all over again. “It’s in my nature.” It always was in his nature.
WereBear
TFG isn’t smart but a stochastic trigger he is.
debbie
@trnc:
The polls in California were still open when he was claiming victory!
Mike in NC
Today I finished reading “The Steal” by Mark Bowden and Matt Teague. The cast of characters includes dozens of seditious Republican operatives in several swing states willing to overthrow democracy for their rotten Dear Leader.
germy
@SiubhanDuinne:
Maybe they’re mailing the updates in.
Brachiator
No one has come up with a remotely plausible explanation of how Trump could get from point A (election is fraudulent) to point X (I win!). The counting of the electoral votes is largely procedural, and there is no constitutional provision for overturning the election.
What is worrisome is Trump’s continued assistance that the election was rigged, the cowardice of the GOP in continuing to support Trump, and the actions of GOP dominated states in trying to “correct” voting problems that do not exist.
The nuttiest MAGA dopes believe that the majority of the people will passively accept a stolen election.
I think that they are wrong. But I hope that we can protect voting rights so we don’t have to deal with the consequences of another coup attempt.
RSA
There’s a solid guest essay in Politico by a couple of academics that touches on similar themes, though it’s on a different topic, the spread of misinformation:
As the saying goes (more or less), the Wikipedia entries for “lack of conscientiousness” and “appetite for chaos” show pictures of Donald Trump.
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
Hahaha!!
different-church-lady
@debbie: And he would have won the election.
Starfish
@germy: Are Biden’s nominees to this board being held up? He announced the two people that he was going to nominate in November, but it has been crickets since
“Biden’s nominees, if confirmed, would not change the balance of Republicans and Democrats on the board, and would likely have no impact on DeJoy’s tenure as postmaster general.”
The Dangerman
@debbie: My recollection (which could easily be wrong), Covid was considered to be an urban problem. I’m sure TFG was heartbroken to see Democratic leaning voters perish…
…which is almost funny since it’s now rural Folks that are the great unvaxxed. He killed off a bunch of his base. Asshole.
germy
@Starfish:
I’m not hopeful about the post office, unfortunately.
germy
Not enough, however.
burnspbesq
As George Conway correctly pointed out on Twitter, everyone involved in the submission of false certificates of ascertainment is guilty under the general false statement provision, 18 U.S.C. 1001. Five years. Of course, we will be confidently told by our self-proclaimed experts that Garland Won’t Do Anything!!!
Garland won’t do anything? Umm, you might want to ask Timothy McVeigh about that.
As long as the statute of limitation remains open, nothing is over.
debbie
@The Dangerman:
It was magically attracted to only blue states, so it was a great backup if that quid pro quo thing didn’t work out. ??♀️
James E Powell
@Van Buren:
Chuck Todd would thank them & have them on next week.
oatler
https://crooksandliars.com/2022/01/chuck-todd-carries-water-obstructionist
trnc
I’m talking about the first couple of days after the election.
I think you’re confusing plausibility with legitimacy. Rangappa’s whole thread is about how it could have plausibly happened. They were counting on the entirely corrupt process to be successful by virtue of the fact that it was a process and all the players played their parts. The fact that the plan was BS doesn’t matter any more than Supreme Court rulings that say there’s no way to stop Texas SB 8 or that OSHA has no authority over workplace dangers if the danger might exist outside of work. As specious as the arguments were, this is the reality we’re living in now.
trnc
Just like guns rights activists, the amount of attention they get makes their numbers appear to be much larger, which in turn gives them outsized influence.
Starfish
@germy: That article that I shared did not sound hopeful. I was hoping it would improve.
Cameron
@The Dangerman: Certainly Young Jared and his crew believed that COVID selected by race and party line.
Geminid
@trnc: I used despise Trump for his laziness and indiscipline. But Rangappa’s scenario reminds how fortunate we were that Trump was so lazy and undisciplined. A more focused and energetic man might have pulled it off.
Kay
Concerning to me that the far Right now backs this, the same people who still refuse to accept the results of the election.
It would truly suck if we ended up giving them a law to take to the far Right SCOTUS where we’ll get some insane interpretation that Alito and Co pull out of their ass. I think the D senators who are working on it are smart, but I hope there isn’t some assumption of good faith in the furthest Right House members who are on record as voting to overturn the election. I worry that it’s an attempt to launder a far Right legal theory about the primacy of state legislatures through Democrats.
The far Right SCOTUS changes election challenges. It’s not 2012. We have a much, much further Right Supreme Court who have already shown us they’ll go as far as they need to to get a result.
They don’t support the Voting Rights Act, but they’re acting in good faith here? I don’t trust them. Why would I?
Brachiator
@trnc:
Also, the Internets makes it easier for crazy people to find each other and to reinforce their nutty beliefs.
And there are malicious actors who enjoy stirring the pot and causing anger and chaos.
mrmoshpotato
I guess the “Hang Mike Pence!”, Dump-humping, fascist shitstains didn’t get the memo.
germy
JoyceH
@germy:
I am STILL waiting for a Congressional committee to summon DeJoy and have him explain under oath how the removal and destruction, without replacement, of already paid for, installed, and operational high speed mail sorting machines was a move taken to increase efficiency.
eachother
What dejoyless is doing to the USPS is like what Chris crud did in NJ to George Washington Bridge traffic, narrowing the lanes and causing crushing traffic (mail) delays. These are indecent people with reckless, callus behavior causing personal, harmful and consequential outcomes debilitating our systems and institutions.
Betty
@Starfish: Apparently these are Democrats. They elected a retired investment banker to be the new Chairman. He approves of DeJoy and his plans.
Kay
Looks like it’s time to do the Right wing two step and put that coup attempt behind them. The polling on insurrections must be bad.
Six more months and they’ll be denying they ever supported it.
japa21
@Kay: I mentioned on the last zoom meeting that my brother-in-law is a life long Republican who is also a very low info voter. He just automatically votes for anybody with an R after the name. No more. What happened on 1/6 and GOP response since then has turned him against Republicans. I don’t think he will necessarily vote Dem, but the GOP lost on dependable voter. And I am sure he is not alone.
Salt Creek
@germy: The new board is a misnomer it is made up existing board members. The real new board has not been implimented yet, there are two vacancies to be filled.
Kay
The GOP head of the state bds of elections in Ohio opened her speech with how “we” have to put the Trump loss behind us. Excuse me? “We”?
Must be nice. Spend a solid year lying about and discrediting elections and when the downside of that outweighs the political upside it’s time for “us” to move on. “We” didn’t lie about the election. They did. They don’t also get to demand we forget they did when they’re (politically) ready to “move on”.
Redshift
@Kay: From what I’ve read, my guess is that they’re supporting the Electoral Count Act revisions to say “look, we’ve addressed the problem in a bipartisan manner!” so Manchin will be even less likely to support the filibuster exception for voting rights
Chris T.
So what are the seven states? I saw the Maddow show where Dana Nessel (Michigan AG) mentioned “seven states”, but Maddow had only the documents from five states: AZ, GA, MI, NV, WI. CNN suggests the remaining two were PA and NM (and I was betting that PA was one of the extra two)…
JoyceH
@Geminid:
That’s what gives me hope, frankly, that and Trump’s track record. Whenever he enters into a new endeavor, whether it’s casinos or football teams, he always immediately tries to go too far too fast and winds up tanking, not only his own stake in the new business, but the entire business itself. His disastrous foray into gambling wound up laying waste to Atlantic City at least for a time – it seems to be coming back to some extent, but only after several decades in the wilderness. And he outright killed the USFL for all time. So here’s hoping he has the same effect on the Republican Party. He hasn’t entirely deep-sixed it yet, but he’s sure working on it! Maybe in twenty years or so, we’ll be willing to allow a sadder but wiser GOP to attain a few small crumbs of power here and there.
NotMax
@Cameron
Needs moar turnips.
;)
Brachiator
@trnc:
Nope. I do not believe that any of the crap that Trump pulled and observed could have plausibly led to Trump resuming the presidency.
Trump believed that the January 6 counting of the electoral votes was the last day that he could somehow seize power.
This is a misreading of the Constitution.
Even a riot in the Capitol and a declaration of martial law would not have kept Trump in office.
Trump’s fantasy was that a critical number of white people and white generals and white military personnel and white Republican members of Congress would openly declare loyalty to him and also in effect renounce the Constitution.
Trump is lazy and stupid and a coward. He could not organize a coup or pull one off and, for now, no one but a stupid sliver of his base was willing to follow him.
Baud
@japa21:
Good on him.
Kay
@japa21:
My impressions of the stablity and resilience of American democracy is not dictated by House Republicans. I’m not in their base. If they have now decided it might be politically advantageous to start supporting democracy again I’m under no obligation to pretend it’s sincere.
We went lurching along without them for a year and democracy survived. As it turns out their “support” isn’t essential.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Trump would avoid the plots with a serious chance of success because of the lack of instant gratification.
Brachiator
@japa21:
This is a hopeful sign. I think that there are many people like this. They just don’t get interviewed.
japa21
@Kay: Oh, I agree. I wouldn’t trust any of them any further than I can throw a bowling ball. About 1 foot on a good day.
japa21
@Brachiator: Which is fine. Let the GOP think they still have them.
lowtechcyclist
@RSA:
NOTE: This was material quoted by RSA:
While a ‘smaller subset’ promotes false information, the deeper problem is that the rest of ‘conservatives in general’ condone the misinformation with their lack of opposition.
Kay
@Redshift:
I can’t read the coverage anymore. It enrages me. Are they really so fucking stupid that they don’t know what the Voting Rights Act is? They’re really going to conflate the “crown jewel” of the civil rights movement with Mitt Romney’s tweaks to the electoral vote act?
Yes, yes they are. ON MLK day no less! We’re going to be treated to 12 hours of idiotic, uninformed commentary on voting rights on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
“WHY won’t they just PASS the electoral vote act REFORM?” Because it’s not the Voting Rights Act? Because one has absolutely nothing to do with the other?
James E Powell
@Brachiator:
Agree completely.
The best they could hope for from all that bullshit is what they got: their Republican base voters are convinced they were robbed & Republican state legislatures are passing a tsunami of voter suppression efforts that the press/media refuse to call by that name.
Their narrative going into the midterms is the stolen election. It will get their base out.
lowtechcyclist
@Redshift:
Also, since their position is that Pence, as VP, could have decided which certificates to count as valid, I’m sure they want to remove any hint of such powers from the VP, since Harris will be the VP on 1/6/25.
Wvng
The Palmer Report keeps screaming that “this could never work” but he misses the point that the conspirators INTENDED it to work, and that’s what matters legally. Also, if fully fleshed out at a minimum it would have created enormous chaos.
The number of people pulled into this conspiracy, as direct actors, is enormous.
Edmund Dantes
@JoyceH: USFL is trying to comeback this year
Suzanne
@The Dangerman:
You’re not wrong.
It makes me laugh/shake my head in bemusement how rural people seem to think that cities are crime-ridden hellholes and simultaneously the property values are too high.
trnc
And any dems who don’t fall for the trap will be labeled partisan by the same media who currently refuses to acknowledge republicans’ coordinated obstruction.
lowtechcyclist
@Brachiator:
I’m reading the 12th Amendment. What would have happened had Pence claimed he had multiple certificates from enough states to drop Biden below 270, and accordingly declared that the EVs from those states could not be counted for either candidate?
You would have had a LOT of Republicans, including obviously many of those in Congress, demanding that the House vote by state for the next President. Pelosi of course would have not allowed such a vote to take place. The Senate would then vote on the VP pick: since the GA winners aren’t sworn in yet, the R’s have a 50-48 advantage, so the Dems don’t show up, denying the Senate of the 2/3 quorum required for such a vote.
On January 20th, there is no new President, and no new VP. To quote Adam, we’re through the looking glass and off the map. Theoretically, Pelosi is President, but by then it would be a challenge to get Congressional Republicans to acknowledge her as legitimate, and they’d be claiming that Trump was denied his victory by the House’ refusal to vote.
It would be hairy, to say the least. Constitution or no Constitution, I don’t know that anyone can say what would have happened in real life.
Geminid
@James E Powell: The “stolen election” narrative may get the Republican base out. But Republican candidates in purple states cannot win with just their base. These states include not just Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona, but Florida, Texas, and maybe Ohio as well.
Karl Rove’s recent op-ed piece calling for Republicans to move beyond Trump was not an act of high-mindedness. Rove believes, rightly or wrongly, that Trump will ruin his party. I think he is right.
This is easy for Karl Rove to say, though; he’s not running in any Republican primary.
trnc
@Brachiator:
I think the odds were against the plot, but a lot of things I wouldn’t have thought plausible in 2015 have come to pass. The plot didn’t depend on DT being a mastermind or on a good faith reading of the constitution. It depended on people in key roles being corrupt. If Bill Barr had stayed on to carry out DOJ “investigations” of voter fraud and Pence had rejected the proper electors in favor of the fraudulent electors from the 7 states that submitted them, then what? A proper reading of the constitution only matters if the people charged with properly reading it actually do that.
A difficult hat trick to pull off, but not implausible.
Suzanne
@trnc: Agreed. Saying that “the Constitution sez” means nothing if there are people who care more about winning than the Constitution. We know this to be true.
Starfish
@trnc: If anything had ended up before this Supreme Court, they would have been fine with it.
Geminid
@trnc: To make this plot work, Trump would have needed to appoint a more loyal acting Attorney General, and a more compliant acting Secretary of Defense. And if he had been thinking ahead, he would have changed his ticket at the Republican convention and replaced Pence with a Cotton or a Hawley.
trnc
All signs point to yes. When the various election complaints went to the SC, I was a little nervous that they would support some of the bad faith allegations but I thought the odds were against it because I didn’t think there was any reason for them to go out on that limb because of the amount of precedent for states running their own elections. However, if Pence and Barr had gone along with the coup and the question of electors had gone before the court, I think the uncharted territory could have given them cover to find in favor of the coup.
Another Scott
@trnc: Except, as we know of course, Pence’s VP position in the count was ceremonial – he had no power to reject anything.
Lawyers can argue about anything, but TFG’s lawyers lost every election-related challenge.
We need to fight them every single day, but the system is not so fragile as to allow these Keystone Kops to just march into power. If it were, it would have happened before now.
Cheers,
Scott.
trnc
@Geminid:
Interesting points. Of course, I didn’t think anyone could be a more loyal AG than Barr or a more loyal VP than Pence, so there wasn’t much reason to think that they wouldn’t go along with it. As far as DOD secretary, I’m not sure how much difference that would make since the insurrection part of coup really seemed to depend on Antifa, etc.
In hindsight, the insurrection seems more counterproductive to the coup. If Pence and Barr had been on board with their parts, what purpose would the riot have served? Would the plotters really have a reason for inciting the riot if the legalistic BS had been carried out?
SFAW
@Suzanne:
“Balls and strikes,” as the Traitor Roberts said during his confirmation hearing.
For some reason, I am reminded of the old baseball joke about three umpires discussing balls and strikes:
Umpire #1: “I call them as I see them.”
Umpire #2: “I call them as they are.”
Umpire #3: “They aren’t anything until I say what they are.”
For some reason, that makes me think of this Lawless SCOTUS.
Geminid
@trnc: Barr got out after the election. I think his last day was around December 23. He probably knew what was in the works and did not want any part of it.
A more compliant Secretary of Defense would have been useful if Trump had declared martial law. That was the course Michael Flynn advocated.
SFAW
Every time I read about the efforts of the Party of Traitors, it becomes harder and harder for me not to wish they suffer the same fate as the Husnock.
trnc
Yes, I was happily surprised that he found a line he would not cross.
Kay
It’s apparently an insanely utopian pipe dream that the United States could pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Just forget that. Impossibly aspirational. Much, much LOWER bar now. Rock bottom standards. Lurching to the bottom.
trnc
Yes, just enough people decided to follow norms in this case, rather than use their authority to do whatever they felt like. Would that it were for the SC with the recent OSHA ruling or the numerous legislators working furiously to suppress the democratic vote.
Brachiator
@trnc:
I don’t see that Pence had any authority to certify authenticity of the electoral votes. He was just there to count them.
Various factions could have made any kind of claim to try to declare Trump the winner of the election. Again, I don’t see any of this as plausible, especially given all the prior rejections of Trump’s case.
Ultimately, anyone with any real power would have had to openly reject the Constitution. Trump was not smart enough to attract any of these people in advance, and he couldn’t really convince anyone with power after the fact.
Trump did not have the guts to declare himself dictator. He or another Republican might just do that if given another opportunity.
NotMax
@Kay
Wan positive but as the political landscape stands now defining a bottom may be a good thing.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@James E Powell:
You don’t know that for sure
Geminid
@trnc: Barr’s decision could have been prudential. He might have stuck around if Trump and his henchmen hadn’t been such fuckups.
More seriously, Barr took the job to advance the interests of wealthy assholes like those funding the Federalist Society. He had done all he could for them at that point, and did not need to take any more of Trump’s shit. I expect that Barr’s true masters are rewarding him generously now.
The Moar You Know
@Brachiator: They aren’t crazy. The American people accepted the Bush v. Gore outcome, which the Supreme Court handed to Bush when they did not and do not have the power to do so. Had Gore’s campaign and legal team not made the lethal mistake of just going after results in one county instead of asking for a recount of the state of Florida, which they were fully entitled to, we’d be living in a vastly different nation today.
Geminid
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Trump will try to make this issue work for him. I think it will be potent, more or less, in upcoming Republican primaries. The North Carolina Senate contest between ex-Governor McCrory and Trump-endorsed Congressman Budd will be one test of Trump’s strength. The Georgia primary contest between Governor Kemp and ex-Senator Perdue will be another.
The real test will be in the general elections that follow. This issue might still motivate the base Republican base, but it could alienate other voters that Republicans need for a majority.
Ruckus
@JoyceH:
Bite your tongue!
Steeplejack
@Kay:
It’s a Trojan horse.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
The number of people who think logic is a democratic plot should amaze anyone. But then those without a logical thought in their tiny brains seem to have a striking numerical resemblance to the rethuglican party.
Fair Economist
@japa21:
I’m not confident that at present there are enough such people to make a difference. The Republicans more or less met expectations for the 2017 off year elections – a significant swing against the party in power, which has been totally normal in America for decades. The voters are still voting like everything is normal. Perhaps the 1/6 Commission hearings will make a difference. I certainly hope so.
Fair Economist
@The Moar You Know:
4 counties, technically, not just one. And maybe, but the Rehnquist court was really shameless in that ruling, and I rather think they’d have found a different lame excuse had Gore’s team made that request.
Ruckus
@Geminid:
Two problems. SFB thinking? And in any way correctly?
He is a reactionary, his plans have never really worked out for him, other than running for president. And there, once he’d gone far enough to be a threat, the republican party went along because to them, he may be stupid but he is/was a solid racist conservative, who they seemingly thought they could control, at least well enough.
Kay
@Steeplejack:
If far Right legal theorists support a “reform” addressing certifying elections, it’s time to look very hard at that reform.
What do Democrats get out of this? The Republican Partys attempt to overturn an election had absolutely nothing to do with “ambiguity” in the electoral vote act. This was not a “misunderstanding” of a federal law. That’s bullshit. So we sign on to their ass-covering lie and therefore validate it and entrench it forever.
I’m amused at how this is being portrayed by political media, too. Supposedly the Voting Rights Act is a political loser (and who really gives a shit about voting rights anyway) so should be jettisoned in the interest of expediency, but a “reform of the electoral vote act” is a finger on the pulse of the public.
If the public doesn’t give a shit about voting rights -which is what we’re being told- they’re certainly not going to get excited over the electoral vote act. Who is this for? Republicans and political media who want to be made more comfortable and hope there won’t be another embarrassing (public) outbreak of fascism in 2024?
I don’t want to codify far Right theories about certifying elections. I don’t work for the Republican Party.
Kay
@Steeplejack:
The coverage is just mindblowingly bad. “Dilemma: protect voting rights OR pass this ass-covering tweak of the ceremonial vote ceritification in Congress and pretend we addressed the problem?”
Media and Republicans clearly pick number two! They’re coming down strong on the side of purely ceremonial democracy…redecorating! Slap some paint on it and it’s good as new.
The Electoral Vote Act wasn’t the problem, but it’s what they want to solve, so we’re all now ordered to pretend the issue was that Republicans didn’t know they can’t overturn elections because the code language on certification wasn’t specific enough.
It’s a lie. It’s another lie that just compounds the first one. They’re rewriting history in real time now. That isn’t what happened.
Ancient Atheist
As history un-folds we should look to the future. Republicans will likely win the mid-term elections. Trump will never see the inside of any courtroom. In 2023 Trump will be voted in as Speaker of the House of Representatives. From that position he is protected from the courts. Also, from that perch he can initiate impeachment hearings against Biden and Harris. Their impeachments will succeed with Republican votes and Trump will become President without ever running for election. After that? Well, welcome to the Autocracy! Fantastical? Yes, but given what has recently happened, not beyond the pale.
Kay
Looking at the line up I don’t think anything will pass anyway. Manchin and Sinema are backing the GOP bill and Klobuchar and Durbin never will. They’ll never get to 60. Klobuchar and Durbin will get closer than Manchin and Sinema because they’ll have the Democrats. Manchin and Sinema will have six Republicans, total and thats if you include Manchin and Sinema.
BigJimSlade
@Cameron: ? ? ? Blackadder himself never does much better, though.
One of my favorite scenes – Brian Blessed is playing King Richard (the IV, I think), and his obsequious servant is telling him about some Italian Prince (?) who wishes to know if he (King Richard) would like to join him for dance lessons):
KR IV: hm, should I be honest or tactful?
Obsequious servant: Tactful, I think!
KR IV: TELL HIM TO GET STUFFED!!!!
Fair Economist
@Kay: It’s not entirely clear that “fixing” the ECA will help. It could make things worse. The ECA as written probably allows Congress to overide the states and, in cooperation with some fake electors, effectively elect a “prime minister” of sorts as President. Probably; who knows how the courts, public, etc. would react. However, it also allows Congress to override obviously bogus electors picked by the state legislatures. The “reforms” I’ve seen would make it effectively impossible for Congress to reject state slates.
It’s not currently clear whether the greatest threat in 2024 would come from a corrupt Republican-controlled Congress or corrupt Republican-controlled states.
James E Powell
@Geminid:
That’s all it’s intended to do. No one else believes it or even thinks about it very much.
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
It’s a pretty safe bet and they’ve got nothing else.
James E Powell
@The Moar You Know:
There was no provision for the Gore campaign to request a statewide recount.
lowtechcyclist
I actually agree with you here. But I think (a) it’s one of those “does the Constitution actually cover this?” questions, and while I agree it does, (b) who is the cosmic referee that’s going to step in and make sure that’s how it works out in reality?
There’s our problem.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: The plot Rangappa lays out was a hare-brained scheme, born of desperation, but if Pence had gone along other institutions would have had to improvise a response. I think Trump still would have failed, but I am glad we never had to find out. It was a very good thing that the Senate reconvened the evening of January 6 and carried out the count and certification of electoral votes. I know I was relieved when I heard it.
How did you make out in the storm? On the east side of the Blue Ridge we got about four inches of snow and then a little rain and a lot of wind. I heard that Roanoke had 8″ snow by 10am and it was still snowing there.
lowtechcyclist
@Geminid:
And thanks to the quick thinking of that one Capitol Police officer, there still was an intact Senate to finish the count.
May we never have another day like that one. I too am glad we didn’t have to find out how things would have held together if Pence had gone along. Still can’t believe Dan Quayle, of all people, helped keep Pence on side.
Here in Chesapeake country, we got a couple inches of snow that turned to rain, which washed the snow all away. There are still some piles of snow here and there from the 10″ we got on January 3rd, though.
You mentioned Stanardsville the other day, and I had to go look up where it was. After >23 years on the north side of the Potomac, the intimate knowledge I used to have of so much of Virginia is fading. I’d been through Stanardsville a few times many years ago – there are some PATC cabins up on the Blue Ridge that U.S. 33 is the best way to get to – so I really had known where it was. But now I had to Google a map.
I like living here by the Bay, but I miss the Blue Ridge, and also the caving country up in Highland and Bath counties.
trnc
The VP absolutely does not have sole authority to reject the vote count. That’s why the objections of senators and house members from key states were necessary for the plan.
trnc
@lowtechcyclist:
Exactly. That cosmic referee is currently the 6-3 Supreme Court. Yes, they properly rejected the ridiculous claims about the mail in ballots, but I don’t think that guarantees good faith in a future ruling for which there was no precedent.
way2blue
Asha’s thread leaves out one important component of their plan, namely, that the Trump instigators fully expected counter protesters to show up (e.g., antifa; BLM.. ) which would have opened the way for them to declare martial law. By *some miracle*, counter protesters stayed away, and that planned scenario fizzled. Bullet dodged.