GET OUT: US politics November 2020

Nancy Pelosi appointing cabinet posts truly would led to a civil war. (many xp)

i'm with you, tipsy. (on this, and generally on almost everything - you are very otm in general). i think that's right. it just seems so futile, now, any sort of strategy that involves convincing people on anything, based on logic or experience or history, anything. i'm feeling very down.

President Trump’s drumbeat of baseless claims about the integrity of the election and the decision by most Republican lawmakers who know better to play along are taking a damaging and dangerous toll on democracy.

There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud, but a new poll from Monmouth University finds that 77 percent of Trump’s supporters believe President-elect Joe Biden only won because of fraud and 88 percent said they need more information on the count to know for sure who prevailed.

Overall, 60 percent of Americans believe Biden won the election fair and square. But Trump’s P.R. campaign to sow doubt is working. A Monmouth poll before the election found that 55 percent of Republicans felt confident in the electoral process. Now, just 22 percent of them said they feel that way. Overall, 61 percent of Republicans are not at all confident in the election’s fairness and accuracy – up from 13 percent in September.

60% believe biden won

Now she wants the media to go home and read the Federalist papers.

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), T

I'm gonna go get the papers, the Federalist Papers.

88 percent [ZS: of fucking racist trump supporters] said they need more information on the count to know for sure who prevailed.

like...i don't know how to read this and then go back to my work and ask someone on my team for that deliverable that's due this afternoon. what does it matter? what the fuck is wrong with everyone??

yep sorry I suppose I’m conflating Parliamentarianism and Prime Ministerial, or is this one of those things where all squares are rectangles etc


anyway, abolish senate and presidnet thing hardcore, damn

any sort of strategy that involves convincing people on anything, based on logic or experience or history

well we don't think these things work, why can't our side try psychological warfare and fearmongering propaganda?

what is a deliverable? who is in charge? are they managing me? it's tough to say! i need more information

personally, i've tried screaming and using extreme sarcasm voice for several years in a row. it doesn't seem to be working yet

for about 20 years before that, i also tried listening and reasoning with "them", just to be clear. how much of my life did i waste trying to win over morally bankrupt fuckers who were never - NEVER ONCE - operating in good faith? decades!

there's just no fucking point

Damn, Karl.

you've been on a tear today. Please slow down!

xps: The Chris Hayes podcast is far more illuminating than his twitter or anchor desk work. I still get noisome retweets from Hayes, but its clear 140 chars doesn't fit him.

i will peace out because i'm totally being that guy right now. i am empty. running on fumes.

the earth is flat
no brakes 2021

noisome annoying

haha, xp to alfred, i want you to know that i decided to peace out juuuust before you asked me to slow down. :) i still have a scrap of self-awareness! *holds on for dear life*

take it easy Karl and recharge.

Karl, I also have Republican but not quite MAGA relatives. I get it, man.

it just seems so futile, now, any sort of strategy that involves convincing people on anything, based on logic or experience or history, anything. i'm feeling very down.

I feel like there needs to be a word for the particular feeling of disillusionment and depression that results from realizing that actual incontrovertible facts do not matter to the people you are arguing with.

big love KM

I feel like there needs to be a word for the particular feeling of disillusionment and depression that results from realizing that actual incontrovertible facts do not matter to the people you are arguing with.

the Germans probably have one

So now Trump is inviting Michigan Republican state legislators to the White House.

I have to say, I expected him to handle all of this badly. But he's surpassing my expectations. He's really trying to create a full-on constitutional crisis. And the GOP is letting him.

And KM, I totally feel you on futility. But it's one area where history gives me hope. Generations of fighters for women's rights and minority rights worked their asses off and died without seeing the things they wanted to, but those things did eventually happen, or at least some of them. Also, thinking of multi-decade struggles puts the traumas of any given day in perspective.

<3

He's really trying to create a full-on constitutional crisis. And the GOP is letting him.

yup. jfc.

GOP leaders of that state have already promised they will honor the popular vote and don't expect the result to change. but the optics of this are horrible and need to be hammered by Dems.

We've been so focused on whether Trump 'stealing' a state or two would change the end result, but to be honest, a steal of a state is just as bad as the steal of an election. It is a theft of the will of the people for that state and a precursor or blueprint for how to do it in the future.

so we must make sure it doesn't happen in even one. I still don't believe it will, but...Michigan is showing its ass a little.

for background

https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/gop-leaders-well-abide-popular-vote-wont-give-michigan-trump

https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/joe-biden-won-michigan-elector-coup-not-going-happen-gop-leader-says

Dems also need to be bringing this up in every floor discussion from now until Dec 14

I can confirm from texts shown to me that Wayne County Republican canvasser says she‘s received threats post-meeting.

She says they’ve come from both sides, the right & the left, specifically Antifa from Grosse Pointe.

Yes, Michiganders, you read that last part correctly

— Kayla Ruble (@RubleKB) November 19, 2020

I would pay $3.99 to watch Grosse Pointe Antifa on iTunes.

this is a bit of a different move than the legal challenges because as long as Trump files legal challenges, GOP can hem and haw about how it's his right and we just need to let it play out.

blatantly inviting them to the White House is different. it might make a few moderate GOP Senators say that "this was deeply troubling" and walk past the reporter to get their Chef Salad. or one might even touch their brow nervously.

one last text dump and then i'm taking the rest of the day off (ilx and work) to work on the one thing i'm feeling positive about right now (art show)

race and privilege play so heavily into this too. the emotional toil, i mean. one the "calm down" side, i remind myself on a daily basis that as bad as things are for me, it must be worse for everyone else. i am a white guy. i work from home. i just bought a 4K monitor for the first time last week. i groan audibly when an email pops up that requires my immediate action. i am a walking pile of unearned privilege. so that makes me want to shut up.

on the other side, i am incredibly angry at straight white christian men. like, specifically that group. i was a full-class member of that group until i was 14 or so, and of course after i dropped the christianity i still got to hold on to the rest of my benefits. and...i fucking hate people like me. all the cool ones are on ilx, i guess. but for the most part, i feel like i want to benedict arnold and trick everyone into getting on SpaceX and send them right into the heart of the fucking sun. it is intense. i feel like nightmare of the uptight conservative white parent, realized. noooo, scared trump voters, all your sons and daughters are NOT conspiring to send you on a spaceship to die via the Sun - however, a few of them really are

so yeah, basically intense self-loathing and anger is where i'm at these days.

the obvious thing to do seems as simultaneously clear and hopeless as EC reform. all i can do is act the best way that i can, and do what i can to "fix" the white people in my life so that their hateful bile (which i seem to have inherited and then morphed into a new form) doesn't hurt other people as much as it would if i did nothing at all. but again, i have been doing that for so long now. but factual information, like "88 percent [of Republicans] said they need more information on the count to know for sure who prevailed" - what do i do with that? am i supposed to take that seriously? what do you say to that? it's just so fucking WRONG it's unbelievable.

thank you for allowing me to dump, or at least tolerating it for a bit.

the earth is flat
no brakes 2021

Vox (yea yea) has a pretty good look at what's happening: https://www.vox.com/2020/11/19/21575177/trump-wayne-county-michigan-certification

enough pressure from Democratic voters/callers, Congressmen and congresswomen, and maybe we get them to cancel that visit.

fortunately Dec 8 is the safe harbor date if there's any fuckery on Monday

when you've lost Sparkle Eyes, etc

Well, that easily was the most outlandish press conference ever held by a team of lawyers representing the President of the United States

— Rich Lowry (@RichLowry) November 19, 2020

xp it's only a safe harbor if states abide by election rules

they hopefully will

Yeah, it's a day-to-day progression of feeling like this shitshow is coming to an end vs. feeling like this shitshow actually lasts into my senior citizenship if any of us make it that long. Today's leaning toward the latter, so I feel you Karl.

xp it's only a safe harbor if states abide by election rules

― Dan S, Thursday, November 19, 2020 2:22 PM bookmarkflaglink

they hopefully will

― Dan S, Thursday, November 19, 2020 2:23 PM bookmarkflaglink

Safe Harbor is a federal protection - once the states certify results by that date, they cannot later send a separate slate of electors to Congress and have Congress consider them. only possible if they miss the Dec 8 deadline.

no matter if every other state falls in line and does what they're supposed to, everybody needs to buckle down and make sure MI doesn't miss that deadline or get subverted. even one state extralegally flipping is unacceptable and banana republic shit.

Neanderthal otm. I'm so sick of seeing people say, "well Biden still wins even if MI flips", which is so widely missing the point.

I'm not going to yay-rah the guy but I appreciate how Raffensperger just keeps holding the line:

https://www.gpb.org/news/2020/11/19/georgia-secretary-of-state-on-election-attacks-integrity-still-counts

xp Yeah, I'm very worried about the precedent-setting.

The most dangerous aspect of this is it's now normalized -- in fact something R voters will know to ask and demand of leaders in relevant positions -- to try to overturn election results and backfill it with a false conspiracy TBD. That's extinction-level bad for democracy.

— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) November 19, 2020

Raffensperger reminds me of the guys who run our local election office here. They're all Republican appointees, because it's a Republican state, but they are total pros about their jobs. They really, passionately believe in voting, protecting the vote, protecting the results, maintaining the integrity of the system. I'm sure there are bad and hacky election administrators out there, but the ones I've dealt with all take the responsibility really seriously.

xpost

and Benjy Sarlin otm.

Neanderthal otm. I'm so sick of seeing people say, "well Biden still wins even if MI flips", which is so widely missing the point.

― soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Thursday, November 19, 2020 2:33 PM bookmarkflaglink

exactly. the message should be "Michigan will not flip, and if it does, federal lawsuits need to be filed immediately". once you get complacent that it's "ok" for one state to flip extralegally, we're already on our way out of democracy

Well, going back earlier in this thread when it was a somewhat more hypothetical possibility, I do really think that the public pushback against any state trying to overrule its own veters would be overwhelming. I guess the Trump side would try to hype it up as violence in the streets — and there would be some, I'm sure — but I really don't think it's something your average Michigan legislator wants to deal with.

It's pretty clear that the GOP is way more afraid of their own voters than anyone else.

People react surprisingly strongly to blatant violations of their sovereignty. This is true of Trump voters too of course but in their case the violations of their sovereignty are brain worm driven.

the Governor and Sec of State are both Dems, and the board is half Dem, half Rep. the chances of de-certifying Michigan are reaaaaaaaaaaaaally weak.

but i'm angry that it's even coming to this and that people are treating it with kid gloves. Tlaib has already commented. everybody else should be.