Trump’s Disgraceful Endgame

[Analytics]

The following was published yesterday in National Review. It was written by "THE EDITORS," which "comprise the senior editorial staff of the National Review magazine and website."

President Trump said the other day that he’d leave office if he loses the vote of the Electoral College on December 14.

This is not the kind of assurance presidents of the United States typically need to make, but it was noteworthy given Trump’s disgraceful conduct since losing his bid for reelection to Joe Biden on November 3.

Behind in almost all the major polls, Trump stormed within a hair’s breadth in the key battlegrounds of winning reelection, and his unexpectedly robust performance helped put Republicans in a strong position for the post-Trump-presidency era. This is not nothing. But the president can’t stand to admit that he lost and so has insisted since the wee hours of Election Night that he really won — and won “by a lot.”

There are legitimate issues to consider after the 2020 vote about the security of mail-in ballots and the process of counting votes (some jurisdictions, bizarrely, take weeks to complete their initial count), but make no mistake: The chief driver of the post-election contention of the past several weeks is the petulant refusal of one man to accept the verdict of the American people. The Trump team (and much of the GOP) is working backwards, desperately trying to find something, anything to support the president’s aggrieved feelings, rather than objectively considering the evidence and reacting as warranted.

Almost nothing that the Trump team has alleged has withstood the slightest scrutiny. In particular, it’s hard to find much that is remotely true in the president’s Twitter feed these days. It is full of already-debunked claims and crackpot conspiracy theories about Dominion voting systems. Over the weekend, he repeated the charge that 1.8 million mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania were mailed out, yet 2.6 million were ultimately tallied. In a rather elementary error, this compares the number of mail-ballots requested in the primary to the number of ballots counted in the general. A straight apples-to-apples comparison finds that 1.8 million mail-in ballots were requested in the primary and 1.5 million returned, while 3.1 million ballots were requested in the general and 2.6 million returned.

Flawed and dishonest assertions like this pollute the public discourse and mislead good people who make the mistake of believing things said by the president of the United States.

Elected Republicans have generally taken the attitude that the president should be able to have his day in court. It’s his legal right to file suits, of course, but he shouldn’t pursue meritless litigation in Hail Mary attempts to get millions of votes tossed out. This is exactly what he’s been doing, it’s why reputable GOP lawyers have increasingly steered clear, and it’s why Trump has suffered defeat after defeat in court.

In its signature federal suit in Pennsylvania, the Trump team argued that it violated the equal-protection clause of the U.S. Constitution for some Pennsylvania counties to let absentee voters fix or “cure” their ballots if they contained an error while other counties didn’t. It maintained that it was another constitutional violation for Trump election observers not to be allowed in close proximity to the counting of ballots. On this basis, the Trump team sought to disqualify 1.5 million ballots and bar the certification of the Pennsylvania results or have the Pennsylvania General Assembly appoint presidential electors.

By the time the suit reached the Third Circuit, it had been whittled down to a relatively minor procedural issue (whether the Trump complaint could be amended a second time in the district court). The Trump team lost on that question, and the unanimous panel of the Third Circuit (in an opinion written by a Trump appointee) made it clear that the other claims lacked merit as well. It noted that the suit contained no evidence that Trump and Biden ballots or observers were treated differently, let alone evidence of fraud. Within reason, it is permissible for counties to have different procedures for handling ballots, and nothing forced some counties to permit voters to cure flawed absentee ballots and others to decline to do so.

Not that it mattered. The court pointed out that the suit challenged the procedures to fix absentee ballots in seven Democratic counties, which don’t even come close to having enough cured ballots to change the outcome in the state; the counties might have allowed, at most, 10,000 voters to fix their ballots, and even if every single one of them voted for Biden, that’s still far short of Biden’s 80,000-plus margin in the state.

The idea, as the Trump team stalwartly maintains, that the Supreme Court is going to take up this case and issue a game-changing ruling is fantastical. Conservative judges have consistently rejected Trump’s flailing legal appeals, and the justices are unlikely to have a different reaction.

Trump’s most reprehensible tactic has been to attempt, somewhat shamefacedly, to get local Republican officials to block the certification of votes and state legislatures to appoint Trump electors in clear violation of the public will. This has gone nowhere, thanks to the honesty and sense of duty of most of the Republicans involved, but it’s a profoundly undemocratic move that we hope no losing presidential candidate ever even thinks of again.

Getting defeated in a national election is a blow to the ego of even the most thick-skinned politicians and inevitably engenders personal feelings of bitterness and anger. What America has long expected is that losing candidates swallow those feelings and at least pretend to be gracious. If Trump’s not capable of it, he should at least stop waging war on the outcome.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/11/ ... l-endgame/

[Some Schmo]

The Trump team (and much of the GOP) is working backwards, desperately trying to find something, anything to support the president’s aggrieved feelings, rather than objectively considering the evidence and reacting as warranted.

a.k.a. Cult behavior.

Trump’s most reprehensible tactic has been to attempt, somewhat shamefacedly, to get local Republican officials to block the certification of votes and state legislatures to appoint Trump electors in clear violation of the public will. This has gone nowhere, thanks to the honesty and sense of duty of most of the Republicans involved, but it’s a profoundly undemocratic move that we hope no losing presidential candidate ever even thinks of again.

I have to admit that the behavior of GOP state officials has given me a sense of hope. I still can't figure out their Trump support, given the integrity some have shown. It makes no damned sense to me.

Nobody from the GOP will ever be taken seriously again if they try to attack someone's character. They have proven they don't give a crap about character. Apparently, they only vote with their wallet (and even that is damned dumb - the GOP's track record on economics is abysmal).

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/mi ... diate=true

https://wethepeopleconvention.org/artic ... artial-Law

Michael Flynn calls for Trump to suspend the constitution and declare martial law to re-run election

We have well-funded, armed and trained marxists in ANTIFA and BLM strategically positioned in our major cities acting openly with violence to silence opposition to their anti-American agenda. Attacking federal buildings and police, cowardly punching innocent people in the back of the head, assaulting people just eating in restaurants, and burning minority-owned businesses to the ground. All with elected officials in Democrat/Socialist-controlled cities openly encouraging this planned violence against civilians and businesses. Then, to advance their cause, these socialists are acting to “Defund the Police,” creating chaos and suspending the rule of law that protects millions of average, and particularly minority, Americans. The results being massive increases in violent crime and deaths in our cities and the destruction of small businesses orchestrated by those politicians and leftist groups, many funded by domestic and international communists. We are literally under attack from within!

Inching closer and closer to this thing going hot. This is a real possibility.

- Doc

[Jersey Girl]

Inching closer and closer to this thing going hot. This is a real possibility.

- Doc

So do you have any advice for the teeming masses here? Anything we should be doing or not doing?

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Well. Not really. We’re in unprecedented territory. I’d say just get comfy, put on some Netflix, and make yourself a hot cuppa chocolate. But, yeah, there’s really nothing stopping Trump from following through on this beyond his own nagging sense that this wouldn’t work out for him in the end. If he did follow Flynn’s advice, I could see a million or so ‘patriots’ following his direct orders. I could further envision them smoking some fools, “arresting” Democratic politicians, and essentially establishing an authoritarian government in red states. At that point things would heat up pretty quickly and the balkanization of the states would be a real possibility depending on how much ethnic enclaves would lock down their respective territories. It all hinges on the whims of a megalomaniac authoritarian narcissist.

- Doc

[dantana]

Well, I understand why Schmo says all Trumpers are ahsholes and idiots, but I think the numbers are more like; 20% idiots, 10% self-serving, lying ahsholes, 70% never-Left-ers. So, the insurrection will be short lived, as they don't have the numbers.

Please don't ask me to provide any support for this post.

Also, I have a wee bit of sympathy for the neverlefters

[Moksha]

Also, I have a wee bit of sympathy for the neverlefters

There are many from EzraTaftBensonLand that feel this way.

[Jersey Girl]

Well. Not really. We’re in unprecedented territory. I’d say just get comfy, put on some Netflix, and make yourself a hot cuppa chocolate.

Okay. Sounds like CO Level Red. Already there.

But, yeah, there’s really nothing stopping Trump from following through on this beyond his own nagging sense that this wouldn’t work out for him in the end. If he did follow Flynn’s advice, I could see a million or so ‘patriots’ following his direct orders. I could further envision them smoking some fools, “arresting” Democratic politicians, and essentially establishing an authoritarian government in red states. At that point things would heat up pretty quickly and the balkanization of the states would be a real possibility depending on how much ethnic enclaves would lock down their respective territories. It all hinges on the whims of a megalomaniac authoritarian narcissist.

- Doc

See what you said here>>>If he did follow Flynn’s advice, I could see a million or so ‘patriots’ following his direct orders.

Go back to Charlotte for a moment. Do you think that even back then, Trump knew he could count on those folks to do his bidding for him? That's why he said there were good people on both sides? He was testing the waters this whole entire time? That's why he has failed to call out white supremacists, etc.?

Because if push came to shove, he thought he could use them? Like now?

I'm not sure he is someone who thinks that far ahead, but what do you think about it?

[Some Schmo]

Also, I have a wee bit of sympathy for the neverlefters

I don't have any sympathy for that. "Neverlefters" are in the same bucket as the idiots. It represents a BS generalization.

There are good points on all sides of the political spectrum. The truth almost always lies somewhere in the middle. Anyone who doesn't see that is partially blind.

[honorentheos]

Once or twice over the years I've raised the question of if there are any values we could claim as national values around which partisanship fell to the side. The response has usually been pessimistic and partisan.

In a sense, Trump has exposed that this is a double fault line that runs down the middle of the partisan divide but between those partisan fault lines is still hope. When a GOP official takes a stand for Democracy it is affirming that somewhere at the core of all the bitterness still stand at least some common values that remain. I don't care if a person would never vote Democrat or repub or whatever. I do care if a person can't stand behind the essential nature of the peaceful transfer of power through democratic elections.