Today is the day the electors meet in all 50 states and the final tally ought to be Joe Biden 306 votes, Trump 232. But we know the brat baby orange pestilence won't let it go and will continue trying to claim he really won. Below, some of the other takes on this continued train wreck which we can hope ends today but likely won't stop until Biden actually is inaugurated.
by Robert Becker | December 13, 2020 - 6:45am | permalink
Not crazy, not still fuming over loss – too dim for a coup, Trump cooks up his final, starring role
Forget the grandiose pundit confetti that Trump’s failure to concede endangers our democracy – or that his mockeries of the law ever jeopardized the outcome. Blatantly out of reach was finagling a second term. This election finale will go down as routine, as polls predicted, despite whatever faux outrage spews forth by sore losers with now badly tarnished reputations. We only hope the Trumplican Party pays an appropriately high penalty.
The farcical Trump legal feints are/were charades to transform a seeming reversal into his last, perhaps preferred hurrah. On stage the Trump soap opera depicts the greatest fraud in history – and with only one star. Need we remind other writers only four lode stars exist in Trump sky: control, status, adoration and cash flow? They are all neatly served by legalistic scams that had to fail to produce the desired effect: an acceptable exit to a Trump dead end. Poor Trump the epic victim is not responsible for his disgrace or departure, and now as always he can blame everyone else.
Dissing an election is neither illegal nor insane, and well beyond Guardian columnist Arwa Mahdawi’s oversimplification, “Trump's end-of-term execution spree is nothing more a perverse power trip.” There is method in the perversity – all about Trump’s career finale. The legal frauds are the logical extensions of Trump’s personality and career – serving up the Pretend President in Exile. Trump the grifter quickly reinvents himself, with an exit from four frustrating White House years, where the spoiled brat often felt handcuffed, betrayed or blocked.
by Meaghan Ellis | December 16, 2020 - 8:56am | permalink
Both conservative networks have been the main television sources airing Trump's unfounded grievances and unproven claims of voter fraud. Fox News, which played a significant role in initially calling the election for Biden, alienated many of its viewers with the truth, even as much of its coverage gave excessive credence to Trump's fraud claims.
No matter how outlandish the claim, Newsmax and OANN have enthusiastically reported the president's claims and refused to accept the outcome of the election. In fact, they have even advocated for Trump's attempts to overturn the outcome of the election. Conservative attorneys Victoria Toensinga and Joseph diGenova said on Newsmax still believe there will be more avenues to argue Trump's points.
"There will be a lot discussed about this over the next 24 hours," diGenova said, the Post reported. Toensing chimed in as she added, "Maybe only on Newsmax."
However, it appears NewsMax is generally turning a corner. The Post reported that one of the outlet's anchors tried to break the news of Biden's win gently to its audience.
"What I'm trying to do is manage everyone's expectations," host John Bachman said. "These judges don't seem to be taking up these cases. This is the reality. This is the motion set in place."
Meanwhile, the Newsmax homepage now highlights Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) remarks acknowledging Biden's win
by Heather Cox Richardson | December 16, 2020 - 7:54am | permalink
Today, Americans began receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine. Dr. Michelle Chester administered the vaccine to Sandra Lindsay, a nurse at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, the first American to get the vaccine. Lindsay is a Covid nurse and said she hoped seeing her get the vaccine would convince people it was safe. “I have seen the alternative, and do not want it for you,” she told the New York Times. “I feel like healing is coming. I hope this marks the beginning of the end of a very painful time in our history.” The pandemic has hit Americans of color particularly hard, making it fitting that the first U.S. dose was administered by a Black doctor to a Black nurse.
Finally, there is light at the end of the tunnel. But that light is still a long way away. Today we passed 300,000 official deaths from Covid-19, with well over 16 million infections. We also set a new single-day record of at least 232,369 new coronavirus cases. Outbreaks are escalating, not dropping, and the upcoming holidays threaten to spread the virus further.
by Jeffrey C. Isaac | December 16, 2020 - 7:40am | permalink
Yesterday the Electoral College voted to officially designate Joe Biden as the President-Elect, in anticipation of his inauguration on January 20, 2021.
Yet Donald Trump is not finished trying to overturn the election. The New York Times reported on Sunday what has long been clear, that "Trump Insists Fight Is Not Over," and "Trump Allies Eye Long-Shot Election Reversal in Congress, Testing Pence." Indeed, within hours of yesterday's Electoral College decision, Stephen Miller notoriously declared that "alternate electors" will seek recognition by Congress on January 6. And Trump continued to insist the fight continues. Indeed, this very morning he re-tweeted a Breitbart feature titled: "Mo Brooks: 'Trump Won the Electoral College' — I Can Be a Part of the 'Surrender Caucus' or I Can Fight for Our Country."
Further quasi-legal methods of Trumpist obstruction remain to be tried.
by Joan McCarter | December 12, 2020 - 8:41am | permalink
The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to take part in Donald Trump and the Republican Party of the United State's coup attempt despite a final round of frivolous unicorn poop and pixie dust briefs from, including and I am not making this up, "New California State" and "New Nevada State." (Alternately, "New Nevada Sate" because spelling is optional in the new civil war.)
Texas filed its reply brief, responding to the blistering briefs from the four states—Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—whose citizens' votes Texas (and 17 other states and 126 Republican House members) wanted to have wiped out. They did so with nonsense: "Texas ask this Court to recognize that Defendant States' maladministration of the 2020 election makes it impossible to know which candidate garnered the majority of lawful votes." They also added a big ol' dollop of racism just so the Court would know what they meant by "lawful votes" in arguing that "a few urban centers" stole the election and that if the Court doesn't act those "few urban centers will manufacture an unlawful and insuperable vote margin," ruining elections forever. Also, lots of gibberish and already litigated, disproven, and dismissed allegations.
It was inevitable that people would begin to argue that because Donald Trump has so far been unable to overturn an election that he lost by a decisive margin, we can all relax: There were no tanks in the streets and "the system worked." There are people who have blithely brushed off his machinations as some kind of therapy for the poor guy, who just needed some time to deal with his disappointment. One Republican famously told the Washington Post, "What is the downside for humoring him for this little bit of time? No one seriously thinks the results will change. He went golfing this weekend. It's not like he's plotting how to prevent Joe Biden from taking power on January 20. He's tweeting about filing some lawsuits, those lawsuits will fail, then he'll tweet some more about how the election was stolen, and then he'll leave."
Apparently, this person sees no harm in allowing Trump to convince 70% of Republicans to believe that Joe Biden's presidency is illegitimate. Indeed, he no doubt sees that as the party's consolation prize. That dismissive view of Trump's refusal to accept his loss has more recently taken hold among others who believe that for all the Democrats' fears that Trump wouldn't leave office, it's apparent that the courts are rejecting his sloppy, evidence-free legal filings, which means the "guardrails" are holding.
by Lucian K. Truscott IV | December 13, 2020 - 7:55am | permalink
They didn't bother with writing articles of secession this time. No, Ken Paxton, the disgraced attorney general of the state of Texas, did that for them when he filed a lawsuit directly with the Supreme Court seeking to overturn the presidential election. On Wednesday, Missouri and 16 other states filed a brief with the court seeking to join the Texas lawsuit, which alleges that the four decisive swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia violated the Constitution by allowing mail-in voting in the November election. On Thursday, a majority of the Republican caucus in the House, 126 members of Congress, signed on to the lawsuit along with the instigator in chief, Donald Trump. Twenty-five states and territories signed a brief opposing the Texas lawsuit. Friday evening, the Supreme Court rejected the suit out of hand.
The 18 states and 126 members of Congress, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Minority Whip Steve Scalise, are seceding from democracy. It amounts to nothing less than an act of sedition by the entire Republican Party, 70 percent of whom believe that Joe Biden's election was illegitimate, according to a Quinnipiac poll released on Thursday. In contrast, 98 percent of Democrats think Biden's victory was legitimate, along with 62 percent of independents
We are all aware that politics in the U.S. is "polarized." Perhaps hopelessly polarized. And for many of us—on both sides, I imagine—it's been dispiriting and exhausting.
I've been thinking in recent days that we might do well to think outside the box. I've been thinking, in particular, that the idea of "one America" might be passé. I've been thinking: why not two separate countries—two Americas—each of which could more fully reflect the hopes and dreams of its residents?
To be completely honest, I've been thinking about this for more than a few days. It's been in the front of my mind since Reagan's election in 1980. So, it's been more like 40 years.
It would work something like this.
In Blue America, we'd have excellent healthcare for all, full employment, and robust investment in green infrastructure, education, the arts, and public spaces. Unionization would be encouraged and celebrated. Our financial sector would be heavily regulated and heavily taxed. Our tax code would be very, very progressive, including a meaningful tax on wealth. Sustainability and a serious effort to slow (and eventually halt) climate change would be embedded in our policies, our built environment, our consumption habits, and our social norms. We'd engage in a serious reckoning with our racist past (and present). We'd get to work on reparations, prison abolition, and reimagining "the police." We'd have generous family leave policies, safe and creative workplaces, a shorter work week, and regular sabbaticals for every worker. There would be a (short) path to citizenship for undocumented U.S. residents. We'd ban assault weapons and regulate gun ownership and use. Voting rights would be universal (de jure and de facto), elections would be publicly funded, and candidates with the most votes would win. We'll construct monuments to social justice warriors, community organizers, and gentle souls who have made the world better without ever shooting a gun. We'll also provide severance pay and generous vouchers for retraining to former employees of health insurance and fossil fuel companies.
Imagine how our political conversation and campaigns would change. Candidates of the "left" would no longer have to spend their time and energy pandering to uninformed, racist (but-hopefully-not-totally-racist) white suburban swing voters in Pennsylvania and Florida.
Opinion
Donald Trump’s continued effort to overturn the result of the election — an effort buttressed by the support of many Republicans in Congress, it should be noted — is nothing short of an attempt at a bloodless coup.
The only way Trump could achieve his aim of denying Joe Biden his rightfully earned victory would be if some people or entities — state legislatures, judges or the Supreme Court — were to agree to throw out millions of legally cast and appropriate votes. (It is also worth noting that many of the jurisdictions being disputed are heavily Black.)
But a stinging defeat in the Supreme Court, packed with three justices of Trump’s own choosing, seems to have slammed the door on any legal path Trump might have had in his outrageous endeavor. The members of the Electoral College will meet on Monday and choose the next president. Barring any extraordinary and unprecedented developments, they will select Joe Biden, as the people already have.
And yet, on Saturday Trump continued to insist on Twitter that “I WON THE ELECTION IN A LANDSLIDE,” and that the Supreme Court ruling was incorrect: “This is a great and disgraceful miscarriage of justice. The people of the United States were cheated, and our Country disgraced. Never even given our day in Court!”
That same day, Trump flew over a “Stop the Steal” rally at Washington’s Freedom Plaza, where the Proud Boys were a prominent presence.
He keeps lying to his supporters, telling them — partly out of pride, partly out of a craven quest for power — that he was cheated and that he actually won the election. Many of them believe him. Right-wing media have aided him in his deception, as have Republican officials, either through their public pronouncements or through their silence.
In vino veritas, or perhaps more appropriately, in Bud Light veritas: These were the words that came to mind while I watched Saturday's Proud Boys riot in Washington, D.C.
For years, the Proud Boys have angrily resisted critics who say the group is racist, claiming instead to be for "Western chauvinism." Before the heat got to him and he quit, Proud Boys founder (and onetime Vice co-founder) Gavin McInnes described the group as being "alt-right without the racism." The Boys' insistence that they are absolutely, definitely not a bunch of racists even led to ugly infighting when a splinter group broke off over the refusal of group leaders to commit to overtly white nationalist beliefs.
But on one Saturday night in Washington, fueled by alcohol and rage over Donald Trump's electoral defeat, the pretense that "Western chauvinism" is not a racist ideology collapsed. After hours of drinking and ginning themselves up, the Proud Boys stole Black Lives Matter flags and targeted counter-protesters who were gathered in Black Lives Matter Plaza. A group of Proud Boys dramatically lit a large Black Lives Matter flag on fire, while flashing the "OK" sign, which of late has been appropriated by racists as a "white power" symbol. Vandalism at two historically Black churches, Asbury United Methodist Church and Metropolitan A.M.E. Church, is being investigated as a hate crime. Four people were stabbed in altercations between the Proud Boys and counter-protesters.
Saturday's rally was ostensibly about protesting Trump's loss and claiming that he was the victim of a "rigged" election. But with inhibitions loosened by booze, anger and literal (as well as metaphorical) darkness, the truth was illuminated: The rage about Donald Trump's electoral fate is about racism. It's a part of the growing fury taking hold of conservatives as their control over American culture slips further and further out of their grasp. Trump is just the latest vehicle for this anger, but this story is about a lot more than him. It's bigger even than electoral politics. This is about a more fundamental issue: over Who gets to define America, and the widespread reactionary outrage over being outnumbered by more liberal, more diverse and more cosmopolitan Americans, and feeling unable to stop the tide of progress.
Trump was able to amass an extraordinary 74.2 million voters with a message of resentment at "political correctness" and "woke" culture, a story about how conservative white people are supposedly being victimized by a changing America. But as much as that campaign whipped up millions of Americans, at the heart of it all was a misdirection. What conservatives really want is control over the culture. That isn't something that can be won at the ballot box, and they know it.
If the actual goal of the angry right were control over governance and policy, they should be thrilled by the past year.
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