US citizens and concerned others should pay attention to a segment from last night's Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC (6 minutes):
The story tries to make sense of the fact that Trump has repeatedly remarked in an ominous way that he's not too concerned about whether people vote, as if the plan is to win the election not on votes but court challenges.
She's drawing on excellent reporting from Rolling Stone. From that article:
“I think we are going to see mass refusals to certify the election” in November, says Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias. “Everything we are seeing about this election is that the other side is more organized, more ruthless, and more prepared.”
I don't even know why anyone at MSNBC is surprised. I've been worried for now a couple of years that this was going to happen and it was because of reporting MSNBC and others did even back then, saying that the groundwork for this was being laid. That we have taken this long to recognize the threat is distressing.
If Biden does not have a task force in place to counter this threat, he needs to make one.
As I noted in my July 5 blog post Supreme Challenge, before Biden passed the baton to Harris, Biden now has considerable power he's opting not to use but must reconsider using to assure fair elections.
He could, for example, order DOJ to charge every one of these people who are conspiring in advance and without foundation to challenge an election with seditious conspiracy. Such powers, SCOTUS tells us, are absolute and not subject to legal review. Probably there are other actions he could take, too.
My more general point is that we don't have to sit idle and watch misdeeds play out as if there is nothing to be done. Certainly if Trump is elected, HE will use those same powers in exactly the same way but without foundation, hesitation, or remorse, and without the health of our democracy as his goal.
As noted by Marc Elias in the quote above, these guys are not kidding around, they are playing for keeps. The Dems better treat this as the serious threat it is. I'd say the GOP should likewise care, but they're in a hypnotic trance, operating in mindless lockstep, so it's up to those not under the spell to act.
Maybe, too, Kamala can see what Joe might not and use her newfound clout to get him to take the gloves off.
Author's Notes:
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This is effectively a mirror of an essay I wrote on Mastodon earlier today, July 30, 2024. This post is effectively a mirror for easier access, though the original venue has some comments not replicated here, and obviously I've done some reformatting and light editing to accommodate better typography options available here.
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