How Alarmed Should We Be?

It's not many millions. A very small minority IMO, they're very vociferous so they appear greater in number. They don't really think Trump won the election, they don't CARE who won the election. They don't like elections. Leaders are best chosen by struggle, not popularity contests

These people have been with us for a very long time. They were the main reason for our first Civil War but they don't have the wherewithal and base that requires now and have no real prospect of ever gaining it back.

 

One-third of Americans believe Biden won because of voter fraud: poll
https://thehill.com/homenews/campai...believe-biden-won-because-of-voter-fraud-poll

The real goal of Trump's disinformation campaign is............distrust of elections. The erosion of a belief there is an objective reality.

https://www.npr.org/2021/11/01/1050...fair-but-sharp-divides-exist-a-new-poll-finds

 

For those who spend their days operating within the constraints of empirical reality, the long-running voter-fraud scam peddled by right-wing con artists poses a dilemma: Respond to their claims and give them the veneer of legitimacy they crave. Ignore them, and risk letting transparent lies spread unchecked.

I used to err on the side of responding as often as possible, in the belief that persistent fact-checking and debunking was the best way to inoculate the American public against a virulent campaign of deception. But it became clear to me, probably later than it should have, that this was always a fool’s game. The professional vote-fraud crusaders are not in the fact business. While they pretend to care about real election crimes, their purpose is not to identify whether voters are actually committing such crimes; it is to concoct a world in which the votes of certain people (and it always seems to be the same people) are presumptively invalid. That’s why they are not chastened by data demonstrating — again and again and again and again — that there is essentially no voter fraud anywhere in this country.

Thanks to their efforts, about three quarters of Republicans believe the 2020 election was stolen, and they won’t be convinced by evidence to the contrary.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/17/opinion/election-vote-fraud-data.html

When objective reality is dismissed by a significant number of members of the POT we have a situation we should be very alarmed about.

 

GOP could win 6 of Arizona's 9 congressional seats after remap

Arizona, one of the most bitterly divided swing states, finalized a new congressional map that could hand the GOP six of its nine congressional districts in 2022.

The state’s redistricting commission on Wednesday approved a layout that creates two true swing seats in the suburbs of Phoenix and Tucson — currently held by GOP Rep. David Schweikert and retiring Democratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick — while very possibly dooming Democratic Rep. Tom O'Halleran in the northeast half of the state.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/22/congressional-redistricting-arizona-525993

 

Isn’t it funny how almost everything democrats accuse their enemies of, the democrats are guilty of and to a much higher degree?

Ive learned something about the democrat party. If they accuse you of doing something evil it is because THEY are engaging in the activity and project said behavior onto you.

There are literally hundreds of examples just from trumps time as president.

For instance “Trump will refuse to accept his election loss in 2016” and the Dems for MONTHS before the election were preemptively condemning him for it. And what did they do after the election when they lost? They refused to accept the results for 4 years.

What actually concerns me the most is the rhetoric the democrats are now engaging in by claiming if trump doesn’t win the 2024 election somehow the righties are going to try a complete takeover coup.

Given the democrats constant projection, what does that mean for them in 2024 if trump wins? They will start a coup under the guise that they have to save democracy from the evil righty fascists.

Mark my words. Watch what I say.

 

Wouldn't surprise me a bit. Hell I am going to be curious as hell as to how they react to what currently appears a huge Republican wave in the midterms.

 

Best description of the woke left ever.

 

Georgia Republican proposes eliminating ballot drop boxes ahead of 2022 elections

WASHINGTON, Dec 13 (Reuters) - A leading Georgia legislator has introduced a bill that would eliminate absentee ballot drop boxes, a favored and highly-used tool last November that allowed voters to safely cast ballots during the coronavirus pandemic.

Butch Miller, the No.2 Republican in Georgia's Republican-controlled senate and a candidate for lieutenant governor in the 2022 elections, said drop boxes were a “weak link” in guarding against voter fraud, according to a statement released by his office.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/ge...t-drop-boxes-ahead-2022-elections-2021-12-13/

 

Trump’s Defeat a Year Ago Was Dunkirk, Not D-Day

The anti-democratic forces seem stronger at the end of 2021 than they were at the beginning. The Republican party seems to be more captive to authoritarian demagoguery today than it was a year ago following Trump’s defeat. Establishment Republicans seem to be even more willing to appease a rising anti-democratic Right than ever. The trajectory of the Republican party heading into 2022 is worrisome. At the start of 2020, people believed that the Republican party might become explicitly anti-democratic. At the start of 2021, all doubt was removed. And neither the party’s leaders nor voters have done anything to change that base fact.

As for sanity: The strength of the anti-vaccination movement says it all. As does the unwillingness of the vaccinated conservatives to confront that movement. This week the Wall Street Journal editorial page featured a defense of the notorious Great Barrington Declaration.

For those who have forgotten, the Great Barrington Declaration was a statement put out in October 2020, calling for governments to abandon COVID mitigation strategies and rush instead toward “herd immunity.” It was a foolish idea that, if followed, would have resulted in a far greater number of COVID deaths. If the authors had suggested using leeches to treat COVID patients, it would have been a less dangerous proposal.
https://www.thebulwark.com/trumps-defeat-a-year-ago-was-dunkirk-not-d-day/

An article worth reading.

 

In State Legislatures Nationwide, Republicans Are Consolidating Power

Congress gets most of the national attention in the redistricting wars, but state legislatures are key battlegrounds that deserve some scrutiny. For one thing, there are thousands of state legislative districts — all the more opportunity for a sneaky gerrymander to slip by unnoticed.

Also, state legislatures, as we’ve seen over the past year, hold immense power in the democratic process — including setting election rules and responding (or not) to the COVID pandemic. Here are five of the most dramatic examples of state-level gerrymandering we’ve seen this year.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/...s-redistricting-republicans-consolidate-power

North Carolina
Amid the multiple lawsuits over North Carolina Republicans’ state legislative and congressional maps, the state’s Supreme Court postponed primary elections, citing “the great public interest in the subject matter.”

It’s not hard to see why people are interested: The maps passed by the state legislature would give Republicans 24 safe Senate seats, as opposed to 17 safe seats for Democrats, the News Observer reported. In the House, the balance of safe seats is 55-41 in Republicans’ favor.

The Princeton Gerrymandering Project, a nonpartisan group that scores redistricting proposals, gave the state House and Senate maps “F” grades overall, as well as Fs for partisan fairness.

 

North Carolina wrote the playbook Wisconsin and Michigan are using to undermine democracy

Democrat Roy Cooper was weeks away from being sworn in as the new governor of North Carolina, when outgoing Republican Gov. Pat McCrory called a special session of the legislature under the guise of helping the victims of natural disasters. Instead, he was orchestrating a plan to severely limit the incoming Democratic governor’s power.

Within 48 hours, on a late December night in 2016, the Republican-controlled state legislature passed a series of bills that pulled Cooper’s ability to make key cabinet appointments without their approval, drastically cut the size of Cooper’s administration, and changed the Board of Elections so that Republicans would control it in election years. They ensured lawsuits had to first go through the Republican-controlled appeals court, before the Democratic-majority state Supreme Court.

Democrats — who thought of Cooper’s victory as one of the few bright spots in an otherwise devastating year for the party — were blindsided.

“To pull off an ambush like that, all the Republicans had to be in on it,” state Sen. Jeff Jackson (D) said. “They started filing bills that were 40 pages long. They had been working on this for weeks.”
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-poli...olina-power-grab-wisconsin-michigan-lame-duck

 

‘Slow-motion insurrection’: How GOP seizes election power

In the weeks leading up to the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, a handful of Americans — well-known politicians, obscure local bureaucrats — stood up to block then-President Donald Trump’s unprecedented attempt to overturn a free and fair vote of the American people.

In the year since, Trump-aligned Republicans have worked to clear the path for next time.

In battleground states and beyond, Republicans are taking hold of the once-overlooked machinery of elections. While the effort is incomplete and uneven, outside experts on democracy and Democrats are sounding alarms, warning that the United States is witnessing a “slow-motion insurrection” with a better chance of success than Trump’s failed power grab last year.

They point to a mounting list of evidence: Several candidates who deny Trump’s loss are running for offices that could have a key role in the election of the next president in 2024. In Michigan, the Republican Party is restocking members of obscure local boards that could block approval of an election. In Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, the GOP-controlled legislatures are backing open-ended “reviews” of the 2020 election, modeled on a deeply flawed look-back in Arizona. The efforts are poised to fuel disinformation and anger about the 2020 results for years to come.
https://apnews.com/article/donald-t...lection-2020-809215812f4bc6e5907573ba98247c0c

"This time, experts argue, is different: Never in the country’s modern history has a major party sought to turn the administration of elections into an explicitly partisan act."

 

Whose ‘Big Lie’? Trump’s proclamation a new GOP litmus test

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump and his supporters are intensifying efforts to shame — and potentially remove — members of their party who are seen as disloyal to the former president and his false claims that last year’s election was stolen from him.

On Capitol Hill, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the No. 3 Republican in the House, risks losing her leadership post amid her increasingly public dispute with Trump. In Utah, Sen. Mitt Romney, a rare Trump foe in the GOP, faced the indignity over the weekend of reminding a booing crowd that he was once their presidential standard-bearer. And in Texas, the only openly anti-Trump Republican in a crowded special election for a congressional seat finished a lowly 9th.

Trump left office nearly four months ago with his reputation badly damaged after a mob of his supporters waged a deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol to prevent the certification of election results. But the recent developments suggest a revival of his political fortunes in which those who refuse to go along with his falsehoods find themselves on the defensive.
https://apnews.com/article/campaign...and-politics-3e0aaf0b8a5dfc825dc0ae1f3d30d4dc

 

It is regular citizens who threaten election officials and other public servants, who ask, “When can we use the guns?” and who vow to murder politicians who dare to vote their conscience. It is Republican lawmakers scrambling to make it harder for people to vote and easier to subvert their will if they do. It is Donald Trump who continues to stoke the flames of conflict with his rampant lies and limitless resentments and whose twisted version of reality still dominates one of the nation’s two major political parties.

In short, the Republic faces an existential threat from a movement that is openly contemptuous of democracy and has shown that it is willing to use violence to achieve its ends. No self-governing society can survive such a threat by denying that it exists. Rather, survival depends on looking back and forward at the same time.

Truly grappling with the threat ahead means taking full account of the terror of that day a year ago. Thanks largely to the dogged work of a bipartisan committee in the House of Representatives, this reckoning is underway. We know now that the violence and mayhem broadcast live around the world was only the most visible and visceral part of the effort to overturn the election. The effort extended all the way into the Oval Office, where Mr. Trump and his allies plotted a constitutional self-coup.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/01/opinion/january-6-attack-committee.html

 

LANSING, MI - Republicans have officially replaced the GOP state canvasser who certified President-elect Joe Biden’s win with a conservative activist after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer accepted one of their nominations.

Aaron Van Langevelde, who also serves as legal counsel to the state House Republicans, made waves when he pushed back against election challenges within his own party with his Nov. 23 vote to certify. This clinched Biden’s Electoral College win in Michigan.
https://www.mlive.com/public-intere...fied-election-with-conservative-activist.html

Aaron Van Langevelde resists pressure from his own party, certifies election

Michigan was at the center of American politics several times this year, but a spotlight was shined on an unlikely subject in November—Board of State Canvassers member Aaron Van Langevelde.

Van Langevelde serves as the legal counsel for the Michigan House of Representatives Republican Policy Office. His vote to certify the state's 5.5 million votes on Nov. 23 was important because one member abstained from the decision, leaving Van Langevelde to decide whether the results – in which Michiganders chose Joe Biden – should be certified.

Trump lobbied to stop Michigan's electoral college vote from going to Biden through tweets, numerous lawsuits and his legislative testimony from his personal attorney. It put an immense amount of pressure on typically rote parts of the vote certification process, including the Board of State Canvassers.

Despite the pressure, the board certified the vote and Joe Biden defeated Trump by 2.8%. Since then, Van Langevelde has kept a low profile; he did not return MLive's requests to be interviewed.
https://www.mlive.com/public-intere...ganders-helped-all-of-us-weather-2020.html#SC

A lot of attention was given to the few Repubs who did the right thing after the 2020 election. It was rightly placed on ones in prominent positions (like acting AG Rosen and Brad Raffensberger) for what they did to help stop the steal.

But recognition should also be given to lower level bit players who did their part to enforce the rule of law. Heroes like Aaron Van Langevelde. Courageous men and women who resisted pressure within their party to cheat on Trump's behalf. For Van Langevelde, recognition is what he got. The MI state POT replaced him. Cuz......you know.......how ya gonna steal a future election if people are gonna follow the rules?

 

Garland Draws Line Between Trump Big Lie And GOP Voter Suppression
Garland is doing something interesting here, drawing a close link between longstanding Republican voter suppression, supercharged by the Supreme Court’s evisceration of the Voting Rights Act in 2013.

“In recent years, the protections of the voting rights act have been drastically weakened,” he said.

Garland added that this includes radical gerrymanders, voter suppressing laws, and frivolous, Trump-y election audits. It also includes, Garland said, talk about having state legislatures throw out the results chosen by the state’s voters and appoint separate electors.

“All Americans are entitled to free, fair, and secure elections that ensure they can select the representative of their choice,” he says.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/live-blog/ag-garland-speaks-about-jan-6-investigations

 

They stormed the Capitol. Now they’re running for office.

The Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol is remembered as one of the darkest and most shameful episodes in American history.

But at least 57 individuals who played a role in that day’s events — either by attending the Save America rally that preceded the riots, gathering at the Capitol steps or breaching the Capitol itself — are now running for elected office.

Rather than disqualifying them from public service, the events of Jan. 6 appear to have served as a political springboard for dozens of Republicans who will be on the ballot this year for federal, state and local offices.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/05/jan-6-protesters-run-for-office-526545

It was crazy enough that supporters of the Big Lie are set to replace reality based Repubs who reject it. Now it seems participating in the attempted coup is also a plus for those running in POT primaries. The former GOP is gone.

 

How to stop Trump from stealing the election next time

We’re one year removed from the chaos of January 6, 2021 — and perhaps three years away from further chaos in January 2025.

Donald Trump is seemingly moving toward another presidential run. His loyalists are trying to gain control of key electoral positions. The GOP base remains loyal to Trump despite (or because of) his attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s presidential election win. Various glaring institutional flaws in the US electoral system remain unaddressed.

Whether or not another angry mob materializes, the possibility of another attempt to steal a close election in 2024 remains disturbingly plausible.

Still, various actions could be taken to try and stop it from happening again. Some are institutional or technocratic tweaks, and some are electoral battles or longer-term reform efforts. They might not be enough — it’s hard to combat broader systemic forces like identity-based polarization pushing the Republican Party toward extremism. But altogether, they make up an agenda that could help reduce the chances of the 2024 election being stolen.
https://www.vox.com/22870396/january-6-trump-2024-insurrection-election-big-lie

 

GOP Senator Says He’s ‘Not Surprised’ About Trump Attacking Him For Calling Election ‘Fair’
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/rounds-defense-election-fair-trump-attack

Because in the POT the truth will not be tolerated. It certainly wasn't while Don was crapping on the Constitution while in office...........why would it change as he aspires to return to the WH.

 

Real political work, for Hersh, is the intentional, strategic accumulation of power in service of a defined end. It is action in service of change, not information in service of outrage. This distinction is on my mind because, like so many others, I’ve spent the week revisiting the attempted coup of Jan. 6, marinating in my fury toward the Republicans who put fealty toward Donald Trump above loyalty toward country and the few but pivotal Senate Democrats who are proving, day after day, that they think the filibuster more important than the franchise. Let me tell you, the tweets and columns I drafted in my head were searing.

But fury is useful only as fuel. We need a Plan B for democracy. Plan A was to pass H.R. 1 and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. Neither bill, as of now, has a path to President Biden’s desk. I’ve found that you provoke a peculiar anger if you state this, as if admitting the problem were the cause of the problem. I fear denial has left many Democrats stuck on a national strategy with little hope of near-term success. In order to protect democracy, Democrats have to win more elections. And to do that, they need to make sure the country’s local electoral machinery isn’t corrupted by the Trumpist right.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/09/opinion/trump-bannon-trumpism-democracy.html

In his article Klein suggests Dems should follow Bannon's model of placing, in the Dem's case progressives, in positions making up the apparatus of elections to prevent the takeover by the anti-democratic impulses of The Following.

 

Justice Dept. forms new domestic terrorism unit to address growing threat

The Justice Department is forming a new domestic terrorism unit to help combat a threat that has intensified dramatically in recent years, a top national security official said Tuesday.

Matthew G. Olsen, the head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, announced the unit in his opening remarks before the Senate Judiciary Committee, noting that the number of FBI investigations of suspected domestic violent extremists — those accused of planning or committing crimes in the name of domestic political goals — had more than doubled since the spring of 2020.

Olsen said the Justice Department previously had counterterrorism attorneys who worked both domestic and international cases, and that the new unit would “augment our existing approach.” His testimony comes just a few days after the anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, an event that some lawmakers say showed the FBI underestimated the threat posed by domestic extremists and violence-prone members of far-right groups.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...d8d82c-72eb-11ec-8b0a-bcfab800c430_story.html

The last admin had little interest in combating domestic terrorism since the terrorists supported Dear Leader.

 

McCormick MAGA-proofs his Senate campaign after dissing Trump

PHILADELPHIA — Dave McCormick has been quoted bashing populism, celebrating skilled immigration and even warning about the potential drawbacks of an “America First” mindset. A former hedge fund CEO, he’s overseen more than $1 billion in investments in China.

None of it is apparent from his Senate campaign website, which says people are asking him to run to represent “America First” values, a nod to former President Donald Trump’s battle cry.

As McCormick prepares to imminently enter Pennsylvania’s Republican contest for the Senate — a race in which candidates are outdoing each other to prove their loyalty to Trump — he is already making moves to inoculate himself from the all-but-certain primary attacks that he is insufficiently MAGA.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/11/david-mccormick-senate-campaign-trump-526870

One of the themes of the thread is how completely almost anyone with a future in the POT must first court the approval of Capt. COVID.

 

As Donald Trump charts out his midterm elections strategy, his focus has turned to the contest for the Senate, not just in hopes of getting it back under GOP control but of having more compliant lawmakers there should he become president again.

Trump’s interest in the chamber stems in part from a lingering aggrievement he had over how his term in office went. Major agenda items were stymied there. And aides say Trump is determined to ensure that, should he end up back in the White House, that doesn’t happen again.

“If Trump is planning to run for president — which all signs point to, he is — the most important thing should be to elect more people to the Senate who share his worldview,” one Trumpworld adviser said. “I think the biggest problem Trump had in the first four years was the lack of ideological supporters in the Senate.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/13/trump-senate-midterm-gop-control-526991

Five alarm fire alarmed.

 

Another principled Repub who voted to impeach Trump based on the overwhelming evidence of his guilt has made way for a Trumpist.

Rep. John Katko (R-N.Y.) said Friday he will not seek another term in Congress, becoming the third of the 10 Republicans who voted last year to impeach former president Donald Trump to announce their retirement.

In a statement posted to his Facebook page, Katko, 59, said that he made the decision “so that I can enjoy my family and life in a fuller and more present way.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...b231ec-7559-11ec-bc13-18891499c514_story.html

Of note, Katko was the guy McCarthy assigned to compromise with Dems on the 1/6 committee.......which he did quite successfully. Then McCarthy decided he needed to kiss the ring and since has done everything possible to undermine its establishment and its work.

 

A majority of Trump's 2022 endorsements have questioned the 2020 election results

Former President Donald Trump is bringing the 2022 roadshow to Arizona this Saturday for his first rally of the midterm-election year.

And the event will include Arizona Republicans like Kari Lake (a candidate for governor) and Mark Finchem (running for secretary of state) who have trumpeted Trump’s attacks on the 2020 presidential election — and have earned the former president’s endorsement.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/me...ave-questioned-2020-election-results-n1287466

Lake has said if she were the governor of AZ she would not have signed off on the certification of Biden's victory.