Looking at that list of largest Facebook groups, I’m most concerned about getting on the wrong side of the Instant Pot mafia. You talk smack about the instant pot and you’re in for a beating.
From your keyboard to the Goddess's ears, Roy. I can all too easily see Trump simply declaring the election one giant fraud and refusing to step down--followed by McConnell also declaring it a fraud and refusing to seat the newly elected Democrats. Followed by litigation that leads to Roberts and the conservative majority on the Supreme Court ruling that there's too much confusion and Trump needs to stay as president until it's all sorted out in 3 or 4 years.
*If* democracy holds, indeed. Out here in flyover country the Republicans have spent the last six decades attempting to destroy democracy. With or without Trumpism we're going to need to turn that trend around.
I agree everybody on Trump’s team, and possibly/likely Trump himself, know he’s absolutely going to lose the popular vote. Their only hope is the EC, and they know he’s likely to lose THAT unless they can suppress/discredit/invalidate the vote. All their efforts are bent not on winning but on trying to steal the election. Their plan is so obvious it’s visible from space.
Donnie got the Electoral College win thanks to a number of tailwinds including a hatred of Clinton (helped by Comey, James Kallstrom, the FBI NYC office and the Times) and a number of voters seeing Donnie as a hope for change -- I don't mean right wing nut jobs but people who saw or sensed the system failing them. Former isn't happening and latter are you fucking kidding me? He's a documented failure and has made nothing better while in office. Killed Americans, allowed an economic depression to be triggered, allowed the North Koreans to keep on developing their nukes (spoiler: I see that as a middling problem at worst, far less of one than the media and establishment claim); delusion of peace in the Middle East; and so on and so forth. So the mystery is: Given the lack of tailwinds and now with additional head winds, how does he get reelected? I know media reporting is skewed by greed, but still.
And the theory: I think Donnie wants to lose but on his terms. Close enough to spend a couple of months smearing shit all over the system -- indeed, the nation -- and then he'll be gone, having done what few POTUS's have ever done: Leaving the nation in far worse condition than it was on entering office.
And just a reminder: The down ticket races are at least as important as dumping Trump. Need a shit ton of wins, senate on down.
Looking through the countries that have refused extradition, Switzerland seems Trump’s best bet. Maybe Bolivia (coca leaves!). Not Venezuela. Iceland? I think not. Ecuador, too much yellow fever. Zimbabwe, not a chance, too dark.
"....sometimes I feel as if I’m just making everybody feel worse by doubling-underlining the atrocities and misgovernance that characterize current American life."
He wants to lose, yes, in a way where he can make it seem like he didn't. He'll cry voter fraud for the rest of his life, and it'll be believable to his rube base given the higher rate of mail-in voting; he'll tweet about it constantly, show up on Hannity's show a couple nights a week to whine about it, and that's all he'll do until the day he dies. The only way there's a coup and he steals the election is if there's enough coordination between federal courts and Republican-run states tossing ballots in such a way that he runs the table with the electoral college again. I don't know how likely that is or whether they're competent enough to pull it off, but it shows that as big a threat as Trump is, the problem doesn't lie solely with him: the entire party is corrupt and must be destroyed.
Trump is indeed a wimp (insert a thesaurus worth of negative synonyms here). He and his nutjob followers may have fascist dictator dreams for him, but he's no Pinochet, and he'd tell you himself if he knew who that was. And I'd love to be even a teensy bit encouraged that Trump will not still be president come January 21. But what worries me isn't what he'll do "when the votes run against him" or whether he'll lose the popular vote or what happens with the electoral college. It's that Trump's (and Putin's) sabotage of the election itself will make any counting of votes moot, since the Trumpist GOP is doing its damnedest to ensure there isn't a legitimate vote in the first place. The blatant crippling of the USPS, the recent Wisconsin & Florida Supreme Court vandalism, GOP election officials fucking with the vote in every state they hold power (see Kemp, Brian), etc., is all intended to turn the election into chaos that will make Florida 2000 seem like a minor dispute at a PTA meeting. (Not to mention the decision in April by the U.S. Supreme Court disallowing a 6-day extension for absentee ballots in Wisconsin -- a case instigated by the GOP (surprise) and a foreshadowing of what we might be in for if a disputed election reaches their authority).
Sorry for the lack of humor, but I'm inclined to be less sanguine than bilious about this one.
What's disturbing about the QAnon loons is that such people exist and probably have driver's licenses. What's truly frightening are the right-wing nutjobs with the guns and diseased minds receptive to this shit. Only an atom of sanity prevented the guy who shot up Comet Ping Pong from turning it into a Pittsburgh synagogue or an El Paso Walmart.
I'm glad you wrote this, because I agree with it, and it's not said enough. Trump's full of shit. He'll ratfuck as much as he can, but forget the BS that he and his ilk -like Roger Stone - fantasize aloud about.
I'm keeping my head down, my powder dry and a stiff upper lip. That's all. If the fascist party isn't defeated then I'll take stock of my circumstances then.
In any fair election the fascist party would lose - but, well, you know.
Re: NATO, something that people keep forgetting (not our host, of course) is that it actually is a ratified treaty; it's not like the Iran Agreement, the Paris Agreement or any number of treaties that the US signed but which various GOP Senates refused to ratify starting with the League of Nations. The only way that the US will leave NATO is if the Senate votes to revocate the treaty and even this GOP Senate, as wretched a bunch of assholes as it is won't agree to that so let's just drop any serious discussion of that.
As for the rest, I agree that a lot of Trump's ravings are just ignored by the vast majority of Americans, i.e. except for the base. And I discount a lot of those online supporters on Twitter and FB; a large number of them are Russian bots just like in 2016.
The gravest problem, as it has been since the beginning of the campaign is the GOP's determination to undermine and invalidate the election itself. I'm glad that Biden is putting together a large team of election litigators; he will need them. Basically unless Biden wins the swing states by large double-digit leads then the ratfuckers will busily go to work discrediting the vote.
Over at Charlie Pierce's place I made the following comment in reply and since it seems apropro I'll copy here as well.
From Charlie Pierce:
"First of all, and this is a warning for all those yahoos in camo, anyone who thinks that the likes of Michael Caputo, let alone Cadet Bonespurs in the White House, are going to be out there on the front lines of anything is radically overestimating the size and weight of their cojones. This is the most "Let's You and Him Fight" administration of all time*. If you look around at the revolution, and you can't figure out who the sucker is, it's you, George Lincoln."
Me:
Aye. The I live in the Oregon countryside and some of my neighbors are those "yahoos in camo" you talk about. No need to worry about them, they're mostly aging, balding, fat, out-of-shape, wheezing old dotards who think if they put on a bullet proof vest and grab an AR-15 that makes them tough. Maybe one out of five of the militia types I see could actually ever get himself and his gear up over a 2500 ft. ridge without blowing out his heart and having a stroke.
Don't worry about them doing anything in any effective way. But they might get some people killed.
Looking at that list of largest Facebook groups, I’m most concerned about getting on the wrong side of the Instant Pot mafia. You talk smack about the instant pot and you’re in for a beating.
From your keyboard to the Goddess's ears, Roy. I can all too easily see Trump simply declaring the election one giant fraud and refusing to step down--followed by McConnell also declaring it a fraud and refusing to seat the newly elected Democrats. Followed by litigation that leads to Roberts and the conservative majority on the Supreme Court ruling that there's too much confusion and Trump needs to stay as president until it's all sorted out in 3 or 4 years.
*If* democracy holds, indeed. Out here in flyover country the Republicans have spent the last six decades attempting to destroy democracy. With or without Trumpism we're going to need to turn that trend around.
I agree everybody on Trump’s team, and possibly/likely Trump himself, know he’s absolutely going to lose the popular vote. Their only hope is the EC, and they know he’s likely to lose THAT unless they can suppress/discredit/invalidate the vote. All their efforts are bent not on winning but on trying to steal the election. Their plan is so obvious it’s visible from space.
A mystery and a theory:
Donnie got the Electoral College win thanks to a number of tailwinds including a hatred of Clinton (helped by Comey, James Kallstrom, the FBI NYC office and the Times) and a number of voters seeing Donnie as a hope for change -- I don't mean right wing nut jobs but people who saw or sensed the system failing them. Former isn't happening and latter are you fucking kidding me? He's a documented failure and has made nothing better while in office. Killed Americans, allowed an economic depression to be triggered, allowed the North Koreans to keep on developing their nukes (spoiler: I see that as a middling problem at worst, far less of one than the media and establishment claim); delusion of peace in the Middle East; and so on and so forth. So the mystery is: Given the lack of tailwinds and now with additional head winds, how does he get reelected? I know media reporting is skewed by greed, but still.
And the theory: I think Donnie wants to lose but on his terms. Close enough to spend a couple of months smearing shit all over the system -- indeed, the nation -- and then he'll be gone, having done what few POTUS's have ever done: Leaving the nation in far worse condition than it was on entering office.
And just a reminder: The down ticket races are at least as important as dumping Trump. Need a shit ton of wins, senate on down.
Looking through the countries that have refused extradition, Switzerland seems Trump’s best bet. Maybe Bolivia (coca leaves!). Not Venezuela. Iceland? I think not. Ecuador, too much yellow fever. Zimbabwe, not a chance, too dark.
"....sometimes I feel as if I’m just making everybody feel worse by doubling-underlining the atrocities and misgovernance that characterize current American life."
Yeah, but it's groovier hearing it from you Roy.
He wants to lose, yes, in a way where he can make it seem like he didn't. He'll cry voter fraud for the rest of his life, and it'll be believable to his rube base given the higher rate of mail-in voting; he'll tweet about it constantly, show up on Hannity's show a couple nights a week to whine about it, and that's all he'll do until the day he dies. The only way there's a coup and he steals the election is if there's enough coordination between federal courts and Republican-run states tossing ballots in such a way that he runs the table with the electoral college again. I don't know how likely that is or whether they're competent enough to pull it off, but it shows that as big a threat as Trump is, the problem doesn't lie solely with him: the entire party is corrupt and must be destroyed.
Once again Roy, MAKE THIS COLUMN PUBLIC.
Trump is indeed a wimp (insert a thesaurus worth of negative synonyms here). He and his nutjob followers may have fascist dictator dreams for him, but he's no Pinochet, and he'd tell you himself if he knew who that was. And I'd love to be even a teensy bit encouraged that Trump will not still be president come January 21. But what worries me isn't what he'll do "when the votes run against him" or whether he'll lose the popular vote or what happens with the electoral college. It's that Trump's (and Putin's) sabotage of the election itself will make any counting of votes moot, since the Trumpist GOP is doing its damnedest to ensure there isn't a legitimate vote in the first place. The blatant crippling of the USPS, the recent Wisconsin & Florida Supreme Court vandalism, GOP election officials fucking with the vote in every state they hold power (see Kemp, Brian), etc., is all intended to turn the election into chaos that will make Florida 2000 seem like a minor dispute at a PTA meeting. (Not to mention the decision in April by the U.S. Supreme Court disallowing a 6-day extension for absentee ballots in Wisconsin -- a case instigated by the GOP (surprise) and a foreshadowing of what we might be in for if a disputed election reaches their authority).
Sorry for the lack of humor, but I'm inclined to be less sanguine than bilious about this one.
JFC I needed that. Thanks.
What's disturbing about the QAnon loons is that such people exist and probably have driver's licenses. What's truly frightening are the right-wing nutjobs with the guns and diseased minds receptive to this shit. Only an atom of sanity prevented the guy who shot up Comet Ping Pong from turning it into a Pittsburgh synagogue or an El Paso Walmart.
I'm glad you wrote this, because I agree with it, and it's not said enough. Trump's full of shit. He'll ratfuck as much as he can, but forget the BS that he and his ilk -like Roger Stone - fantasize aloud about.
I'm keeping my head down, my powder dry and a stiff upper lip. That's all. If the fascist party isn't defeated then I'll take stock of my circumstances then.
In any fair election the fascist party would lose - but, well, you know.
Re: NATO, something that people keep forgetting (not our host, of course) is that it actually is a ratified treaty; it's not like the Iran Agreement, the Paris Agreement or any number of treaties that the US signed but which various GOP Senates refused to ratify starting with the League of Nations. The only way that the US will leave NATO is if the Senate votes to revocate the treaty and even this GOP Senate, as wretched a bunch of assholes as it is won't agree to that so let's just drop any serious discussion of that.
As for the rest, I agree that a lot of Trump's ravings are just ignored by the vast majority of Americans, i.e. except for the base. And I discount a lot of those online supporters on Twitter and FB; a large number of them are Russian bots just like in 2016.
The gravest problem, as it has been since the beginning of the campaign is the GOP's determination to undermine and invalidate the election itself. I'm glad that Biden is putting together a large team of election litigators; he will need them. Basically unless Biden wins the swing states by large double-digit leads then the ratfuckers will busily go to work discrediting the vote.
Over at Charlie Pierce's place I made the following comment in reply and since it seems apropro I'll copy here as well.
From Charlie Pierce:
"First of all, and this is a warning for all those yahoos in camo, anyone who thinks that the likes of Michael Caputo, let alone Cadet Bonespurs in the White House, are going to be out there on the front lines of anything is radically overestimating the size and weight of their cojones. This is the most "Let's You and Him Fight" administration of all time*. If you look around at the revolution, and you can't figure out who the sucker is, it's you, George Lincoln."
Me:
Aye. The I live in the Oregon countryside and some of my neighbors are those "yahoos in camo" you talk about. No need to worry about them, they're mostly aging, balding, fat, out-of-shape, wheezing old dotards who think if they put on a bullet proof vest and grab an AR-15 that makes them tough. Maybe one out of five of the militia types I see could actually ever get himself and his gear up over a 2500 ft. ridge without blowing out his heart and having a stroke.
Don't worry about them doing anything in any effective way. But they might get some people killed.