We've staved off, well, all kinds of horrible things (so far) with Joe Biden's election. Four more years of authoritarianism. Four more years of temper tantrum-based decisions. Four more years of abuse at the border.
It took a heavy lift, besides. Biden didn't win by nearly enough to establish an overwhelming mandate of decency and a return to sound government. Lots and lots of people still voted for him. Yes, I'm amazed in a way, at the closeness of the election. But in a way, I'm not. This is our country now. It's not a pretty sight.
But it is pretty to think so. 45 is still trying and probing somehow, somewhere, to find a weak spot in the system. After all, it's 50 separate states. 50 separate systems. Surely, there must be a way to invalidate the voting.
He hasn't found one so far. He's still trying. He's in denial. No state, so far, has allowed him to bask in it. But if he finds one, he'll try for the grand slam and get back into the game of fogginess, of maybe, of possibilities, of confusion. If he establishes a hold there, he usually wins.
That's why we have to stay engaged. I know you want to run and hide now, and the pandemic makes it easier to do so. Please don't. Please stay engaged.
What 45's trying to do is what Timothy Egan of the New York Times calls a coup by con. States' votes are being certified. Pretty soon, all 50 will be in. He has to stop enough votes in enough states to deny Biden 270 electoral votes. He's running out of time. He's running out of states.
He just tried to leverage Michigan's state legislators to deny Biden its 16 electoral votes. Tried, but failed. But he will try again, maybe there, maybe elsewhere. His lawyer simply said that the legislators in the battleground states 45 lost must vote arrange a vote for 45 instead. They must.
They must because he said so? That's it? No regulations matter? No popular votes matter? There is no legal justification. There is no overriding irregularity. None has been found. That's because none are there. Not in Michigan, not in Georgia, not in Arizona, not in Nevada, not in Pennsylvania and not, as he soon will learn during the partial recount, in Wisconsin. Not there. Their claims are baseless.
They're playing for time, but time has reversed itself into their enemy because their probing has found nothing but walls. Time is too short for those who wait, too swift for those who fear. Keep your eye on December 8; that is the 'safe harbor' date for states to complete their counts to secure the electoral vote. Any attempt to foul up the system must be decided by then.
When he starts saying, You have to because I said so, that's a demand of a dictator. Most Republicans are still too afraid to get in his face and say that that's a direct threat to the system, that that would destroy democracy.
But they can't deny the lack of fraud, the lack of mistakes. We can't find anything. It's a default, chickenshit excuse, an excuse of leakers, but it'll do for now. The Georgia Secretary of State has been battered and bruised, but he has the integrity of an election process to defend, and defend it he has. Georgia's hand-counted recount ended yesterday. It made Joe Biden the winner. Again, by thousands of votes. Irreversible. And certified.
45 fell all over himself giving the states control over containing the virus. You know, faith in the states, even though none of them have ever gone through something like this. Now he's attacking something over which the states have had all kinds of control for all kinds of years. But he doesn't like the result, so he's attacking them. So preposterous. So transparent.
As we get closer to December 8, the 'safe harbor' date when all state totals must be certified to secure the electoral votes, 45 will continue to tweet his classic, disingenuous but implicitly clear, notion that he's being robbed of a second term. His minions will continue to hit the streets, in obliviousness to the legal and thorough processes their states have performed, processes that they should otherwise be proud of. There will be trouble galore. He will also challenge police unions that have supported him to stand aside and make sure the objectors get all the time and space they want. Wait and see.
In between that date and December 14, when the members of the Electoral College must go to their state capitols and actually cast ballots for the person who carried the popular vote in his state, as the antiquated but still enforceable 12th Amendment demands (and tradition has well established), 45 will appeal to Republican legislators in battleground states in which he's lost and demand that they send Republican electors instead so that he actually circumvents what just about 80 million people have done and win the election anyway. But Michigan isn't going to do that, at least it doesn't look like it. And Pennsylvania's Republican senate leader has already said that the state's constitution is clear; they have to do the will of. the people, which Biden won by more than 60,000 votes.
I do not trust Wisconsin. Those Republican leaders have denied logic and good will so far; I would not be surprised if they tried a fast one here, claiming corruption in the popular vote which doesn't exist. But even if that should succeed--and I would think that that would be severely challenged by Josh Kaul, the state's attorney general--that would give 45 just ten more electoral votes, and still leave him far short of what he needs. Nevada and Arizona finalize and certify their county votes Monday. They, too, will show that Biden won those states, and court challenges will fail.
Nonetheless, 45 will get the faithful fired up and get them to the capitols on December 14, protesting the decision. But that decision isn't theirs. It belongs to those who voted for Joe Biden. The Electoral College needs an 'automatic' lever to push so that this issue doesn't take place again. But that would take a constitutional amendment, the mechanics of which are largely prohibitive. In the meantime, this rogue, this terrible person, is going to try to stop the vote that should take place.
If I were Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, I would get either more Secret Service support or, if 45 can bar it, hire extra private protection. I know that's awful to think about. But desperation abounds out there, as irrational as it seems. And everybody, it seems, has a weapon.
The country will not fall apart when Biden becomes president, as he is supposed to on January 20. Our society will not collapse, unless the virus has been allowed--by 45--to accelerate to the point of overriding our basic markets and systems, and we're getting nearly 200,000 new cases per day now. That will not be Biden's doing, but he will be saddled with it.
That, too, is why Biden deserves, and needs very badly, our continued attention and support. The election will end, but the divisions go on, perhaps worse than before. 45's damage won't disappear, because for the time being, neither will he. Fox News may continue to entertain him, and if not, perhaps One America News will. He will have a siren, free of charge. He will continue to pester pointlessly and make accusations and innuendoes every bit as outrageous as he did while in office. Maybe the law will catch up with him, but it'll have to actually put him behind bars to shut him up, and that is tricky business.
So do not look away, though we are sorely tempted to. Stay involved. Stay engaged. Keep up with the news, though it still contains things we're sick of. This is, again, not normal, and it won't be until 12 Noon Eastern Time on January 20.
I bet you've stopped watching. Can't blame you. But don't lose the thread of information. Things may move very quickly very soon.
If nothing else, send some money to the Democrats trying for the U.S. Senate seats in Georgia runoffs. They need it, what with the media blitz. That election is January 5. Two wins get the Democrats a very shaky, but clear, majority in the Senate. It will allow Biden to enact an agenda far more progressive than otherwise.
Two months to go. This is part of a process of winning democracy back. One part's being secured. The others are tougher to re-establish. Our country is still at stake. Stay informed. Don't go away.
Be well. Be careful. Wear a mask. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
No comments:
Post a Comment