Cont: 2020 Presidential Election part 3

[acbytesla]

He might if Pence pardons him straight away.

I have this fantasy where Trump resigns after Pence agrees to pardon Trump and then after Trump resigns, Pence rubs his chin and says he has changed his mind on the pardon.
And then Pence has him physically led to the front gate where they push him out onto Pennsylvania Avenue and he is swallowed up by protesters in Lafayette Square.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

I have this fantasy where Trump resigns after Pence agrees to pardon Trump and then after Trump resigns, Pence rubs his chin and says he has changed his mind on the pardon.
And then Pence has him physically led to the front gate where they push him out onto Pennsylvania Avenue and he is swallowed up by protesters in Lafayette Square.

It is sooo unfair when it turns out that a deeply terrible person can redeem himself from all his wickedness with one single good act.

 

[Emily's Cat]

As a PA person and with PA being on top of that list, I'll poke a little at factors in PA.

1. Obvious one first - Trump's denouncing and fear-mongering about mail-in voting...

2. Slightly less obvious one - The location of where the people who used the absentee ballots is...

3. Both of those are related to the Republican Party having made mail-in voting and COVID into partisan issues...

I'll piggy back on this and point out that I think it also very heavily depends on what the standard for that state has been in the past. WA, for example, had mailed ballots as the standard for the whole 13 years I lived there. You had the option of sending them back in by mail a few days early, or of dropping them into conveniently located drive-up boxes on election day. I'm sure there were at least some people who actually cast their votes in person... but I never met one of them. Pretty much everyone used the mailed ballots. As a result of that, this year wouldn't have really been any different than past years. I wouldn't expect to see a different distribution of party favorites for in-person versus mailed ballots in WA.

The same is marginally true for AZ. My impression from talking to other people here is that in-person voting is more common... but there's been a permanent mail voter option for a long time, and a lot of people make use of that, regardless of their political leanings. There might be some difference in the party favorite for mail versus in-person in AZ, but I wouldn't really expect it to be massive.

On the other hand, I am under the impression that PA really didn't do mail ballots in the past. I'm sure there's always been some method for absentee voting, but I understand that mail-in ballots have been the exception rather than the rule. Because it's such a departure from the status quo, I would expect there to be a larger and more noticeable difference in the party selection for mail votes in PA.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Oh, good gravy. It appears his argument is that mail votes violate the equal protection clause because they cause people to distrust the election results because Trump has spent months telling people to distrust the mail votes and election results.

It is an 86 page filing!

What a frivolous Gish gallop.

I can't stop laughing at this. I never did like Reality TV.

 

[acbytesla]

Some very few idiots might want him to become dictator... but most conservatives (and Republicans even) are actually pretty big on personal liberty and the preservation of the constitution. There's nowhere near enough people that want Trump to be dictator for it to have a chance in hell of occurring.

And that's all assuming that Trump actually genuinely wants to be a dictator. Which I think is a ridiculous assumption, based predominantly on tribal thinking and the eternal need to be outraged about everything.

I am so completely tired of all of this. Not you specifically, just the entire topic. It's been four years of non-stop fearmongering about the horrible evil things that Trump is certain to do. And whenever one of them doesn't happen, a new terror is simply inserted and the manufactured outrage continues unabated.

Trump lost the election. Who the **** gives a crap what he says or what he wants anymore? Just sit back and be happy that Biden won, and let it go.

I wish it was that easy. I know my history too well. Coups have been started on less. The Republicans are unwilling to say that he lost. 70 million Americans voted for Trump. And I still see idiots parading around with guns and Trump signs. Trump appointees are preventing the transfer of power. Trump fired the SECDEF and replaced him with a toadie. The AG has ordered investigations (well sort of) into the election. SCOTUS at this very moment is hearing Trump's appeal. That they are even considering it and not rejecting it out of hand is a bit troubling.

This will all crumble in the next couple of days or it's going to get ugly.

I personally think it's most likely to crumble...but I still worry.

 

[Emily's Cat]

On their website you can buy a mask with "Lawn and Order" and "Make America Rake Again".

Way to capitalize on the situation!

 

[The Great Zaganza]

I wish it was that easy. I know my history too well. Coups have been started on less. The Republicans are unwilling to say that he lost. 70 million Americans voted for Trump. And I still see idiots parading around with guns and Trump signs. Trump appointees are preventing the transfer of power. Trump fired the SECDEF and replaced him with a toadie. The AG has ordered investigations (well sort of) into the election. SCOTUS at this very moment is hearing Trump's appeal. That they are even considering it and not rejecting it out of hand is a bit troubling.

This will all crumble in the next couple of days or it's going to get ugly.

I personally think it's most likely to crumble...but I still worry.

I worry that Republicans will keep this up until after the Georgia Run-off, because what they need to win is Trump's support.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Seen elsewhere:

"This feels like a horror movie where the monster just died, but there's still 20 minutes left of the runtime".

Protagonists in horror movies really underutilize the double=tap method of making sure the monster is actually dead.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I suspect Trump may resign before 20 January, putting Pence in the hot seat for a few weeks, on condition of a full blanket pardon.

Why would he do that, when he can keep tweeting and getting a ton of media attention?

 

[acbytesla]

I'll piggy back on this and point out that I think it also very heavily depends on what the standard for that state has been in the past. WA, for example, had mailed ballots as the standard for the whole 13 years I lived there. You had the option of sending them back in by mail a few days early, or of dropping them into conveniently located drive-up boxes on election day. I'm sure there were at least some people who actually cast their votes in person... but I never met one of them. Pretty much everyone used the mailed ballots. As a result of that, this year wouldn't have really been any different than past years. I wouldn't expect to see a different distribution of party favorites for in-person versus mailed ballots in WA.

Small pedantic correction. You can drop your ballot into the secure ballot boxes up until election day. You can go into county HQ to vote in person even before election day. Both King and Snohomish County set up satellite voting places three days before election day.

I'm also from Washington.

The same is marginally true for AZ. My impression from talking to other people here is that in-person voting is more common... but there's been a permanent mail voter option for a long time, and a lot of people make use of that, regardless of their political leanings. There might be some difference in the party favorite for mail versus in-person in AZ, but I wouldn't really expect it to be massive.

On the other hand, I am under the impression that PA really didn't do mail ballots in the past. I'm sure there's always been some method for absentee voting, but I understand that mail-in ballots have been the exception rather than the rule. Because it's such a departure from the status quo, I would expect there to be a larger and more noticeable difference in the party selection for mail votes in PA.

I'm 90 percent sure PA has had absentee mail in ballots for a long time. The only difference in this election, the state mailed ballots to all registered voters and not just citizens that requested them.

 

[Emily's Cat]

We are what we eat/do/write, and what we eat/do/write extends beyond this thread, and I'm unimpressed when a quacking water fowl denies being a duck. That said, I can't imagine that EC voted for Trump, I believe that her negative comments about him are sincere, and that makes it all the more perplexing when she constantly carries his water, facts be damned. I'd expand on this except we're off topic and outside the rules.

I don't "carry his water". I just run out of patience for the inane overreactions that leave any vestige of reason behind.

I do the same thing on nearly any subject... but the topic selection here is quite one-sided, so there's not much opportunity to see me doing things like telling my niece that no, Biden isn't a rapist - he's weirdly huggy with young girls and seems to like kissing people's heads and smelling their hair, which is creepy, but he's not a rapist.

I was really hoping that when Trump lost, common sense (and decency) would reassert themselves. Sure, I know, he's still hollering into the wind... but I'm disappointed that the rest of you(g) otherwise intelligent folks haven't let it go and moved on to being rational again.

 

[acbytesla]

I worry that Republicans will keep this up until after the Georgia Run-off, because what they need to win is Trump's support.

That could easily backfire big time.

 

[Stacyhs]

I suspect Trump may resign before 20 January, putting Pence in the hot seat for a few weeks, on condition of a full blanket pardon.

That's been my guess for quite some time on what he'll do if he lost . Gets him out of going to the inauguration, too.

 

[phiwum]

That would be true. But Trump resigning? C'mon man.

Seems unlikely to me too.

I'd say he's more likely to pardon himself, figuring that any legal battle over whether a President can do that will be settled in his favor by a Supreme Court majority which totally owes him.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I don't "carry his water". I just run out of patience for the inane overreactions that leave any vestige of reason behind.

Like people who think white nationalism is bad and condemn it in all its forms. That seems to be the kind of overreaction you have been staunchly against. There is certainly nothing deplorable about white nationalists, and you could never legitimately call them such.

 

[turingtest]

I wish it was that easy. I know my history too well. Coups have been started on less. The Republicans are unwilling to say that he lost. 70 million Americans voted for Trump. And I still see idiots parading around with guns and Trump signs. Trump appointees are preventing the transfer of power. Trump fired the SECDEF and replaced him with a toadie. The AG has ordered investigations (well sort of) into the election. SCOTUS at this very moment is hearing Trump's appeal. That they are even considering it and not rejecting it out of hand is a bit troubling.

This will all crumble in the next couple of days or it's going to get ugly.

I personally think it's most likely to crumble...but I still worry.

This right here. It's a little disingenuous to say "oh, Trump's lost, he'll be gone in a couple of months, so what difference does it make?" It's the way he's losing, and the way the GOP largely is enabling that, that makes a difference. Trump isn't, AFAICT, doing anything he doesn't have a strict right to do. But Republicans over the last few years have made an absolute fetish of doing things they have a technical right to do without any consideration for whether those things are the right thing to do. Blocking Obama's SC pick in '16, ramming through their own this year (even when they had to directly contradict their stance from four years earlier to do so), and now demanding recounts that won't realistically make any difference and "investigations" that are really nothing more than specious and unfounded placeholders for riling their base and (probably) making money off the rubes...all these things make a compete hash of our democracy. How is any citizen ever going to be able to have confidence in the integrity of the process- which the GOP claims is their primary reason for wanting the recounts/investigations- when any future loser of an election has only to cite this one as precedent for throwing shade on that process for his case?

 

[acbytesla]

It is sooo unfair when it turns out that a deeply terrible person can redeem himself from all his wickedness with one single good act.

Yes, i get that.

But it would be a very good act.

Just imagine Trump whining alone out there without Secret Service protection. And the protesters looking him heads askew thinking what do we do about this? And Trump realizing he's all alone without his sycophants among the great unwashed who despise him.

What can I say? I have a bit of a mischievous imagination.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I do still have a question for EC. When you deem Trump as a person who doesn't really seek to be a dictator, have you considered these facts...?

• He is actively attempting to steal the election
• He had his goons attack peaceful protesters (for a photo op)
• He uses the arms of government as re-election minions
• He encouraged armed whack jobs to commit political violence
• He supported the whack jobs who plotted to take Gov. Whitmer to trial in the woods
• He encouraged violence against the media
• He didn't blink when Saudi thugs offed a US journalist
• He threatened a whistle blower with death
• He asks for political opponents to be jailed
• He openly expresses admiration for dictators

How about we apply the space alien test? If dispassionate space aliens magically absorbed human history, and observed these facts, would they be likely to deem these actions as indicative of a person who aspires to be a dictator?

Because the answer is obviously yes, feel free to consider this question rhetorical. I do welcome you to answer the first question though. A simple yes/no will suffice.

This could be a whole 'nother thread.

First off, there's a lot of interpretation and spin involved in some of this. I understand that this is your perspective, and that's fine. But there's still opinion involved.

For example - you say he's actively trying to *steal* the election. You've already made your decision that he has lost the election (which I agree with) and that he is aware of and believes that he lost the election (which I disagree with to a degree) and furthermore that he is actively and with malice intentionally trying to cheat (which I disagree with). There's a lot of assumed motivations and mind-reading in there.

On the other side of things, however, Trump supporters might genuinely believe that there are ballot shenanigans going on, and that Biden cheated. I don't believe that, but my lack of belief doesn't invalidate their belief. And I'm inclined to think that Trump 1) genuinely believes that there has been voter fraud or manipulation in this election, in part because 2) he desperately needs to believe that he didn't lose.

This presents a situation where Trump can hold irrational beliefs, act in ways that are not in the interest of the US... but still not be doing it via malice.

Pretty much all of the other things you listed fall into very similar patterns. Everyone might agree on the observable objective facts (ok, well 99% of people, because some are insane)... but that doesn't mean that everyone will filter them through the same belief structure, or that everyone will assume the same motivations for those facts.

That's the thing that has bothered me most over the past four years - the sheer volume of unabashed mind-reading going on among self-styled skeptics. People assume they know the motivation and the state of Trump's mind, and then somehow become incapable of acknowledging that they're making assumptions and speculations, as well as becoming unable to consider any other possible motivation at all.

 

[slyjoe]

Yes, i get that.

But it would be a very good act.

Just imagine Trump whining alone out there without Secret Service protection. And the protesters looking him heads askew thinking what do we do about this? And Trump realizing he's all alone without his sycophants among the great unwashed who despise him.

What can I say? I have a bit of a mischievous imagination.

Last scene of Ferris Bueller

 

[Emily's Cat]

This seems to come up every month or three.

I appreciate Cap's posts. I've found the ones s/he posts are well curated.

Thanks Cap.

I'd prefer it if links were provided. Sometimes I'd like to get more context. I know, it's twitter, so a lot of times there isn't any more context. But sometimes there is.