The Election Danger Zone

Biden "may" have won the election, but now Trump is at his most dangerous

Joe Biden is finally ahead of Donald Trump in Pennsylvania — with Biden’s lead expected to grow, though MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki says the outstanding ballots in Pennsylvania include 100,000 provisional ballots, and thus remain tricky to forecast.

Trump is also behind in Georgia, Arizona and Nevada, with bean counters saying Biden has a lock on Nevada, and likely Georgia. (If Biden gets Nevada and Georgia, he wins, even without Pennsylvania.)

Time to celebrate, right? Not so fast. While Democrats breathe a sigh of relief, Republicans are at their most dangerous. Democrats understand that Joe Biden didn’t just “take the lead” — he was always ahead, the historic number of Covid-inspired mail-in votes simply hadn’t been counted yet — Republicans, with Trump at their mendacious helm, are being told that these votes for Biden came out of thin air.

So what happens next?

Trump is already trying to fan the flames of unrest, as are his kids and some of the more extreme GOP voices. Trump took the lead in a grievance-laden speech at the White House last night, claiming that the election was stolen from him.

Don Jr. called for “total war” against Democrats:

Don Jr. also attended an event where a Trump surrogate talked about shooting Democrats:

Then former top Trump aide Steve Bannon called for Dr. Fauci and FBI Director Wray to be killed:

And Newt Gingrich claimed falsely that the election was “stolen”:

All of this was yesterday, Thursday, November 5.

Trump is flailing. And, it could still work. A few possible scenarios:

1. Violence and a Judicial Coup.
   Trump’s, and his surrogates’, rhetoric leads to angry Republican mobs storming vote-counting headquarters in key states — tainting, or even destroying, the ballots therein. Not only would this mean we could no longer trust the exact vote count, but the violence and unrest might help convince a court to end things now, and declare a winner fast. The big question is whether Trump’s judges side with the girl who brung ‘em, or with the law. The legal experts tell us that Trump doesn’t have a leg to stand on, and so far the courts — even the Republican courts — agree. But, like a lot of Democrats, I wouldn’t put anything past a Trump-appointed judge.

   A Trump campaign legal adviser said the quiet part out loud last night to Fox’s Lou Dobbs:

   

   In fact, on Friday afternoon, the Republicans demanded that the US Supreme Court stop the counting of Pennsylvania ballots arriving after election day. Because of Trump intentionally slowing down the Postal Service in order to delay the delivery of mail-in ballots, ballots presumed to be predominantly Democratic, Pennsylvania decided that mail-in ballots received by tonight (Friday, November 6) will be counted as timely. The Republicans want to throw out any ballot received during that time period.

   Finally, even if all the court cases go our way, months of violence between now and the inauguration, and beyond, is not a happy scenario. Particularly, when we’re dealing with well-organized, and armed, extremists being cheered on by the President himself, and the propagandists at Fox.

2. Electoral College shenanigans.
   This one is complicated, and a mess. In a nutshell, even though we vote for specific candidates, it’s the electoral college, and individual “electors,” who determine the winner. There is a scenario in which Republican legislatures and governors, in states that went for Biden, could choose “Trump electors” instead of Biden.

   From Brookings:

   According to various scenarios, however, leaders of several swing-state, Republican-majority legislatures, using their federal constitutional authority, might appoint separate slates of electors, thereby setting up conflicts with the presumptively faithful electors certified by state executive authorities. This could happen in key states like Pennsylvania, where the governor is a Democrat but the legislature is controlled by Republicans. Legislatures might claim, for example, a fraud-riven popular vote that renders the state-certified electors unrepresentative of the legitimate popular vote. Or they might claim that the vote count is proceeding too slowly to allow the state to meet the December deadlines. Court battles would no doubt ensue—see Bush v. Gore (2000).

It gets worse. Even if the state picks the right electors, they can still defect later on. Again, from Brookings:

On December 14: The states’ designated slates of electors (which, as noted might not be clear in some states), meet in their respective state capitals to cast the official votes that elect the president.

Even if a state’s winning candidate is clear and his or her electors certified, the electors themselves may violate their pledges to vote for that candidate. In an Electoral College blowout, faithless electors will not matter. If the apparent vote is close—even tied at 269-269, which isn’t impossible—faithless electors could matter greatly.

Fox News is already promoting this scenario, and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said last night that it’s on the table:

3. What if Trump simply continues to sow chaos after the election?
   Even if we win the legal challenges, and Republicans don’t go nuclear on the electoral college, what if, after Biden is sworn in, Trump doesn’t stop sowing discord? He’ll still have his Twitter feed — though, as a private citizen, and no longer a head of state, Twitter could ban Trump from the platform if he continues to violate their rules, as he has routinely done while in office. And Trump could continue to hold rallies across the country, and go on Fox News and right-wing radio, for years to come. We have to prepare ourselves for the fact that Trump and Trumpism won’t magically disappear at noon on January 20, 2021. We are going to have to keep fighting Trump and Trumpism for years to come. (And, remember, Trump can run again in 2024, or in his stead, Don Jr.)

4. Rupert Murdoch to the rescue!
   Oddly, Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post has been downright nasty to Trump over the past two days, and outright dismissive of Trump’s claims of rampant voter fraud. Here are a selection of the Post’s stories from just past the past 48 hours:

   

   

   

   

   

   

   And it wasn’t just Rupert Murdoch. Donald Trump Jr., and spawn bis, joined Rudy Giuliani in complaining that national Republicans weren’t doing enough to defend Trump’s fraudulent claims:

   

   

   

   

This is great. Not only because it shows that, so far, the party itself is leery of defending Trump’s false claims of election fraud, but it also points to the beginnings of a potential intra-GOP civil war. And anything that divides them, helps us.

I’m still feeling good today. But we have to remember that Trump has never risen to the occasion. We should expect the worst. He’s not going to concede. He wants violence. He told us weeks ago what his plan was. And now he’s executing it. At some point we need to stop being Chamberlain and start being Churchill. Trump has shown us who he is. We should act accordingly.