Trump's Electoral College Coup
Win or lose, the example for the future is chilling.
Rudy Giuliani admitted this morning that Trump’s goal is to “overturn the election.” As did Trump’s other lawyer tonight on Fox News:
Whether Trump actually believes he can steal the election is an open question. The man is an egomaniac, but he’s also a liar. While Trump’s never-lose narcissism may have him convinced he can win this, it’s just as likely that Trump knows he lost, and is dragging his concession out for other motives, including money (he’s still fundraising, and most of the money isn’t even going to the recount effort).
As I wrote last week, Trump is trying to sow doubt about the results in key states that went for Biden (e.g., Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada), in order to convince GOP lawmakers in those states to submit a slate of Trump electors to the Electoral College, overruling the will of the voters and setting the stage for chaos at the January 6th Joint Session of Congress where the president is chosen.
Last week, our concern was conjecture. This week, they’re just admitting the plot outright.
A senior Trump campaign official told Reuters its plan is to cast enough doubt on vote-counting in big, Democratic cities that Republican lawmakers will have little choice but to intercede. The campaign is betting that many of those lawmakers, who come from districts Trump won, will face a backlash from voters if they refuse to act. The campaign believes the longer they can drag this out, the more they will have an opportunity to persuade lawmakers to intervene, the official said.
Rudy Giuliani is reportedly saying the same:
While Gorka openly admits the quiet part out loud:
A lot of people think Trump knows he can’t win, even via a Hail-Mary Electoral College strategy, but he’s delaying the transition in order to sow enough doubt to permanently damage Biden’s credibility, and thus presidency. Not only does this serve Trump’s overdeveloped sense of vengeance, but it also lets Trump claim that he really won, and thus isn’t a “loser,” a fate worse than death among malignant narcissists.
And while vengeance is surely sufficient motivation, if Trump is serious about running for president again in four years — yes, he can — he likely wants Biden’s presidency to be a disaster, so Trump can swoop back in, promising to make America great again again.
A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll shows Trump’s strategy of doubt may just be working. Half of Republicans say Biden won because the election was “rigged.” And a Monmouth poll shows that 77% of Trump voters think Biden won because of “fraud.” Even crazier, according to the same Monmouth poll, only 54% of Americans believe we have enough information, in terms of vote counts, to know who won the election.
And the mayhem doesn’t look like it’s stopping any time soon. We learned this week that GOP Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) tried to strong-arm the Georgia Secretary of State into throwing out legitimate mail-in ballots.
Trump is now demanding a recount in Wisconsin, a state Biden won by over 20,000 votes.
Republican election officers in Michigan tried this week to decertify the votes of hundreds of thousands of black Detroit residents, until a public outcry made them change their minds, but then, after a phone call from Trump, the officials changed their minds AGAIN, and now think the votes shouldn’t count. And Trump, it was just announced, has invited Michigan lawmakers to the White House, presumably to pressure them into proclaiming Trump the winner in the state.
And in Pennsylvania, Trump is asking the federal court to throw out the votes of millions of voters, and declare Trump the winner.
At the same time, Trump’s Twitter feed is a endless sea of lies and conspiracy — below are just a scant few; imagine dozens of these every day:
Trump is winning the propaganda war, at least with his own supporters. Republican leaders are refusing to speak out, while the base and the Fox New commentariat are eating it all up, and Democrats are mostly sitting back quietly, waiting for Trump’s ire to burn itself out.
I’m not convinced that Trump will pull off an Electoral College coup. Then again, I didn’t think Mitch McConnell would succeed in stealing a Supreme Court seat, or Trump an election with the help of the Russians and James Comey. Once burned, twice shy, as they say. These past four years have taught me not to underestimate Trump and the Republicans, and not to simply assume that “norms” always win out.
Writer Julia Ioffe, who was born in the Soviet Union before emigrating to the US, explains further:
Even if Trump doesn’t succeed in stealing the election, he will continue to lead the Republican party by tweet for years to come. Trump is doing ongoing damage to a body politic already beaten and bruised from four years of Trumpism, piled on top of thirty years of Fox News lies. Not only will Republican voters refuse to accept Biden’s legitimacy, but Trump is actively convincing half the country that Biden committed his own coup d’état. What will Trump’s base do after January 20th when it becomes clear that Dear Leader isn’t coming back for another term because his seat was “stolen”? They already tried to kidnap and kill Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer — and according to a story breaking today, had planned a weeklong serious of public executions of state officials. If these people were willing to stage a mass assassination plot in order to stop a state-level “despot” who simply wanted them to wear a mask, imagine what they’d do to defend the presidency from a man like Joe Biden, who won — if you believe Rudy Giuliani today — with the help of communist money, Hugo Chavez, and Jews.
There’s also near-term risk. Biden has already said that Trump’s refusal to proceed with the transition could hamper efforts to distribute Covid vaccines after the inaugural. And what happens when half the country doesn’t believe Biden’s warnings about Covid, because they’ve been so brainwashed by Trump and Fox? Many Trump voters will never use masks or social distance, but will they also refuse a Covid vaccine distributed by a “communist”?
And what happens next time if the election is closer than it is today? What if Biden weren’t ahead by tens of thousands of votes, but rather, like Bush v. Gore in 2000, one candidate were ahead by only 537 votes in on one state (that time, Florida)? Would GOP electors still be as unwilling to declare a “failed election,” and throw their state’s votes to Trump, if victory, however tainted, were in their grasp?
I had a professor of Middle East studies at Georgetown who talked a lot about political culture, and how when bad things happen, like assassinations of leaders, the actions introduce a new norm into the culture which can set a precedent for the future. Each subsequent bad act further normalizes the behavior, until it becomes an expected part of the ongoing political culture.
The next Trump, who might not even be Trump at all, but rather someone smarter and less damaged, will inherit that culture, along with a decidedly weaker democracy. And then, God help us.
Scary piece. Biden can't do it but Democrats in the House and Senate should be holding events to counter this nonsense every single day. It's very dangerous. They think it's the final death throes of Trump and Trumpism but he ain't gone yet.