POTUS/General Election Thread 2020 + Aftermath

[Montmorency]

This long article describes in detail explicit Republican plans across the country to put in the fix engineer a favorable result before and after balloting and canvassing, including Republican legislatures pretextually declaring vote counts invalid and assigning slates of Republican electors to the Electoral College. [Samurai has posted about this in more depth just now but I want to re-emphasize it.]
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine...edc32c19ef33b4

In Pennsylvania, three Republican leaders told me they had already discussed the direct appointment of electors among themselves, and one said he had discussed it with Trump’s national campaign.

“I’ve mentioned it to them, and I hope they’re thinking about it too,” Lawrence Tabas, the Pennsylvania Republican Party’s chairman, told me. “I just don’t think this is the right time for me to be discussing those strategies and approaches, but [direct appointment of electors] is one of the options. It is one of the available legal options set forth in the Constitution.” He added that everyone’s preference is to get a swift and accurate count. “If the process, though, is flawed, and has significant flaws, our public may lose faith and confidence” in the election’s integrity.

Jake Corman, the state’s Senate majority leader, preferred to change the subject, emphasizing that he hoped a clean vote count would produce a final tally on Election Night. “The longer it goes on, the more opinions and the more theories and the more conspiracies [are] created,” he told me. If controversy persists as the safe-harbor date [December 8, when state-certified electoral slates are presumed as definitive] nears, he allowed, the legislature will have no choice but to appoint electors. “We don’t want to go down that road, but we understand where the law takes us, and we’ll follow the law.”

Trump again with the burst of perspicuity (after repeating on many occasions that he needs a 6th Republican justice confirmed immediately in order to ensure favorable rulings on electoral suits):
https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1308902276187262978 [VIDEO]

Reporter: "Win, lose or draw in this election, will you commit here today for a peaceful transferal of power after the election?"

President Trump: "We're going to have to see what happens."
"Get rid of the ballots and we'll have a very peaceful — there won't be a transfer, frankly. There will be a continuation."

It's not that he knows something we don't, we just have a hard time assimilating the overwhelming evidence on a visceral level.


Meanwhile, Florida's government has just proposed an unconstitutional criminalization of protest in the strongman image and has referred a criminal complaint to the FBI against Bloomberg for trying to pay the fines of disenfranchised ex-cons.
https://www.theledger.com/story/news...rs/5852737002/
https://twitter.com/TooMuchMe/status...49621041590276


I'm willing to grant some deference for the strategy throughout the Trump term, but I can't forgive Dem electeds if they don't try to build out parallel power structures in civil society and urban communities outside government and 'traditional' channels come 2021, win OR lose. It's equally necessary either way to, in Samurai's words, "get a bit more active in doing things to loosen," or bypass, Republicans' grip on national institutions. No more hedges and legacy liberal ideologies. This is a power struggle of maximal consequence, politics in the oldest register. The 150-year Cold War with the Confederacy has to be decided, to which end the People must be organized to apprehend its conduct. If Biden can rail against China as a threat to American power all throughout his campaign, he can pivot following his election, or even following Election Day, to do at least as much with regard to Republicans. It's time, no more hedging, no more coasting on personal reservations.

And all Copperheads!

So you'd rather give her a free pass because she faces hostile Republicans in the Senate and White House?

There is a space between giving a free pass and blaming Pelosi for not holding a gun to McConnell's and Trump's heads in order to implement <>. If there are specific tactical decisions to be criticized I'm all for hearing them, though in the course of learning more and more about the inside baseball and procedure of American politics the more I come to realize that very often it's difficult to make a strong judgement call on how optimal a certain play, a sequence, an act or inaction, was in the moment. A major example we're all familiar with being the debate between a "narrow" or broad impeachment. I favored the latter, and the former has probably only been an achievement for the historical record (I don't think it did much to radicalize the Democratic base in itself), yet at the same time I can't really be confident that my preferences would have been a great value-added if implemented.

One interesting criticism I've heard is that Pelosi and Schumer negotiated their emergency legislation (CARES Act) in March too effective at alleviating pain in the short term, without considering that the act would - proportionate to its initial success - exhaust future leverage over the Republicans/Trump to pass subsequent legislation (which Republicans have indeed not felt pressured to pursue since). But that's some heavy-ass armchair fourth-dimension quarterbacking.

This probably doesn't lend itself to party unity:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dccc-...b01ebeef0ec3ae

I remember that. It was the beginning of the primary season at maximum acceleration. Sanders had just formally declared his candidacy!

This article looks like a relevant followup. I haven't read it but my initial impression is that the DCCC policy backfired?

Disagree. As someone who has seen the process first-hand, even getting a bill out of committee and on the House floor for a vote is a big deal. There have been literally thousands of bills introduced this legislative session, very few make it out of committee not because their ideas don't have merit, but because there are so many other things in the way that take precedence. The fact that a freshman congressperson got anything out of committee is a testament to her legislative skill, as it takes persistence and the building of relationships with her colleagues to move the ball forward.

Knowing a little about the process, I understand that committee chairs have a great deal of influence over the movement of bills as a veritable veto point, and that legislators as individuals and coalitions have to coordinate with them, or at least arrange to overcome them, to advance their agenda. But then that inherently biases the process on a personal and ideological level, which is not to my mind what a paramount standard by which to judge legislators should be, not least for permanently handicapping any definitional leftist. Look at how many of Underwood's actions were bipartisan or Republican-led. We would need to think much more carefully about this kind of change than I am at the moment, but I wonder if we shouldn't have one of our procedural reforms be that a given Congressperson shall have the right and privilege to bring one or more bills per session directly to the floor or to the top of the calendar (more unilateral and speedier than motions to discharge).

So what actions could she take to influence the Senate? We have seen ample evidence that McConnell just doesnt give a flying fig. And the courts have ruled that the House can't actually enforce subpoenas without a law specifically saying they can, which hasnt been an issue until now since the norms of showing up after a subpoena havent been blatantly ignored like this before.

If anything needs to be redone on the congressional side are the rules around the powers of the Senate majority leader I think.

The Democrats could have attempted to arrest Barr or another ranking official with their minimalist native enforcement arm, not because it would have worked as a legislative tactic but because I can imagine its generation as a Media Event would have set the tone and perhaps even recommitted the caucus to further procedural extremism (this is all naturally debatable). On the other hand it's pie in the sky since it's one more "arrow in the quiver" that almost no Democrats can really privately stomach drawing, meaning there is never enough internal impetus toward implementation aside from the absence of any concrete resolution that the tactic could achieve. But it remains something that was available, and with a physical power that normatively-laden subpoenas were proven to lack.

I think the point, as I see it, is that given the unhinged lunacy of this president, one has to be prepared for ANYTHING. If Fearless Leader or his campaign group pursues any of those "far-fetched" scenarios, you don't want to be scrambling on-the-fly with a response. Just be prepared. We all know Trump is a narcissistic individual who absolutely hates to lose. He will lie, he will cheat, he will fight a loss kicking and screaming. People underestimated him in 2016. Underestimating what he is capable of doing in 2020 would be violating a whole bunch of Sun-Tzu rules of engagement, not the least of which might be this one:

Crucially we can almost lock Trump as a constant; do not underestimate what the Republicans are capable of. Almost every contention toward their deepening depravity has proven correct over time.

I don't disagree that we need to be prepared. I have full faith that people in higher places are preparing for such scenarios with plans and lawyers and whatnot. But on my end, its best for my own mental health to not stay awake at night thinking of such possibilities. If it happens I am prepared to take to the streets. But me, personally, worrying about such things does not help anyone. There are people who are paid far more to handle it.

And FWIW I've been saying that the whole emphasis on mail-in ballots was bad and people should be encouraged to wait in lines at the polls with a mask and hand sanitizer. Mail-in ballots should only be for those who absolutely need it like the immunocompromised. Its the surest way to prevent many of those scenarios in the first place.

Masochism of catastrophe, doomerism, whatever you want to call it, is a siren. Want to talk about The Plot Againt America yet?

The modality preference gap continues to shrink, though even a 20-33 final split on mail voting (and it could still plausibly be 10-40) is dangerous.

[ReluctantSamurai]

But on my end, its best for my own mental health to not stay awake at night thinking of such possibilities.

It's true that there is nothing any of us can do, once our vote is cast, to influence what happens after. However, I am a sucker for what-if scenarios, but a couple of those scenarios seem extremely plausible, and have actually been tried before. At the top of my list is delegate manipulation.

First there's this ruling:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opini...mn/5384625002/

In a pair of cases involving so-called faithless electors, the high court unanimously ruled that states have the constitutional power to force people elected to serve in the Electoral College to cast their official ballots for president in accordance with their state's popular vote. States, in other words, can prevent the electors from “going rogue” — as several did in 2016 by casting ballots for Colin Powell, John Kasich and Faith Spotted Eagle.

Thus, if the court has its way, there will be no risk of a faithless elector being a wild card in this year's election. Unfortunately, it is not so simple. The justices’ ruling permits states to prevent faithless electors, but it does not require that they do so.

In a pair of cases involving so-called faithless electors, the high court unanimously ruled that states have the constitutional power to force people elected to serve in the Electoral College to cast their official ballots for president in accordance with their state's popular vote. States, in other words, can prevent the electors from “going rogue” — as several did in 2016 by casting ballots for Colin Powell, John Kasich and Faith Spotted Eagle.

The court clearly was motivated by a desire to avoid destabilizing the system as much as possible. The justices announced as much at the time of oral argument. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, for example, invoked “the avoid-chaos principle of judging,” which he took to mean that the court should not interpret the Constitution “to facilitate or create chaos” if there is a way to interpret it otherwise. Many states still allow 'going rogue'

Monday’s ruling followed through on that approach. Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the court, acknowledged that at the beginning of the republic there was some expectation that electors would exercise independent judgment. But she explained that the actual text of the Constitution does not compel that electors have this autonomy.

She also observed that the original expectation quickly disappeared and soon the contrary expectation developed: that electors would be loyal to their own political parties and thus conform their votes to their party’s presidential nominee. The court was entitled, she explained, to construe the Constitution in accordance with this subsequent practice and thereby have the system act as Americans now generally assume it does.

Only 32 states have laws attempting to bind electors to the state’s popular vote, and not all of them discount the deviant vote. And 18 states still have laws giving electors the freedom to vote independently if they so choose. Thus, absent change between now and November, there is the risk of chaos injecting itself into the system despite the court’s decision. As a practical matter, this particular risk is small. But it is not zero.

Suppose former Vice President Joe Biden wins the popular vote in enough states for an Electoral College victory, but only by counting vote-by-mail ballots — the kind of ballots that President Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr have denounced (without substantiation) as inherently unreliable. Imagine, then, Trump and Barr persuading the legislatures of enough states to appoint electors who will vote for Trump, in opposition to the certified popular vote based on the counting of vote-by-mail ballots. That kind of dispute could reach Congress on Jan. 6, with lawmakers ill equipped to handle it because of inadequate existing procedures.

This is the one I can see Fearless Leader trying, considering how long he's been ranting against mail-in votes, and gotten his lap-dog Barr on board with this.

And a possible riposte by the Dems if they've got the cahonees:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...tions-outcome/

Democrats could retaliate if they were willing to play what’s called “constitutional hardball” — stepping outside democratic norms without technically violating the Constitution’s limits, as when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) refused to convene a hearing to consider President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland. That’s something some observers claim Democrats are typically reluctant to do. But if Democrats were to play tough, here’s a constitutional curveball they could throw.

Assuming the new House reelects Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) as speaker, Pelosi could use the chamber’s power under the Constitution’s Article I, Section 5, to have her majority be the “judge” of contested elections to the House. The House could then seat enough Democrats to give Democrats control of a majority of state delegations before the House votes to select the president in January 2020.

Here’s how this might play out. As the judge of contested elections, the House can entertain any challenge to the election results at the beginning of its session (after choosing the speaker, customarily its first vote). Usually, the House refers these challenges to a committee to investigate. The committee recommends awarding the seat to one or another candidate, and the House votes on that recommendation. If enough Democratic challengers surfaced to allow the Democrats to claim a majority of delegations, then the attempt to manipulate the presidential election could be reversed.

If Republican state officials were to suggest they might withhold slates from the electoral college in November or December, Pelosi could threaten to reconstitute the delegations under Article I, Section 5 to preserve a genuine Biden victory, should one exist — thus signaling that Democrats would meet hardball with hardball. The option, in other words, could be useful even if she never has to use it.

@Monty

There is a space between giving a free pass and blaming Pelosi for not holding a gun to McConnell's and Trump's heads in order to implement <>. If there are specific tactical decisions to be criticized I'm all for hearing them, though in the course of learning more and more about the inside baseball and procedure of American politics the more I come to realize that very often it's difficult to make a strong judgement call on how optimal a certain play, a sequence, an act or inaction, was in the moment.

Wouldn't disagree with any of that. Just sayin' that just because Trump has the majority of the GOP licking his boot heels, doesn't mean the Dems have to follow suit by inaction.

do not underestimate what the Republicans are capable of. Almost every contention toward their deepening depravity has proven correct over time.

And I don't think the Dems are taking that lightly:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisond.../#1b0112aa1e00

[Montmorency]

I just heard Ginsburg speak for the first time. I was surprised that her voice quality and prosody of speech were almost the same as Pelosi's! Tell me you don't hear it.


OK, this is the bad stuff that you fear from Dems and I hope there's enough consensus in the caucus to set his ilk straight.

From George Washington to George W. Bush, senators had used the filibuster against 68 presidential nominees. From Washington to Bush, that entire period, 68 filibusters of presidential nominees. During President Obama’s first five years, Republican senators, led by Mitch McConnell, used it against 79 nominees. In five years of a brand new president, they used the filibuster more times than in our history going back to George Washington.

The obstruction was relentless, Madame President, and it finally led Senate Democrats to change the rules in 2013 with a so-called “nuclear option,” allowing us to confirm judicial nominees -- except for the Supreme Court and other executive appointments -- with 51 votes instead of 60 votes. I’m sorry about that vote. I’ve apologized on this floor before, about that vote. It has led us, partly, to where we are today.

Sad, because Bennett (former 2020 Dem presidential primary candidate on a conservative platform) has been relatively good on fiscal support in the recession.


Most importantly:

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy told a federal court that hundreds of high-speed mail sorting machines he ordered removed cannot be returned to service because they were stripped for parts.

DeJoy and the U.S.Postal Service presented the excuse in a response filed Wednesday to a nationwide order issued by U.S. District Judge Stanley Bastian in Yakima, Washington, last week demanding the return of some 700 machines that had been taken out of service.

“Dismantled machines ‘are generally dissembled for their usable parts, with such parts being removed to maintain or enhance other machines,’” DeJoy, a loyalist and major contributor to President Donald Trump’s campaign, stated in his response. “It is therefore not possible to return such machines to service.”

But witnesses reported that many of the expensive machines were quickly dismantled and tossed into dumpsters as scrap. The injunction noted that 72% of the ripped out machines were in counties Hillary Clinton won in the 2016 presidential election.

Even as the importance of timely mail delivery heightens ahead of the election, DeJoy several weeks ago ordered the removal of the sorting machines and hundreds of letter-collection boxes. He also ordered an end to overtime for postal workers and extended delivery time.

The Postal Service then sent letters to 47 states that it could no longer guarantee that mail-in ballots would be delivered on time.

Reminder that DeJoy, following Congressional and media alarm and scrutiny of his practices in August, promised to not screw with the Postal Service until after the election.

This universe is too basic for pop culture.

[Montmorency]

Right, so Biden often wasn't effective in pursuing Trump's flaws. He didn't make him look weak, which is what matters. Let him control the narrative too often. This debate won't have an impact.

[Hooahguy]

Maybe, but I will say that it's hard to do that when the moderator was completely ineffective and Trump is just interrupting and shouting over everyone. was embarrassing. I know people like to think of Wallace as one of the few "decent" Fox News people but he's only a bit less bad.

If anything is remembered from this debate it will be that Trump encouraged his voters to go to the polls and "watch the votes."

If we survive election day without violence at a polling place I think it would be a miracle.

[Montmorency]

Maybe, but I will say that it's hard to do that when the moderator was completely ineffective and Trump is just interrupting and shouting over everyone. was embarrassing. I know people like to think of Wallace as one of the few "decent" Fox News people but he's only a bit less bad.

If anything is remembered from this debate it will be that Trump encouraged his voters to go to the polls and "watch the votes."

If we survive election day without violence at a polling place I think it would be a miracle.

Wallace was surprisingly fair IMO. There's no way to moderate Trump effectively unless you gonzo full-expletive in his face, and you wouldn't hope for that even from the roughest Democratic nominee let alone a mod.

Some polling:

Monmouth: 44% of Americans not bothered by Trump's refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power.
Yougov: 30% of Americans believe there will be a peaceful transfer of power in a contested election.

[Hooahguy]

Wallace was surprisingly fair IMO. There's no way to moderate Trump effectively unless you gonzo full-expletive in his face, and you wouldn't hope for that even from the roughest Democratic nominee let alone a mod.

But thats the core of the issue though. Trump is a bully. Coddling a bully gets you nowhere. I think Philippe Reines had a great quote about trying to debate Trump: "It's like Yo-Yo Ma trying to perform at Carnegie Hall when there's a guy with an air horn 10 feet away."

Gotta take away his airhorn if you want it to be an actual debate.

Edit: the second debate is in the town hall format which absolutely plays to Biden's strengths (empathy and personal connection). I think that one would go far better for Biden.

Some polling:

Monmouth: 44% of Americans not bothered by Trump's refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power.
Yougov: 30% of Americans believe there will be a peaceful transfer of power in a contested election.

I suppose I shouldnt be surprised how seemingly few Americans are concerned about this.