A week after election day, a dwindling number of votes are still being counted and few states remain uncalled. They are still counting votes in Arizona, where Biden’s lead is shrinking, and a few media outlets are leaving the state uncalled. However, Fox News called Arizona for Biden on election night. And that may have been significant, no matter who eventually wins the state.
Trump’s plan– which he had publicly spelled out — was to capitalize on an expected Electoral College lead on election night. He would declare victory and then send in teams of lawyers to stop the count of mail-in votes. Nancy LeTourneau writes that Trump was expecting to lose Wisconsin and Michigan, but he didn’t need them to pull off the scam as long as he was ahead in the remainder of the “swing” and red states on election night. But when Fox called Arizona for Biden, the plan was spoiled. “With Arizona gone, Trump would have no clear path to 270 electoral votes,” LeTourneau said.
Over the past week a number of journalists covering the Trump campaign have written that the election night mood went suddenly sour when Fox called Arizona. See McKay Coppins at The Atlantic, When the MAGA Bubble Burst, at the Atlantic, for example. Yesterday Sarah Ellison and Josh Dawsey at the Washington Post added more details about what went down when Fox called Arizona.
Trump erupted in anger, telling others in the White House to “get that result changed,” a senior administration official said. His chief of staff, Mark Meadows, phoned Fox News’s decision desk repeatedly. Top aide Hope Hicks, who had returned to the White House earlier this year after a stint at Fox Corp., messaged Raj Shah, a former Trump White House staffer whom she hired at Fox, about how to get the call reversed. Kellyanne Conway got in touch with Fox News chief political anchor Bret Baier to complain. Jared Kushner reached out to Fox Corp.’s billionaire owner, Rupert Murdoch.
But even as White House officials vowed to Fox executives that they had data from Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) demonstrating that Trump could still win, and as all the other major networks continued to hold off on a call, Fox decision-desk chief Arnon Mishkin remained unmoved. Stick with us, he and his deputies told the anchors. We’ll be right. And that was the path Fox News chose.
Since then, while some of its most virulent bobbleheads have continued to push allegations of fraud and irregularities and dastardly Democratic tricks, the news side of the Fox organization has stood by the Arizona call. On Saturday Fox declared Biden the winner sixteen minutes after CNN had done so. WaPo’s Ellison and Dawsey write that Trump appeared to be angrier at Fox than he was at losing.
I doubt Trump has completely given up on the plan to use the courts to flip enough states to pull off a win, but doing so would be beyond messy at this point. The Administration is not conceding or cooperating in the Biden transition. A headline at the Independent (UK) worried me — Mike Pompeo says there will be a ‘smooth transition to second Trump administration’ — but then it appears Pompeo was joking. Maybe.
See also Republicans Escalate Effort to Challenge Biden Election Victory from Bloomberg. My guess is that Barr, McConnell, et al. don’t seriously think that they can overturn the election but are trying to undermine the Biden Admnistration. I also suspect a lot of Republicans are waiting for Trump to signal that he’s adjusted to losing before they acknowledge Biden’s win. Whether that happens before inauguration day is anybody’s guess.
Here’s an interesting story that says Trump may try to cut some kind of deal with somebody before he accepts defeat and vacates the White House.
So what does a former New York City real estate developer demand when 75 million voters, the Constitution, the Electoral College, and 238 years of peaceful transfers of power stand in his way? My friend wonders: “Maybe he believes he can trade for a favorable resolution on his $86 million IRS tax audit. Or a pardon on his New York State investigation. Who knows?”
There has been less acting up by Trump supporters than I expected, although of course they are still all over social media declaring the election ain’t over. And the infamous Q has been silent since Election Day, which is beginning to cause panic among the faithful.
Over the next few days I expect a continued struggle between the Biden transition team and the Trump Administration. However, the wheels of tradition will continue to turn, and the attention of the nation is likely to move on to Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the Georgia Senate races. My biggest question is whether Trump will actually remain in Washington for Biden’s inauguration or skip town ahead of schedule. I think the latter is more likely.
Nobody Move Digital Art by Barry Kite
I've been studying this and the data shows there was a massive conspiracy to remove Trump. The huge turnout numbers show the magnitude of the conspiracy and the fact that turnout increased for Democrats AND Republicans proves the scheme was bipartisan. Mitch McConnell survived – that means he was in on it!
The GOP actually gained seats in the US House! This cunning ploy by Pelosi and McConnell gives plausibility to the scheme to force Trump out! McConnell wins – the Democrats win and Trump is removed – it's the ancient "stabbed in the back" but McConnell is Brutus in this play.
We can reward Mitch for his treachery! Boycott the GA runoff elections. The deal McConnell made can be unmade if we don't vote for McConnell's vermin running in GA. They are acceptable to Pelosi and McConnell but we'll get even by not voting!
Q WINS AGAIN!
My guess is that Barr, McConnell, et al. don’t seriously think that they can overturn the election but are trying to undermine the Biden Admnistration. I also suspect a lot of Republicans are waiting for Trump to signal that he’s adjusted to losing before they acknowledge Biden’s win. Whether that happens before inauguration day is anybody’s guess.
Over the next few days I expect a continued struggle between the Biden transition team and the Trump Administration. However, the wheels of tradition will continue to turn, and the attention of the nation is likely to move on to Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the Georgia Senate races.
There’s a coup going on. Trump could care less about the wheels of tradition, and will use the distracted nation to his advantage. It’s less about Barr and McConnell trying to undermine Biden, and more about them desiring a coup and doing what they can to facilitate it / and CYA should it fail. That it may hurt Biden is a positive but unimportant side effect.
The only way Trump will adjust to losing is if he’s forcibly removed from the White House. He doesn’t do losing. The cartoon at the end of your post is accurate.
I need a break from politics, folks..
I'll be back tomorrow.
Or in a couple days.
Luv all y'all, folks.
I'll be reading any new posts.
I've been thinking about taking a break from politics myself. I might dedicate some time to writing a suspense/ horror novel. I've come up with this great idea for a story that is a blend of both truth and fiction that could possibly land me on the New York Times bestseller list.
The story would be based on a semi-plagiarized idea from Stephen King's novel Christine, the one where a red and white 1958 Plymouth Fury likes to kill people. My novel would be similar except I would replace the red and white Plymouth Fury with a red and white MAGA hat that doesn't kill people in the same sense as Christine does, but those who have the misfortune to don the MAGA hat are inhabited by a possessive power that negatively alters their characteristics and destroys their lives and careers.
I could use characters based on real life examples, such as Jeff Sessions, the first politician to publicly put on a MAGA hat only to have his career destroyed and his credibility reduced to zero. Than there is Cesar Sayoc, the MAGA bomber who ultimately ends up spending his life in prison because of the MAGA hat he wore on his head. There is so much resource material to be gathered from the lives of the many souls who had the misfortune to brush up against Donald Trump thinking he was their ticket to ride only to have their lives, their livelihood, and their reputations left in tatters as a result of donning a MAGA hat.
Anyway, you can see where I'm going. By taking the truth of the misery Trump has sown into the lives of so many, and mixing in a little horror filled fiction it gives me the potential for a blockbuster. What will real set off my novel is the fact that the line separating truth from fiction when it comes to the bizarre behaviors of Trump and his supporters is so razor thin that it's almost impossible to distinguish.
It's almost going to write itself.
https://www.startribune.com/man-charged-with-assaulting-minnesota-couple-says-he-was-angry-about-their-anti-trump-sign/573039881/
Maybe I'll include this guy in my book. Assault on a police officer, assault on an 80 year old with a deadly weapon. Resisting arrest, reckless endangerment. Just to name a few of the obvious charges this clown will be facing. It's almost like the adjustment band on his MAGA hat was too tight on his head.
The headline reads Reuter's survey reports 80% of Americans say Joe Biden won the presidency. When one digs at the data pile a bit one finds 3% think Trump won re-election and 5% say they do not know. 13% say the election has not been decided. I can imagine all deniers and doubters percentages would be much higher if Fox News had not reported and called thing the way they did. I cannot say Fox has ever been "fair and balanced" IMO, but they have lately shown themselves not to be totally Trump puppets. I am sure the inside dynamics at the Fox organization are less than tranquil.
I read the Q article earlier today and found it alarming. Reading about the former Q junkie who abandoned the cesspool of crackpot thinking gave me little tranquility. I wanted to hear that he had managed to convince at least a few others of the group that some healthy skepticism was in order, but heard no such report. He did say that when he was "in the group" he thought he was in the know and had inside information on how things really worked. Hmmm.
Some way I stumbled onto an article by James Hamblin of the Atlantic on how Trump convinced many voters his COVID response was not a disaster but a competent response to the problem led to this great quote: "Orienting your sense of truth around a person can be more comforting than doing so around a nebulous, uncertain, or otherwise threatening reality." Hamblin contends that the concept of identity fusion from cultural anthropology and social psychology does much to help understanding a lot of the current aberrant behavior. All I can say is that we must have way too many people in this country that are reality impaired to the max, not just reality threatened, to find solace and truth in Trump or in Q. As my father often cautioned when we whined or complained too much about life's rigors: You just don't know how bad things can get. He was so right, we did not. It does sound like we are about to find out just how bad the COVID problem can get. Good thing the vaccine news is upbeat and we get better leadership soon.
Given how dug in on total rejection of Biden as president elect as they are, this does not portend well for "uniting the country" and Biden would do well to stop saying its something he will do, without adding the caveat that its dependent on the GOP meeting him halfway. Obama fell into that trap, partially of his own making by selling himself as a uniter, only to have his failure to bring the parties together, because the GOP was dead set against it, laid at his feet. And McConnell et al shamelessly used that to say see, he divided us!
Biden needs to focus on what he can do to help deal with covid, the economy and health care. And use his bully pit to reset the national tone from anger to hope and progress, and reintroduce the concept of love thy neighbor even as we may disagree. And remove hate as the transcendent emotion. And blame the GOP at every turn for fanning the flames and holding us all back.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/officials-pennsylvania-postal-worker-admits-000042257.html
Project Veritas is at it again. You'd think that by now O'keefe would be kind of figuring out that he's really not meant to be in the undercover/ dark arts business.
If you don't succeed at first.. try, try again?
Mizz Lindsey is walking around with a virtual hook, line, and sinker dangling from his mouth. He should have kept his mask on.
The most likely explanation I've heard connects their refusal to accept defeat and the wholesale firings at the DoD: Essentially, they're doing the digital equivalent of burning all documents.
And it's also possible that Trump will agree to cooperate in the transition if he gets some kind of immunity.
Basically, anything and everything is possible. They don't even know what they want. They're just lashing out in all directions at all times, and seeing what it gets them. It's not really a plan but it works as well as one. Anyone who has lived with an abuser recognizes the pattern.
As for the rest of the GOP, they're along for the ride. I mean, why not? Maybe Trump can stay in office, and if he can't, what's it going to cost them? Nothing ever costs them anything. They won't change until their open hatred of America actually leaves them with less than they had before.
But the calls to reach out to conservatives, to understand their feelings, to give them time to process their loss — those started before the truck of the guys who wanted to shoot up the vote-counting center in Philadelphia was even towed. (Literally.)
Anyone who has lived with an abuser recognizes the pattern.
Yeah, and anyone who is familiar with the word phrases and terminologies employed by the abuser can recognize the dynamics of abuse in language when it is being employed.
I just heard Kayleigh McEnany making an official statement concerning the validity of the election results where she said — "All we want"— to make Trump appear as a reasonable victim of an injustice. It's been established beyond doubt that no matter what they do Trump has been defeated fair and square.