Trump Watch

[Harry Marks]

The Gop has a taste for that now and will look for even more of a Strong Man, someone who is sane, skilled at wielding power, sophisticated, competent, yet ravenous for total control. Think of someone like Bill Barr - not him exactly, but one who knows all about the legal system, how to clear out impediments to increasing power, and one who is charismatic enough that his base will cheer and form armed gangs that march through cities 100K strong as the Dictator seizes the military and shuts down the Senate just for starters. This is what is on the horizon, can we stop that train?

I think the GOP strongman is a real threat. But the party leadership and the corporate paymasters have no taste for it. Most of the GOP leaders read the tea leaves as a message that their ideological war against expanded government, for example Medicare for All, is a winning political position. Corporations just want pliable officials who will "stay bought."

So who has a taste for it? Social conservatives who see the expansion of civil rights to women and minorities as a dangerous erosion of civil strength. I do think they would follow a caudillo who was more skillful at divisive rhetoric without the personalist obsessions, who would use blackmail and covert threats to enforce party discipline, who would gladly promote Russian disinformation to hobble his opponents (you can bet big money it would be a "him").

But the institutional strength in the free press, the armed forces who truly understand the need for civilian control, and the professionalism of the courts present a formidable obstacle to the sort of takeover you envision. And the political leadership is not really interested in being cowed. They caved to the threat of being primaried, except a few like Romney who have a strong enough base outside of the QAnon hall of mirrors, but that is not the same as looking forward to years of terror that the purges might come for them next, followed by the end of electoral accountability. Hell, even Murdoch's press stood up for democracy when push came to shove.

I would worry more about a continual slide toward one-party democracy, along the lines of what Poland and Hungary have gone through.

[LanDroid]

"If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.”
—David Frum

I believe that quote is from 2016, a prescient observation that explains much of what is going on.

I would worry more about a continual slide toward one-party democracy, along the lines of what Poland and Hungary have gone through.

Republicans would love that, along the lines of Democratic control for several decades starting with FDR. Every time the GOP wins you hear in the background something like "Forty more years!" But they can't make that happen, hence the gerrymandering at the nano-level, voter suppression, and now talk of secession, civil war, and martial law. I agree there are guardrails against most of this, the independent courts for one. But many of those protections have diminished in the last 4 years, especially the party leadership. I doubt they could withstand The Beast - one who is elected, trashes democratic institutions, and echoes President Jackson in saying "The courts have ruled, now let them enforce it against my armed gangs." Sorry, I know this seems outrageous, but I feel that somewhere The Beast has awakened, is paying attention, and is planning.

On edit: Re-reading this, I must be losing it. 1/20/2021 is coming too late.

[LanDroid]

Trump has told people recently that Pence isn't doing enough to fight for him as his presidency ends, and has recently taken an interest in Pence's traditional role during the certification. As President of the Senate, Pence presides over the proceedings. Sources say Trump in recent days has brought the matter up to the vice president and has been "confused" as to why Pence can't overturn the results of the election on January 6.

...Brooks told CNN on Monday night that they would seek to challenge the election in at least six battleground states, saying he needs to coordinate "as many as 72" five-minute speeches that GOP lawmakers would make that day. "That's a significant task," he said.

The effort is doomed to fail but would create a spectacle that Senate GOP leaders want to avoid. And if a House member and a senator object to six states' results, it would lead to at least 12 hours of debate, in addition to the time for casting votes on each of the motions, potentially prolonging the fight until the next day.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/24/politics ... index.html

Aaaand awaaaay weeee gooooo...

[Robert Tulip]

Trump is a learning experience. If we don't fix the weak spots he revealed, someone else is going to come along and exploit those weak spots.

The refusal to concede is part of a deliberate strategy to signal to the fascist base that empire and democracy are no longer compatible. Not enough people can be conned into voting against their interests.

Cheating by stopping poor people from voting is no longer enough. The drumbeat emerging from the refusal to concede is the testing of the waters for how willing the American people are to allow military dictatorship.

An interesting essay on related themes is Wotan by Carl Jung, written in 1936 as a reflection on the irrational dangers of Nazism.

When we look back to the time before 1914, we find ourselves living in a world of events which would have been inconceivable before the war. We were even beginning to regard war between civilized nations as a fable, thinking that such an absurdity would become less and less possible on our rational, internationally organized world. And what came after the war was a veritable witches' sabbath. Everywhere fantastic revolutions, violent alterations of the map, reversions in politics to medieval or even antique prototypes, totalitarian states that engulf their neighbours and outdo all previous theocracies in their absolutist claims, persecutions of Christians and Jews, wholesale political murder, and finally we have witnessed a light-hearted piratical raid on a peaceful, half-civilized people [the Italian invasion of Ethiopia].

The last century showed that sudden collapse of rational expectations is far easier than people like to imagine. Along came Hitler, with his deeply irrational call to restore the violent heritage of berserk frenzy. These unconscious psychological tendencies sit close to the surface, repressed only by a thin veneer of civilization that can easily be split asunder by an astute call to emotional urges. Therefore Jung writes that "the psychologist cannot avoid coming to grips with contemporary history, even as his very soul shrinks from the political uproar, the lying propaganda, and the jarring speeches of the demagogues."

What Jung calls a "rustling in the primeval forest of the unconsciousness" produces "a state of being seized or possessed." Only a "mind that is still childish thinks of the gods as metaphysical entities existing in their own right, or else regards them as playful or superstitious inventions." The reality is that Gods like Wotan symbolise the deep trends in human psychology, psychic forces emerging from unconscious depths.

The anger that has seized Trump's voters is entirely such an unconscious psychic force, searching about for a powerful emotional symbol just as German fury did in the 1930s: "The impressive thing about the German phenomenon is that one man, who is obviously "possessed," has infected a whole nation to such an extent that everything is set in motion and has started rolling on its course towards perdition... soon after Hitler seized power a cartoon appeared in PUNCH of a raving berserker tearing himself free from his bonds. A hurricane has broken loose in Germany while we still believe it is fine weather."

Jung continues, describing political use of mythology as "a bridge between the dark forces of life and the shining world of historical ideas....the man of today, when confronted with a living and unfathomable tribal god such as he has never experienced before, [is] sucked like dry leaves into the roaring whirlwind."

[DWill]

A possible simple reason for people's willingness to chuck democracy in favor of a "strong" leader is belief that all politicians are corrupt. I hear this from a few people on both sides. When they make such statements, they believe they're sounding impartial. The result is that they become willing to countenance authoritarianism-- because democracy can't work with all of the corruption, so at least the strongman can get things done. Currently the authoritarian threat is from the right, but nothing says leftist authoritarianism couldn't appear sometime.

The belief that all are corrupt is lazy and demonstrably false. But it has a strong appeal right now. In fact, if we tried to define what the swamp represents to Trump followers, elected officials would be included in its creatures.

[DB Roy]

https://thebulwark.com/trumps-last-stand/

Another article about the Jan 6 vote. I think this is the best one. After an objection, the House vote is by member not state delegation. Other articles are wrong on this. IF both chambers approve the objection, THEN it goes to the House voting by state delegation. BUT it is NOT a vote. It is simply a count. The 12th amendment makes clear that congress would recount the votes not certify them. They have already been certified. Each state recounts their electors' votes. Now THAT makes sense! If anyone tries to say that counting implies certifying, they would would run afoul the Constitution which specifically says that Congress "counts" the votes. So, Congress gets the last say in the count but not in the vote itself. That makes more sense than anything else I've read. It explains why McConnell is going to kill any Senate objections: it won't accomplish anything. Biden is president-elect.

[DWill]

Trump's border wall gets 1.4 billion in new funds under the relief bill Trump just signed after his week-long hissy fit. How crazy is that?

[LanDroid]

So, Congress gets the last say in the count but not in the vote itself. That makes more sense than anything else I've read. It explains why McConnell is going to kill any Senate objections: it won't accomplish anything. Biden is president-elect.

Yes, Biden will be President. However, McConnell has not killed Senate objections. Chaos on January 6 will happen!

Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley said Wednesday he will object when Congress counts the Electoral College votes next week, which will force lawmakers in both the House and Senate to vote on whether to accept the results of President-elect Joe Biden's victory. Hawley is the first senator to announce plans to object to the results, which is significant because both a House member and senator are required to mount an objection when Congress counts the Electoral College votes on January 6. The objection will not change the outcome of the election, only delaying the inevitable affirmation of Biden's victory in November over President Donald Trump.

12/30/2020
https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/30/politics ... index.html

This chaos may be short lived in the legislative branch, but it will flood accelerants onto inflamed conspiracies.

[LanDroid]

Trump's border wall gets 1.4 billion in new funds under the relief bill Trump just signed after his week-long hissy fit. How crazy is that?

#wherearethepesos?

[DB Roy]

So, Congress gets the last say in the count but not in the vote itself. That makes more sense than anything else I've read. It explains why McConnell is going to kill any Senate objections: it won't accomplish anything. Biden is president-elect.

Yes, Biden will be President. However, McConnell has not killed Senate objections. Chaos on January 6 will happen!

No. McConnell never promised to stop any senators from standing up. He only said that he hoped they wouldn't otherwise the senate has to vote them down and look like they aren't supporting their president. Not that it matters. I don't trust McConnell anyway. The House will vote the objection down. It won't delay anything by more than a few hours. All these republicans promising to fight for Trump know he's going to lose. They just want to look good for the base. "I stood with him to the bitter end!" That base will desert the party and these congress creeps want to be ready to transition to a new party. It's all just a big show. The base is going to get the politicians they deserve. Meanwhile, life goes on.