This is long, but hear me out.
Carter was elected to restore decency after Nixon. Gerry Ford was a decent guy, but he was NIXON's decent guy, and that wasn't enough decency to erase Nixon's stench. But he ran into some stubling blocks, and the Republicans were able to exploit the Iranian revolution by making a deal with the Ayatollahs over the hostages, and Carter was out.
Clinton smartly realized that it was the economy, stupid, and enough of the country got it. He DID oversee a huge improvement in the economy, so the Republicans focused on made-up social issues, set up Fox Noise, and took over the message. Karl Rove knew enough about the inner workings of the electoral process to set up corruption of vote counting. Jeb Bush took advantage of the Nader phenomenon (where financing for THAT came from is a question for another time) to skew the voting his brother's way, and the Republican majority on the Supreme Court put the last nail in the coffin housing Al Gore's presidency (and the country's finances).
In the transition team from Clinton to Bush, Sandy Berger warned that Al Qaeda was the biggest external threat to national security. Condoleezza Rice said, no, it was Saddam Hussein. Less than 8 months after Cheney's (dba Bush Jr.) inauguration, Al Qaeda gave us 9/11. Cheney uses that to fake the threat from Iraq, and launch the invasion that made him and his company, Halliburton rich for life. The raid on our Treasury sank the country's finances again, and Obama's nomination in 2008 was hard-fought because by then, the Republicans had fucked up the economy so badly, no Republican was ever going to get elected president in 2008. Howard's brilliant stewardship at the DNC helped, of course.
The Republicans knew by 2005 that they were never going to retain the presidency in 2008. "Citizens United," though not yet known by that name, was almost surely in the works by then, and I'm fairly confident that both Roberts and Alito were only nominated to the Supreme Court AFTER promising to endorse such legislation, which Rove knew would be fought all the was to the SCOTUS.
Once Citizens United was in place, although it wasn't nearly enough to dislodge Obama from the White House (it helped that the Republicans had no one palatable to offer as a candidate), it did stymie Obama with a Republican congress for ¾ of his presidency.
Still, after Obama using eight years as president to show America and the world "how this job is done," the logical choice was for Hillary to continue his work. Something REALLY DRASTIC would have to be employed by the Republicans if they were going to stop her presidency. She had the competence, the connections, the ability and the knowledge necessary for a great presidency. They needed outside help for that. A weak roster during the Republican primaries didn't enhance their prospects, either, so they let it fall to the worst possible nominee. After all, it's MUCH easier to explain a thundering loss if you say you nominated the wrong candidate (think Sarah Palin in 2008).
Well, they got their thundering loss in 2016, and took office anyway. The Republicans, really Stalinists at heart already, remembered one of the quotes attributed to Stalin: Those who cast the votes decide nothing--those who count the voted decide everything. It is not without precedent that a State with a Republican governor pulls some funny business to install the losing candidate as president. It worked in Florida in 2000. It worked in Ohio in 2004. But now, with Hillary's huge lead in the popular vote, it would be needed in more than one state to overcome Hillary's huge lead in the popular vote. Good thing for the Republicans that Russia has calculators, too. Three states with Republican governors turned in "surprise upset victories," each by the tiniest of margins, for Trump. Hello, worst case scenario. Surprised? We sure were. Mitch McConnell sure WASN'T. He didn't hold up Garland's seat on the Supreme Court for a year just to have to confront Hillary's first nominee. He knew what was coming. He didn't set this up all by himself, either. Others also knew it was coming. They don't call him "Moscow Mitch" for nothing.
There will be manipulation again this fall-hopefully not enough. With any luck, it will be 2008 all over again, and all you need is the Democratic nomination to be the next president. Then, if they don't mess with the Senatorial races, it will be damage control all over again. We'll need a LOT of it this time. One term for the Democrat elected in 2020, and then two term for his successor. Job for day one, Mr. President: ELECTORAL REFORM. A class A felony for electoral manipulation of ANY kind. Ten years minimum, for any offense, from faking or discarding voter registration to voting rights repression to manipulation of ballot counting, including fooling with the programming of (soon to be obsolete) vote-counting machines. Falsely informing voters of incorrect voting dates or locations, too.
Oh, and one more thing: a proposal of nothing less than a constitutional amendment saying that if you are a citizen of the USA, age 18 on election day or before, you have the right to vote. Period. Let's see the Republicans try to wave their flags and spin THAT one as unpatriotic.
That last one might break the cycle. A US citizen can vote in the USA, and you go to jail for ten years if you try to prevent any of those citizens from voting or having their vote counted. You want to be elected? Get yourself a better idea, not a better heckler, or a better hacker.
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