Trump Is Trying to Overturn the Election, but I'm Not Panicking--Yet

[Nevilledog]

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Elie Mystal
@ElieNYC
I know people are scared that @realDonaldTrump will find *some* way to stay in power. I have these dark thoughts too. And then, I shout them down and rest easy. Here, let me answer some FAQs from our deepest darkest fears.
My latest in @thenation

Trump Is Trying to Overturn the Election, but I’m Not Panicking—Yet
All the reasons I think the Trump-GOP gambit to deny Biden’s victory will not change the fact that he will become president on January 20.
thenation.com
9:07 AM · Nov 10, 2020

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/biden-victory-trump-lawsuit/

Joe Biden is going to be the next president of the United States. He will be inaugurated on January 20 and take power at noon that day. There is nothing, legally, that Trump can do to stop that.

What Trump and his feckless Republican Party might do illegally to try to overturn the results of the election and prevent Biden from taking power is a different matter. Trump has evidently intimidated the administrator of the General Services Administration into refusing to acknowledge Biden’s victory and thus prevent his team from starting the transition process. Only a smattering of Republicans have acknowledged that Biden won, and most of those who have, like George W. Bush, no longer hold any political power. Trump has already filed a raft of baseless lawsuits. His people are drumming up talk of some kind of Electoral College devilry to overthrow the popular will. And Trump fired the Secretary of Defense, Mike Esper, yesterday, which seems like the kind of thing one does before one launches a coup d’état.

Years of watching Democrats snatch defeat from the jaws of victory gives many the sinking feeling that “it’s happening, again.” But rational thought tells us that these Trump gambits, all of them, are pointless. Biden won and his ascension to power is now inevitable, whether Trump accedes to that reality or not. As a wise man once sang: Gravity always wins.

Still, we’ve all seen Trump wriggle out of approximately a billion other defeats and scandals. He’s exposed the weakness of our democratic institutions, revealing just how useless they are in the face of his norm-breaking assaults. So, it feels somehow naive to believe that his loss at the ballot box will translate into his loss of an actual job. It feels smart to consider that he might have a secret plan to retain that job, despite being voted out of it. Trump is the Michael Myers of our politics: He can’t be defeated because the horror movie franchise makes too much money to ever end.

And yet, despite all this, I have gone to bed every night since Friday confident that President-elect Biden will become President Biden. I’ve come to this peace over the objection of my amygdala, which is the part of the brain that screams in fear and anxiety and tries to overpower rational thought. Here’s what I tell myself in order to help me sleep at night. Perhaps these are conversations others can have to achieve my level of forced serenity. (Amygdala in bold italics.)

*snip*

[bullimiami]

1. its to be expected of trump that he will try everything. legal or illegal. sensible or ridiculous.

and just keep throwing it up there. it is what he always has done.

[Fullduplexxx]

2. The gsa employee is a trump supporter so he didnt have to intimidate her

[cilla4progress]

3. I panicked here last night.

Didn't end well.

Still panicking. But holding it in ...

Yes, I think ultimately Biden will be sworn in. But 70 mill... 70 MILLION voted for the worst person on the planet, knowing full well the destruction and death! This is 1930s Germany level shit.

Ok I'll shut up now.

Mystal has been my go to in this phase. Man, he's stapped in to some kind of MAGIC!

[Mike 03]

7. +1

Some really smart people agree with us. Like Leon Panetta, General McCaffrey, Steve Schmidt and others.

Esper yesterday: "God help us." Esper ran the Pentagon!

Have you watched the documentary #UNFIT yet? Another dozen people in that movie agree, including two experts on fascism (including Ruth Ben-Ghiat).

Last night, Thomas Friedman also said this is as close to peril as we've been since the Civil War.

I don't make many posts about it, but I am not in the "Shut Up, everything's going to work out just great, you're a fool for not sleeping well" camp.

[cilla4progress]

11. Thanks for the affirmation, Mike.

I'm just going to sit back and let it play out.

Let's hope our deep concern is misplaced!

[blueinredohio]

4. I don't worry about Trump but someone needs to stop Barr.

Then when they're out of office prosecute that bastard.

[Mike 03]

5. I appreciate that she acknowledges that these fears are not baseless:

Still, we’ve all seen Trump wriggle out of approximately a billion other defeats and scandals.

Years of watching Democrats snatch defeat from the jaws of victory gives many the sinking feeling that “it’s happening, again.”

[hlthe2b]

9. LOL. Gotta rib you a little bit, Mike 03. This is Elie Mystal (Nation's Justice Correspondent)

[woodsprite]

6. It's that little tiny word in her 3rd sentence -- legally -- that has me worried.

When has Trump & Co ever done anything 'legally'?

[hlthe2b]

10. See post # 9 above you. LOL

Elie Mystal, nationally recognized legal expert and Justice correspondent for the Nation.

[hlthe2b]

8. Highly recommended to tamp down the hysteria.