Election Challenges, Protests, Conspiracy Theories, and Moral Panics

[Big Boss]

So this is neat:

Trump Campaign Sues Homeless Nevada Presidential Elector in Latest Push to Challenge Results

Quote:President Donald Trump's campaign is mounting a fresh legal bid to prevent the certification of votes in Nevada. A new lawsuit names the state's Democratic presidential electors as defendants.

One of those named is Gabrielle d'Ayr, a former chair of the Clark County Democratic Party who says she is currently homeless. Clark County has been the focus of a previous election-related case.

The lawsuit, which was jointly filed by the Trump campaign and the Nevada Republican Party, seeks to award the state's six electoral college votes to the president or annul the election result there.

If successful, the suit would invalidate tens of thousands of votes, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

D'Ayr was chosen as a Democratic presidential elector at convention elections earlier in 2020. She said she only found out she was named as a defendant when she was contacted by the Review-Journal.

"I'm a homeless veteran, and the Trump campaign is suing me for doing my civic duty," she told the newspaper on Tuesday.

D'Ayr said she had lost her job when the U.S. census ended and was currently living with a friend. She is expected to cast her vote in the Electoral College after the election is certified on November 24.

The other electors chosen by the Nevada Democratic Party are Judith Whitmer, Sarah Mahler, Joseph Throneberry, Artemesia Blanco and Yvanna Cancela, a state senator. Nevada state law requires electors to vote for the presidential candidate who won the popular vote.

"My vote belongs to the people of Nevada, and I made a pledge to the people of Nevada," d'Ayr said. "[Nevada Secretary of State] Barbara Cegavske and [Clark County Registrar of Votes] Joe Gloria are people of great integrity, and if those results have been certified, then the will of the people has been made clear and I will cast my vote for Joe Biden."

Writing on Twitter on Tuesday, d'Ayr added: "I have just been informed that the Trump campaign has filed a lawsuit against me as an elector for the state of Nevada. Me a homeless veteran who is nonetheless continuing to do her duty to the American people."

Attorneys for the Trump campaign claimed 15,000 people voted in Nevada while also voting in another state, that 1,000 voters didn't meet residency requirements and 500 were dead. They have not yet provided proof of these claims, but their complaint alleges that there were "40,000 or more" fraudulent votes in the state.

"They are repeating allegations the courts have already rejected, misstating and misrepresenting evidence provided in those proceedings, and parroting erroneous allegations made by partisans without first-hand knowledge of the facts," a Clark County spokesperson said in a statement.

"For example, they mentioned observation of the process, and the use of a machine to assist with signature verification, which they continue to inaccurately explain. On both of these issues, state and federal courts have already rejected their allegations," the statement said.

The Trump campaign's attempts to challenge election outcomes through the courts have so far met with limited success as the deadlines for certifying results are fast approaching.

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-campaign-sues-homeless-nevada-presidential-elector-challenge-results-1548307

[GMDino]

(11-18-2020, 01:11 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: the Press Secretary was on Hannity telling the whole world about this fraud. Trump retweeting some twitter account saying how we need to discredit all 800k+ Wayne County votes so that Trump can win the state. 

Precincts were off by a few votes because understaffed and overworked poll workers didn't mark some people as returning ballots and put ballots in the wrong precinct piles. There were no fraudulent votes. Of course the story is now that more people voted than there were people who could vote...

I was scrolling through article last night and early this morning (dang insomnia) and got to thinking how McConnell (and probably several here) would strongly support the actions in Wayne County.  After all voter elected a Republican controlled state legislature so they must want them to support the Republican President...or something.

And then there are those who still love the EC because "the states elect the president...not the people" (paraphrasing).  So what if one candidate had the most votes?  Republicans control the state so that's what they do!  Or something.

The twisting to defend Trump and his delusions has been funny to watch.

[GMDino]

We should also note that Trump has done exactly almost exactly zero other than tweet about how he thinks he was ripped off.

In Detroit, there are FAR MORE VOTES THAN PEOPLE. Nothing can be done to cure that giant scam. I win Michigan!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 18, 2020

 

This is embarrassing as a citizen to have a supposed adult act like this.  That so many not only support but encourage this behavior is sad.

[*Nately120*]

(11-18-2020, 12:47 PM)GMDino Wrote: This is embarrassing as a citizen to have a supposed adult act like this.  That so many not only support but encourage this behavior is sad.

I have to say I've never seen anyone over the age of 10 or so make such a point to declare I WIN in the face of defeat.  I remember being on a soccer team in 4th grade or so and we lost the game on penalty kicks because their goalie moved too early and blah blah blah and I recall my friend and I complaining that we should have won and my ol man basically said "You didn't win and the time to change that has already passed, so move on to the next game" or something to that effect.

And I pointed out before I was playing Mortal Kombat when i was 12 or so against a younger cousin who was 6 or 7 or so and insisted on playing and I'd beat him every time but the second the round was over and his guy was on his back he'd turn to me and say "I WON" with 100% sincerity.

So yeah, Trump is acting like a pre-pubescent kid and millions of people love it.  Oh well.


THIS POST IS THE BEST EVER.  I WIN!

[GMDino]

(11-18-2020, 01:15 PM)Nately120 Wrote: I have to say I've never seen anyone over the age of 10 or so make such a point to declare I WIN in the face of defeat.  I remember being on a soccer team in 4th grade or so and we lost the game on penalty kicks because their goalie moved too early and blah blah blah and I recall my friend and I complaining that we should have won and my ol man basically said "You didn't win and the time to change that has already passed, so move on to the next game" or something to that effect.

And I pointed out before I was playing Mortal Kombat when i was 12 or so against a younger cousin who was 6 or 7 or so and insisted on playing and I'd beat him every time but the second the round was over and his guy was on his back he'd turn to me and say "I WON" with 100% sincerity.

So yeah, Trump is acting like a pre-pubescent kid and millions of people love it.  Oh well.


THIS POST IS THE BEST EVER.  I WIN!

When I played soccer (grade school) our coach actually pulled us off the field and forfeited once.  It was a brutal game.  Officials were very biased (we were on the road) and after a half of pointing it out (the coach, not us) he told us he'd rather lose than see us get physically beat up.

Only game where I deliberately tripped an opposing player.  Refs weren't calling it and I sent a guy to the ground as he went past.  I didn't get called either...lol.

[Big Boss]

Election tampering.

https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-targets-vote-certification-29da6aac9cc41e47f3095855e7af7031

[*Nately120*]

(11-19-2020, 12:54 PM)Big Boss Wrote: Election tampering.

https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-targets-vote-certification-29da6aac9cc41e47f3095855e7af7031

They ought to just flip Texas to blue if Trump keeps this up much longer.  That'll teach him.

[GMDino]

"President Trump, his legal team and his allies have endorsed excluding nearly 1 out of every 10 votes in the states that decided the 2020 election."

What would you say if you saw it in another country? https://t.co/nCuqMNepHh

— Brendan Nyhan (@BrendanNyhan) November 19, 2020

 


Also I read somewhere that Trump's team pulled their claim in Michigan with Rudy saying it was unnecessary because they got the "relief" they wanted...but that they got no relief.


A link to them withdrawing:


https://www.wxyz.com/news/trump-campaign-withdraws-lawsuit-over-election-results-in-michigan

Quote:“This morning we are withdrawing our lawsuit in Michigan as a direct result of achieving the relief we sought: to stop the election in Wayne County from being prematurely certified before residents can be assured that every legal vote has been counted and every illegal vote has not been counted," Giuliani said in a statement.


Related: GOP members of Wayne County Board of Canvassers look to reverse decision again after certifying election results


On Tuesday, the Wayne County Board of Canvassers certified the election after two Republican members changed course. Originally, they voted against certifying the election.

Related: Benson: All 83 counties in Michigan have voted to certify election results
Then, late Wednesday night, both Monica Palmer, the chair of the board, and William Hartmann, filed signed affidavits demanding to rescind their "yes" vote to certify the election results.


The Secretary of State's office said there is no legal mechanism for Palmer and Hartmann to rescind their vote. 

The next step in the process is for the Board of State Canvassers to meet and certify.

Trump and his "best people" are bad at everything.

[GMDino]

Rudy is having a press conference and it's going as badly as one would expect.

First, there needs to be an integration between Trump's team and Biden's team to assure a clean hand-off of a complicated distribution plan.

Second, Biden will likely want to improve the plan, but he can't do that effectively if he isn't read into ahead of time.

— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) November 19, 2020

 

[Big Boss]

Coup.

As defeats pile up, Trump tries to delay vote count in last-ditch attempt to cast doubt on Biden victory

Quote:President Trump has abandoned his plan to win reelection by disqualifying enough ballots to reverse President-elect Joe Biden’s wins in key battleground states, pivoting instead to a goal that appears equally unattainable: delaying a final count long enough to cast doubt on Biden’s decisive victory.

On Wednesday, Trump’s campaign wired $3 million to election officials in Wisconsin to start a recount in the state’s two largest counties. His personal lawyer, ­Rudolph W. Giuliani, who has taken over the president’s legal team, asked a federal judge to consider ordering the Republican-controlled legislature in Pennsylvania to select the state’s electors. And Trump egged on a group of GOP lawmakers in Michigan who are pushing for an audit of the vote there before it is certified.

Giuliani has also told Trump and associates that his ambition is to pressure GOP lawmakers and officials across the political map to stall the vote certification in an effort to have Republican lawmakers pick electors and disrupt the electoral college when it convenes next month — and Trump is encouraging of that plan, according to two senior Republicans who have conferred with Giuliani and spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter candidly.

But that outcome appears impossible. It is against the law in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin law gives no role to the legislature in choosing presidential electors, and there is little public will in other states to pursue such a path.

Behind the thin legal gambit is what several Trump advisers say is his real goal: sowing doubt in Biden’s victory with the president’s most ardent supporters and keeping alive his prospects for another presidential run in 2024.

The shift in strategy comes after the president has suffered defeat after defeat in courtrooms around the country. And it serves as a tacit acknowledgment that Trump has failed to muster evidence to support his unfounded claims about widespread fraud.

While he continues to make such false allegations on Twitter and in fundraising emails driving money into his new leadership PAC, the president’s legal cases have largely been focused on attempts to discard ballots for missing information or on other technicalities. On Wednesday, the Trump campaign agreed to a joint stipulation in a lawsuit in Bucks County, Pa., that there was no fraud, even as it continued to press for the tossing of mail ballots with voter information missing from their envelopes.

Several Republicans said that even Giuliani believes the legal path is arduous. The goal now is to play for delay and cast doubt on the election, they said.

According to people familiar with their conversations, Giuliani is conferring regularly with Stephen K. Bannon, the controversial former White House adviser who earlier this month called for Anthony S. Fauci, the coronavirus task force member, to be beheaded.

“We continue to push forward,” said Boris Epshteyn, a Trump ally and strategic adviser to the campaign, who appeared with Giuliani at a federal court hearing Tuesday in Pennsylvania, where the president’s lawyer faced skeptical questioning from the judge. “The push is to determine what truly happened in this election and the point is to get to the bottom of how many people voted legally for President Trump and how many for Joe Biden.”

The toll of the president’s false claims on public confidence in the election was apparent in a new poll from Monmouth University that found that 77 percent of Trump supporters believe Biden’s win was due to fraud.

“Anything that aids and abets doubts about an election that has been conducted with integrity makes the future of democracy darker,” said William Galston, senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution. “To weaken a democratic people’s faith in its fundamental institutions of self-government is inexcusable.”

And the president faces growing skepticism within his own party — and outrage elsewhere — about his drumbeat of false statements.

Former White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, in an interview Wednesday on Fox Business, criticized Trump’s hiring of Giuliani to litigate a federal lawsuit in Pennsylvania.

“It strikes me that this is the most important lawsuit in the history of the country, and they’re not using the most well-noted election lawyers,” Mulvaney said. “There are folks who do this all of the time. This is a specialty. This is not a television program. This is the real thing.”

Trump’s current chief of staff, Mark Meadows, told reporters on Capitol Hill on Wednesday that he “personally” has evidence of ineligible voters casting ballots. “But the real question fundamentally continues to be: Are there enough votes out there to overturn the election?”

In Arizona’s Maricopa County, which the state Republican Party has sued over the way the county conducted a required hand-count audit, the GOP chairman of the county Board of Supervisors has expressed exasperation with the claims.

“It’s time to dial back the rhetoric, rumors, and false claims. There is no evidence of fraud or misconduct or malfunction,” Clint Hickman wrote in a public letter Tuesday.

Roopali H. Desai, an attorney representing Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D), accused Republicans of using the lawsuit to delay the vote certification by furthering claims that the election was riddled with problems.

In asking Judge John Hannah to dismiss the case quickly, Desai said it was “dangerous” to allow that narrative “to go on even one more day.”

Hannah appeared skeptical of the Republicans’ claims, saying they waited until after the election results were known to raise concerns about a hand-count procedure they knew about before Election Day.

Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, Guiliani submitted a new filing showing that he plans to argue in federal court that election officials violated the campaign’s constitutional rights because observers were not able to watch votes being counted. Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that Philadelphia authorities gave reasonable access to the observers.

In a new court filing asking for permission to amend the campaign’s lawsuit, Giuliani said Trump would ask the judge to consider declaring the state’s election results “defective” and order Pennsylvania’s Republican-controlled legislature to select the state’s presidential electors rather than Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat.

Under state law, the governor appoints the electors based on the popular vote — a fact that even Republican legislative leaders have emphasized.

In Nevada, the Trump campaign is asking a state judge to overturn or annul Biden’s victory under a state law that allows candidates to contest an election based on allegedly fraudulent votes and other grounds.

In a 21-page statement of contest filed Tuesday, Republicans focus largely on the Democratic stronghold of Clark County, repeating some of the same allegations they put forth in recent lawsuits — and that state and federal judges summarily rejected.

The election contest also makes a number of other new allegations, including that thousands of people voted improperly in the state and that some people were offered improper incentives to vote. The document does not provide evidence for those claims but says evidence will be forthcoming.

Laura Fitzsimmons, a Democratic lawyer who has done voter protection in the state for decades, said she sees the election contest as a delay tactic to disrupt certification.

“They’re just desperate,” she said. “They probably know better than the rest of us that their allegations are unfounded, and they’re just seeking a delay for some reason that is tactical, but not legal.”

Trump is increasingly relying on Giuliani and campaign advisers Jenna Ellis and Jason Miller for legal guidance, several campaign officials said — in part because Trump has stopped listening to the original legal team and in part because of those lawyers’ decision to distance themselves in recent days from the president’s increasingly erratic effort to reverse the election’s outcome.

As a result, Trump increasingly is hearing only from aides who are maintaining that the election is not over. He remains hopeful about Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania largely on the advice of Giuliani, who is close to Bannon, and Trump has urged Giuliani to continue the fight, several officials said.

Giuliani “is crazy and actually believes Bannon,” one senior Republican adviser said.

Giuliani could not be reached, and Bannon declined to comment. On his conservative podcast, Bannon said Trump should continue to urge Michigan Republicans to block certification.

“You can’t certify Michigan,” he said. “You don’t have to put up a slate of electors.”

The president was furious Wednesday morning about the decision by election officials in Wayne County, Mich., to certify their results after initially deadlocking along partisan lines, according to aides familiar with his reaction. He is also increasingly angry at Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, both Republicans who have given no indication that they will intervene to block certification there.

Nothing on the ground in any of the key states that helped propel Biden to victory suggests good reason for Trump’s optimism. The states continued their march toward vote certification, with election officials saying they expect to complete the process by the statutory deadline.

In Georgia, Raffensperger announced Wednesday the near-completion of a hand-counted audit that reduced Biden’s lead in the state from 14,156 to 12,781 — but revealed no evidence of fraud. County officials have until midnight Wednesday to wrap up their audit before certifying results by Friday. The Trump campaign has two business days after the certification of results — by Tuesday evening, at the latest — to request a recount.

In Pennsylvania, a GOP attempt to throw out thousands of ballots suffered a further setback in state court Wednesday when a judge in Allegheny County rejected a pair of requests to bar a total of 2,649 ballots where voters either did not write the date on their mail ballot envelope or signed on only one line rather than two when casting a provisional ballot.

“In light of the fact that there is no fraud, a technical omission on an envelope should not render a ballot invalid,” the judge, Joseph M. James, wrote in one order.

In Michigan, Democrats and some Republicans said the effort to force an audit before certification of the vote is unlikely to succeed because it is not required by Michigan law. Although Trump amplified the written request by retweeting it Wednesday, it was signed by only 10 out of 70 Republican lawmakers, none of them in leadership positions.

Even inside Trump’s inner orbit, evidence that reality was setting in came into view on Wednesday.

Trump signed off on the Wisconsin recount the previous evening after talks with Giuliani and other aides, and he urged them to “go to the limit” of contesting the election and delegitimize Biden’s win in the eyes of Trump’s core supporters, one of the senior Republicans said.

But in the end, the Trump campaign asked for a recount only in Dane and Milwaukee counties — at a cost to the campaign of about $3 million instead of about $8 million if he had requested a recount for the entire state. Wisconsin state law requires campaigns to pay upfront for recounts.

Veteran Republicans, meanwhile, expressed unease and apprehension Wednesday about a mission tying Giuliani, Trump and Bannon together, calling it embarrassing and ill-fated.

“Giuliani is turning this into a clown car and Bannon has never had a plan. They think they’re being aggressive but it’s disorganized,” said longtime GOP strategist Scott Reed. “Bannon thinks he’s disrupter in chief.”

Giuliani and Bannon last worked in tandem in the weeks leading up to the Nov. 3 vote, when they sought to publicize emails and photos belonging to Biden’s son that they said had been taken from a laptop abandoned by Hunter Biden at a Delaware computer repair shop. Reporters for the New York Post, which published some of the material, indicated they were first told about the material by Bannon and provided copies of it by Giuliani.

Bannon was charged in August with fraud, accused by federal prosecutors in New York of duping Trump supporters into giving money to a charity dedicated to building a wall on the southern border and then redirecting the money for his own purposes. He has pleaded not guilty.

Earlier this month, Bannon was permanently barred from Twitter after posting a video to YouTube in which he said that Trump should behead Fauci, the leader of the government’s effort to fight the coronavirus, as well as FBI Director Christopher A. Wray.

“I’d put the heads on pikes. Right. I’d put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats. You either get with the program or you are gone,” Bannon said in the video.

The next day, William Burck, a prominent Washington attorney who had been representing Bannon in his criminal case, told the court that he intended to withdraw from the case. He has declined to comment.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-election-strategy/2020/11/18/94fbe50e-29c9-11eb-92b7-6ef17b3fe3b4_story.html

[BmorePat87]

Lawyers now on @newsmax, @OANN & maybe @FoxNews. An open and shut case of voter fraud. Massive numbers!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 19, 2020

"maybe Fox News" lol

So few outlets willing to entertain the lies

[GMDino]

The most insane thing is that this an accurate description of what Trump's personal lawyers are telling the American people uninterrupted on Fox News and that very few GOP Senators or Congressman will refute these claims in any way.

— Nicole Goodkind (@NicoleGoodkind) November 19, 2020

 

[GMDino]

So, so bad.  And dumb.

.@ChattJazz.@CCLcaribecrew.@CheriJacobus Holy Crap!!! Hugo Chávez died almost three years before Trump even announced he was running for the US Presidency!!! Let that sink in!! https://t.co/5M7i9ucx2V

— Bob Lindsey (@playtwo) November 19, 2020

 

[*Nately120*]

Wasn't Bill Clinton disbarred as a response to that whole lying under oath thing? Trump might need his help at this rate.

[Au165]

Biden's current popular vote lead is about 6 million people, or in other words greater than the population of 30 of the 50 U.S. States. This thing is not close at all, in fact, the margin right now is wider than Obama over Romney by slightly over a million votes.

[GMDino]

I'm old enough to remember people thinking that "packing the court" would/could lead to people taking up arms.

So I'm not surprised that Trump supporters would be willing to start a civil war over a lie.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-fraud-insight/why-republican-voters-say-theres-no-way-in-hell-trump-lost-idUSKBN2801D4

Quote:Why Republican voters say there’s ‘no way in hell’ Trump lost

By Brad Brooks, Nathan Layne, Tim Reid
12 MIN READ

SUNDOWN, Texas (Reuters) - Brett Fryar is like many mainstream Republicans. A 50-year-old chiropractor in this west Texas town, he owns a small business. He has two undergraduate degrees and a master’s degree, in organic chemistry. He attends Southcrest Baptist Church in nearby Lubbock, where he has previously taught Sunday school and bible studies.

Fryar didn’t much like Donald Trump at first, during the U.S. president’s 2016 campaign. He voted for Texas Senator Ted Cruz in the Republican primaries.

Now, Fryar says he would go to war for Trump. He has joined the newly formed South Plains Patriots, a group of a few hundred members that includes a “reactionary” force of about three dozen - including Fryar and his son, Caleb - who conduct firearms training.

Nothing will convince Fryar and many others here in Sundown - including the town’s mayor, another Patriots member - that Democrat Joe Biden won the Nov. 3 presidential election fairly. They believe Trump’s stream of election-fraud allegations and say they’re preparing for the possibility of a “civil war” with the American political left.

“If President Trump comes out and says: ‘Guys, I have irrefutable proof of fraud, the courts won’t listen, and I’m now calling on Americans to take up arms,’ we would go,” said Fryar, wearing a button-down shirt, pressed slacks and a paisley tie during a recent interview at his office.

The unshakable trust in Trump in this town of about 1,400 residents reflects a national phenomenon among many Republicans, despite the absence of evidence in a barrage of post-election lawsuits by the president and his allies. About half of Republicans polled by Reuters/Ipsos said Trump “rightfully won” the election but had it stolen from him in systemic fraud favoring Biden, according to a survey conducted between Nov. 13 and 17. Just 29% of Republicans said Biden rightfully won. Other polls since the election have reported that an even higher proportion - up to 80% - of Republicans trust Trump’s baseless fraud narrative.

Trump’s legal onslaught has so far flopped, with judges quickly dismissing many cases and his lawyers dropping or withdrawing from others. None of the cases contain allegations - much less evidence - that are likely to invalidate enough votes to overturn the election, election experts say.

And yet the election-theft claims are proving politically potent. All but a handful of Republican lawmakers have backed Trump’s fraud claims or stayed silent, effectively freezing the transition of power as the president refuses to concede. Trump has succeeded in sowing further public distrust in the media, which typically calls elections, and undermined citizens’ faith in the state and local election officials who underpin American democracy.

In Reuters interviews with 50 Trump voters, all said they believed the election was rigged or in some way illegitimate. Of those, 20 said they would consider accepting Biden as their president, but only in light of proof that the election was conducted fairly. Most repeated debunked conspiracy theories espoused by Trump, Republican officials and conservative media claiming that millions of votes were dishonestly switched to Biden in key states by biased poll workers and hacked voting machines.

Many voters interviewed by Reuters said they formed their opinions by watching emergent right-wing media outlets such as Newsmax and One American News Network that have amplified Trump’s fraud claims. Some have boycotted Fox News out of anger that the network called Biden the election winner and that some of its news anchors - in contrast to its opinion show stars - have been skeptical of Trump’s fraud allegations.

“I just sent Fox News an email,” Fryar said, telling the network: “You’re the only news I’ve watched for the last six years, but I will not watch you anymore.”

The widespread rejection of the election result among Republicans reflects a new and dangerous dynamic in American politics: the normalization of false and increasingly extreme conspiracy theories among tens of millions of mainstream voters, according to government scholars, analysts and some lawmakers on both sides of the political divide. The trend has deeply troubling long-term implications for American political and civic institutions, said Paul Light, a veteran political scientist at New York University (NYU).

“This is dystopian,” Light said. “America could fracture.”

Adam Kinzinger, a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives, is among the few party members to publicly recognize Biden’s victory. He called his Republican colleagues’ reluctance to reject Trump’s conspiracies a failure of political courage that threatens to undermine American democracy for years. If citizens lose faith in election integrity, that could lead to “really bad things,” including violence and social unrest, he said in an interview.

David Gergen - an adviser to four previous U.S. presidents, two Democrats and two Republicans - said Trump is trying to “kneecap” the Biden administration before it takes power, noting this is the first time a sitting American president has tried to overthrow an election result.

It may not be the last time. Many Republicans see attacks on election integrity as a winning issue for future campaigns - including the next presidential race, according to one Republican operative close to the Trump campaign. The party, the person said, is setting up a push for “far more stringent oversight on voting procedures in 2024,” when the party’s nominee will likely be Trump or his anointed successor.

Other Republicans urged patience and faith in the government. Charlie Black, a veteran Republican strategist, does not believe Republican lawmakers will continue backing Trump’s fraud claims after Biden is inaugurated. They will need White House cooperation on basic government functions, such as appropriations and defense bills, he said.

“People will come to see we still have a functioning government,” Black said, and Republicans will become “resigned to Biden, and see it’s not the end of the world.”

The Biden campaign declined to comment for this story. Boris Epshteyn, a strategic advisor to the Trump campaign, said: “The President and his campaign are confident that when every legal vote is counted, and every illegal vote is not, it will be determined that President Trump has won re-election to a second term.”

‘THERE’S JUST NO WAY’

Media outlets declared Biden the election winner on Nov. 7. As calls were finalized in battleground states, Biden’s lead in the Electoral College that decides the presidency widened to 306 to 232. (For a graphic explaining the electoral college, see: tmsnrt.rs/38VTUvK )

Many Republican voters scoff at those results, convinced Trump was cheated. Raymond Fontaine, a hardware store owner in Oakville, Connecticut, said Biden’s vote total - the highest of any presidential candidate in history - makes no sense because the 78-year-old Democrat made relatively few campaign appearances and seemed to be in mental decline.

“You are going to tell me 77 million Americans voted for him? There is just no way,” said Fontaine, 50.

The latest popular vote total for Biden has grown to about 79 million, compared to some 73 million for Trump.

Like many Trump supporters interviewed by Reuters, Fontaine was deeply suspicious of computerized voting machines. 
Trump and his allies have alleged, without producing evidence, a grand conspiracy to manipulate votes through the software used in many battleground states.

In Grant County, West Virginia - a mountainous region where more than 88% of voters backed the president - trust in Trump runs deep. Janet Hedrick, co-owner of the Smoke Hole Caverns log cabin resort in the small town of Cabins, said she would never accept Biden as a legitimate president.

“There’s millions and millions of Trump votes that were just thrown out,” said Hedrick, 70, a retired teacher and librarian. “That computer was throwing them out.”

At the Sunset Restaurant in Moorefield, West Virginia - a diner featuring omelettes, hotcakes and waitresses who remember your order - a mention of the election sparked a spirited discussion at one table. Gene See, a retired highway construction inspector, and Bob Hyson, a semi-retired insurance sales manager, said Trump had been cheated, that Biden had dementia and that Democrats planned all along to quickly replace Biden with his more liberal running mate for vice president, Kamala Harris.

“I think if they ever get to the bottom of it, they will find massive fraud,” said another of the diners, Larry Kessel, a 67-year-old farmer.

Kessel’s wife, Jane, patted him on the arm, trying to calm him, as he grew agitated while railing against anti-Trump media bias.

Trump’s rage against the media has lately included rants against Fox News. He has pushed his supporters towards more right-wing outlets such as Newsmax and One America News Network, which have championed the president’s fraud claims.
Rory Wells, 51, a New Jersey lawyer who attended a pro-Trump “stop the steal” election protest in Trenton last week, said he now watches Newsmax because Fox isn’t sufficiently conservative.

“I like that I get to hear from Rudy Giuliani and others who are not immediately discounted as being crazy,” he said of Trump’s lead election lawyer.

Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy said the network’s viewership has exploded since the election, with nearly 3 million viewers nightly via cable television and streaming video devices.

Ruddy said Newsmax isn’t saying that Biden stole the election - but they’re also not calling him the winner given that Trump has valid legal claims. “The same media who said Biden would win in a landslide now want to not have recounts,” he said in a phone interview.

Charles Herring, president of One America News Network, said in a statement that his network has seen three weeks of record ratings, as “frustrated Fox News viewers” have tuned in.

‘NO WAY IN HELL’

Some Trump supporters said they would accept Biden as the winner if that is the final, official result. Janel Henritz, 36, echoed some others in saying that she believed the election included fraud, but perhaps not enough to change the outcome. 
Henritz, who works alongside her mother Janet Hedrick at their log cabin resort in West Virginia, said she would accept the outcome if Biden remains the winner after recounts and court challenges.
“Then he won fair and square,” she said.

In Sundown, Texas, Mayor Jonathan Strickland said there’s “no way in hell” Biden won fairly. The only way he’ll believe it, he said, is if Trump himself says so.

“Trump is the only one we’ve been able to trust for the last four years,” said Strickland, an oilfield production engineer. “As far as the civil war goes, I don’t think it’s off the table.”

If it comes to a fight, Caleb Fryar is ready. But the 26-year-old son of Brett Fryar, the chiropractor, said he hoped Trump’s fraud allegations would instead spark a massive mobilization of Republican voters in future elections.
Asked whether Trump might be duping his followers, he said it’s hard to fathom.

“If I’m being manipulated by Trump ... then he is the greatest con man that ever lived in America,” Caleb Fryar said. “I think he’s the greatest patriot that ever lived.”

Reporting by Brad Brooks in Texas, Nathan Layne in West Virginia and Tim Reid in California; editing by Brian Thevenot

[*Nately120*]

(11-20-2020, 12:22 PM)GMDino Wrote: I'm old enough to remember people thinking that "packing the court" would/could lead to people taking up arms.

So I'm not surprised that Trump supporters would be willing to start a civil war over a lie.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-fraud-insight/why-republican-voters-say-theres-no-way-in-hell-trump-lost-idUSKBN2801D4

So if Trump supporters start a civil war who are they going to be fighting, exactly?  Add in the idea that these supporters will accept Biden as president if it can be proven that he won "fair and square" while they are simultaneously basing their belief that things aren't fair upon fake news and the world from Trump himself...how is that ever going to change? 

[Big Boss]

OMG. Trump's lawyers filed an affidavit claiming statistical irregularities proving election fraud because they *confused Michigan for Minnesota*

They thought "MI" = Minnesota (it's MN), and then compared a bunch of results in Minnesota to Michigan population statistics.

https://twitter.com/Ike_Saul/status/1329799212091940870

[GMDino]

(11-20-2020, 12:34 PM)Nately120 Wrote: So if Trump supporters start a civil war who are they going to be fighting, exactly?  Add in the idea that these supporters will accept Biden as president if it can be proven that he won "fair and square" while they are simultaneously basing their belief that things aren't fair upon fake news and the world from Trump himself...how is that ever going to change? 

They will have a Charge of the White Brigade up Hamberder Hill with the aid of Gravy Team Six and take over the Capitol so Trump can tell them what to do next.

I assume.

[*Nately120*]

(11-20-2020, 12:47 PM)Big Boss Wrote: OMG. Trump's lawyers filed an affidavit claiming statistical irregularities proving election fraud because they *confused Michigan for Minnesota*

They thought "MI" = Minnesota (it's MN), and then compared a bunch of results in Minnesota to Michigan population statistics.

https://twitter.com/Ike_Saul/status/1329799212091940870

Next they'll try to sue to get back that 1 EC vote Biden won in the 2nd district of Nebraska and they'll accidentally sue New Brunswick and we'll have an international crisis on our hands.