Our constitutional crisis is already here

[BoomerFan]

(09-24-2021, 10:57 PM)Dill Wrote: Second, Trump and his Republican allies are actively preparing to ensure his victory by whatever means necessary. Trump’s charges of fraud in the 2020 election are now primarily aimed at establishing the predicate to challenge future election results that do not go his way. Some Republican candidates have already begun preparing to declare fraud in 2022, just as Larry Elder tried meekly to do in the California recall contest.

Meanwhile, the amateurish “stop the steal” efforts of 2020 have given way to an organized nationwide campaign to ensure that Trump and his supporters will have the control over state and local election officials that they lacked in 2020. Those recalcitrant Republican state officials who effectively saved the country from calamity by refusing to falsely declare fraud or to “find” more votes for Trump are being systematically removed or hounded from office. Republican legislatures are giving themselves greater control over the election certification process. As of this spring, Republicans have proposed or passed measures in at least 16 states that would shift certain election authorities from the purview of the governor, secretary of state or other executive-branch officers to the legislature. An Arizona bill flatly states that the legislature may “revoke the secretary of state’s issuance or certification of a presidential elector’s certificate of election” by a simple majority vote. Some state legislatures seek to impose criminal penalties on local election officials alleged to have committed “technical infractions,” including obstructing the view of poll watchers.

One way to stop this is to win soundly. That means showing up for every election and voting, and gently reminding others to do so. If you only vote when you are "enthusiastic" then contests become close and can be influenced or decided by other actors (2000 may be an example of this depending on what you believe). 

I would hope/prefer that some on the liberal side of the aisle stops reacting to the Trump and his supporters by trying to mirror their bad behaviors. People are becoming more polarized and even sometimes radicalized and it is happening on both sides to the aisle. The difference between those two sides is, I suspect increasing tribalism is a goal and perhaps a winning strategy for the conservative camp. I realize it is a generalization but I would say conservatives see strength and homogeny as positive traits. By contrast, when liberals start saying (implicitly) "Toe the line, you are with us or against us" or disparaging potential allies, it is simply alienating to their base because liberals tend to see individualism as a positive trait. 

I would suggest that the winning strategy for liberals is to disengage from conflict while still establishing a presence and a positive message. It can be difficult to do, especially when met with a wall of nonsense every time you say anything, but it is certainly possible. Obama was pretty darn good at doing just that (and Biden isn't bad either). It is common knowledge that without term limits Obama would've won a 3rd term and he'd probably still win today. People respond to a positive message. Emulate that manner of being and the sky is the limit for the good things that can happen. 

Also, when the op-ed says (emphasis mine):

Quote:First, Donald Trump will be the Republican candidate for president in 2024. The hope and expectation that he would fade in visibility and influence have been delusional. He enjoys mammoth leads in the polls

I think this must be referring to polls stating Trump should be the leader of their party? Or maybe the viability of Trump in the primaries as opposed to other specific candidates? If the polls could be cited that might be helpful for clarity in the discussion. 

All I can find is where CNN says that about half of Republicans don't even want Trump to run again:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/12/politics/cnn-poll-donald-trump-republicans/index.html

Quote:Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say, 63% to 37%, that Trump should be the leader of the Republican Party. But they are about evenly split over whether having the defeated former President back on the ticket in 2024 would be an advantage: 51% say that Republicans have a better chance of retaking the presidency if Trump is the nominee, with 49% saying the party would be better off with a different nominee. That's a very different landscape from 2019, when more than three-quarters of Republicans said their party had a better shot in 2020 with Trump as their nominee than they would with a different candidate.

Moving on, let me return to the WaPo article:

Quote:The stage is thus being set for chaos. Imagine weeks of competing mass protests across multiple states as lawmakers from both parties claim victory and charge the other with unconstitutional efforts to take power. 

I have questions here. Are we imagining certification would fail to happen in multiple states? Or that somehow that Trump would be certified as a winner when it was clear he wasn't? 

Again, one remedy for this is to win the election by a large margin. Biden as an incumbent will have some advantages so this is certainly possible.