What gives you the idea that he connects governing the country with legitimacy? He doesn’t at all.
Caused primarily by his supporters, much like the ones in 2020. People would come out on the street, and groups like the proud boys and other white supremacists would take that as open season.
I think his supporters seriously believe that they are beleaguered minorities who are constantly under attack from liberals. They think that “liberals” want the US to be Stalinist Russia, and if you honestly believe that your opponents want you in a gulag and want to set up a dictatorship, what would you do?
He’s making similar calls to PA, WI, and Arizona to get their elections overturned, too (and maybe other states).
It’s not that he’s asking for some vague number of votes. He’s asking for the very specific number of votes to give him a one vote victory. That’s evidence itself that he both knows what he’s demanding and that he doesn’t care if there is any evidence to justify it.
ETA: if he had been going for plausible deniability, he would have talked about finding lost votes, you know, making sure that every voter gets their say, how ever many that might be. We think it is a large number, maybe enough to change the outcome, maybe not, just trying to make sure everyone ‘s voice is heard, etc,etc.
My point is about legitimacy, though, not governing. It’s clear he’s a “power = legitimacy” kind of guy. He doesn’t care if the majority of the country sees him as legitimate or not. He thinks being in power is what confers legitimacy, not being legally elected. He also prefers “ruling” to governing.
Yeah, I got that. You made a valid point in response to another comment. I used it as a stepladder back down into my pit of snarky (not aimed at you, of course) despair. I’ll be climbing out any day now.
I agree completely. All of his previous business experience was as the man at the top of an organization he owned - which made him completely wrong to become a public servant. (In the same way that Ross Perot was a terrible candidate for the office.)
It matters because he can’t do anything alone, other than hide in the bathroom and tweet. Mitch McConnell doesn’t support this. Tom Cotton doesn’t support this… Tom “no quarter” Cotton, of all people. Trump has become poisonous, and no one with realistic hopes for a long political life will want to be associated with him if he steals this election. I doubt even his toady appointees will be enthused about their future prospects.
And in the past, Raffensperger has led attempts to stack the deck by making it more difficult for marginalized people to vote. He draws the line at altering vote counts after people have voted. He is not some hero to democracy, he is willing to tilt the playing field in favor of the GOP. He is just not willing to commit felony voter fraud on behalf of a man that would sell him down the river for pack of gum.
The GOP sees their increasing demographic difficulties. They are a cornered rat and they know it. They actually revel in it. They drive turnout by telling and retelling the tale that they are the few that stand between good, normal people and a liberal apocalypse. But Trump’s failure to get reelected is showing the limits of that tactic and many of the would rather destroy democracy than change their platform to one that could appeal to a majority of Americans. For the most part, the leadership does not care whether their flag bearers are as corrupt and dishonest as Trump, they just want one that isn’t as cartoonishly incompetent and toddler-like.
I suspect that GA is the battleground state that he finds it MOST embarrassing to have lost. After all, GA has been reliably Republican for what 30 years or so?
It’s not even hypocrisy - this is Trump’s serious personality disorders at work. Reality is whatever is favorable to him, whatever he needs to assuage his fragile ego. Period. It doesn’t matter what the source of a rumor is, nor how outlandish it is, he’ll incorporate the bits that sooth his ego and ignore the rest. Anyone who has an inconvenient set of facts that disrupts his ego-assuaging narrative is seen as attacking him, and thus must be either ill-intentioned or ill-informed (or both).
Frequently, I instinctively try to get into Trump’s head to try to make sense of something he’s said, to figure out if he really “believes” something he says, and then realize he’s too cognitively different for that to work. We keep treating Trump like he’s just an incompetent asshole (which he is), but he’s also extremely dangerous because of his numerous pathologies.
He seems to have had no shortage of enablers these past 4 years… as long as they believe it will advantage them against the Democrats, they’ll embrace him.
nonono, it has to be a cow, because most people have no clue just how large pigs actually get. that, and cows have a higher ground clearance mumble mumble aerodynamics of flying porcines versus bovines mumble mumble…
Considering how funky politics can get in the south, I’m inordinately proud of Brad Raffensperger for his backbone. And for basically letting T-Rump dig his own grave, over and over, during the phone call.
Me too, but I think a more valid exercise that bears interesting fruit is thinking of what the effect could be if, for example, he convinced Georgia to miraculously “find” 11,581 votes and therefore hand him the election there and undo Biden’s win in 1 state. What would most likely happen?
-The governed majority remove their consent: 99% of Democrats and 33% of Republicans in Georga, pitted against the ~1/4 remaining.
-Both sides would definitely put up a fight.
How would this play out?
How would it also play out nationally, if states start declaring winners instead of honoring the results of elections?
I guess conservatives are defending the call by citing Trump’s own words, listing all his examples of voter fraud as if they are 100% true, despite Raffesnperger saying in the call (and over and over again for the last month) that none of this is true.
Raffensperger is a Republican, he has everything to lose by contradicting the president, whereas Trump has everything to gain by promoting voter fraud myths.
