Is what we are witnessing the flinging of poo, or an attempted coup? I ask you.
While the media continues referring to the incumbent's refusal to concede to his duly elected successor as sad, embarrassing, childish, and destructive, I'm not 100% sure that's all that it is. Poo flinging, denial, blocking access first-hand evidence of their malfeasance, and of course giving #Cult45 a reason to keep donating...it is certainly all of those unseemly, anti-democratic things, but the decapitation of the Department of Defense make it feel far more sinister.
The ridiculous and frivolous lawsuits filed by the loser campaign are being reported as such, but not nearly enough time is being spent to posit and analyze the possible reasons why. Besides the aforementioned poo slinging, one possible reason for the delay is to delegitimize the Biden administration before it even takes office (bad for democracy). One is to push the electoral college vote past deadline and into murky legal areas we haven't visited since 2000...and we all remember how that turned out (bad for democracy). From there the possible reasons become darker still. It is possible these irresponsible conspiracy theory spinning apparatchiks were placed in these very serious and very powerful DoD positions to conjure a crisis -- perhaps involving military action, a war, real or staged -- which would push protesters back into the streets. This would provide a pretext for once again trotting out the Insurrection Act to sic active duty U.S. troops on Americans expressing their First Amendment rights. This time now-purged Secretary of Defense Mike Esper won't be there to stop that nightmare scenario from happening. From Barr's Gestapo it's just a jump to the left to martial law, and a step to the right to active duty troops, and of course the pelvic thrust in this Rocky Horror of a sentence is a full-on coup (ummm, very bad for democracy).
It is quite possible that Trump truly believes that he actually won (via cheating by sabotaging the USPS, voter intimidation, campaigning from the White House, etc., but to sociopaths that totally counts as winning) and that the election results are a deep state plot to get him. BY A LOT as he so eloquently tweeted. A serial liar unmoored from reality who cannot conceive of himself as a loser, he creates his own reality, surrounds himself with people who won't challenge his fictions, hears his fantasy reflected back at him from the fauxservative echo chamber and his sycophants in government...that's layer upon layer of insulation from reality, leaving a delusional true believer playing victim backed by millions of Fox-lobotomized true believers excavating coins from couch cushions for the cause of "election defense" for an election he's already lost.
It has now been six days since the election was called by all of the major news outlets, yet the #PresidentReject, his cabinet, and the vast majority of congressional Republicans have attacked the results as inconclusive or fraudulent without evidence. No one has the right to file frivolous evidence-free lawsuits -- doing so is a sanctionable offense, and I hope the American Bar Association is taking names. The myriad lawsuits filed thus far have had no basis in law or in fact.
The Trump campaign "legal effort" is nothing of the kind, it is a distraction and a stall tactic.
Further proof that the allegations of wrongdoing are without merit: the State Department invited an outside group (OSCE) to monitor 30 states -- they found no systemic irregularities and said Trump's claims to the contrary "undermined public confidence in democratic institutions" and had the effect of "increasing the potential for politically motivated violence after the elections."
Still further proof comes in the form of election officials across the country, be they Democrats or Republicans, from blue or red areas, all checking in to report no evidence of systemic voter fraud.
The basis for Trump not conceding is evidence-free accusations and lies from a public figure who has made evidence-free accusations for years and never provided evidence for any of them. Think of the Birtherism lie that brought Trump to power -- no evidence was ever produced, but that damaging, racist charade continued for years and is now forever embedded as truth in the psyche of countless members of #Cult45. That so much of the Republican Party has been down with The Conald's attacks on truth and democracy is sad. That they won't stand up with one voice to loudly denounce this very direct attack on democracy is terrifying.
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