Election 2020: The Most Secure Election In History, Except For The Votes Not For Me
Trump’s attempt to delegitimize the recent election continue despite his complete failure at any court action of note. Today Rudy Guiliani took center stage as Trump’s attorney, and proceeded to make a complete fool of himself showcasing how much he has forgotten about basic legal procedure — he hasn’t litigated a case in 30 years, and it showed. For this display Guiliani is billing the Trump campaign $20,000 a day.
According to ABC News, Guiliani and another attorney who often appears on right-wing TV defending Trump, Jenna Ellis, have effectively taken over the entire Trump campaign, which came as a rude shock to the people in charge of the Trump campaign. Shouting matches between Bill Stepien, Trump’s campaign manager, his underling/barely sentient human slime Jason Miller, and Ellis followed. “They both threatened to call the president to settle who he wanted to be in charge, sources said. At one point, Miller berated Ellis and called her ‘crazy.’” So, everything’s normal in Trumpland.
The reason for the takeover is apparently to force election officials to deny certification of enough ballots to throw the election to the House of Representatives, which would then vote for a second Trump term that everyone would just meekly accept. This strategy came into sharp relief when the Wayne County, Michigan board of electors voted in a partisan 2-2 split not to certify the votes of their county, which includes Detroit. This, if it held, would have thrown Michigan into the Trump column as Detroit, a majority-Black city, voted for Biden en masse. Once the vote was announced, all hell broke loose in the meeting (which was held online using Zoom) until the board changed its mind and certified the ballots. If that had not happened, it’s possible the state could have certified Wayne County’s votes anyway — or not. Of such things coups d’etat are made.
For his part Trump, in his online firing of actually competent government official Christopher Krebs, explained his rationale for claiming that actually, he won the election: “The recent statement by Chris Krebs on the security of the 2020 Election was highly inaccurate, in that there were massive improprieties and fraud – including dead people voting, Poll Watchers not allowed into polling locations, “glitches” in the voting machines which changed votes from Trump to Biden, late voting, and many more.” Basically, throwing every conspiracy theory at the wall to see if it sticks. Needless to say, there is no evidence of dead people voting, poll watchers being denied access (although they may not have been given over-the-shoulder-so-they-can-scream access), voting machine “glitches” that changed any votes, or late ballots that were sent after Election Day.
In short, Trump is constantly lying. Most of the media, refreshingly, is pointing this out, repeatedly, but it’s having little effect on Trump’s hard core base, because, as I’ve said, they simply don’t believe Democrats have a right to win elections, so any excuse for them winning unfairly is correct. The question remains – are enough of his hard core base, like the two board certifiers in Wayne County, one of whom was apparently a QAnon devotee, in positions of influence where they can derail the election.
Time is short, and we’ll see more dramatic action. Trump also announced a drawdown from military deployment in Afghanistan and Iraq (although not quite a complete withdrawal as promised) and reportedly last week seriously considered starting a war with Iran. Tonight Israel bombed Iranian paramilitary positions within Syria. The world is not going to wait for us to get our act together.