Republicans Continue on Trump's Fascist, Sexist and Racist Road with Concentration Camp Plans

Texas Governor Greg Abbott says the only thing preventing him and Texas government law officials from shooting migrants at the border "is the Headache of Potential Murder Charges". His anti-migrant policies already led to the death of a  mother and her two children who drowned while crossing the Rio Grand river in Texas when they were blocked from entering Texas by barbed wire installed by Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott's government (see last post for more details on their death).

As governor of Texas, Greg Abbott has a horrific record when it comes to immigration, from sending more than 100 migrants to a freezing-cold DC on Christmas Eve to a “hold-the-line” operation on the border that could lead to more drownings. Yet he’d like credit for one thing, and that’s the fact that he hasn’t given local officials the greenlight to literally shoot migrants crossing into Texas—but only because he doesn’t want to deal with being charged with murder.

Appearing on The Dana Show last week, Abbott declared: “We are using every tool that can be used from building a border wall to building these border barriers, to passing this law that I signed that led to another lawsuit by the Biden administration where I signed a law making it illegal for somebody to enter Texas from another country…. The only thing that we’re not doing is we’re not shooting people who come across the border because, of course, the Biden administration would charge us with murder.”

Not surprisingly, Abbott’s remarks have seen considerable blowback. “Time and time again, Greg Abbott and Texas Republicans have made it abundantly clear they have no morality or humanity,” Texas Democratic Party chair Gilberto Hinojosa said in a statement. Representative Veronica Escobar wrote on X: “I can’t believe I have to say ‘murdering people is unacceptable.’ @GregAbbott_TX. It’s language like yours that left 23 people dead and 22 others injured in El Paso.” (In 2019, the day before 23 people were killed in a mass shooting in El Paso by a gunman who railed against a “Hispanic invasion,” Abbott’s campaign warned in a fundraising mailer that “liberals” had a “plan to transform Texas—and our entire country—through illegal immigration.”)

In the same interview, Abbott defended his decision to install razor wire barriers on the border, which the Biden administration has sought permission from the Supreme Court to remove. “In the history of America, have you ever seen a president try to prevent a state from securing his own safety?” Abbott asked. “We laid down this razor wire, hundreds of miles of it that was an effective deterrent and repelled migrants from entering the state of Texas. And because it was so effective, Biden ordered the Border Patrol to either cut it or to lift it.”

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/greg-abbott-shooting-migrants-headache-o...

This morning the Kansas City police chief noted that more than half the 23 people shot at the Superbowl parade were under the age of 16 and that two of the shooters were also under 16. What do you expect when Missouri's insane gun laws allow children to open carry guns anywhere without even parent supervision? As noted above, Missouri is ranked 48th out the US's 50 states in terms of its totally unsafe gun laws that have resulted in a gun death rate 70% above the horrendously high American average. Here is a sample of the Missouri lack of gun laws thanks to a Republican dominated legislature. The Republican Party is wholly owned by the gun industry. What could possibly go wrong? The url below includes a discussion of the Missouri's gun laws starting at 0:30 seconds.

Children Allowed to Buy Own and Carry Guns Without Parent Permission - YES

Criminals and Other Violent Offenders Allowed to Own Guns - YES

Right to Stand Your Ground Law and Kill Those who Are in your way - YES

Universal Background Checks - none

Gun Owner licencing -none

Extreme Risk Protection Orders - none

Domestic Violence Gun Laws - none

Assault Weapons Restrictions - none

Large Magazine Capacity Ban - none

Waiting Periods to Allow Background Checks - none

Concealed Carry Permits - none

Community Violence Intervention Funding - none

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UwR1DzpXjM

The links between the Christian Nationalists, Trumpism, the Republican Party, and QAnon can be seen in this article about Alamaba Chief Justice Tom Parker’s remarks when he gave an interview to self-proclaimed “prophet” and QAnon conspiracy theorist Johnny Enlow, where he talked about the  “ 'Seven Mountain Mandate' theocracy, a theological approach that calls on Christians to impose fundamentalist values on all aspects of American life." Parker concurred on the decision that embryos are children and therefore in-vitro fertilization is murder and must be banned. The goal is to " impose fundamentalist values on American society by conquering the “seven mountains” of cultural influence in U.S. life: government, education, media, religion, family, business, and entertainment." The url below contains video of the interview between Parker and Enlow in which Parker talks about his "call" to the "Mountain of Government".

During a recent interview on the program of self-proclaimed “prophet” and QAnon conspiracy theorist Johnny Enlow, Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Parker indicated that he is a proponent of the “Seven Mountain Mandate,” a theological approach that calls on Christians to impose fundamentalist values on all aspects of American life.

Enlow is a pro-Trump “prophet” and leading proponent of the “Seven Mountain Mandate,” a “quasi-biblical blueprint for theocracy” that asserts that Christians must impose fundamentalist values on American society by conquering the “seven mountains” of cultural influence in U.S. life: government, education, media, religion, family, business, and entertainment.

Enlow has also repeatedly pushed the QAnon conspiracy theory, sometimes even connecting it to the Seven Mountain Mandate. Per Right Wing Watch, Enlow has claimedthat world leaders are “satanic” pedophiles who “steal blood” and “do sacrifices” and that “there is presently no real democracy on the planet” because over 90 percent of world leaders are involved in pedophilia and are being blackmailed.

On February 16, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are people, with the same rights as living children, and that a person can be held liable for destroying them, imperiling in vitro fertilization treatment in the state. In a concurring opinion, Parker quoted the Bible, suggested that Alabama had adopted a “theologically based view of the sanctity of life,” and said that “human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God.”

In the interview on Enlow’s program — which was uploaded the same day as the ruling was issued — Parker claimed that “God created government” and said it’s “heartbreaking” that “we have let it go into the possession of others.” Parker then invoked the Seven Mountain Mandate, saying, “And that's why he is calling and equipping people to step back into these mountains right now.”

Parker suggested a familiarity with Enlow’s work, telling him, “As you've emphasized in the past, we've abandoned those Seven Mountains and they've been occupied by the opposite side.”

Parker discussed his “call” to what Enlow called the “mountain of government,” and later told Enlow that he appreciates what he’s done by “giving us the overview and the vision that allows us to really contemplate what God is calling each of us to for our role on those Seven Mountains.” 

Enlow praised Parker, telling him he’s “in such a key place that we don't want to have any conversations that hurt you in any kind of way, but we appreciate who you are, who you are in the kingdom.” 

Parker also claimed that God “is equipping me with something for the very specific situation that I’m facing,” and responded affirmatively when Enlow asked if “the holy spirit is there” when he’s “arbitrating a session” and performing his job as chief justice.

Parker’s ties to extreme right-wing Christian and “prophetic” media figures extends beyond the interview with Enlow. 

Last year, Christian nationalist media figure Sean Feucht said Parker had invited him into the court’s chambers for a worship session. Parker also joined a prayer call in March 2023 with supposed prophets and apostles, and he prayed that “there will be a growing hunger in the judges of Alabama, and around the nation for more of God. And that they will be receptive to his moves toward restoration of the judges, so that they can play their forecast role in revival in this nation.”

https://www.mediamatters.org/qanon-conspiracy-theory/alabama-supreme-cou...

In the New Republic article "Warn Voters About the Radicalism beyond Trump", Nancy MacLean starts with "Lurking behind the full-frontal assault by Donald Trump and his enablers lies a more far-reaching threat. If the Republicans gain control of both Houses of Congress, expect a state-authorized Constitutional Convention to eviscerate core rights and protections most Americans hold dear".

What should the Democrats run on? Alerting every voter to what is in store for them if the radical right succeeds in its endgame to enchain American democracy.

Lurking behind the full-frontal assault by Donald Trump and his enablers lies a more far-reaching threat. If the Republicans gain control of both Houses of Congress, expect a state-authorized Constitutional Convention to eviscerate core rights and protections most Americans hold dear.

Imagine living in a country without Social Security, Medicare, the Affordable Care Act, the right to organize a union, civil rights enforcement, and clean air and water protections, let alone action to stop climate collapse. The Constitutional Convention, in the plain language of the leading organizer for it, aims “to reverse 115 years of progressivism.”

That’s big talk, 115 years. Think it can’t be done? Although the convention push has been all but ignored by the commentariat and national Democratic leaders, it has powerhouse backing. The Koch network and other dark-money donors are generously funding it. The corporation-underwritten American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has supplied “model legislation” and training to Republican state legislators. Endorsers include Mark Meadows, Ron DeSantis, Greg Abbott, Sean Hannity, and many more. Convention of States Action (COS), the 501c(4) organization leading the campaign, whose head was a co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, has recruited and deployed volunteers to lobby their legislatures. (It also offers training in “biblical citizenship.”) COS has held three practice conventions with legislators from nearly every state. The Heritage Foundation—the 800-pound gorilla on the right—recently signed on in “a game-changing report” that such a convention would be “a potent check on federal power” and is “a worthy cause.” That endorsement is likely to drive even more cash to add to the over $70 million in IRS-traceable contributions that groups solely focused on convening such a gathering have garnered from 2012 to 2022, in findings of the Center for Media and Democracy. That figure does not include contributions to ALEC, which has promoted the convention since 2013; its revenue hovers around $10 million annually.

Promoters have been methodically lining up authorizations from the states since the 2012 election showed them that most Americans reject the kind of society they seek, even Mitt Romney’s mild version. So strategists concluded that the only way to permanently entrench minority rule by plutocrats and theocrats is to encase it in a dramatically altered Constitution.

They count on most of us remaining in the dark until it is too late to stop their scheme.

So far, that’s proved a good gamble. How many of us know that there are two routes to amending the Constitution—the usual one, and the nuclear option never yet tried?

Under Article V of the Constitution, Congress “shall call a convention for proposing amendments” when it receives applications from two-thirds of the states. In reality, this is hard, because one party would need to control both houses of 34 state legislatures (or 33 plus unicameral Nebraska). But ALEC has fabricated a claim built around the idea that enough states have made past calls for a convention, some going back decades, for the idea to proceed. It plans to use these outdated state resolutions to argue to the courts that they should force Congress to convene one.

But it gets worse. If Republicans control Congress, they won’t have to bother with litigation, because it would be up to the majority in control to determine the validity of the applications—and Article V lacks the guardrails to prevent this manipulation. Seriously? Yes, alas. House Speaker Mike Johnson, who would be in a position to call it, is a longtime ally of COS.

So how exactly would a convention nullify the Democratic agenda, past and current? The six amendments adopted by the Simulated Convention held in Williamsburg, Virginia, on August 4, 2023, would dismantle reforms We the People have won over generations. The centerpiece amendment, entitled “Fiscal Restraints,” is a one-two punch to knock out popular programs such as Social Security, unemployment insurance, Medicare, and Medicaid. By mandating that two-thirds of both houses of Congress would have to agree to any tax increase, it would force annually balanced budgets, while making it all but impossible to raise revenue from the wealth-hoarding ultrarich who back this radical agenda.

Another amendment takes dead aim at all federal regulation since 1937and civil rights and environmental policies since then. It would obliterate the “administrative state,” the bugbear of the hard-right coalition. The measure would in short order end fair labor standards, antitrust enforcement, environmental protections, safeguards for workers who choose to unionize, civil rights on the job and in public accommodations, and the Affordable Care Act, among other hard-won reforms that ease hardship and protect us from corporate domination.

Still another amendment would allow a simple majority of state legislatures “to abrogate any action of Congress, President, or administrative agencies.” That could stop federal intervention to ensure the equal citizenship rights established in the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments.

The simulated convention’s last adopted amendment would be a gargantuan gift to fossil fuel corporations. It would require Congress to turn over to state control virtually all federal lands and mineral rights, including any national park, monument, or wilderness area designated since 1975.

But this is madness, you will say. These reactionaries could never get away with rewriting the Constitution!

Except they could. First, because the instigators have already adopted a representation scheme for the convention based on one-vote-per-state, chosen by the legislatures; it gives near-empty states like Alaska and Wyoming the same power as California and New York. Second, because by crooked counting (“aggregating”) of ancient authorizations with those recently obtained, planners claim that the threshold needed to call a convention under Article V has already been met: two-thirds of the states. Third, because most of us aren’t even aware that this is happening.

For the American people to realize how much is at stake will require vast and to-the-point popular education. While the right has been tutoring its base in its version of the Constitution for years, the left has dropped this ball badly, particularly on such vital but wonky matters as how interpretation of the Commerce Clause after 1937 enabled all the federal regulations demanded by voters that had been overturned until then by reactionary justices.

But here’s the silver lining as we approach November. Democrats could jiujitsu this. Why not use the right’s menace to the Constitution to energize turnout to reclaim for Democrats state legislatures lost since 2010? The consummation of the right-wing plan depends on convention backers being able to control most statehouses. If Democratic get-out-the-vote workers train voters to fill out the entire ballot, including state legislative and judicial races, progressives could reclaim vast power to enact the popular agenda that Republican elected officials have blocked.

This urgent emphasis on winning at the state level could pay off handsomely. It might even help top-of-the-ticket candidates. Few know it, but the 2016 election was likely the first time a president was swept into office on the “reverse coattails” of Senate candidates (thanks to a flood of last-minute money from corporate donors afraid of losing the upper chamber in the predicted Hillary Clinton sweep). Wouldn’t it be a delicious inversion if President Biden won reelection and Republicans suffered a shellacking in House and Senate races because informed voters turned out in epic numbers to keep the right from rigging the Constitution?

https://newrepublic.com/article/178442/republicans-rewrite-constitution-...

And House Speaker Mike Johnson is part of the Christian Nationalist as his extreme right-wing views outlined on his Wikipedia page testify. He was of the Congressional leaders in the January 6 2021 attempt to overthrow Biden's election. As Speaker he is next in line to be president should President Biden and VP Harris die. 

James Michael Johnson (born January 30, 1972) is an American politician and lawyer serving as the 56thspeaker of the United States House of Representatives since October 25, 2023. ... During his time in Congress, he contested the results of the 2020 presidential election on the House floor and in court. He supported bills that would institute a nationwide ban on abortion. Johnson was chair of the Republican Study Committee, the largest caucus of conservatives in Congress, from 2019 to 2021. ... In December 2020, Johnson led an effort in which 126 Republican U.S. representatives signed an amicus brief in support of Texas v. Pennsylvania,[103][106][107] a lawsuit filed at the United States Supreme Court contesting the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Johnson is a member of the Christian right faction of the Republican Party.[95][96][97] His inaugural speech as speaker of the House emphasized his Southern Baptist beliefs as the basis for his politics.[79] The Daily Beastreported on Johnson's connections with the Dominion theology (ideologies that seek to institute a nation governed by Christians and based on their understandings of biblical law) movement and its influence on his political activities.[98] Johnson holds "ultraconservative positions on abortion [...] and same-sex marriages".[99] He is especially known for his extensive and outspoken opposition to legal abortion and gay rights, which began before he held elected office. ...

Abortion[edit]

Main articles: Abortion in the United States and Anti-abortion movements

In 2015, Johnson blamed abortions and the "breakup [of] the nuclear family" for school shootings, saying, "when you tell a generation of people that life has no value, no meaning, that it's expendable, then you do wind up with school shooters."[115][116] In 2015 and 2016, he led an anti-abortion "Life March" in Shreveport-Bossier City.[117]

Johnson opposed Roe v. Wade.[118] In Congress, he has supported bills outlawing abortion both at fertilization and at 15 weeks' gestation.[119][120] In a 2017 House Judiciary Committee meeting, Johnson argued that Roe v. Wade made it necessary to cut social programs like Social Security, Medicareand Medicaid because abortion reduced the labor force and thus damaged the economy.[118]

Johnson has co-sponsored bills attempting to ban abortion nationwide, such as the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, the Protecting Pain-Capable Unborn Children From Late-Term Abortions Act, and the Heartbeat Protection Act of 2021. All three bills would impose criminal penalties, including potential prison terms of up to five years, upon doctors who perform abortions.[118]

In January 2023, the House passed a resolution Johnson introduced that condemned "vandalism, violence, and destruction against pro-life facilities, groups, and churches", and added that the House "recognizes the sanctity of life and the important role pro-life facilities, groups, and churches play in supporting pregnant women, infants, and families".[121] At the same time the House passed several bills to assist pregnant women and students.[122]

Climate change and the environment[edit]

During a town hall in 2017, Johnson said that he believed that Earth's climate was changing, but questioned the scientific consensus that climate change is caused by humans.[123]

Under Johnson, the Republican Study Committee in 2019 called Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal the "Greedy New Steal", called "wind and solar" "the most inefficient energy sources we have", and claimed that living near wind turbines could cause "depression and cognitive dysfunction".[123][124] Basing his views on a belief in the great chain of being, a philosophical and theological concept describing a hierarchical structure of all matter and life, Johnson has also said that any proposed solution to anthropogenic global warming "defies the created order of how this is all supposed to work". According to Johnson, it is our duty to "take dominion of the Earth. You subdue it ... We're supposed to eat those animals."[125]

As of October 2023, Johnson has received $338,125 in donations from the oil and gas industry during his congressional career.[126]

Covenant marriage[edit]

Johnson came to some prominence in the late 1990s when he and his wife appeared on television to promote new laws in Louisiana allowing covenant marriages, under which divorce is much more difficult to obtain than in no-fault divorce.[32] In 2005, Johnson appeared on ABC's Good Morning Americato promote covenant marriages, saying, "I'm a big proponent of marriage and fidelity and all the things that go with it".[4]

Donald Trump[edit]

In 2015, Johnson wrote on Facebook that "Donald Trump ... lacks the character and the moral center we desperately need again in the White House", adding: "I am afraid he would break more things than he fixes. He is a hot head by nature, and that is a dangerous trait to have in a Commander in Chief. ... I just don't think he has the demeanor to be President."[127] ... In 2019, during the first impeachment of Donald Trump, Johnson defended Trump and told White House officials to ignore Congressional subpoenas as "legitimate executive privilege in legal immunity".[129] He served as a member of Trump's legal defense team during both the 2019 and 2021 Senate impeachment trials, each of which resulted in acquittal.[130] Johnson endorsed Trump's 2024 campaign for president.

Evolution[edit]

Johnson rejects the scientific consensus on evolution and holds young-earth creationist beliefs.[132] He helped the Creation Museum secure millions of dollars in tax subsidies to build a life-sized Ark Encounter, which teaches the discredited claim that dinosaurs accompanied Noah on his Ark[133] and that the earth is 6,000 years old.[134] In 2016, Johnson delivered a sermon that called the teaching of evolution one of the causes of mass shootings: "People say, 'How can a young person go into their schoolhouse and open fire on their classmates?' Because we've taught a whole generation—a couple generations now—of Americans: that there's no right or wrong, that it's about survival of the fittest, and you evolve from the primordial slime. Why is that life of any sacred value? Because there's nobody sacred to whom it's owed."[116][135]

Foreign policy[edit]

Johnson has supported ending American military aid to Ukraine in its war with Russia.[96] In 2018, it was revealed he had received over $37,000 in campaign contributions from American Ethane, a company with only insignificant assets in the U.S., and controlled almost entirely by three Russian oligarchs. ... In January 2024, he opposed a bipartisan, Senate -sponsored border security package that included aid for Ukraine and other U.S. allies. 

Health care[edit]

Johnson voted for the American Health Care Act of 2017, which would have repealed the Affordable Care Act(ACA).[145][146]

In 2019, in his capacity as chair of the Republican Study Committee, Johnson spearheaded an effort to replace the ACA. The committee's plan would have rescinded the ACA's Medicaid expansion.[147]

Immigration[edit]

Johnson supported Trump's 2017 executive order to prohibit immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries, saying: "This is not an effort to ban any religion, but rather an effort to adequately protect our homeland. We live in a dangerous world, and this important measure will help us balance freedom and security."[148]

As of 2023, Johnson had "introduced legislation three times aimed at tightening the asylum system, including by raising the bar on undocumented immigrants to establish their claim of fear of persecution".[149]

In 2023, Johnson voted for an amendment that would eliminate funding for immigration and refugee assistance.[150][better source needed]

In January 2024, Johnson opposed a bipartisan, Senate Republican-backed border security and immigration bill that would also provide funding for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. During border negotiations, Johnson said that he discussed immigration policy frequently with Trump.[138][139][151]

LGBT rights[edit]

Johnson is a longtime, outspoken opponent of LGBT rights and a supporter of criminalizing homosexuality.[15][119][152] In op-eds, he has called homosexuals "sinful", "destructive", and a "deviant group", and has argued that abolishing "discrimination" between "heterosexual and homosexual conduct" would translate into support for pedophilia.[15][100][153] In 2003 and 2004, Johnson wrote multiple opinion articles for Shreveport newspaper The Times opposing homosexuality.[15][154] ...  In a 2003 article, he wrote:[154][155] Homosexuals do not meet the criteria for a suspect class under the equal protection clause because they are neither disadvantaged nor identified on the basis of immutable characteristics, as all are capable of changing their abnormal lifestyles. In another article, Johnson called homosexuality "inherently unnatural" and a "dangerous lifestyle"; he argued that if same-sex marriage was allowed, "then we will have to do it for every deviant group. ... 

In 2005, Johnson campaigned against GLSEN's annual anti-bullying Day of Silence, telling NBC News: "that's cloaking their real message—that homosexuality is good for society".[157]

Johnson strongly opposed the U.S. Supreme Court decision Lawrence v. Texas, which ruled that most sanctions of criminal punishment for private sexual conduct between consenting adults are unconstitutional. ...

Marijuana[edit]

See also: Medical cannabis in the United States

In 2016, Johnson opposed the expansion of medical marijuana in Louisiana. He argued that medical marijuana can actually worsen some conditions, specifically epilepsy, quoting the American Epilepsy Society's studies that it can cause "severe dystonic reactions and other movement disorders, developmental regression, intractable vomiting, and worsening seizures" in children with epilepsy.[168]

As of 2023, Johnson had twice voted against the decriminalization of marijuana.[149]

Minimum wage[edit]

In 2019, Johnson opposed the Raise the Wage Act, which would raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, calling it "job-crushing legislation".[169][170] In 2021, Johnson again opposed the bill.[171]

Prayer in public schools[edit]

Main article: School prayer § United States

In April 2018, Johnson joined Republican state Attorney General Jeff Landry and Christian evangelist Kirk Cameron to argue under the First Amendmentfor student-led prayer and religious expression in public schools. Johnson and Landry appeared, with Cameron who spoke on a promotional video, at prayer rallies at the First Baptist Church of Minden and Bossier Parish Community College in Bossier City. The gatherings were organized by area pastors, including Brad Jurkovich of First Baptist Bossier, in response to a lawsuit filed in February against the Bossier Parish School Board and the superintendent, Scott Smith. Smith and the board were accused of permitting teachers to incorporate various aspects of Christianity in their class presentations.[172]...

Separation of church and state[edit] ...

Johnson has referred to the "so-called separation of church and state". He has asserted that "the founders wanted to protect the church from an encroaching state, not the other way around."[173]

Johnson has cited David Barton, a Christian nationalist whose legal theories are widely dismissed by academics as pseudo-history,[174][175] as profoundly influential in his faith and thinking.[79][176][177][178]

Social Security and Medicare[edit]

In 2018, Johnson said that entitlement reform is his "number one priority", adding that reforms to entitlement programs have to "happen yesterday" to maintain their long-term solvency.[179][180][181]

Taxes[edit]

In December 2017, Johnson voted for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.[182] After voting for the Act, he called the economy "stunted" and a "burden" on Americans, adding, "The importance of this moment cannot be overstated. With the first comprehensive tax reform in 31 years, we will dramatically strengthen the U.S. economy and restore economic mobility and opportunity for hardworking individuals and families all across this country."[183] Johnson claimed that reducing corporate taxes "will unleash the free market again" and "could get [GDP growth] as high as 6 or 7 percent".[184]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Johnson_(Louisiana_politician)#Notes

The Republicans may well pull a constitutional coup in 2024-25.

Walt Whitman was right when he wrote that our democracy is an athletic one. Defending our democratic republic requires the stamina of a marathon runner and the versatility of a gymnast. 

The events of January 6 alerted Americans to the quirkiness and fragility of our electoral process. Had Vice President Mike Pence failed to certify the electoral college outcome on January 6th, as urged by his boss, the country would have plunged into an arcane contested election procedure prescribed by the 12th Amendment, in which a majority of state congressional delegations in the House of Representatives might have had the final say. 

After January 6th the nation has learned that getting from election day to inauguration day in a straight line can be a challenge, especially if the worse angels of our nature prevail in the context of a close election. For too long the balloting on election day was assumed to be dispositive, and the mishmash of laws pertaining to certification (which vary from state to state) were taken for granted. Until, that is, Donald Trump tried to upend the post-election day certification process with fake electors from several states, dozens of frivolous lawsuits and his demand that the Vice President violate his oath of office. 

Trump’s largely improvised schemes to hold onto power were ultimately rejected, but his illegal actions opened a window onto additional and equally concerning vulnerabilities in our electoral process that he or other parties similarly antagonistic to democracy might exploit. 

The peaceful transition of power requires civic trust and good faith. And to oversee, manage, and certify the final electoral steps mandated by the Constitution, the House cannot proceed without first electing the Speaker. But what if there is a deliberate strategy to block certification of selected congressional seats around the nation, with the aim of skewing the true majority in the House and controlling the vote for the Speakership in January 2025. Or, what if a new Speaker cannot be chosen, or goes rogue?  What if due to disarray there is no clear presidential winner by Inauguration Day?

The U.S. is the world’s oldest continuous democracy but idiosyncrasies of the Constitution on which it’s grounded can put the stability of elections at risk. Our founding charter, ingenious and forward-looking in so many respects, contains seeds of its own undoing under certain circumstances.

The problems are not limited to the electoral college, which allows for anti-majoritarian outcomes where the winner of the popular vote does not get to the White House, as happened in the presidential elections of 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016.

No electoral system is perfect.  In parliamentary democracies, if an election fails to produce a winner or winning coalition, a caretaker government is left in place, and fresh elections are held to determine a new government according to a timeline. The U.S. has particularly weak or problematic provisions for failed or indeterminate elections for federal office, foremost among these the Presidency. Unlike the Senate and House, there is no provision for a presidential election do-over.

In practice, our Constitution’s electoral process, though antique, has worked as long as people have acted in good faith and in conformity with laws, norms and customs. But what if decency and acceptance of norms is no longer the order of the day?  What if a losing candidate refuses to acknowledge defeat? What if third party candidates’ driving purpose is to derail the general election process so they can bargain on the House floor over the selection of a President, and for a price? What if people are willing to act in bad faith and game the system?

The venerable Constitution is often praised for interpretive “elasticity” and “durability,” but key election process clauses of the founding document contain a combination of ambiguity, rigidity and silence that can be a recipe for disaster when left to unscrupulous actors. Close elections pose particularly high risks for mischief. As Robert Cindrich, the retired Federal District Judge from Western Pennsylvania, has observed, the Constitution is ultimately a “gentleman’s agreement” among all interested parties to behave properly.

Potential pathways for those of bad faith to grab power through a constitutional coup were revealed on January 6th and now are proliferating. Warning lights for 2024 are flashing. As former Congresswoman Liz Cheney has cautioned, the constitutional checks and balances may not be sufficient to prevent the potential for chaos ahead.

What could go wrong? 

The American public approaches the election of 2024 more ideologically divided and distrustful of the democratic process since the pre-Civil war election of 1860. Since January 6th, the Trump camp has relentlessly propagated “Big Lie” allegations of a stolen election in 2020 and a rigged election to come in 2024. Trump has ominously declared there will be no need to vote but rather urged his supporters “to stop the steal” at the polls. The leading Republican candidate’s rhetoric makes clear that he will never accept any election result but his return to the White House. 

Here are three examples of what could transpire after the ballots have been cast on November 5, based on extrapolation from precedents, circulating threats and unfolding strategies. 

1. Hijack the House

Strategies for gaming the congressional certification process for House members at the federal and state levels.

Many civic leaders are rightly focused on the vulnerabilities of the state certification process for Presidential electors, where efforts to overturn or nullify a state’s Presidential ballot results have been normalized. But they are not yet focused on the equal threat of the weaponization of the House and State certification process, with their implications for the seating of the House of Representatives, election of a new Speaker and ultimately the confirmation of the new President.

a) Gaming the House Certification Process

Every two years, voters elect an entirely new House to be seated on January 3, in accordance with the 20th Amendment. 

While individual states administer elections and certify Congressional elections, final certification of all House seats is ultimately up to the House under Article 1, section 5 of the U.S. Constitution, which states simply “Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members.” 

The Federal Contested Elections Act of 1969 clarified procedures for a Congressional challenger to submit within 30 days of the election a notice of contest to the House Committee on Administration. Under the Act, the committee may dismiss or investigate the challenge, order a recount, or call for a new election, and it is supposed to make a recommendation for vote by simple majority in the full House. 

These rules for the internal House adjudication process are less strictly legal than they are parliamentary and political. Generally, their disposition cannot be appealed in Federal courts. Indeed, according to what is known as “parliamentary law” or customary House practice, the sitting House majority is free to change or waive previously adopted rules, even those imposed by statute such as the Federal Contested Elections Act, provided that it does not “ignore constitutional restraints or violate fundamental rights.” In short, within certain limits, the majority in the House can make up the rules as they go without fear of court oversight.

In 1984, an exceedingly tight Congressional election in Indiana’s 8th district led to a brutal six-month dispute with multiple state recounts and a Congressionally-led audit. At the insistence of the Democratic House majority, who believed it had principled concerns about the integrity of the election, the 8th district’s seat remained vacant until May 1985, when a controversial split decision of a three-member committee chaired by Congressman Leon Panetta declared the Democratic candidate had won by a margin of four votes. In the eyes of the enraged Republican minority, the Democrats broke all norms and used its majority power to refuse to seat a Republican candidate duly certified by the state. President Reagan later remarked that Democrats “threw your votes out the window, and in a naked display of power politics, they simply handed your district to their own man. It was an act of unprecedented arrogance.” 

Congressman Dick Cheney, too, warned the House Democrats that refusing to seat a state-certified winner and instead seating their own candidate through a partisan-controlled recount procedure violated accepted norms and comity. The bitterness of this battle led to the first major walkout in 95 years of a party’s entire delegation – the GOP members wore “Stop the Steal” pins as they exited. It could be argued the memory of that Republican loss helped prepare the Republicans for the type of power play required to prevail in the 2000 Florida Bush v. Gore recount battle, which determined the election of President Bush.

At the time of the Indiana dispute, Democratic Congressman Jim Wright (who later became Speaker) maintained that the House leadership conducted the recount and certification process in a non-partisan, untainted manner but he also noted that, in reality, the House majority has the “raw power” to select whomever they want to fill a Congressional seat, regardless of state certifications and vote counts.

The Indiana election dispute underscored that while the burden of proof should lie with the challenger, the authority to determine sufficiency of evidence lies not with independent courts but solely with the House Committee, leaving the door wide open to partisan power plays. The legacy of the 1984 disagreement poses a danger to the nation in the 2024 election cycle.

b) Gaming the State Certification Process 

In another salient disputed election case, the 2018 election for North Carolina’s 9th district was clouded by allegations of significant fraud on the Republican side. The state did not certify the results. The seat was left vacant when the House convened on January 3 and remained empty for almost a year. The North Carolina state election board called a new election for September 2019, which the Republican contender won. 

But what if in 2024 a governor, secretary of state or other authorized state-level actor goes rogue and attempts in a radical, unpreceded, and fraudulent manner to withhold a state’s election certification for one or more selected seats, regardless of the facts? What if Texas might fail to certify one or more of its many Democratic seats. This is hardly fantastical. Against all norms, in 2020 Texas state authorities attempted to challenge in court the electoral vote counts in other states. That challenge rightly failed but who knows to what lengths Texas, or any like-minded state might go in 2024. And what if New York feared such an action and preemptively moved to do the same? 

The upshot of these precedents is that there is potential for the strategic misuse of challenges – both from the state level and within the House itself – to shape or otherwise impede the seating of a new House and thus to hijack the majority position and the Speakership. If the situation devolves into political chaos, it could also delay the selection of a new Speaker. 

To be clear, these two disputed House cases were accidental in their origins, the scale small, and the tactics used opportunistically. But what if this type of certification delay at state or House levels or both played out on a larger and coordinated scale? And if the task of establishing a majority in the new House comes down to a handful of seats, the risk of strategic disruption increases. 

Simply put, in such House seat dispute scenarios a rogue Speaker of the current 118thCongress could, with support of a cohesive majority, manipulate, strong-arm, or otherwise abuse House rules and procedures to guarantee (and control) a majority of the members for the 119th Congress in January 2025.

Good faith can no longer be assumed. In 2020, current Speaker Mike Johnson, in a purely partisan act, organized 138 Republican House members who were in the minority to refuse to certify the election of President Biden, despite state certifications of the outcome of the vote and the almost universal rulings from state and federal courts that it was an honest election. Indeed, in multiple cases where Republican state legislatures refused to accept a Biden win and conducted recounts in their respective states, the results confirmed the original tally. Still, Johnson cried foul. Imagine if Johnson had been speaker in 2020.

As Berkeley constitutional law scholar Erwin Chemerinsky has warned: “Now that Johnson is House speaker, there is no telling what he will do to undermine the election should Trump become the GOP nominee. Given his extreme loyalty to Trump and his efforts to spread outrageous lies and to nullify the 2020 election, the peril for the democratic process is great.” 

Many people have trouble imagining that Congressional leaders would refuse to certify the results of a Presidential election solely because they don’t like the outcome. It is worth noting that in remarks as recently as this past Sunday, Elise Stefanik, the fourth-ranking Republican in the House, publicly refused to commit to certify the results of the 2024 Presidential contest.

Next to the election of the president nothing is more important than the election of the new Speaker of the House. The party controlling the Speakership has the potential power to reverse the results of the Presidential election and deliver the White House to itself under the untested presidential succession mechanisms pursuant to the 20th Amendment and the Succession Act of 1947. 

An added complicating variable for the House equation in 2024 is the third-party spoiler strategy of Bobby Kennedy Jr. and the No-Labels campaign, whose aim is to prevent the two major party presidential candidates from achieving the needed 270 electoral votes on January 6th. They would thus force a contingent election in the House where their purpose is to play the role of kingmakers at the expense of the voice and vote of the American people. 

2. Short-Circuit the Electoral College

Overt corruption of the electoral college process is by now a more familiar pathway to perdition because something like it occurred in the run-up to January 6. Trump’s efforts to use parallel slates of electors from a handful of states to confuse the certification process was a form of constitutional coup that Vice President Pence heroically refused to support, even as violent mob insurrection at the U.S. Capitol was unfolding. 

Alarmed by these events, in 2022 Congress amended the Electoral Count Act (ECA) to clarify the process of electoral college certification and to patch holes in that 1887 statute, which itself was a legislative response to the 1876-77 Tilden-Hayes presidential election debacle. The original ECA had long been criticized by election law experts for the ambiguities and loopholes that helped set the stage for January 6th.

The bi-partisan Electoral Count Reform Act (ECRA) has clearly tipped authority to governors (not legislatures) to certify electoral slates at the state level, raised the threshold for challenges in the Joint Session of Congress under the 12th Amendment, expressly limited the time for floor debate, and clarified the role of the President of the Senate (the Vice President) in counting the electoral votes as solely ministerial and thus without any discretion to invalidate electors or choose between dueling slates. The ECRA was a smart legislative attempt to iron out wrinkles in the antiquated electoral process and avert a replay of the 2020 drama. Eliminating the absurd notion that a single individual such as the Vice President could or should decide a national election outcome seems an obvious step for any modern democracy.

Nevertheless, ECRA remains vulnerable to potentially serious challenges. For example, a party with standing (such as one of the presidential candidates) could challenge aspects of ECRA relating to the states as unconstitutional on the theory that a statute cannot amend the Constitution’s terse provisions for the election process which favors state legislatures. In this context, the threat of the so-called “independent state legislature (ISL) theory,” a dubious legal doctrine that suggests state assemblies have the right to override the popular vote, has received considerable attention. 

In its much-anticipated 2023 decision in Moore v. Harper, a North Carolina gerrymandering case about court review of state legislative authority over rules affecting federal elections, the Supreme Court showed no appetite for applying the pre-Civil War states’ rights philosophy embedded in the ILS to contemporary elections. This was a good sign. That said, a Court majority that has the chutzpah to reverse longstanding precedents such as Roe and Bakke – and to trim rather than enhance the desperately needed protections of the Voting Rights Act – has also shown itself to be capable of paradigm shifts against popular expectations. 

But there is another potential hurdle for the procedural improvements of the ECRA to be effective. Like the Senate, the House is a self-governing body. But unlike the Senate, the House is not a continuous legislative body and therefore each new session must adopt its own parliamentary rules. The House of Representatives is like a relay race where each time the baton is passed it goes to an entirely new runner. 

Thus, as a technical matter, the key provisions of ECRA are effective only if affirmatively adopted by the newly constituted House. Again, keep in mind that Speaker Johnson organized 138 Republicans to vote in opposition to the ECRA. Furthermore, because it is a political question involving the internal operations of the legislative branch, the Supreme Court would be unlikely to impose on Congress the strictures of ECRA relating to House rules. 

Indeed, if a Republican majority under the current aggressive and unilateralist style of leadership — which has been willing to oust its own Speaker and threaten government shutdowns and U.S. debt default—is re-established after January 3rd, 2025, it is doubtful whether the new 119th House would adopt the ECRA in its rules package. Failure to adopt that set of rules would increase the risk of a chaotic electoral certification process with an uncertain outcome, including immediate resort to a 12th Amendment contingent contest for President in the House and for Vice President in the Senate, also determined by state delegations. 

In other words, we could be plunged backwards to a pre-ECRA world which was ambiguous on key procedural points such as what to do with rival electoral slates, or even to a no-ECA world, with only the imprecise words of 12th Amendment to guide the selection process of a President and Vice President.

Furthermore, another risky quirk of the Constitutional electoral timeline is that, unlike January 3 which is the fixed end of the 118th House term, and January 20 which is the fixed end of the presidential term, January 6 (the date of electoral vote certification) is a changeable date. Under the 20th Amendment, Congress has authority to shift that date; while this would require concurrence of the House and Senate and would be subject to presidential veto, in theory at least the date could change. This flexibility could be helpful in the interests of the timely qualifying of a president, should there be a problem convening on January 6. 

However, imagine there is a problem seating the new House owing to failed or competing certifications. Absent such a date change, a failure to certify the electoral college result on January 6 as prescribed would implicate the 12th Amendment. But again, what if there’s not yet a Speaker to convene the House and preside over the contested election process? (The role could possibly devolve to the Senate president pro tempore, the most senior Senator in the majority party caucus) In 2023 it took 15 votes for Kevin McCarthy to be elected Speaker. Such delays could intentionally or unintentionally spill over the January 20th deadline, which brings us to the next form of potential constitutional crisis, and perhaps the ultimate nightmare scenario. 

3. Filibuster the Presidential Inauguration

According to the 20th Amendment, January 20 after an election is a rigid date for the end of the outgoing president’s term. This firm deadline is a useful protection against a president who unlawfully tries to extend his term, but it creates a possible conundrum. What if, due to delays from one of the conflictual scenarios just described, there is no qualified president by high noon on that date?

Without a qualified President or Vice President by January 20, the country would be in the uncharted waters of applying the Presidential Succession Act of 1947 as amended. 

The Succession Act provides for an “Acting President” – language borrowed from the 25thAmendment in the case of a president’s physical incapacity — until a new President qualifies, which is exceedingly vague and potentially unsatisfactory for democratic legitimacy. For example, would the nation accept an unelected “Acting President” for four years until the next regular election?

As Jean Parvin Bordewich & Roy E. Brownell II, former senior staffers to Senate leaders Charles Schumer and Mitch McConnell respectively, point out, the Succession Act has significant gaps and shortcomings, These include the fact that legislators such as the House Speaker and Senate president pro tempore could succeed as “Acting President,” raising serious questions of political legitimacy. After all, why should legislators (who could be from either party) be assigned to the highest executive office without an election? Whether appointed Cabinet secretaries from the President’s own party are any more suitable as acting successors for prolonged periods without an election is also an open question. Fundamentally, there is a difference between mid-term succession in cases of death or incapacity (which the 25th Amendment addresses) and succession in the case of a failed presidential election.

Legal formalists may insist that all likely contingencies have been anticipated and there is no need for concern. Yet one wonders whether the Succession Act would in fact be implemented or accepted in such a controversial situation as a failed election. Might it be viewed by voters as too flimsy a process to handle a failed presidential election? Indeed, why should a strategy based on known election manipulation be allowed to determine succession to the presidency, even if only acting, when we know that free and fair elections must be the touchstones of our democracy?

It is noteworthy that in the presidential election crisis of 1876-77, even the 12th Amendment process was circumvented and instead Congress (then unconstrained by a Succession Act of its own making) opted for a special fifteen-member commission of eminent persons to broker a political settlement between the Tilden and Hayes camps. Tellingly, as legal scholars David Fontana and Bruce Ackerman have explained, this was done precisely to avoid allowing a highly partisan and untrustworthy Senate pro tem figure to preside over the contingent election process in lieu of the absent Vice President (who was deceased). 

The result – awarding the presidency to the loser of the popular vote – may have avoided an even deeper national crisis, but it came at the devastating cost of undoing Reconstruction policies in the South. Could we be headed for some kind of brokered presidency in 2025, as hoped for by third-party nihilists and spoilers such as Bobby Kennedy Jr. and No-Labels? Would this further polarize an already dangerously divided nation?

What can be done?

Each of these “raw power” scenarios would require a big dose of bad faith and sinister conspiracy to succeed. Each would entail an aggressive and opportunistic misuse of Constitutional ambiguity and the laws of the land against the founding democratic spirit and principles of popular sovereignty and limited government.

Yet we already know too much not to engage in preemptive strategies to neutralize any fresh attempt at a constitutional coup. We can have no illusion in 2024 about the threat level – unscrupulous actors on the current political stage have been looking for constitutional loopholes and avenues to take power if it cannot be done by fair means. It is noteworthy that the former president has declined to sign the Illinois pledge not to advocate for the overthrow the U.S. government – at least he is not a hypocrite.

Preparedness is essential. Its purpose is not scaremongering; rather, it is vital to the anticipatory defense of our constitutional democracy. 

As citizens in a democracy, we are not mere bystanders or spectators. We must strive to preempt those who would subvert our electoral process. No invisible hand will save us. To survive, we must act.

Here’s how: Apart from eligible voters casting their votes, there are three principal domains of citizens’ defense against a constitutional coup.

First Line of Defense: The Courts

While there may be no sure-fire legal remedy for the “raw power” tactics Representative Wright referred to, the courts matter.

Courts performed well in 2020, with independent judges (many of them Trump appointees) striking down scores of trivial and unsupported election challenges. They must be ready again.

Members of the constitutional and election law bars committed to upholding best practices – including all the lawyers and election experts who have been engaged in litigation at state and Federal levels in the aftermath of the 2020 election—must be prepared to defend the ECRA and to decisively defeat the states’ rights notion that state legislatures have authority to veto the popular vote, among many other knotty legal issues. 

In addition, the prosecution of the various January 6 conspirators, including at the state level, as well as the disbarment of lawyers who aided and abetted the various election interference plots, has had an important ongoing deterrent effect on others who would contemplate such tactics in the future. The lesson is that individual wrongdoers are being, and should be, held to account for complicity in stoking election and post-election chaos, even though Trump is still encouraging bad actors by signaling he will pardon such past and future behavior if elected.

True, time can be an issue when it comes to the legal remedy. Justice delayed is justice denied. The normal Federal prosecution and appeals process can be drawn out. It has taken more than three years to respond to the “high crimes” of January 6 through the courts. We still have no definitive resolution with respect to the multiple Federal and state charges against Trump. Yet any of the nightmare scenarios described above will involve real-time court challenges during the pressure-cooker transition period. 

The Supreme Court is unlikely to preemptively fix any of the major constitutional election conundrums—because the issues are not ripe or they involve political questions. Nevertheless, the ultimate normative check on an attempted constitutional coup could reside with the high court if it chooses to intervene amidst an election crisis. Such interventions can be a two-edged sword, as we learned with the Court’s controversial ruling to cut off the ongoing Florida recount in Bush v. Gore.

Twenty years ago, in the wake of Bush v. Gore, legal scholar Mark Tushnet argued there have been critical moments in our country’s history when the political order is tested by “constitutional hardball” – when aggressive tactics are used to advance partisan goals. 

Such tactics risk pitting the letter of the constitution against its spirit. On a number of key occasions, such as Marbury v. Madison (1803), a case establishing the authority for judicial review of laws and acts by other branches, the Supreme Court have resolved such conflicts by charting a principled way forward in accord with a compelling reading of the Constitution. But “constitutional hardball” by definition can take things to the brink of disaster because, as Tushnet describes, the political actors, whether executive or legislative, are “playing for keeps” about foundational issues with high stakes for their policy agendas.

Indeed, the arena of legal hardball is where sharply competing political visions of the Constitution’s meaning and interpretation – for example, the “original intent” versus “living document” or the states’ rights vs. New Deal government schools of thinking– duke it out on first order questions. This is the contentious crossroads of the rule of law (which Justice Scalia defined as “the law of rules”) and political philosophy (the realm of values). In regular times, the law has much room for spirited and even acrimonious political give and take, but there are boundary lines that test the integrity of the entire democratic Republic. Constitutional hardball takes us to edges of those frontiers, for better or worse. Political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt have warned that constitutional hardball can open the road for devolution from democracy into authoritarianism, 

In this context, a Supreme Court majority willing to step in and “do the right thing” could save the Republic. But constitutional hardball is inherently high risk and can be played by both sides who do not agree on what “the right thing” is. 

For example, there is no guarantee that under pressure of a hot political crisis the current Supreme Court majority would uphold the application of equal protection embodied in a long line of landmark voting rights case such as Baker v Carr (1962), Gray v Sanders (1963), Reynolds v Sims (1964), and Wesberry v Sanders (1964). The one person, one vote principle is the basis for popular sovereignty but (like gender equality or the right to privacy) the individual right to vote is not found in so many words in the Constitution.

One 2024 version of constitutional hardball is already starting to play out. The “insurrectionist” ballot cases under the 14th Amendment Section 3, a post-Civil War clause which prohibits people who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the United States from serving in federal office, could plunge us into a constitutional crisis involving the Supreme Court even before the November election. The Supreme Court has taken up the Colorado ballot exclusion case and its ruling will be highly consequential either way. The Democrats’ preemptive invocation of “14:3” to ban Trump from ballots is itself a form of constitutional hardball and, whether or not lustration of the former president succeeds on the merits, raises the risk of tit-for-tat escalation. 

Second Line of Defense: Parliamentary Gymnastics and State-level Deterrence

Congressional and state leaderships have key roles to play in countering the threats to an orderly election and peaceful transition. 

The Speaker, if principled, may have the ability to prevent a constitutional coup through procedural discipline and if necessary stronger parliamentary tactics, another form of “constitutional hardball.” For example, in the 2020 election House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had hardball tools of parliamentary maneuver at her disposal, including quorum rules, if the 12thAmendment contingent election power play was attempted. But again, all depends on the character of whoever occupies the Speakership in January 2025. 

In addition, at the state level, if bad actors attempt to “hijack the House” with multiple coordinated frivolous challenges, principled government officials in other states could threaten to counter such a strategy by withholding their own election certification of House Members. This type of deterrent threat should be used only as a last resort and be subject to a strict doctrine of “no first use.” With an incipient House crisis, “mutual assured destruction” would take constitutional hardball to a new level but could also avert a power grab.

Third Line of Defense: The Marathon Work of Rallying Bipartisan Voices and Building a Citizens’ Firewall for Democracy

Bipartisan former and current members of Congress, governors and other leaders must be prepared to engage prophylactically in sustained vocal advocacy to protect the democratic principles of the Constitution. Appeal to common sense decency and fair play will be essential to summon the better angels of our nature – this has been America’s saving grace across generations. Denying a rogue Speaker a united House majority is one of the most powerful weapons. This principled advocacy must be done in advance of November as a clear warning to those who might be trying to hijack the House or otherwise hobble the transition and seize power by skullduggery. Members of the House should be strongly encouraged to cross party lines as needed to prevent a majority under a rogue Speaker.

Finally, broad public consciousness-raising through media and civic engagement remains imperative. We must continue to stimulate bipartisan civic discussion at the precinct level of town halls, fire houses and civic centers to preempt mischief and to rebuild trust wherever possible. The grassroots activism of concerned citizens is always the strongest antidote to potential abuses of power. Neighborhood stalwarts, pillars of the community and civic-minded influencers should speak up across the country. As former Pennsylvania Republican Governor Corbett has put it, “we need hyper-localized dialogues about democracy.” De Tocqueville could not have said it better.

As we head into the primary season, the message to voters and responsible officials alike is simple: We Americans must remind ourselves that we know how to hold honest elections, how to count votes and how to respect outcomes when all the votes are tallied. Fortunately, since 2020 many diverse non-partisan civil society organizations have sprouted to spread exactly this message across the land. 

We must continue to build the barricades of public opinion against each of the foreseeable dark scenarios – hijacking the House, short-circuiting the electoral college, and filibustering inauguration day.

Fundamentally, the citizens’ mandate is for We The People to “just say no” to rampant election denial and to incipient schemes to undermine the 2024 election. Media pundits, opinion leaders, elected officials, law enforcement, and the public at large must all speak up if there is the slightest sign of intent to manipulate the post-election day process and overrule popular sovereignty.

Conclusion

The dark scenarios we have outlined are hopefully remote, but given what happened during the run-up to January 6, and on the day itself, the deep societal polarization, chaos in Congress, and the rise of extremist rhetoric, we must not let a failure of imagination impede our preparedness. Constitutional hardball must not be allowed to devolve into just plain hardball, or we will lose our Republic. In truth, we are already in the fight.

https://washingtonspectator.org/dancing-in-the-dark/

I didn't know where to put this but the decision of Capital Hill policeman Harry Dunn to run for election in Maryland after defending Congress on the January 6th attack does mean a Black Capital Hill police officer will be standing up against the Republican January 6th insurrection 'it was just people on vacation getting a little out of hand' lies. 

Standing at 6 feet, 7 inches, Harry Dunn is used to towering over the crowd. His imposing size served him well during his 15 years on the Capitol Police force. “He’s quite the presence,” said Melissa Marshall, a former Capitol Police officer who worked alongside him. Now he’s hoping to stand out again. Dunn instantly had a leg up when he decided to run for Congress, thanks to the national profile he built after defending the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He wrote a book about what he went through that day, like rioters hurling racial slurs at him, and has spoken out forcefully against Republicans who try to downplay the violence.

But the field in Maryland’s 3rd District primary is especially packed, with more than a dozen other Democrats competing for the open seat. The race had already attracted a number of strong candidates, including two state senators and three state delegates, when Dunn tossed his police cap into the ring in January, and a win for him is hardly guaranteed.  As they vie to replace retiring Rep. John Sarbanes in a solidly Democratic district, the candidates are dealing with a spike of interest in the race — and a test of how potent Dunn’s message about protecting democracy can be.  “When I saw Harry Dunn getting in … I said, ‘Oh, boy that’s gonna throw monkey wrench in the whole thing,’” said Corynne Courpas, chair of the Carroll County Democratic Central Committee. “It’s definitely going to be a crapshoot.” ...

In his campaign launch video, actors recreate the mayhem that enveloped the Capitol’s corridors that day as Dunn calmly walks toward the camera, explaining why he’s running for office. “Some of the same people who stood behind us when we protected them, went back on the floor of Congress and stood behind Trump,” he says in the video, which has been viewed 6.3 million times on X.  

In his book and in congressional testimony, Dunn described the flood of racist vitriol he faced on Jan. 6, being called the n-word repeatedly by rioters emblazoned in MAGA-wear.  Dunn said he’d long thought about running for office, thinking he would semi-retire and pursue a political career. But when he saw Sarbanes’ announcement, he decided to act, even though that meant leaving the force before he qualified for his pension. “I don’t believe that we have the luxury of sitting around and waiting to see what the next election cycle will bring us,” he said, pointing to Trump’s dominance in the GOP presidential primaries despite his repetition of disproven claims about the 2020 election.  “Individuals in Congress are parroting those lies. Not just talking points — those blatant, disproven lies,” Dunn said. “We need individuals that will fight back against them.”

During his time on the Hill, Dunn was known as much for his warmth as his stature.  He made friends in both parties as he played in the annual charity football game that pits Capitol Police against members of Congress, drawing on his days as a college lineman. One of those members was then-Rep. Rodney Davis, who remembers embracing Dunn in the hours after the Jan. 6 attack, once the Capitol had been secured. “I walked into the Rotunda, and I looked to my left and I see big Harry Dunn, just sitting on a bench, exhausted,” the Illinois Republican said in a 2021 interview. “When I gave him a hug, he was all worried, ‘You know I got tear gas residue on me.’ I’m like, ‘I don’t care.’”

Dunn shared his own raw memories in testimony he gave in 2021 before the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack. “I sat down on the bench in the Rotunda with a friend of mine who was also a Black Capitol Police officer, and told him about the racial slurs I endured,” Dunn testified. “I became very emotional, and began yelling, ‘How the blank could something like this happen? Is this America?’”

Those close to Dunn describe him as a gentle, thoughtful giant. “You haven’t lived until you’ve been hugged by Harry Dunn,” said Gladys Sicknick. She came to know Dunn after the attack; her son, Brian, collapsed after responding on Jan. 6. The Capitol Police officer suffered two strokes the following day and died. 

With Dunn at her side, Sicknick later came to the Capitol to lobby Senate Republicans for an independent, 9/11-style commission to investigate the insurrection. She praised Dunn as a comforting presence and keen listener. “He makes you feel good. He makes you feel like you count for something,” said Sicknick, who lamented she couldn’t say the same about many of the lawmakers she met. “The main thing is he wants to make things just better for people,” said Marshall, who left the force after Jan. 6. She recalled how, as the rioters started to recede but with bedlam still enveloping the Capitol, Dunn had the presence of mind to think about others. “He just said, in the middle of all this chaos, ‘Guys, make sure you reach out to your family if you haven’t already and just let them know that you’re doing OK,’” Marshall said.  

The question for Dunn’s campaign is whether he can impress voters with his empathy in the few months that remain before the May 14 primary. Sicknick and Marshall both don’t live in the district. Neither does Dunn, for that matter, but Sarbanes also hasn’t lived in the 3rd since the redistricting adopted before the 2022 election. A Prince George’s County native, Dunn has promised to move to the district if elected.

There’s little chance Dunn will be able to talk one-on-one, let alone bear hug, with every Democratic primary voter. Instead, his campaign strategy will rely more on his ability to build on the media attention and fundraise from legions of fiercely anti-Trump Democrats across the nation.

Before Dunn entered, the primary was shaping up to be the far more common kind of local popularity contest. Howard County’s state Sen. Clarence Lam and Del. Terri Hill both announced bids. Out of Anne Arundel County, state Sen. Sarah Elfreth jumped in the race, along with Dels. Mike Rogers and Mark Chang. On top of that, some entrepreneurs, attorneys, and medical professionals have declared. 

With those candidates likely splitting their own counties’ votes, local political observers think Dunn’s ability to get free media could make up for him not living in the district and entering the race relatively late. “That is kind of the elephant in the room. He came in a little bit later compared to the other folks, but he does have a prolific national profile,” said a member of the Howard County Democratic Central Committee, who requested anonymity to speak frankly. ...

Pointing to their strong fundraising numbers and some local endorsements — which may matter more with the diehard partisans who tend to vote in primaries — that Howard County insider said Elfreth and Lam, the state senators, were likely the frontrunners before Dunn joined. The next campaign finance reports aren’t due until April 15, and with a field this big, it’s anyone’s race, he said.

https://rollcall.com/2024/02/07/harry-dunn-capitol-police-running-for-co...

Trump's allies are ramping up a campaign targeting voter rolls in battleground states. While the Republicans having been doing this for decades, there is a major difference this year. They are not only targeting voters to remove from the rolls before the election as has often been done in the past, they are planning to challenge in the courts voters who stayed on the ballot after the election is over in states they did not win in order to overturn those state elections. They are also challenging state clerks to remove names from the list while warning them that they would be committing a crime if they did not do so. Furthermore, in some states, even if they fail to remove a name from the ballot, the challenge alone limits the voter's opportunities to vote, for example, by preventing that person from voting by mail. And of course, we all know that these challenges after the election could go through the entire court system right up to the Supreme Court which is famous for its impartiality. "In Michigan, activists call their project Soles to the Rolls — an apparent play on Souls to the Polls, the get-out-the-vote effort popular in Black churches". Other tricks up their dirty sleeves are described below. In the 2021 Georgia senate election, 360,000 names were challenged. Now the Republicans are going even further. 

A network of right-wing activists and allies of Donald J. Trump is quietly challenging thousands of voter registrations in critical presidential battleground states, an all-but-unnoticed effort that could have an impact in a close or contentious election.

Calling themselves election investigators, the activists have pressed local officials in Michigan, Nevada and Georgia to drop voters from the rolls en masse. They have at times targeted Democratic areas, relying on new data programs and novel legal theories to justify their push.

In one Michigan town, more than 100 voters were removed after an activist lobbied officials, citing an obscure state law from the 1950s. In the Detroit suburb of Waterford, a clerk removed 1,000 people from the rolls in response to a similar request. The ousted voters included an active-duty Air Force officer who was wrongly removed and later reinstated.

The purge in Waterford went unnoticed by state election officials until The New York Times discovered it. The Michigan secretary of state’s office has since told the clerk to reinstate the voters, saying the removals did not follow the process laid out in state and federal law, and issued a warning to the state’s 1,600 clerks.

The Michigan activists are part of an expansive web of grass-roots groups that formed after Mr. Trump’s attempt to overturn his defeat in 2020. The groups have made mass voter challenges a top priority this election year, spurred on by a former Trump lawyer, Cleta Mitchell, and True the Vote, a vote-monitoring group with a long history of spreading misinformation.

Their mission, they say, is to maintain accurate voting records and remove voters who have moved to another jurisdiction. Democrats, they claim, use these “excess registrations” to stuff ballot boxes and steal elections.

The theory has no grounding in fact. Investigations into voter fraudhave found that it is exceedingly rare and that when it occurs, it is typically isolated or even accidental. Election officials say that there is no reason to think that the systems in place for keeping voter lists up-to-date are failing.

The bigger risk, they note, is disenfranchising voters.

“If you’re challenging 1,000 voters at once, you are not bringing the sophistication required when you are handling someone’s constitutional right,” said Michael Siegrist, the clerk of Canton Township, Mich., and a board member of the Michigan Association of Municipal Clerks.

In an email response to questions, Ms. Mitchell dismissed those concerns.

“The only persons ‘disenfranchised’ by following the law are the illegal voters, whose illegal registrations suppress and dilute the votes of those who are lawfully registered,” she said. “Our primary goal is to see that the laws of the states are followed and enforced by those sworn to administer the elections according to the applicable law.”

It is difficult to know precisely how many voters have been dropped from the rolls as a result of the campaign — and even harder to determine how many were dropped in error. A Times review of challenges in swing states, which included public records, interviews and audio recordings, suggested the activists were rarely as effective at removing voters as they were in Waterford.

But even when they fail, the challenges have consequences. In some states, a challenge alone is enough to limit a voter’s access to a mail ballot, or to require additional documentation at the polls. Privately, activists have said they consider that a victory.

At the same time, right-wing media outlets have promoted the challenges, casting public officials as corrupt and creating fodder that could be used in another round of legal challenges should Mr. Trump lose again.

“It really is aimed at being able to cast doubt on the results after the fact,” said Joanna Lydgate, the chief executive of States United Democracy Center, a nonpartisan organization. “But also, before the election itself, at being able to shape who turns out and how they turn out.”

In Michigan, activists call their project Soles to the Rolls — an apparent play on Souls to the Polls, the get-out-the-vote effort popular in Black churches.

The undertaking pulls from every corner of the election-denial movement. Its parent group is an offshoot of Ms. Mitchell’s national network. A top deputy to Mike Lindell, a leading promoter of election-related conspiracy theories, helped conceive of the data program the activists use to hunt for suspicious voters, according to recordings reviewed by The Times. The state’s Republican Party, which is mired in a leadership dispute, has also endorsed the data program, and the Trump campaign cited its numbers in a misinformation-riddled report released in January.

That program, called Check My Vote, identifies addresses with irregularities, such as missing an apartment number or having an unusually high number of registered voters.

In training sessions, Tim Vetter, a developer of the system, has acknowledged that it turned up large numbers of supposedly questionable voters in dense areas of Detroit and in student housing in Ann Arbor, both overwhelmingly Democratic cities.

Activists can then use the data to assemble lists of voters to challenge. The program also tracks the outcome of the challenge and whether a voter later tries to vote, information that could be shared with election officials or law enforcement, Mr. Vetter has said, according to recordings reviewed by The Times.

“That’s just garbage,” Chris Thomas, an elections consultant for Detroit, said of the analysis. “It’s targeting lower income, immigrants and students.”

Mr. Vetter did not respond to a request for comment. Janine Iyer, who trains activists for the project, described the work as support for public officials. “All we’re doing is asking clerks to follow the law, and we’re just assisting them because we feel it’s important,” Ms. Iyer, a Republican Party official in Livingston County, near both Detroit and Ann Arbor, said in an interview.

Federal law requires clerks to keep voters who may have moved on the rolls for two election cycles, unless they receive notice from the voter. The Times identified four Michigan cities or towns where activists have lobbied officials to follow a faster removal process.

In October, Polly Skolarus, the clerk in Genoa, a small township west of Detroit, received a list of around 120 names and an email from Ms. Iyer suggesting she would be “breaking the law” if she did not begin the removal process outlined in a state law, according to records obtained by Documented, the liberal investigative group, and shared with The Times.

Ms. Skolarus told The Times that she was reluctant to take voters off the rolls in a presidential election year. But records indicate that nearly all of the voters had their registrations canceled, while others were flagged as “challenged” — meaning they would have to give additional information or verify their address before they could vote.

In one webinar, Mr. Vetter said he considered those restrictions progress: “Then you can’t vote until that gets corrected.”

In Waterford, an activist submitted to Kim Markee, the town clerk, the names of more than 1,000 voters they claimed had moved away and were no longer eligible. The names were pulled from the U.S. Postal Service’s mail-forwarding list, a database that includes snowbirds, active-duty military personnel and others still legally eligible to vote at their residence.

Ms. Markee said the town’s lawyer had advised her to follow the statute cited by the activists. She hired extra staff members to contact the voters through certified mailers and removed those who did not respond.

An employee later discovered that one of the dropped voters was serving in the Air Force in Illinois. The voter, who declined to comment, had her registration reinstated.

In January, Michigan’s secretary of state demanded that Ms. Markee reinstate all the voters who had not confirmed that they had moved. In a recent interview, Ms. Markee said she was still in discussions about the matter.  “They found this loophole in the state of Michigan,” she said. “We have to follow the law.”

Georgia has seen by far the most mass challenges — 360,000 voters were challenged in the 2021 Senate runoff elections alone. In 2023, more than 8,600 voters had their registrations challenged in five major counties, according to data obtained by The Times.

In many cases, a single voter brought thousands of challenges.

A federal court in January found that the 2021 challenges, which were largely organized by True the Vote, did not amount to voter suppression. Catherine Engelbrecht, the group’s leader, has said the organization intends to ramp up the campaign ahead of the November election.

To do so, Ms. Engelbrecht has been promoting new software programs. One will “eclipse” the database used by most state officials, she said in a recent online meeting. Another is designed to help citizens file challenges on their own. A review of the program’s code by Wired magazine in November 2022 found that the app “ultimately uses an ineffective and unreliable methodology.”

In an email to The Times, Ms. Engelbrecht said True the Vote supported “voters in their efforts by providing an organized way to review local voter-roll records.” She disputed the findings in Wired, and said the group had added features to its software.

Republicans in the State Senate are moving forward with legislation that would make it easier to challenge a voter’s eligibility. The bill states that the Postal Service’s change of address database — a list often used by election-denial groups — can be used to dispute eligibility.

“Despite no evidence to support their claims,” said Karli Swift, a member of DeKalb County’s board of elections, “we, unfortunately, are preparing for the onslaught of significantly more voter challenges by certain groups attempting to remove voters from the voter roll ahead of the November general election.”

Ms. Wheatley said the registrar did not know how many investigations or removals had been prompted by the group.

The Pigpen Project, which is coordinating with Ms. Mitchell’s network, uses a platform based on data from VoteRef.com, a database that has been criticized by election officials as unreliable.

Mr. Burdish and Mr. Muth did not respond to requests for comment.

On a video call in November, Mr. Burdish displayed a map of Clark County, home to roughly 70 percent of the state’s voters, that was littered with blue dots supposedly identifying residences with problematic voters, according to a copy of the video obtained by Documented.

In the video, Mr. Burdish said his volunteers would be knocking on those doors and describing themselves as part of a quasi-governmental effort, despite having no connection to Clark County.

The goal, Mr. Burdish said on the call, was “to make sure that they know that we are working with the local registrar of voters and, you know, we’re not, I say, whack jobs.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/03/us/politics/trump-voter-rolls.html#:~....

Further evidence of the dominance of white Christian supremacists in the Republican Party came when Speaker Mike Johnson invoked God to keep the House majority in a meeting of his caucus, while discussing "the moral decline of Americans". In that regard, the vast majority of elected Republicans shoudl do some introspection on this moral decline. 

Speaker Mike Johnson delivered a presentation at a weekend GOP retreat that — although it was billed as a map to keeping the House majority — took on a surprisingly religious tone, according to two people in the room.

Johnson’s private remarks to a small group of Republican lawmakers at Miami’s Mandarin Oriental Hotel over the weekend alarmed both people, who addressed the speech on condition of anonymity. Rather than outlining a specific plan to hold and grow the majority, these people said, Johnson effectively delivered a sermon.

The Louisiana Republican showed slides to the members of his Elected Leadership Committee (ELC) team in a bid to tout the party’s prospects of hanging onto its two-seat majority in November. Johnson, a devout Christian, attempted to rally the group by discussing moral decline in America — focusing on declining church membership and the nation’s shrinking religious identity, according to both people in the room.

The speaker contended that when one doesn’t have God in their life, the government or “state” will become their guide, referring back to Bible verses, both people said. They added that the approach fell flat among some in the room.

“I’m not at church,” one of the people said, describing Johnson’s presentation as “horrible.”

“I think what he was trying to do, but failed on the execution of it, was try to bring us together,” that person said. “The sermon was so long he couldn't bring it back to make the point.”

A third person in the room who is close to Johnson said that the speaker dipped into historical and religious points for perhaps a third of his presentation, arguing that the party needed to save the country. That person, who spoke on condition of anonymity about the private gathering, said Johnson also talked about polling on the border, how President Joe Biden compares to Donald Trump on various issues and the House GOP’s core message.

The weekend retreat also featured notable tension between GOP conference leaders and Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good (R-Va.), who argued in Miami that Johnson needs to lead Republicans in the direction that is favored by conservatives. 

Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) pushed back, questioning if Good — who had voted to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy — would let Johnson lead or if he would block him whenever he disagreed with the GOP leader’s approach, according to all three people who addressed the speaker’s presentation. Conservatives have blocked legislation from being considered on the floor several times this term.

https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/02/21/congress/johnsons-sermo...

As a caricature of all of the most extreme candidates for the Republican party in November, Marc Robinson takes the cake. He just won the Republican primary for North Carolina governor. He's made hateful remarks about school shooting survivors calling them “spoiled little bastards,” and “media prosti-tots”, called LGBTQ people "filfth", outlaw all abortions, protect life from conception, and remove the vote for women, denied climate change and the Holocaust,  called 9/11 an inside job, claimed the music industry is run by Satan, claims George Soros is responsible for Boko Haram kidnappings in Nigeria, defended sex criminals Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby, was instrumental in moving money from public to charter schools, and claimed the Civil Rights movement destroyed Black schools and called Trump "Martin Luther King on steroids" even though he is African-American. The scary part is he already was elected statewide as lieutenant-governor, the second highest position in the state so his views are well known. Despite this he beat the second place candidate by 45%, 58% to 13% in the Republican primary. With his Democratic opponent for governor being Jewish, this could be one of the ugliest, dirtiest races in the country. Of course Trump has endorsed him. 

The Republican Party under Donald Trump has habitually elevated extreme right-wing candidates who can’t find enough support outside of hardcore partisans to win elections. But Mark Robinson, who won the GOP nomination for governor of North Carolina Tuesday night, is a special case even by the modern GOP’s standards. 

Robinson, North Carolina’s current lieutenant governor, has hurled hateful remarks at everyone from Michelle Obama to the survivors of the Parkland school shooting. He’s called the LGBTQ community “filth.” He threatened to use his AR-15 against the government if it “gets too big for its britches,” and he wants to outlaw all abortions as well as return to a time when women couldn’t vote. He’s also ridiculed the Me Too movement, women generally, and climate change. 

It seems Robinson is willing to entertain all manner of conspiracy theories, too. He’s a Holocaust denier and has a history of antisemitic remarks. He’s suggested that the 1969 moon landing might have been fake, that 9/11 was an “inside job,” that the music industry is run by Satan, and that billionaire Democratic donor George Soros orchestrated the Boko Haram kidnappings of school girls in 2014.

But in spite of all of this, Robinson has not only been able to win his party’s nomination for the state’s most powerful position, but he did so by a margin of more than 45 percent over his rivals. The other Republican candidates, trial lawyer Bill Graham and state treasurer Dale Folwell, raised concerns about Robinson’s electability, but ultimately neither could compete with his name recognition nor his MAGA bona fides in a state that twice voted for Trump. Even the endorsement of US Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican who has at times distanced himself from Trump, didn’t move the needle for Graham in his race against Robinson.

Robinson’s nomination suggests that GOP primary voters have no interest in kowtowing to electability concerns in a battleground state that is narrowly split by party affiliation. This fall, Robinson will face Democratic nominee Josh Stein, the current North Carolina attorney general.

“[Robinson’s] views are inconsistent with mainstream voters,” said Paul Shumaker, a GOP strategist based in North Carolina who has advised Tillis. “General elections are won in the middle in [North Carolina] and he will not be able to capture that group. I expect him to be an island to himself by the time November rolls around.”

Robinson is extreme even for MAGA

North Carolina has seen a politician like Robinson before: Jesse Helms, the deceased former Republican senator and culture warrior before the term existed, whose deeply conservative beliefs put him outside of the broader American mainstream. Helms was known for his staunch opposition to civil rights initiatives — including the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and affirmative action policies — as well as abortion rights, LGBTQ rights, and international aid programs, which he maligned during his time on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as “pouring money down foreign rat holes.”

Former US Rep. David Price (D-NC) told Vox that Robinson is “reminiscent of Helms at his worst.” 

It’s notable that Robinson has managed to clinch the Republican nomination in the governor’s race, where voters tend to favor candidates who are “less ideological and more pragmatic,” Price said. He said that’s arguably why current Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who is term-limited, has succeeded in North Carolina. 

Cooper’s predecessor, Republican Pat McCrory, was known for pushing the state’s controversial “bathroom bill,” which prohibited trans people from using bathrooms that corresponded with their gender identity, and that policy may have cost him a second termafter the cultural and business backlash that the state faced. 

But Robinson goes far beyond McRory in capitulating to the extreme right wing of the party, Price said. 

“For Mark Robinson to be running a cultural wars race for governor is especially unusual. And I don’t believe it’ll be looked on well by most voters,” he said.

What this means for the 2024 election in North Carolina 

Democrats are hoping to capitalize on Robinson’s extremism, much as they did in 2022 when they defeated a slate of extreme right-wing candidates across the country.

Morgan Jackson, a Democratic strategist based in North Carolina who is advising the Stein campaign, acknowledged that it will likely be a tough election given how closely divided the state is between the two parties. An influx of people moving to the state’s urban centers over the past few decades has made North Carolina more competitive for Democrats, but the state’s large share of rural, Republican voters has tempered the effects of that demographic change. “A blowout in North Carolina is three points,” Jackson said. 

But he said Robinson is “so out of the mainstream with North Carolina values and voters that he certainly presents a lot of opportunities for us as Democrats and specifically for us as the Stein campaign to show a very different vision and a future for North Carolina.” He argued that the voters who are likely to swing the election aren’t interested in engaging in culture wars and chasing conspiracy theories, but rather in issues such as jobs, education, and keeping communities safe.

In that sense, Robinson might function as an ideal foil for Democrats — not just in the governor’s race, but also in the presidential and down-ballot races. And Robinson could also struggle to capture the more than 35 percent of GOP voters who opposed him in a contentious primary. 

“Robinson becomes the poster child for political craziness,” Price said. 

At the same time, Christopher Cooper, a political scientist at Western Carolina University, warned Democrats about celebrating prematurely. Republican candidates have won three presidential elections in North Carolina since Barack Obama surprisingly took the state in 2008 — including Donald Trump twice. The state has stayed on the red side of purple, though Cooper’s two election wins have added to the belief that the state may be shifting Democrats’ way.

“In some ways, [Robinson] might be more beatable than Dale Folwell, or perhaps Bill Graham, but there’s a very real possibility that he’s the next governor of the state of North Carolina,” he said. “And if the Democrats think he is as dangerous as they seem to believe, they should not be rejoicing.”

https://www.vox.com/politics/24092798/mark-robinson-north-carolina-gover...

There are some reports that Ronna McDaniel has been fired by NBC after a contentious weekend in which many MSNBC reporters rebelled against her hiring because she not only denied Biden won the election but participated in a call with Trump in an attempt to pressure Michigan Republicans not to certify the state election for Trump and the fact that she is mentioned in one criminal case against Trump as contributing to election denial. Regardless to what happens to her, NBC has further reduced its own credibility, something that the vast majority of American media lost in the 2016 election when they gave Trump tons more free air time because his sensational comments drew an audience, and as the CBS President said, "Trump made our network an extra billion dollars". NBC may have been doing this to try to buy peace with Trump in case he won the election and carried out his threat of vengance against all his perceived enemies, including in the media. 

NBC News should have seen this coming. Since the network announcedlast week that it had hired Ronna Romney McDaniel, the recently oustedchair of the Republican National Committee, for a $300,000-a-year political analyst role, its stars have been in open revolt. After Meet the Press on Sunday aired a disastrous interview with her in an attempt to save face, Chuck Todd said that he had no idea if he could trust anything she says, given her prior “gaslighting” and “character assassination” of journalists. Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski said that they hoped the network “will reconsider its decision” to hire McDaniel and noted that they would not have her on their popular program. Rachel Maddow, meanwhile, compared the move to the TSA hiring a “pickpocket” or a district attorney’s office hiring a “mobster.”

NBC is now attempting to undo the damage: Puck’s Dylan Byers reported Tuesday that the network is planning to cut McDaniel loose already. But doing so would only address a short-term controversy—not the deeper problem at the root of her hiring.

NBC’s journalists were right to be angry: Not only is McDaniel an unrepentant liar who spent her seven years as RNC chair demonizing the press, but she also has long defended Trump’s growing authoritarianism and even aided his legal team’s “fake elector scheme” to overturn the 2020 election. What was NBC’s leadership thinking? Its politics chief, Carrie Budoff Brown, said in a memo announcing the hire that McDaniel would provide “an insider’s perspective on national politics and the future of the Republican Party.”

It’s not clear how someone who was effectively purged from party leadership by Trump can provide an “insider’s perspective” on the party’s future, but it’s obvious that NBC News, not unlike its competitors, is still grappling with a familiar, yearslong dilemma: How do you cover a political party that openly embraces authoritarianism and whose leadership lies at every opportunity? McDaniel’s hiring suggests that, more than eight years into Trump’s political career, these news organizations still don’t have an answer—and cutting the former RNC chair loose, as NBC is poised to do, solves none of its larger problems. 

The basic structure of political news programs on network TV—particularly Sunday shows like Meet the Press—goes something like this: Politicians from both parties are interviewed about recent events and relevant policy positions. The host will push back and follow up, usually gently. The answers from the guests—and the subjects on discussion—are then taken to a roundtable, where others who broadly represent those parties (former politicians, columnists, etc.) “debate” the issues. There is a practiced form of neutrality on display throughout. (More overtly partisan networks, like MSNBC and, to a much greater extent, Fox News, have a slightly different model, though their coverage of major news events and elections typically includes voices from the opposing party.)

With McDaniel’s aborted hire, if you squint, you can see the logic. She spent seven years at the RNC as a Trump loyalist. Though there have been doubts—largely thanks to her connection to her uncle, steadfast anti-Trump conservative Mitt Romney—about her overall loyalty to MAGA, and she was ousted in a Trumpist coup, she has a more intimate understanding of the GOP apparatus under Trump than most conservative voices on mainstream news do. If you were in the market for a pro-Trump voice, she was, for better and mostly for worst, the best you were going to do. This is the “insider’s perspective” that Brown alluded to—and which Todd bemoaned in his evisceration of Brown’s decision-making, saying, “When we make deals like this … you’re doing it for access.” 

But there are two related problems with this apparent logic. One is that McDaniel has lost much of that access. She is no longer the chair of the RNC, and is seemingly persona non grata with Trump. She has, in fact, lost most of her credibility with Republicans of all stripes—too pro-Trump for Never Trumpers, not enough of a loyalist for the former president’s minions. Her tenure as RNC chair, moreover, was a political, legal, and moral disaster. The party’s finances are in a dismal state, and it has underperformed in a series of elections. 

The second problem is that McDaniel’s “insider’s perspective” is built on her recent access to a political party and a candidate who are increasingly contemptuous of both democracy and the rule of law. Her job for NBC would have been, quite literally, to defend the indefensible, whether it be Trump’s rhetoric on migrants or his increasingly open fascism.

Shows like Meet the Press made more sense when the Republican Party was led by McDaniel’s uncle, as they rely on the presumption that the parties can both supply (relatively) good-faith operatives who can explain (or, more likely, spin) their positions on any given issue. With the GOP’s descent into madness under Trump, though, it’s no longer possible to find such people—the fact that NBC turned to someone who worked to overturn the 2020 election for the Trumpist perspective is proof of that.

But it’s also further proof that any journalistic model that relies on juxtaposing talking heads from Team Blue with talking heads from Team Red is fundamentally broken. There’s no debate to be had over Trump’s fascist goals if he returns to the White House; no way that anyone could “spin” them to seem remotely reasonable. And even if there were a way, lord knows Ronna McDaniel doesn’t have the talent for it.

https://newrepublic.com/article/180156/nbc-ronna-mcdaniel-bigger-problem...

Guess what? The US billionaires are shifting back to Trump after many of them said the January 6th attack on Congress fomented by Trump went way too far and they wouldn't support him again. With Trump's tax cuts up for renewal in 2025, they're willing to throw democracy out the window for a few billionaire more. Some of course never deserted the Republicans, just Trump. And some didn't even leave Trump. Poor guys. They really need  the money. The trouble is, as they found out in Nazi Germany, Putin's Russia, Orban's Hungary and many other autocracies, you only win this way if you never displease his Highness and you make sure all your family members do to. Sometimes kids say the darndest things that get their parents in trouble. They need to practice their bootlicking skills so that somebody else doesn't outlick into Trump's inner circle of oligarchs. Even the ones who play nice outside the inner circle get squished in the mad rush. But don't worry. "Brendan Glavin, deputy research director of the transparency group Open Secrets, said that the news that a Biden-supporting group was planning to spend $250m in what the New York Times described as “the largest single purchase of political advertising by a Super Pac in the nation’s history” will have added to “pressure on Trump to ramp up his mega-donors”. It's good to see that the US Supreme Court has guaranteed billionaires, oops I mean everyone, the right to free corruption, oops I mean free corruption. 

Donald Trump’s efforts to court and cajole rightwing billionaires into financing his presidential campaign are bearing fruit as even sceptical conservative mega-donors face up to the prospect he will again be the Republican candidate.

Trump is winning back some donors who supported him four years ago but then gave their money to the former US president’s primary rivals this year, fearing he will again lose to Joe Biden in November or the chaos that will ensue if he wins. But some other ultra-wealthy former supporters, including the tech billionaire Peter Thiel, have spurned Trump’s advances.

Trump’s campaign is pushing the inevitability of his victory over the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, the last remaining challenger in the Republican primaries, in order to shift the focus to the general election as he pursues Wall Street and Silicon Valley money.

Trump successfully wooed the biggest donor to the Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s failed presidential campaign during a visit to Las Vegas last month, the billionaire developer Robert Bigelow. After meeting Trump and then joining his motorcade through Las Vegas to a political rally, Bigelow pledged $20m to the former president’s campaign – the same amount he gave to DeSantis – along with another $1m toward the mounting costs of his myriad legal problems.

Trump also won commitments from other well-heeled donors on the Las Vegas trip while the billionaire investor John Paulson held a dinner for the former president and major Republican party contributors earlier this month, according to Politico.

Two years ago, some mega-donors were backing away from Trump after the Republicans fell short of expectations in the midterm congressional elections and candidates backed by the former president did badly. The hedge fund magnate Kenneth Griffin publicly threw his support behind DeSantis, calling Trump a “three-time loser”.

In October, Trump’s representatives were pointedly excluded from a meeting of the American Opportunity Alliance, a conservative donor network founded by Griffin and another Wall Street billionaire, Paul Singer, while aides from rival Republican primary campaigns were present. In 2016, Singer was the biggest donor to a super political action committee (Super Pac) focused on stopping Trump winning the Republican nomination.

But, in a sign that at least some donors have shifted their focus to November, Trump’s aides were invited to an AOA meeting in Florida last month. The New York Times reported that a majority of those donors still backed Haley, including Griffin after he lost confidence in DeSantis’s inept campaign. But the presence of the former president’s representatives was taken as evidence that they were going to have to support him if they wanted to lever Biden out of the presidency.

Donor concerns about the chaos Trump brings will not have been allayed by recent comments that appeared to abandon some members of Nato to the Russians and the writer E Jean Carroll’s $88m award for defamation by the former president. Neither will donors have been encouraged by Trump’s threat on his social media platform, Truth Social, to blacklist those who give money to Haley’s campaign.

But, for some donors at least, whatever dangers Trump poses to democracy are subordinate to their opposition to taxes funding welfare, laws to protect the environment, worker rights and anti-monopoly laws.

The Wall Street financier Omeed Malik, who previously backed DeSantis and the independent candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr, told told NBC news on Wednesday that he plans to raise millions of dollars for Trump because of what he regarded as government overreach during the Covid pandemic that prompted him to move to Florida.

“It’s starting to become prime time here between Biden and Trump, and this is when I can be much more effective,” he said.

Brendan Glavin, deputy research director of the transparency group Open Secrets, which tracks the influence of money on politics, said that while Trump is highly effective at raising money online from grassroots supporters to keep campaign offices and other parts of the election machine running, as well as pay his mounting legal bills, he is in need of the billionaire donors to cover a huge surge in spending on advertising blitzes as the general election nears.

“When you’re dealing with these mega-donors, they can come in and drop tens of millions of dollars. Then that money can be allocated very quickly to wherever they need to spend it, where they want to spend on ads,” he said.

“In 2020, Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam gave $90m to the Super Pac Preserve America to support Trump. They didn’t do that until the last three months of the election but it paid for ads supporting Trump at the last minute when it had an impact.”

Glavin said that the news that a Biden-supporting group was planning to spend $250m in what the New York Times described as “the largest single purchase of political advertising by a Super Pac in the nation’s history” will have added to “pressure on Trump to ramp up his mega-donors”.

Brendan Glavin, deputy research director of the transparency group Open Secrets, said that the news that a Biden-supporting group was planning to spend $250m in what the New York Times described as “the largest single purchase of political advertising by a Super Pac in the nation’s history” will have added to “pressure on Trump to ramp up his mega-donors”.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/18/donald-trump-megadonor-c...

Not only is Trump selling Bibles, he sells cloth from his the clothes he wore in his mug, while increasingly portraying himself as the Messiah, including in a video he made. The Republicans pathetically play along with all of this because they have nothing else to sell to attract voters but being Trump's acolytes. You can see this in the following "God gave us Trump" video. In it, "Donald Trump has shared an eerie video on the eve of the Iowa caucuses in which he appears to proclaim himself God’s chosen emissary on earth, sent to deliver America back to prosperity. The three-minute clip, posted to Truth Social on Sunday evening, opens on grainy footage of an LP turning on a record player, broadcasting an apparently ancient “sermon” in which the speaker intones: “And on 14 June 1946, God looked down on his planned paradise and said: ‘I need a caretaker.’ So God gave us Trump…” What follows – set to a picture of the Republican tycoon as a toddler, followed by a montage of scenes from his presidency – is an extraordinary expression of Mr Trump’s Messiah Complex, bordering on sacrilege."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIYQfyA_1Hc

On this holy weekend, one man is taking the Resurrection personally.

Donald Trump is presenting himself as the Man on the Cross, tortured for our sins. “I consider it a great badge of courage,” he tells crowds. “I am being indicted for you.” Instead of Christlike redemption, he promises Lucifer-like retribution if resurrected.

In January he put up a video on Truth Social about how he is a messenger from God, “a shepherd to mankind.”

Trump is, as the nuns who taught me used to say, “a bold, brazen piece.” He is a miserable human who cheated on his wives, cheats at golf, cheats at politics, incites violence, targets judges and their families and looked on, pleased, as thugs threatened to hang his actually pious vice president.

Yet, more and more, Trump is wallowing in his messiah complex.

Two-Corinthians Trump wouldn’t know the difference between Old and New Testaments. So he may not realize that, rather than a sacrificial lamb, he is the golden calf, the false god worshiped by Israelites when Moses went up to Mount Sinai to get the Ten Commandments.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/30/opinion/trump-god-religion-easter.html

double post