19 October 20
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RSN: Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman | Trump's Road to Tyranny Runs Through the Supreme Court
Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman, Reader Supported News
Excerpt: "Trump's road to Tyranny runs through the Supreme Court. He plans to win there 6-3 or 5-4. He could lose nationwide by millions of votes. He doesn't care."
He plans to win there 6-3 or 5-4.
He could lose nationwide by millions of votes.
He doesn’t care.
The plan is clear:
Spend four years screaming Big Lies about a “fake” election.
Pack the Court with flunkies, culminating with Amy Barrett.
Create chaos in the swing states.
Use gerrymandered TrumpCult state legislatures to override the popular vote (see below for the 1887 Electoral Count Act).
Sabotage the Electoral College past its “Safe Harbor” date.
Get the whole mess in front of the Trump-owned Supreme Court. Win either 6-3 or 5-4, depending on a wavering John Roberts.
The stage was set in 2010, when the Koch Brothers gerrymandered fascist legislatures into 29 states, including Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Texas, Arizona, and other Electoral College pivots.
In a well-funded covert operation known as the Redmap Coup, GOP agents took state power throughout the US. The Obama Democrats said and did nothing (see David Daley’s Ratf**ked).
Since 2016, Trump has screeched that millions of Mexicans swam the Rio Grande to vote for Hillary Clinton. Defeated by obvious election thefts in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, Clinton said and did nothing.
From 2010 to now, GOP Dirty Tricksters have filched a thousand elected offices, including at least six US Senate seats and those three on the Supreme Court. The Democrats have said and done nothing.
A Florida referendum decisively re-enfranchised more than a million ex-felons, only to be trashed by a governor and legislature empowered in a stolen 2018 election.
Nationwide, the TrumpCult has stripped some 17 million citizens from the voter rolls.
It has budgeted $20 million for 50,000 armed White Supremacist militias to intimidate voters.
It has assaulted vote-by-mail, gutted the US Postal Service, obliterated drop boxes, misdirected voters, subverted ballots, intimidated citizens, trashed precincts, sabotaged reception and recount deadlines, and done all else possible to sabotage this year’s vote count.
Inside the voting centers, they’re disqualifying countless ballots without significant opposition from the supine Democrats.
And they’re sabotaging digital scanners set to count virtually all of 2020’s ballots, illegally destroying electronic ballot images, which can supply an accurate vote count quickly and easily.
Instead, in virtually any state, those machines (many linked to the internet) could be hacked to produce any tally the TrumpCult might want.
Trump does face significant opposition.
Polls showing a massive public rejection may understate the power of 86 million millennials who generally despise Trump, but have been slow to vote. Their younger Gen Z siblings also hate him, but are just starting to come to the polls.
Overall, Trump’s imperial white misogynist hate-base is on a demographic death march. Whites will soon be a minority in this country. A strong woman of color like Kamela Harris – a “monster” in Trump’s eyes – embodies their worst nightmare … and the tangible future they will fight to resist.
So the Millennial/Z’s diverse, tolerant, Solartopian mega-generation must flood the polls to overcome Trump’s election theft breakwater.
To start, as elders shun infectious voting centers, Millennial/Zs may transform the ranks of poll workers.
The epic shift to vote-by-mail and early voting is at last moving our elections away from hackable electronic touchscreens and onto hand-marked paper ballots.
With protected chains of custody and preserved digital images, we could get quick, accurate, reliable vote counts.
But tens of millions of youthful voters must arise, especially in the gerrymandered swing states.
Only overwhelming margins like those run up by Obama in 2008 and 2012 – at least 5%, probably more – can prevent these fascist legislatures from voiding the popular vote and sticking Trump delegations into the Electoral College.
That means winning the 2020 Trifecta by restocking the registration rolls, protecting early voting and vote-by-mail, and preserving the digital vote count.
Otherwise, amidst the choreographed chaos, by a count of 6-3 or 5-4, Donald Trump will become President for Life.
Postscript: The Electoral Count Act of 1887
The US Constitution gives legislatures the power to choose their state’s Electoral College delegations, no matter what the public wants.
This became an issue when the 1876-1877 election devolved into the kind of chaos Trump aims to create this year.
Democrat Samuel Tilden got 250,000 more votes than Rutherford B. Hayes, whose Republicans stole enough Electoral College votes to force a five-month stalemate. Hayes finally cut a deal to end southern Reconstruction, disenfranchising the African-American population.
Ten years later, the Electoral Count Act set a “safe harbor” date – this year an entirely unworkable December 8 – by which legislatures must certify their state’s Electoral College delegation. The role of the state governors is murky and untested.
An obvious Trump strategy would be to sabotage state vote counts and delay definitive tallies beyond the legal deadline. The Roberts-Kavanaugh-Barrett “Brooks Brothers Mob” did that in 2000 by physically assaulting Florida’s recount, allowing the Supreme Court to throw the election to George W. Bush.
This year, Trump could repeat history in Florida (not to mention Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Texas and/or Arizona) delaying the certification of enough Electoral votes to deny Biden the presidency, even if he wins the popular vote by many millions.
Electoral votes must be delivered to the Vice President by December 23. On January 6, a joint session of the newly-elected Congress counts them, with a dizzying array of variables in between.
Any Senator can join with a Representative to force a closed two-hour joint session evaluating any state’s Electoral College delegation.
In 2001, then-VP Al Gore prevented the Congressional Black Caucus from challenging the Florida delegation that had been seated by armed thugs who got the Supreme Court to stop the Florida recount. Gore also stopped Rev. Jesse Jackson from staging a national demonstration demanding the popular vote be honored.
In 2005, with then-VP Dick Cheney presiding, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) joined Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Cleveland) to challenge Ohio’s fraudulent delegation. Congress didn’t care. Bush got a second term.
This year, Trump has his armed White Supremacists on “standby.” Chaos at the polls and in the vote count is certain. The laws are contradictory, often incomprehensible.
But Trump’s “November Surprise” bottom line is obvious: delay the vote counts, hijack the state legislatures, steal the Electoral College delegations, get it all to his “safe harbor” Supremes, who will crown him 6-3 or 5-4.
The question then becomes: What (if anything) will the Democrats do about all this? Or, more importantly, what will YOU do about it?
Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman co-wrote The Strip & Flip Disaster of America’s Stolen Elections, which resides at www.freepress.org along with Bob’s Fitrakis Files. Harvey’s People’s Spiral of US History awaits Trump’s departure at www.solartopia.org
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
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