Jonah Goldberg on the hypocrisy behind the Texas AG's lawsuit - link

[Alhena]

https://thedispatch.com/p/paxton-texas-scotus-trump-election

Which brings me to why I’m so angry. The attorney general of Texas, Ken Paxton, is suing Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Georgia for “unlawful” changes to their election laws in advance of the 2020 presidential election. Paxton didn’t choose these four states at random, though if you didn’t know they’re the four battleground states that delivered Joe Biden his Electoral College victory, you might think he had. Plenty of states changed their procedures to make voting in a pandemic safer and easier.

Paxton wants the Supreme Court to invalidate election results in these four states and have the state legislatures decide who gets their electoral votes, on the assumption they’d hand the presidency to Trump. President Trump has joined the suit because, duh, he wants to stay president by any means.

Even in this particularly dumb chapter in American history, to say that this lawsuit stands out as a shining example of willful stupidity would be an understatement. I won’t focus on all the legal reasons it is deservedly doomed to fail, because it would be like trying to list all the reasons 2 plus 2 does not equal a horse. Nor will I dwell on the innumerate statistical hogwash it cites as evidence, even though it’s about as impressive as that equine equation.

But philosophically this lawsuit is a betrayal of everything defenders of federalism and the Electoral College claim to believe. The state of Texas has no standing to complain how those other states conduct elections or appoint their electors. If it were taken seriously, it would open a Pandora’s box of asininity in which various states would use the federal government to dictate how other states operate.

More infuriating, the driving impetus of this lawsuit—outrageously joined by 17 other Republican run-states and supported by 106 House Republicans who signed an amicus brief—is to steal a presidential election. That’s why you don’t have to agree with me about the Electoral College; the Republicans supporting this lawsuit have long claimed to agree with me about the Electoral College and its role in the constitutional order. Yet they are throwing that away to aid and abet a president in precisely the sort of constitutional crime the Electoral College was designed to prevent.

It is an act of cynical, unpatriotic, undemocratic hypocrisy unrivaled in American history, a pure power play on behalf of a president whose disregard for the very Constitution these people have long claimed to adore is total. It is shameful. Infuriatingly shameful.

[czarjak]

1. Shock and awe, Johnah, shock and awe. Remember?

[liberalmuse]

2. Hell has indeed frozen over.

Weird times!

[Freddie]

3. The word "schadenfreude"

Has a particular meaning in German that is not quite translatable to English. Someone needs to coin a word for Republican Hypocrisy - different from just regular hypocrisy. For them it’s like breathing and I think they don’t even realize it anymore.

[MurrayDelph]

7. I've long found the word insufficient

Roughly translated as "finding joy in the suffering of another," it fails to recognize whether the bad guy in the definition is the enjoyer or the sufferer.

Examples:

Many decades ago, my mom was standing in line at a Dodger Stadium conession stand behind a known tv presenter. She overheard him bragging about how the rain in central California ruining the tomato crops there meant his tomatoes were now more valuable.

In the near future, when Trump discovers that pardoning his kids means they have roll over on him, and while it protects them from jail, it does not prevent asset forfeiture.


In the first case, the bad guy is the enjoyer. In the second case, it's just poetic justice.

[hedda_foil]

4. Jonah fucking Goldberg??????!!!!!! Watch out for low flying pigs!

[Pantagruel]

5. Hypocrisy, Jonah?

Conservatives at various times have pitched themselves as the party of personal responsibility, fiscal conservatives, free traders etc., etc.,cloaks they easily throw off as it suits them or for political expediency.The hypocrisy goes a lot deeper than Trump.

[Pantagruel]

6. From a former GOP heavyweight

Steve Schmidt

"The Republican party is an organized conspiracy for the purposes of maintaining power for self-interest and the self-interest of it's donor class. There is no fidelity to the American ideal or American democracy."

[UTUSN]

8. Gosh, I remember how his mama and he were the bane of our '90s CLINTON existencce!1