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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Hidden Secret Behind the Arizona ballot Counting
Republicans are channeling Joseph Stalin who once suggested, It doesnt matter who votes; what matters is who counts the votes.Lore has it that Joe Stalin once said, It doesnt matter who votes; what matters is who counts the votes. Republicans in Arizona are today engaged in an act of political treachery worthy of Stalins quote.
Theres history here.
Grab the nearest Republican and ask them, How did John Kennedy win the election in 1960? Most will answer, Mayor Daley stole the election for him in Chicago.
Complaining that the only possible way they couldve lost an election is if the other side cheated is nothing new for the Republican party. The difference between now and 1960, however, is that in 1960 Richard Nixon had the common decency not to promote a Big Lie, and enough concern for his country he served honorably in uniform, volunteering for sea duty in the Pacific during World War II to not pit armed Americans against each other.
Todays Republicans are an entirely different breed. Soulless psychopaths like Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, and Marjorie Traitor Greene have taken over the party, and drawn to them the fringe psychopathic element that has always been part of American society but has never been so concentrated around one particular issue or ideology.
My dad was a Republican in 1960; I suppose you could say I was, too, because at nine years old I pretty much followed his political leanings.
But he also had a good job because of the machinists union, a contract he renegotiated every year on behalf of the tool and die shop where he worked, was a big believer in Social Security, and was proud of the fact that hed gone to college on the G.I. Bill at no cost. Those were all positions that Republican President Dwight Eisenhower and his Vice President Richard Nixon shared with my dad in 1960.
But my dad also introduced me to the psychopaths on the fringe of the GOP, telling me that I needed to know about people like that. A guy he knew from the local model railroad club was a member of the Michigan Militia, and they took me to a John Birch society meeting once.
At that meeting, I picked up a copy of John Stormers book None Dare Call It Treason, and reading about all the communists whod taken over the State Department scared the living hell out of me. My dad reassured me that those [Birch Society] guys are nuts, and went on to point out that the Dixiecrat racists like Strom Thurmond and George Wallace in the Democratic Party were worse than anybody in the GOP.
Richard Nixon, in fact, later supported the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and school desegregation, as did my dad. Even Nixons Southern Strategy which he, Lee Atwater and Roger Ailes hatched later, in 1968, seems tame by comparison to the virulence of todays Republican racists.
This isnt to praise Nixon; he was a venal, greedy, corrupt SOB. But he at least had the decency to resign when he got busted.
Republicans today are very, very different; theyre actively doing everything they can to destroy democracy in the United States. In this, they are being cheered on by autocrats around the world, and in many cases assisted by those very autocrats with big bucks and covert efforts on social media, as Robert Mueller found.
With few exceptions, todays GOP is doing everything it can to tear America apart, pitting us against each other along lines of regionalism, gender, race, religion, education and even the use of American iconography like the flag and the national anthem.
And now theyre even encouraging sickness and death among Americans by trying to discourage us from getting vaccinated, all to prevent President Biden from getting America and the American economy back on track.
Thats pretty bad, but the Big Lie of voter fraud and the lost cause of Donald Trumps 2020 election is the one that will live on for generations.
After all, Jack Kennedy couldve lost the entire state of Illinois but still wouldve had enough electoral votes (he won 303 to 219) to become president. He didnt need Chicago. On top of that, Republicans insisted on, and got, two separate audits of the vote in Illinois, one immediately after the election and one in 1961 after Kennedys inauguration, and both showed that Kennedy won. But Republicans still think Mayor Daley somehow won the day for JFK. The persistence of political grievance is extraordinary.
Republicans today, however, are trying to set up more than just a myth of political victimhood. Theyre trying to destroy faith in Americas core democratic institution of the vote so they can control and manipulate it in the future to their own benefit with impunity.
The effort underway with the phony staged audit in Arizona will, no doubt, produce questions about the election, even though Republican officials in that state supervised three separate and comprehensive audits overseen by the media that found no evidence whatsoever of election-altering fraud.
It will be used to justify increasingly draconian limits on who can vote and increasingly partisan control over which votes are to be counted and which are to be discarded in future elections.
They were willing to overturn the 2020 election: can there be any doubt they are more than willing now to rig future elections?
Thomas Paine once referred to the vote as the beating heart of democracy. Republicans are going after it with an ice pick.
This isnt just a fight for the survival of The Democratic party or even fair and clean elections and functioning politics.
The endgame here, for the Republicans engaging in this vicious attack on our republic, is to end the American experiment and turn us into an authoritarian country that more closely resembles Turkey, Hungary or Russia. (For a deep dive, this is the topic of my most recent book, The Hidden History of American Oligarchy.)
Right now there are only two things standing in their way.
The first is public outrage, which is building but can easily be displaced by a big news event like a disaster, a terrorist act or another Trump-follower attack on the Capitol.
The second is HR1/SB1, the For The People Act, which reduces the power of dark money and establishes national standards for clean elections; it has passed the House but is hanging under the hammer of McConnels filibuster in the Senate.
In an email I received this week from Freedomworks, the Koch-founded organization that brought us the Tea Party, they bragged about how they helped put Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court:
We Reached over 11 million activists in support of Justice Amy Coney Barretts confirmation. In a matter of only a few weeks, FreedomWorks reached over 9.8 million Americans on Facebook, reached more than 1.4 million on Instagram, generated 500,000 peer-to-peer texts in eight target states, and delivered 49,870 emails to the Senate all in support of Amy Coney Barretts confirmation to the U.S. Supreme
Nows theyre turning their millions and their efforts toward blocking the For The People Act, which they complain, would also require 501(c)(4) organizations (like FreedomWorks) to expose the names of donors, leaving them vulnerable to the Lefts cancel culture mob attacks.
If we are to succeed in blocking oligarchy and restoring democracy to America, now is the time to call your Senators at 202-224-3121 and let them know you support ending the filibuster and passing the For The People Act.
Original post with links: HartmannReport.com
PortTack
(32,757 posts)This is so kraken...it will never stand in the courts!
And mr Hartman..you know that. Quit with the doom and gloom
uponit7771
(90,335 posts)... couldn't find much information on why a new judge would do a near 180 than the old judge.
PortTack
(32,757 posts)Person involved in the recount had clerked for him...conflict of interest. The next judge will see it like him, and rule that the count should stop.
uponit7771
(90,335 posts)BobTheSubgenius
(11,563 posts)it is plenty awful that the state and the country find themselves even in this conversation. For some reason, i have the feeling I get when Roe v Wade survives a challenge.
"OK for now, but what about next time?"
Mister Ed
(5,929 posts)The purpose of this corrupt charade is to fuel the the Quaziness that is blazing out of control in parts of this country. If a judge halts the "audit", then the Deplorables will regard that as proof that "the fix is in", and use it to justify still more voter-suppression efforts
Marcuse
(7,479 posts)This isnt to praise Nixon; he was a venal, greedy, corrupt SOB. But he at least had the decency to resign when he got busted.
eggplant
(3,911 posts)...wasn't Kent State on his watch?
Wild blueberry
(6,625 posts)Thank you!
P.S. In Wisconsin we have one excellent senator Tammy Baldwin, and one moron. Guess which one's aide answered promptly and passed along my call, and which one put me on hold for over twenty minutes, when I finally gave up and emailed.
MoriaeEncomium
(25 posts). . . and YES! Tammy is awesome.
triron
(21,999 posts)PortTack
(32,757 posts)Power or options. That is the doom and gloom attitude the qgop want us to take..because its defeating..I refuse.
If you dont think mr Hartman is always doom look back on what he wrote and talked about b4 the election. As a bernie supporter he was doom and gloom then as well.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,308 posts)It's not a question of "will the Arizona 2020 result stand? If so, then everything is fine!"
It's about the whole Republican push to restrict voting across the country, and to give Republican-controlled legislatures the ability to overturn results. As it says:
"Republicans today, however, are trying to set up more than just a myth of political victimhood. Theyre trying to destroy faith in Americas core democratic institution of the vote so they can control and manipulate it in the future to their own benefit with impunity.
The effort underway with the phony staged audit in Arizona will, no doubt, produce questions about the election, even though Republican officials in that state supervised three separate and comprehensive audits overseen by the media that found no evidence whatsoever of election-altering fraud.
It will be used to justify increasingly draconian limits on who can vote and increasingly partisan control over which votes are to be counted and which are to be discarded in future elections."
The Arizona "recount" is just one way to convince gullible Republican voters that unfair things happened in 2020, and so the new laws to restrict voting in Democratic areas are "justified". It doesn't have to end in overturning the Arizona electoral college vote for that to work. They just need the PR for their politicians to be able to say, come the 2022 elections, "I did what was necessary" and for enough idiots to believe them. As reply #18 says.
The OP doesn't say "we have no power or options". It's not "doom and gloom". It's "we need to fight the Republicans" (and this is basically all the Republicans, not just the Trumpist extremists - they're all happy restricting voting).
JHB
(37,158 posts)That false factoid is part of the background radiation conservatives incubate in.
colsohlibgal
(5,275 posts)We are in serious jeopardy of our democracy going bye bye.
One party has gone full on crazy zealotry.
Someone like Trump getting elected would have been impossible Pre Right Wing propaganda Media machine. They finally have enough people brainwashed to become a real threat to our way of life.
What is happening in Arizona is full on Autocratic. Look at the vitriol thrown at Liz Cheney when she dared to criticize Trump.
There are many more of us than them but....with the built in advantages they have with the Electoral College and the Senate makeup, augmented by the radicalizing of enough people through Fox, OAN, etc.......were in for a volatile period of time with no guarantee things will turn out OK.
I_UndergroundPanther
(12,463 posts)Fuck bipartisanship.
Expose all the dirt you can find on all the republicans. Time to let the truth out about them. Time to show no mercy.
And just pass these laws, because we are fighting psychopath fascists...
because this is not politics as usual.
2naSalit
(86,569 posts)MoriaeEncomium
(25 posts)Doubtful he would know anything about Kennedy or Daley, even though he's my age. He can't even describe the R (Q) party platform, policies, or anything except: Pelosi is evil, communists are taking over our govt, tRump is my guy, Mexican invasion, damn blacks don't know their place, yadda yadda yadda.
Not even worth my trying to enlighten him, he doesn't want to know and the truth is fake news. Rural Wisconsin is red AF.
The huge T/P 2020 signs still dot the ditchline around here, some get stolen/vandalized, most get replaced. Deep sickness.
dragonlady
(3,577 posts)calimary
(81,220 posts)Please just remember one thing:
You cant get depressed and give up!
We CANNOT stop fighting - or resisting.
UCmeNdc
(9,600 posts)40RatRod
(532 posts)...even if a judge kills it, it will have accomplished it's purpose. The idiot MAGAs will be even more convinced the orange clown won the election and it was stolen. Oh well, since half of them don't plan to get the Corvid shot, it will thin the herd some before the next election.
ananda
(28,858 posts)enabling Reeps to either count votes or
replace counting so their legislatures
can elect the candidate.
dsc
(52,157 posts)the claim was that both Illinois and Texas were stolen. I will say, I don't think it is true but their theory did involve enough such votes. It should be noted that the Ford campaign toyed with challenging the count in 1976 (Hawaii and Ohio) but decided against it due to Ford fearing that he would never be accepted as legitimate if he got put in without winning the popular vote, the EC, or having been elected nationally before.