TRANSITION CRISIS Getting from November to January

[BigmanPigman]

https://www.the-american-interest.com/2020/08/06/getting-from-november-to-january/
"Wargaming shows that, short of a landslide victory for Joe Biden in the upcoming elections, we may be headed for a severe constitutional crisis. Here are six strategies for averting the worst outcomes."

I helped organize and participated in the Transition Integrity Project last December to assess and guard against the risk of irregularities in the November election. In June 2020, our group conducted scenario planning exercises to model different election scenarios: a big Trump win; a big Biden win; a Biden squeaker; and a truly ambiguous or uncertain result.

Teams were assigned to play the Trump campaign and the Biden campaign, Democratic and Republican elected officials, the media, the judiciary, and the executive branches of government. A group of more one hundred people participated. Recruited from across the political spectrum...In the scenario exercises, which unfolded over a series of turns designed to simulate the period between November 4 and January 20, each team had a chance to make “moves,” which other teams would debate and counter, with the results adjudicated by a roll of the dice. Following methods common among military wargamers, disaster preparedness experts, and other policy planners, we designed this structure to uncover how the dynamic interactions between competing teams, as well as sheer luck, might produce unexpected results.

The bad news: in each scenario other than a Biden landslide, we ended up with a constitutional crisis that lasted until the inauguration, featuring violence in the streets and a severely disrupted administrative transition. The good news: we also learned a great deal about how to prevent the worst from transpiring. There were six major takeaways.

Read the rest...

One of the people on the team was on Bill Maher Fri night.

[Rhiannon12866]

1. K&R! This is the most important issue threatening our country today!

And it needs to lead the news on every outlet!

[Martin Eden]

2. Very important article spelling out what needs to be done

Thanks for sharing.

[MFGsunny]

3. A must-read for these times.

"Chance favors the prepared mind." (Pasteur)

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

4. I think transition will have to be done at a lower gov't level

The current prez, veep, cabinet, etc, are all going to be useless in the transition. At best, they'll be unavailable. At worst, they'll obstruct and disorient the transition.

Reliable sources of status, information, etc, may be found among the middle-upper levels of the various departments. I'd start with those who have been fired in the last few years, from DOD, State, Post Office, all other agencies. What the current administration calls the "deep state".

There may be value in going back four years, act as if it's a transition from the Obama administration.

[Lonestarblue]

5. Thanks for posting this thought-provoking article! It raises a lot of issues.

One is the media. The mainstream media needs to do a better job of reporting on Russian disinformation and somehow find a way to report on scenarios like those outlined in this article. I’m thinking specifically of television news from ABC, CBS, and NBC. Those programs are watched by millions of people who may not read the national news online, though even those outlets need to do a better job. I’m glad someone pulled this exercise together, but a couple of things outlined as actions we need to take to prepare struck me as unlikely to happen. Here’s one.

“... political leaders in state governments should establish, in advance and on a bipartisan basis, standards to be used to adjudicate competing claims for how to allocate the state’s electoral votes.”

Can anyone imagine that Ron DeSantis of Florida or Brian Kemp of Georgia, both states Biden could win, would do anything to cooperate with a fair election, or the rabid Republican legislature in Wisconsin even with a Democratic governor. They won’t, and they’ll be in the fray to stir up claims of voter fraud and to throw out Democratic ballots where signatures must look like photocopies of those on voter registration forms or be thrown out. Or they’ll have a dozen other reasons for disqualifying mailed ballots.

The second thing that caught my attention was this statement.

“Finally, police and other law enforcement organizations need to start planning now for large protests, including possibly competing protests and agents provocateurs, and to identify de-escalation strategies to avoid violent conflict.“

The police are mostly on Trump’s side, especially the powerful union heads, because they know that a Democratic administration will demilitarize their forces and crack down on their violence toward Black people. How can Democrats achieve this goal? We’ve seen how police in many major cities have reacted to peaceful protesters with violence. Would they react any differently to election protesters for Biden?

Another major point that stood out was that in the event of a contested election, Democrats need to be unified and prepared to fight like hell without relying just on legal remedies through the courts. Republicans are better at these tactics because they’re willing to lie, cheat, and get down in the dirt to achieve their goals. This concerns me a great deal because Trump will contest the election no matter what. I hate to say it, given the virus, but the best way to prevent a contested election is if so many people vote for Biden in person that the number of uncounted mailed ballots could not change the results. I’m voting in person just for that reason.

[brer cat]

6. K&R

[Squinch]

7. Please, please, please, let it be a landslide. Please let him have his ass handed to him!

[lastlib]

8. K & R!!

[niyad]

9. KNR

[klook]

10. Sobering article -- we are in for a rough "holiday" season this year.

I fully expect to be in the street protesting on November 4th after Trump declares premature victory the night before.

[RickGeneric]

11. There are at least three groups besides the Transition Integrity Project fighting for free and fair

There are at least three groups besides the Transition Integrity Project fighting for free and fair elections: The National Task Force, The Transition Integrity Project, Silver Linings Group.