Trump's Next Coup Has Already Begun
January 6 was practice. Donald Trumps GOP is much better positioned to subvert the next election.
By Barton Gellman
Excerpt: The democratic emergency is already here, Richard L. Hasen, a professor of law and political science at UC Irvine, told me in late October. Hasen prides himself on a judicious temperament. Only a year ago he was cautioning me against hyperbole. Now he speaks matter-of-factly about the death of our body politic. We face a serious risk that American democracy as we know it will come to an end in 2024, he said, but urgent action is not happening.
For more than a year now, with tacit and explicit support from their partys national leaders, state Republican operatives have been building an apparatus of election theft. Elected officials in Arizona, Texas, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and other states have studied Donald Trumps crusade to overturn the 2020 election. They have noted the points of failure and have taken concrete steps to avoid failure next time. Some of them have rewritten statutes to seize partisan control of decisions about which ballots to count and which to discard, which results to certify and which to reject. They are driving out or stripping power from election officials who refused to go along with the plot last November, aiming to replace them with exponents of the Big Lie. They are fine-tuning a legal argument that purports to allow state legislators to override the choice of the voters.
Excerpt: Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, excommunicated and primaried at Trumps behest for certifying Bidens victory, nonetheless signed a new law in March that undercuts the power of the county authorities who normally manage elections. Now a GOP-dominated state board, beholden to the legislature, may overrule and take control of voting tallies in any jurisdictionfor example, a heavily Black and Democratic one like Fulton County. The State Election Board can suspend a county board if it deems the board to be underperforming and replace it with a handpicked administrator. The administrator, in turn, will have final say on disqualifying voters and declaring ballots null and void. Instead of complaining about balls and strikes, Team Trump will now own the referee.
The best-case scenario is [that in] the next session this law is overturned, Nuriddin said. The worst case is they start just pulling election directors across the state.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/01/january-6-insurrection-trump-coup-2024-election/620843/
( Excellent journalism, long, detailed and comes with a critical warning. )
Irish_Dem
(47,014 posts)BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)JohnSJ
(92,187 posts)longer a democracy
Irish_Dem
(47,014 posts)While we just watch to see what happens next.
Me.
(35,454 posts)what are all the journalists, pundits etc. who keep issuing warnings are doing to actually help aside from writing pieces which slam PJB and the Dems. They are as responsible for the way things are today as anyone.
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)during the primaries in 2016. His opponents could not get that kind of attention.
Journalists such as this author, no, I would not hold responsible. He is sending a detailed warning.
Ultimately democracy is protected with voting rights, and that is up to our lawmakers to write and pass.
Me.
(35,454 posts)Gellman isn't the first and won't be the last. He has been making the rounds getting kudos for his piece. What I want is for him or someone to start writing about what we ALL can do. In addition, all bad news all the time will depress the Dem vote. Even the media is beginning to say they've been unfair. If they're truly serious they should stop covering tfg, his rallies, his tweets etc...the republican liars should not be on the shows unless they are willing to do a fierce rebuttal (right Chuck Todd?) and stop for God sakes holding their heads in their hands bemoaning the already loss of our Democracy. I hope I'm not hijacking your thread with this.
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)I agree with much of what you say. Corporate tv media is dreadful, they adhere to conflict not substance for ratings.
One of our best fights against this is perhaps to start having high-profile Dems do virtual townhalls, the pandemic is far from over. If they expose what the Republicans are doing, as described, we can begin to set what stakes are involved in order to get voting rights legislation that will undercut what they're doing.
Biden is considering some enormous changes, the review of the SCOTUS suggests term limits are not enough, and he may consider finding a way around the filibuster rules.
Fingers crossed my friend, we need all the allies we can find.