2020 US election - The fat lady is warming up in the wings

[GethN7]

This seems more like an excersise in pedantry than anything substantive.

Unless something particularly fucky happens against the grain of the vote and society, it's fairly like Biden is the next President.

I've never seen so many people this fucking happy about an illegitimate election win before.

These lawsuits aren't meant to win. They're just the smoke machine so someone can claim there's a fire. I've seen this shit done before by the same sort of people on this side of the pond. It's not meant to succeed, it's meant to play to the donors.  Irish Catholic concervative groups do it all the fucking time to soak of those sweet American dollars.

To be fair, you could be right, we'll see.

In the meantime, I'm just gonna chill and wait till this is hashed out and be happy when the dust settles.

[Labster]

Reuters: Biden wins Arizona

The Register: Election security fears doused with reality: Top officials say Nov 3 'was the most secure in American history.'

You're a little out of date.  The director of the agency that produced that report was forced to resign yesterday, primarily because his assessments of a secure election contradicted the President.

On the topic of Biden winning Arizona, Trump has been railing on Fox News for calling that race all over Twitter.  Looks like Trump TV is about to get started.  And on the topic of electoral votes, remember Trump's self-proclaimed "landslide" of 306 electoral votes?  Biden has 306.

[Inquisitive Raven]

As some people to the left of the Democratic Party establishment have pointed out, you'd think that if the election was rigged in Biden's favor, more of the downticket elections would also have been rigged in the Dems' favor.

[classicdrogn]

Seriously. A couple more Senate seats at least.

[robkelk]

We still haven't heard from Georgia...

[Jinx999]

Trump's now complaining about the Georgia recount, now he realises that it won't get him the answer he wants.

His followers are busy waving around "Stop the Steal" banners in support of a rather pathetic attempt to steal the election. Seriously, what happened to the party of P J O'Rourke?

[Bob Schroeck]

It learned that the combined forces of history and demographics were in the process of making it irrelevant if it didn't grow with them, and rather than adapt to the world as it is becoming gave up the intellectual and moral heritage of American conservatism to scrabble to remain in power in any way it could. It deliberately gave up being the party of William F. Buckley Jr. in order to appeal to the uneducated and the ignorant.

[robkelk]

It's come to my attention that Manafort used to work for Ferdinand Marcos and Mobutu Sese Seko (not at the same tiome) - two men who are well-known for authoritarian rule and refusing to go quietly when they were removed from power. And we all know who Manafort is advising now.

So, yeah, it might be quiet now, but just wait until the people who aren't willing to accept the democratic process get stirred up in January. And they will get stirred up - His Orangeness has been stirring them up since before the election, so why would he stop now?

[SilverFang01]

It's not Lindsey Graham's job to verify ballots in his own state of South Carolina, let alone a totally different state. IT'S NOT HIS JOB.

This is election interference and it's a felony.

Georgia SoS Brad Raffensperger says Sen. Lindsey Graham asked him if it would be possible to toss all mail ballots in places where there were higher rates of signature mismatch. Raffensperger said he was stunned

[hazard]

The proper response is to start criminal proceedings.

Not that the USA would, but it's the proper response.

[Bob Schroeck]

Of course not! In the United States, laws are only for poor people and Democrats.

[robkelk]

Besides, now he's claiming he didn't say it.

[Bob Schroeck]

Of course. Truth, also, is only for poor people and Democrats.

[Star Ranger4]

Or people who don't have to stand for re-election.

[GethN7]

At this point, I've given up on deciding how this is gonna go. Either man winning is totally up in the air, I just plan to see what the result is and live with it.

I do have to say, though, no matter who wins, I hope this doesn't become a constant. If elections all end in murky court battles and are this heavily contested, then I worry for the future of the electoral process.

[Labster]

The winner of the election is not up in the air. The winner of the election is Joe Biden. He got 306 electoral votes, the same number Trump described in 2016 as a "landslide". There have been no credible reports of election malfeasance that could affect the outcome of the election, even in a single state.

What is still up in the air is who will be the President after January 20.

[GethN7]

The winner of the election is not up in the air.  The winner of the election is Joe Biden.  He got 306 electoral votes, the same number Trump described in 2016 as a "landslide".  There have been no credible reports of election malfeasance that could affect the outcome of the election, even in a single state.

What is still up in the air is who will be the President after January 20.

Fair point.

At this point, I have no idea what to believe and just plan to accept whatever the outcome of all this legal crap is.

However it goes, half the country is going to hate the result, either way it goes, and I've resolved to take either result on the chin and deal with it.

[Black Aeronaut]

I'm bracing for the fallout myself. San Antonio may have a significant population that typically votes Democrat, but there's still a fair number of... let's say "disturbing individuals". Not because of who they vote for in the Presidential Election. But because of the shit they have for bumper stickers.

Things to the tune of, "The only good liberal is a dead liberal". Goddamn psychopaths, I swear.

Now that my brother is back home and out of the Marines, he's working on plans to get us down to a gun range.

[robkelk]

The Register: Trump fires cybersecurity boss Chris Krebs for doing his job

His job included making sure that the election was not rigged.

[Star Ranger4]

...


This surprises you HOW? Didn't he do the same to his Attorney General over... not the election claims, but something else?

[Jinx999]

His tweets this morning are in fine form . . . for a toddler having a tantrum.

Accusing various states of having massive easily detectable frauds that have miraculously not been detected.

Apparantly being a Democrat gives you magical powers.

[Bob Schroeck]

Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor uses vote fraud committed by Republicans to claim bounty offered by Texas's lieutenant governor for proof of fraud

[SilverFang01]

Trump has literally reduced people to 3 year-old levels of magical thinking.

At this point what the GOP is doing is damaging our society's ability to rely and trust key institutions with the result of having more than half the nation regarding the government as illegitimate.

No society can be prevented from collapsing once a large enough percentage of the population believes its government has lost all legitimacy.

Unfortunately, as it has happened at other times in history, it may take things getting much worse before enough people decide that they have had enough with their shenanigans.

[Star Ranger4]

And that, Fang, is what I have been afraid of for months now.

It feels more and more like we have found ourselves in Heinlein's 'Crazy Years'. Once again, the authors have gotten the events right, but the year(s) of its occurance wrong?

[Black Aeronaut]

Let's calm down a bit.

My concerns are primarily with individual actors from the Alt Right.

By and large, I think our faith in the democratic (not the party) process hasn't been moved, due in large part to how smoothly election day went, and how unflappable and unshaken the count process has been, demands for recounts aside.

The process is working, folks. There is strong evidence of this. Our primary concern should be what the Alt Right intends to do once all of Trump's legal avenues have been exhausted.