The Trump Conspiracy Is Hiding in Plain Sight

[Nevilledog]

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Mehdi Hasan
@mehdirhasan
“We are headed for a crisis of some sort. When it comes, we can be shocked that it is actually happening, but we shouldn’t be surprised.” Your #mustread of the day from ⁦@jbouie⁩

Opinion | The Trump Conspiracy Is Hiding in Plain Sight
Large and influential parts of the Republican Party are increasingly untethered from any commitment to electoral democracy.
nytimes.com
8:36 AM · Dec 3, 2021

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/03/opinion/trump-bannon-2024.html

No paywall
https://archive.ph/Wndje

*snip*


In these states, Democrats could win a narrow majority of voters but gain fewer than half of the seats in the state legislature, while Republicans could win with that same majority and gain far more than half the seats. It’s an affront to the ideal of political equality, to say nothing of the “one person, one vote” standard enshrined in the 1964 Supreme Court decision in Reynolds v. Sims. A system in which some voters are worth much more than others — and where popular majorities are locked out of power if they contain the wrong kinds of people — is many things, but it isn’t a democracy (or, if you prefer, a “republic”).

These impenetrable supermajorities serve a purpose beyond simple partisan advantage. The belief that Trump actually won the 2020 election is backed by the belief that elections are less about persuasion and more about rigging the process and controlling the ballots. And in the swing states that Trump lost, his strongest allies have pushed the radical idea that state legislatures have plenary authority over presidential elections even after voters have cast their ballots. Trump may lose the vote in Arizona, but under this theory, the legislature could still give him the state’s electoral votes, provided there is some pretext (like “voter fraud,” for example). What this would mean, in practice, is that these legislatures could simply hand their state’s electoral votes to Trump even if he were defeated at the ballot box.

It’s with this in mind that we should look to Wisconsin, where Republicans are fighting to seize control of federal elections in the state now that they’ve gerrymandered themselves into an almost permanent legislative majority. (The Wisconsin Republican Party, along with the one in North Carolina, has been at the vanguard of the authoritarian turn in the national party.)

Last month, Senator Ron Johnson said that lawmakers in his state could take control of federal elections even if Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, stood in opposition. “The State Legislature has to reassert its constitutional role, assert its constitutional responsibility, to set the times, place and manner of the election, not continue to outsource it through the Wisconsin Elections Commission,” Johnson said, in reference to the bipartisan commission Republicans had established to manage elections. “The Constitution never mentions a governor.”

*snip*

[playgroundequipment]

1. Playground

Good, interesting to read.

[ShazamIam]

2. Time place and mannoer of the election does not include, denial of the right to vote by the states.

[captain queeg]

3. Its awfully scary. The rethugs are capitalizing on TFG's populist appeal

To corrupt federal elections permanently to lock themselves into power. They know he’s too old to last much longer, probably not even to next election. He doesn’t give a shit about the R party, he just wants to stay out of jail and continue his most successful grift of his life. He and they are both willing to destroy America to achieve their goals.