Mission Accomplished!
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I sure don’t feel optimistic about the Secret Service ever escorting Trump out with all their recent scandals. If Trump has any sense, he’s already staffed it with Bill Barr-style toadies.
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I just read the whole thing and I wonder who from Unstuck was on that project.
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My take on Nate is that he’s really good at what he does and also a douche.
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Picture this:
On the morning of Election Day, false stories appear online claiming that Biden has been hospitalized with a life-threatening heart attack and the election has been delayed. Every mainstream news organization reports that the rumors are unfounded, but many Biden supporters, confused by the bogus claims, stay home.
Still, by late that night, most major networks have called the election for Biden: The former vice president has won key states and has a slender lead in the national popular vote, and polling experts predict that his lead will grow substantially as Western states count an unusually high number of mail-in ballots. The electoral college looks secure for Biden, too.
But Trump refuses to concede, alleging on Twitter that “MILLIONS of illegal ALIENS and DEAD PEOPLE” have voted in large numbers and that the uncounted ballots are all “FAKE VOTES!!!” Social media fills with posts from Trump supporters alleging that the election has been “stolen” in a “Deep State coup,” and Trump-friendly pundits on Fox News and OAN echo the message.
Soon, Attorney General William P. Barr opens an investigation into unsubstantiated allegations of massive vote-by-mail fraud and ties between Democratic officials and antifa. In Michigan and Wisconsin, where Biden has won the official vote and Democratic governors have certified slates of pro-Biden electors, the Trump campaign persuades Republican-controlled legislatures to send rival pro-Trump slates to Congress for the electoral college vote.
The next week is chaotic: A list of Michigan and Wisconsin electors for Biden circulates on right-wing social media, including photos, home addresses and false claims that scores of them are in the pay of billionaire George Soros or have been linked to child sex-trafficking rings.
Massive pro-Biden street protests begin, demanding that Trump concede. The president tweets that “REAL PATRIOTS MUST SHOW THESE ANTIFA TERRORISTS THAT CITIZENS WHO LOVE THE 2ND AMENDMENT WILL NEVER LET THEM STEAL THIS ELECTION!!!” Around the nation, violent clashes erupt. Several people are injured and killed in multiple incidents, though reports conflict about their identities and who started the violence.
Meanwhile, Trump declares that “UNLESS THIS CARNAGE ENDS NOW,” he will invoke the Insurrection Act and send “Our INCREDIBLY POWERFUL MILITARY and their OMINOUS WEAPONS” into the streets to “Teach these ANTI-AMERICAN TERRORISTS A LESSON.” At the Pentagon, the Joint Chiefs of Staff convene a hurried meeting to discuss the crisis.
And it’s not even Thanksgiving yet.
…
In every exercise, both teams sought to mobilize their supporters to take to the streets. Team Biden repeatedly called for peaceful protests, while Team Trump encouraged provocateurs to incite violence, then used the resulting chaos to justify sending federalized Guard units or active-duty military personnel into American cities to “restore order,” leading to still more violence. (The exercises underscored the tremendous power enjoyed by an incumbent president: Biden can call a news conference, but Trump can call in the 82nd Airborne.)
Similarly, Team Trump repeatedly attempted to exploit ambiguities and gaps in the legal framework. (There are more than you might think.) Team Trump repeatedly sought, for instance, to persuade state GOP allies to send rival slates of electors to Congress when the popular vote didn’t go its way. With competing slates heading to Washington for the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress that formally counts the electoral votes, Trump supporters argued that Vice President Pence, in his capacity as president of the Senate, had the power to decide which electors to recognize. In contrast, Democrats argued that the House of Representatives had the constitutional authority to choose which electors should be accepted in the event of a deadlock — or, alternatively, the ability to prevent the joint session from taking place at all. (We didn’t resolve this kind of standoff in our exercises; it’s not clear how such a stalemate would be settled in real life.)
In the “Trump win” scenario, desperate Democrats — stunned by yet another election won by the candidate with fewer votes after credible claims of foreign interference and voter suppression — also sought to send rival slates of electors to Congress. They even floated the idea of encouraging secessionist movements in California and the Pacific Northwest unless GOP congressional leaders agreed to a series of reforms, including the division of California into five smaller states to ensure better Senate representation of its vast population, and statehood for D.C. and Puerto Rico.
While both parties appealed to the courts as well as to public opinion, the legal experts in our exercises pointed out that the judicial system might well avoid rendering decisions on the central issues, since courts might see them as fundamentally political, rather than judicial, in nature. Other players noted that there was, in any case, no guarantee that the losing side would accept a ruling from a highly politicized Supreme Court.
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I’ve got it in Incognito Mode, thanks though. I enjoyed this part:
First and foremost, congressional and state leaders, including legislators, governors, state secretaries of state and state attorneys general from both parties, can commit to protecting the integrity of the electoral process against partisan meddling.
Social media platforms can commit to protecting the democratic process, by rapidly removing or correcting false statements spread by foreign or domestic disinformation campaigns and by ensuring that their platforms aren’t used to incite or plan violence.
I think we should play these scenarios out the way they did. A few WAAFers can run Team Trump and a few institutionalists can run Team Biden, with a panel deciding court cases. Of course Team Biden has to play it realistically, not pretend to actually be smart.
Then we can mix the teams up a bit and run it again with the Biden team going for the jugular with more competent strategy.
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We don’t need to give them any ideas. They aren’t that smart.
I think they are. I’ll put it this way: I expect them to play it way closer to optimal than Team Biden.
Edit: auto correct got me bigly.
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Marc Kelly is up 56 to 39 in the last poll. Rigging Arizona would lead to some really strange results. Kelly winnings by 10+ in a state that Trump wins seems fishy.
I mean, isn’t there an 8-10 point spread between Kelly/McSally and Biden/Trump? So a narrow Trump win and an 8-10 point Kelly win would make sense.
yeah, old republicans still consider astronauts American heroes, and I think you’re going to see a lot of split ticket voting in AZ because of it.
As I always keep in mind when posting, I have a disadvantage as a European observer, but I am pretty sure, McSally is going to flood AZ with material tying Kelly to AOC, Pelocy, BLM and whatever and have her marching in lockstep with Trump.
There is obviously going to be a spread between the margins in the Senate race and the presidential election, as McSally is an awful candidate, but in a time as polarized as this, I do not see the spread being in the realm of 10 points or higher.
I disagree!
Iirc, early in the online poker boom he won a tournament on some startup poker site that gave him a small stake in the company. Don’t remember which site, but I think it was mildly successful.
Anecdote ahead
My mom knows 5 people that don’t like Trump but aren’t voting Biden for various reasons. Seems bad.
I imagine this is going to be the standard Republican move for the next few elections no matter who they run against.
Are they 5 people who voted trump in ‘16? If so, not bad at all.
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They aren’t gonna let him finish.
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