"We're All Victims.” …Yes, We All Are, Of Tump.

The Devil Went Down to Georgia. There, I had to use the most obvious joke, but only as a caption.

On a day that saw 227,885 new cases and 2,607 deaths from covid-19, Donald J. Trump, failed President of the United States and loser of the recent election, went to Georgia to have a campaign rally for a campaign that ended a month ago. He was holding a rally of some 10,000 mostly maskless people in a state that is reporting record infections and deaths.

And this was after calling Governor Kemp in the morning and demanding he throw out the votes of the people of his state, and call the legislature into session to have them hand the election to Trump. This is illegal, by the way. Simple as that. Still waiting for the GOP to say something about it.

They won’t.

Trump was tweeting insults at Kemp the whole plane ride to Georgia, demanding he ‘signature match’ the ballots (you can’t, after verification the envelopes and ballots are separated to ensure anonymity of the vote) and again calling for a special session to pick electors to steal the election for him. I imagine the whole of the election staff is really sick of his shit. “Oh god, he’s tweeting again…”

How did he greet the large crowd after Melania introduced him?

“You know we won Georgia, just so you understand.”

With a lie. Of course.

No, he didn’t win, obviously, and the popular vote wasn’t even close. In Georgia, the votes he constantly complains about were counted, and then recounted, Biden winning each time. Biden/Harris have won this election several times by now. The first lie set the tone, and was quickly followed by more. All on pretty much the same theme; what a big, big winner who wins super bigly at everything but especially elections, he is. He was a fire hose of nonsense, attacking the election, the Governor, the election officials, and anything that strayed across his mind.  

“We didn’t lose. Let me tell you, this election was rigged.”

If you read this far, or have been alive and paying attention the past month you know this is a lie. It’s grown from slightly amusing, to infuriating, to exhausting watching the electoral steal team Trump has fielded, claiming to have ‘proof’ of this huge election steal yet never offering any up.

“We actually won. Remember, so many of the states, I won every one of them. Every one of these states…. and by the way, the swing states that we’re all fighting over now, I won them all by a lot.”

So, he didn’t actually lose any states, he won them all, by a lot. It’s like he’s reading a thread of his own tweets out loud. He’s a human Facebook argument, dismissing all facts he doesn’t like.

“And I have to say, if I lost, I’d be a very gracious loser! If I lost, I’d say ‘I lost’ and I’d go to Florida and I’d take it easy and I’d go around and say ‘I did a good job’ — but you can’t ever accept when they steal and rig and rob.”

Sigh.

"We will find that hundreds of thousands of ballots were illegally cast all over your state, and all over the country by the way. More than enough to give us a total historic victory…. Hopefully our legislatures and the United States Supreme Court will step forward and save our country"

I can’t see how screaming about ‘rigged elections’ will help elect two Republicans to the senate, but I can see how it would discourage anyone from bothering to vote. Why vote? It’s all rigged! That’s how they get ya!

"We're all victims. Everybody here. All these thousands of people here tonight. They're all victims. Every one of you."

This is the GOP slogan, the perfect representation of the Trump presidency founded on victimhood and White grievance. ‘It’s not our fault! It’s theirs! Anyone Non-White, immigrants, ‘antifa’, ‘elites’, all of them! ‘It’s their fault’. They’re the victims, it’s them being discriminated against, THEY’RE THE VICTIMS!!! And they gather together on the Georgia tarmac to listen to a man who will feed their greivance, and tell them fantastical tales in which they’re the heroes and everyone else is the villain.

No wonder they voted for someone who says out load what they whisper to themselves every day. "We're all victims.” They should put it on bumper stickers, tattoos, t-shirts so Trump can make even more money to throw in the 200+ million he bragged about wringing out of them to fight ‘fraud’. Oh yes, he told them about his grifting them. They cheered.

Of course, they did.

“We will never, ever surrender" Yep, not as long as he can add to that pile of cash, he and his family will continue to grift. And grift, and grift. And his supporters will gladly help him do it.

"Everything that we've archived is on the line on June 5th."

Yes, it is. Georgia, on January 5th, vote out the two crooks currently representing only themselves in the senate, and vote in someone who will actually work for you… and us.

Trump Seal Team Super StrikeForce, Ninja-Robot Warriors.

Rudy laying down the first wave of crazy, Sidney Powell ready to bring on the second.

Here we are, nearly 3 weeks from election day, two weeks since the outcome was obvious (hint, it was Biden, with what is looking in the end to be a margin of 7 million votes). So, Joe Biden is President-Elect, Kamala Harris is Vice President-Elect and the country can move on, start dealing with the many crisis’ created by the previous administration.

Right? Please?

Sigh.

No.

You see, we have this malignant tumor bunkered down in the White House, refusing to utter the words ‘Biden Won’. Can’t do it, just can’t. He instead, after some media calls election night, came out at 3am and gave a rambling ‘victory’ speech (at a victory party that turned into another White House, covid super-spreader event) claiming victory, spewing nonsense about ‘voter fraud (really ‘election fraud’, but there ya go) and seeming to go from rage, to despair, back to rage again.

Really, I think he was going for an Emmy.

Immediately he started filing a lot of baseless lawsuits, getting laughed out of court by Republican judges, and shedding lawyers like a sheepdog sheds hair in summer. Right now, his team is led by Rudy Giuliani, the human self-debasement machine, whose previous actions helped to get Trump impeached, and by Sydney Powell, a lawyer under investigation for possibly tampering with court documents for her other client, Michael Flynn.

You hit the Batty Signal, you get the bats.  

Still, even though no reputable attorney will work for them, Trump Team Crazy is busy, filing lawsuits left and right, tossing them out like t-shirts to a crowd, shouting ‘voter fraud’ up and down the hallways.

So, how are all those 'voter fraud' cases going?

They're not. So far Trump 'Elite StrikeForce Team' are 1-33. That means out of the 34 cases they brought, they're won one. One. Here's another thing; they're not actually voter fraud cases.

While Trump is screaming in all caps on Twitter. and Rudy G. and Sidney Powell are making bizarre claims about 'Hugo Chavez, communists, and China' funding secret vote-flipping machines, and election fraud on a massive scale, they have yet to make these claims in court. In fact, they go out of their way NOT to claim fraud... because they have no proof of fraud. They start bringing charges of fraud then the judge is going to ask them to prove it. No, the cases have mostly been about oversight, have been about such pettiness as in Arizona, when 'sharpies' used on ballots supposedly caused them to be rejected (their own witnesses proved this to be nonsense), poll watchers not allowed in polling places in Pennsylvania. There the lawyer pissed off the judge by trying to get cute:

Judge: "Did the plaintiff have representatives in the room?"

Lawyer: "“There were a nonzero number of people in the room."

Judge: “I’m asking you as a member of the bar of this court: Are people representing the plaintiffs in the room?”

Lawyer: "Yes."

Judge: "Then what are we here for?"

Always good to en-madden the judge hearing your case.

One case filed was, literally, based on what one witness was told by another poll worker who had overheard something someone else had said. No kidding. A sort of 'double heresy', the judge laughed that out of courts with a big, fat 'come on!'.

In Georgia, Trump lawyers and minions are doing stellar work. Cybersecurity worker and expert witness in the case, Russell J. Ramsland Jr., claimed in an affidavit that his company had uncovered “evidence of inconsistencies in electronic voting machines”. Maybe he did, but not in Georgia, the districts he list were in Michigan. Red districts that voted for Trump. Oops.

He also listed a bunch of towns and counties he claimed showed there were more votes than voters. Again, maybe so, but he was listing towns in Minnesota, not Michigan. Or Georgia.

Judge tossed it. No evidence. Huh.

In Michigan, a state court judge lovingly took apart the six witnesses with claims of improprieties at the counting center, noting that had they not skipped orientation, most of their claims would have been answered. The Trump team also mis-filed a Michigan case in a court in DC. Working hard to bring the best in incompetency.

The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.

Stormtroopers on the Death Star had better aim.

The Trump team have no real cases, they have no real chance as the numbers are against them. The plan, as near as anyone can figure, seems to be to get Black votes (city of Detroit) thrown out because... the poll watchers didn't stand close enough to the counting...? Something insane. That would give them Michigan, then… something, something… Georgia and Arizona, and bam? Election won?

Really. They would have to flip three states, disenfranchise millions, and forever kill any trust in our election system.

But they’re good with that.

There is no plan, no endgame here, just throw everything at the wall and keep refiling to try and get a judge more interested in party than justice.

They're out there, McConnell saw to that.

Which brings us to the Republicans, the GOP, the party of ‘Law & Order’, friend of the ‘working man’ (that’s White working man), what are they doing about this situation?

Nothing. With a few notable exceptions, they are maintaining silence, like they always do, or crying ‘let it play out’, as Trump hacks at Democracy with an axe. Why won’t they say something? Several factors:

One; he’s still the head of the party. Hell, it IS his party, he’ll cry if he wants to, and that big, beautiful base of his is loyal not the GOP, but to Trump himself. To speak up now is to anger the base, which they will need in their next reelection, or in 2024 if their ambitions carry them that far.  

Two: mean tweets. Trump’s base may be angry, but Trump is angrier, and can focus his hatred, and that of his base, right between the eyes of anyone daring to step out of line, even a little. He loves doing it, his thumbs are fast, and he doesn’t care about spelling.

Three: they want him to succeed. Sure, it’ll tear the country apart, but hey! They stay in power another four years, country be damned. That’s what really matters, doesn’t it?

So, they’ll stall the transition of power, watch as Trump demands no one speak to the Biden/Harris team, and valuable time is lost, information is lost, chaos seeps into every crack and corner, and Trump hides behind his extra-tall, super-secure fence, and tweets all caps into the void.

January 20th cannot come soon enough.

Happy Thanksgiving.

He Makes Everything a Train Wreck

Biden and Trump, the New Odd Couple

Good lord, that was a train wreck.

Seriously, what did we just watch?

Over at CNN, Jape Tapper called it “Horrific.” Co-anchor Dana Bash went one better: “You used some high-minded language — I’m going to say it like it is: that was a shit show.”

Shit show. Dana for the win.

Chris Wallace struggled hard to maintain control, but no one can control Trump. He was spewing nonsense on his time, on Biden’s time, talking over Wallace and at times, even interrupting himself.

Insanity. It was supposed to be 90, but it felt like hours. Trump was all over the map, rarely answering the actual question, insulting, lying, arguing, constantly interrupting. Just being an asshole, just being Trump. He was treating the whole thing as a monologue, as if it was a Trump rally.

And when was the last time you saw a moderator tell a sitting president to shut up? We did tonight, several times. Poor Chris Wallace, poor audience. And when Trump was finally, briefly, quiet, he sneered and pouted unable to keep still.

As usual, Joe Biden was, mostly, his calm and affable self. Trump was a bully, verbally shoving and pushing. Even Joe blew up a couple times. Telling Trump to ‘shut up” told him “You’re the worst president America has ever had. Come on!”and criticized his comments calling soldiers ‘suckers’, with Biden’s voice rising in anger, telling Trump that his deceased son who served in Iraq was not a ‘sucker’.

So, did we learn anything?

Well, Biden did fine, and will do fine. He stood up under the Trump blizzard of lies about as well as you can, the verbal vomit coming fast. He wasn’t thrown off too much. Trump is desperate to get attention and has a list of far right-wing conspiracy talking points that he got in regardless of what the actual question was. Biden tried to stick pretty much to the question and get through the constant interruptions.  

Some key moments?

To me, the key moments came towards the end, when Wallace asks both candidates about mail in ballots. Trump went off on his usual slurs and lies about the process, claiming non-existent fraud, and ended with “not going to end well.” It sounded like a threat. When asked if both candidates would pledge to call for peace from their supporters while the counting was going on, and to support the result once the votes were counted. Biden said, outright, of course he would. Trump?

Trump said he would send his supporters to the polls, to ‘watch the polls’ because of ‘fraud’. And he refused to answer the second part, about respecting the results. He said he might have to go to the courts, to the Supreme Court to ‘have the look at the ballots’. So, flood the polls with ‘watchers’ and try to get it in front of the Court where three of the Justices owe their seat to him. Of course that’s what he wants to do. Of course.

Tried to this is the other moment of the night, when Wallace asked Trump to denounce his violent supporters, the white nationalists and ‘militias’ that show up armed to protests. Both Wallace and Biden pressed him, and he hemmed and hawed, and said violence is “not a right-wing problem” and then finally, “Who, who? Give me a name”

Both Wallace and Biden suggested the ‘Proud Boys’, a white nationalist group that often threatens, and does, violence. “Sure, Proud Boys, stand down and stand by.” 

“Stand down and stand by” is not a condemnation. It’s telling armed thugs to ‘wait’. Maybe go to those polling places, with your guns. You know, to ‘watch’ and make sure everything is ‘fair’. Trump kind of ‘fair’.

Trump is dangerous, Trump is trying not to win an election, he knows he can’t, but he’s letting people know how he will try to steal it, and how they can help him do it. The Proud Boys erupted on Twitter at Trump’s ‘shout out’.

Biden won the night, but it wasn’t much of a night. He showed the world a contrast of decency versus angry bullying, clear competency versus incompetency, planning versus no plan. And I hope that will be enough

Dana Bash was right, total ‘shit show’.

Let’s go vote.

“Get Rid of the Ballots”

Angry Trump. Angry, angry, Trump.

This is not a chaotic election year. There is no widespread election fraud. None.

It simply isn’t happening. That doesn’t mean there isn’t stress, isn’t worry, isn’t anxiety over the pandemic and voting. Be calm, be clear of your goal in this election. Take a breath.

Counting the votes might take a little longer, but the outcome isn’t always known on election night, it’s not a big deal, and definitely not unusual not to know the winner right away.

So where is the fear, the shouts of ‘voter fraud, the stress over the election coming from, ’? Why are people running around, hair pulling and hand wringing? Because of the one person who should be calling for calm, who should be reassuring people and working to make sure that everything will go smoothly; the President of the United States.

Donald Trump is working hard to undermine the election, to cast doubt on the voting, on the voters, on the process, on holding elections themselves. He’s interfering with the Post Office, slowing down deliveries and hampering their ability to process what is looking to be a huge increase in mail-in ballots. He is trash talking the ballots, and whole concept of mail-in voting as is it were some illegal and alien thing, full of evil intent and dubious outcomes.

He isn’t even subtle about it

“Will you commit to making sure that there is a peaceful transferal of power after the election?” a reporter asked.

His answer:

 “Well, we’re gonna have to see what happens. Get rid of the ballots and you’ll have a peaceful—there won’t be a transfer, frankly, there’ll be a continuation.”

Throw out the ballots, get rid of those bad, non-Trump votes and there will be a “continuation”. He’ll win, one way of another.

He wants to create chaos. Chaos is his brand, he lives and breathes chaos. In chaos, in doubt, in uncertainty, things can happen; votes can be tossed, election results ignored, boards of illegitimate electors put in place that don’t reflect the will of the people, and another Republican who lost the popular vote is installed with the assistance of the Trump/McConnell engineered 6-3 split on the Supreme Court. It’s Bush v. Gore, again.

I remember watching the GOP steal that election. I had already realized they had no morals after the stupid 'Whitewater/Vince Foster/any bullshit-they-want-to-investigate nonsense of the 1990’s. The GOP was incredibly partisan, spittle-flinging partisan, but I didn't realize they wanted to completely undermine democracy until that 2000 election. Here I learned they would stop at nothing to kill democracy and seize power by any means.

All they had to do was say "The Democrats would do the same" and that justified anything. Obviously, this was not true, as the Democrats didn't fight tooth, nail and congressional interns to stop the counting Florida as the GOP did, so fuck that. The GOP relied on getting the case to the SCOTUS, who stepped in and gave the election to Bush in a decision even they were embarrassed by.

Insane, but Gore (who won the popular vote and the Florida vote (which wasn't fully counted until after Bush was declared the winner) stood by and let Bush be inaugurated, even though many wanted him to protest it.

He didn't.

He was actually worried about America and democracy.

You think Trump and the GOP are worried about that?

No,

They are trying to figure out how they can stay in power despite the vote.

This is what we face: the same GOP in 2000, but even more desperate, more racist, more angry and more convinced of their own grievances. Anything they do, even bringing down democracy as we know it, is justifiable.