US Election Week 2020

[The Minsky Moment]

And the official GOP Twitter account is pushing this nonsense - which feels a little alarming:
https://twitter.com/GOP/status/1329490975266398210?s=20

Edit: And for all the doubts about the phrase "fascist", the language here is fascist.

Sidney Flynn also represents Michael Flynn whose gambit of tearing up his own plea agreement on the assurance that a corrupt DOJ would follow the Fuhrer's order to dismiss the case is not looking the most brilliant strategic move right now.  Safe to say whatever AG Biden names is going to take a different view of the case and withdraw the motion to dismiss.

[Valmy]

A substantial amount of those trained professionals seem quite sympathetic to what the GOP is doing.

They are still trained and have a mission to enforce the law and an obligation to obey orders from elected officials. They need to be reformed and held accountable but they are still preferable to empowering private violence.

[Syt]

A substantial amount of those trained professionals seem quite sympathetic to what the GOP is doing.

They are still trained and have a mission to enforce the law and an obligation to obey orders from elected officials. They need to be reformed and held accountable but they are still preferable to empowering private violence.

That they do, and I hope they will.

[The Minsky Moment]

Remember when "conservatives" pretended to be level-headed and mocked Hillary Clinton for talking about a vast rightwing conspiracy?  Ah, those were the days...

[Oexmelin]

Ok so how do we counter an actual fascist movement then? Leftwing private militias or how about trained professionals?

This is just a bad faith argument. No one has currently defunded the police on the basis of the protest slogans of last spring. The threat posed by the Republicans does not lie in the future when police is defunded, but in the present when it is clearly not. (Not to mention that the currently funded police is liable, considering the sort of rhetoric that comes out of their unions, to actually volunteer to defend that fascist movement).

At the current time, the best way to fight the Republicans is 1) take the threat seriously. Which few people seem willing to do. 2) Put pressure on Democrats to take the threat seriously and use the tools at their disposal within Congress to push back. Which few of them seem willing to do. 3) Engage in local politics: the case of Wayne County shows that wobbly fascists can be kept in check and are still susceptible to pressure. 4) Contact local grassroots Democrats and volunteer time and effort. Keep an eye for local attempts at overturning results. Continuously demand to know where people stand on the matter and push back against attempts to equivocate.

[The Minsky Moment]

And those nice people probably need to monitored and held in check by law enforcement.

I am sure there is a meaningful comparison to be made between a progressive movement that seeks the end of police brutality and an actual fascist movement at the heart of the US's mainstream party that currently holds the Presidency and the Senate, but it somehow escapes me.

They both have been accused of defacing the exterior walls of landscaping companies.

[DGuller]

Them going this extreme could cost them and we could take advantage if we didn't have our own nutcases parading around demanding we defund the police.

Valmy, FFS, sometimes it's okay to say something critical of one side without searching for something to balance it.  Come on, people, support me here, tell Valmy it's okay.  We need an intervention here.

The implied equivalence went from being annoying to being downright offensive in this post.  I know that wasn't your intent, but that's how it comes out.  The people with actual power trying to overturn the election results in no way deserve to share the sentence with a group of impractical morons without any power to implement their stupidity.

[The Minsky Moment]

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1329493386999586817?s=20

"Your question is fundamentally flawed, when you're asking, 'where's the evidence?' You clearly don't understand the legal process" -- Jenna Ellis

There is a kernel of truth here - the courts haven't demanded that they present evidence of fraud because the court cases the campaign has brought don't allege fraud occurred.  You don't have to prove what you don't dare to present to a court in the first place for fear of being sanctioned.

[Sheilbh]

Them going this extreme could cost them and we could take advantage if we didn't have our own nutcases parading around demanding we defund the police.

I mean are those nutcases representing Biden or the House or Senate leadership? Or even the Democrat Twitter account?

[The Minsky Moment]

Hard to say what the biggest lie of that crazy press conference was but I'm going to go with Jenna Eliis saying "this is an elite strikeforce team".   (it was right after she demanded the press print the evidence they were presenting and then said they weren't presenting any evidence). 

[Eddie Teach]

You people are missing Valmys point. It doesn't matter that the defund crowd doesn't have the power to do anything, they still scared off enough voters that there was no blue wave.

[The Minsky Moment]

Hint to Jenna Ellis: if you want to convince people how super elite you are, maybe your professional bio shouldn't contain two paragraphs about your internships, clerkships and experience as a contract attorney, and only one sentence about the rest of your legal experience.  It looks like an OK resume for someone trying to get hired as a 1st year associate, not the person running point for the legal equivalent of Seal Team Six (may they rest in peace).

[Sheilbh]

You people are missing Valmys point. It doesn't matter that the defund crowd doesn't have the power to do anything, they still scared off enough voters that there was no blue wave.

Okay - I can sympathise with that argument. But the Democrat candidate was Joe Biden and Kamala Harris (who spent a significant part of the primaries being attacked by the left for being a "cop"). The Republican candidate was out suggesting he wouldn't accept the results of votes that go against him and would push baseless allegations of fraud which has happened. I don't think you can be equally scared of left-wing nutcases with no positions of power in the Democrats versus the Republican nutcase being the Presidential candidate unless you're sort of comfortable with the Republican.

But that wasn't what I was saying because  I read Valmy's post as about now and the future

Edit: And incidentally I personally feel less sanguine about this situation. All coups start with ridiculous plots that are unlikely to succeed - and that's how they end, unless they start succeeding. And there are quite a lot of people who are in on this now, or (as has been the norm in the Trump era) mutedly expressing their concern in anonymous briefings to prestigious newspapers.

[crazy canuck]

You people are missing Valmys point. It doesn't matter that the defund crowd doesn't have the power to do anything, they still scared off enough voters that there was no blue wave.

You might be missing the next step where Valmy equated that to a sitting President actively subverting the democratic process.  There might, just might, be a difference between those two things.

Although I take JR's point.  There were likely landscaping store exteriors harmed by both groups.

[grumbler]

You people are missing Valmys point. It doesn't matter that the defund crowd doesn't have the power to do anything, they still scared off enough voters that there was no blue wave.

Okay - I can sympathise with that argument. But the Democrat candidate was Joe Biden and Kamala Harris (who spent a significant part of the primaries being attacked by the left for being a "cop"). The Republican candidate was out suggesting he wouldn't accept the results of votes that go against him and would push baseless allegations of fraud which has happened. I don't think you can be equally scared of left-wing nutcases with no positions of power in the Democrats versus the Republican nutcase being the Presidential candidate unless you're sort of comfortable with the Republican.

But that wasn't what I was saying because  I read Valmy's post as about now and the future

Edit: And incidentally I personally feel less sanguine about this situation. All coups start with ridiculous plots that are unlikely to succeed - and that's how they end, unless they start succeeding. And there are quite a lot of people who are in on this now, or (as has been the norm in the Trump era) mutedly expressing their concern in anonymous briefings to prestigious newspapers.

I also read Valmy's post about "taking advantage of this" as being about in future elections, as opposed to countering current Republican insanity.

And I agree that there is increasing cause for concern as Republicans start to scrape the bottom of the legal barrel and dredge up incompetent lawyers who have no qualms about trashing their own non-existent legal ethics.  As far as Joe Republican knows, these lawyers must be at least capable because they are working for the highest levels of his party. 

This is The Big Lie, all over again.  Nothing stops The Big Lie until foreign soldiers raise their flags over the ruins of the capital buildings.  Joe republican will now believe that voting cannot deliver honest results, no matter what the actual facts say.  Democracy dies in front of Klieg lights.