Wednesday, July 3, 2024

Reality Check: Supreme Court Decisions Signal the End of Free and Fair Elections

Let's not kid ourselves.  What we're seeing in the court system, infected with MAGA appointees from Trump's term in office and the misplaced loyalty of many, if not most, of the pre-Trump Republicans who would rather win than play fair, is just a prelude to what is going to happen during the 2024 election, and afterward, especially if the ballot counts favor Biden, or whoever the Democrats wind up nominating in less than a month, instead of Trump.  And this author thinks that the unpopularity of, and fear of what Trump will do in a second term is the single issue in this election that will lead to his defeat.  

Trump and his MAGA menagerie have been planning on exactly how they are going to steal this election and get back in power since he boarded the plane and left Washington on January 20, 2021.  I'm not speculating or guessing, either, because they have said as much in almost those exact terms.  They have systematically put their plan in place, lined up the co-conspirators, including the federal court justices Trump appointed under the condition that they do favors for him when asked.  

Claiming Electoral Votes Before Congressional Certification

The plan that they implemented, to place fake electors in place of those who were actually elected by the voters failed, largely because the Republican Vice-President at the time, Mike Pence, actually did understand his constitutional role, and fortunately, though he was willing to allow his reputation to be permanently tarnished, and his political career come to an end for putting himself on such a corrupt, self-serving Presidential ticket, he did the right thing and Congress certified the vote in the teeth of a treasonous insurrection led by Trump.  

But it is highly likely that a good percentage of the electoral votes will not get certified at the state level this time around, and that the process will get held up until Constitutional deadlines pass, which will force the election into a Congress where each state gets one vote.  So unless Democrats can recover congressional majorities in several purple states that are intensely gerrymandered on purpose, this presents a major problem.  

This plan is no secret.  It's out in the open.  There are a lot of MAGA members of the House and Senate who are already prepared for this happening.  There have been multiple news programs, podcasts, interviews, at which this possibility has been discussed and explanations given as to exactly how it would work.  And there are poll workers and election officials in virtually every red state who are standing ready for orders from their orange headed buffoon to stop the process in the event that the votes don't go Trump's way.  

That includes county supervisors and local election officials, some of who are facing felony indictments and trials over their deliberate violations of state law in order to prevent votes from being certified.  Two supervisors in Cochise County, Arizona, Tom Crosby and Peggy Judd, both extremist conspiracy theorists, are facing prison time for their failure to certify vote totals they didn't like, claiming the machine counts, which had been audited four times, were wrong, and demanding a hand count of 55,000 ballots.  They just lost their appeal, and will go to trial in August.  

The Court System is No Longer Capable of Stopping This Injustice

The Supreme Court has already helped Republicans steal one election from Al Gore, by ruling that the state of Florida could certify its vote count before all ballots were received and counted.  The gist of that fiasco wasn't the tiny margin of votes separating Al Gore from George W. Bush that were counted and recounted, it was over 90,000 ballots, some provisional, some absentee, that were left out of the count completely.  Because once they came to an election day count that had Bush with about a 150 vote lead, after a recount, the Secretary of State, who was also Bush's Florida campaign manager, certified the vote, disenfranchising those who had cast their ballots within the provisions of the law, and changing what would have been the eventual outcome of the state's electoral votes, and the Presidency.  

The manner in which this court has ruled on just about everything it had on the table during the past session indicates that it is willing to support Trump regardless of the lack of constitutional support or precedent, and they don't care how many laws he breaks, as long as they are part of his "official duties," a nebulous term which they can rule means whatever they want it to mean to fit whatever situation they need it to fit in order to protect him from the consequences of breaking the law.  

There is no longer any trust that the other side, if the voters make a clear choice, will do the right thing and honor that choice.  

A Dangerous Path for Democratic Party Electors

There have been public statements made from within the swamp of MAGA extremists, that Democrats chosen as electors may have a hard time travelling to the location where electoral votes are cast.  It would not surprise me, in the least, to hear that armed insurgents were actively preventing legitimately chosen electors from casting their votes.  Even in 2020, there were threats, mobs, armed traitors showing up at state capitol facilities to act intimidating, and in some places, attempts by people who were not chosen as electors to pass themselves off as such, or to attempt to interfere.  

How much worse is that going to be this time around?  

Suppose that President Biden wins the state of Georgia by 50,000 votes this time around.  That's not improbable, given that he won it by about 11,000 votes in 2020, that the two Democratic Senators won their run-off elections by about 40,000, and that Senator Rafael Warnock won re-election by a little larger margin than that in the 2022 mid-term.  Georgia still has a Republican dominated state legislature, a Republican governor and a Republican secretary of state.  The current secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, angered Republicans for refusing to be corrupt enough to overturn the free and fair election last time around, and Biden got Georgia's electoral votes.  

But suppose the same scenario occurs in a red state with a MAGA secretary of state who simply refuses to allow the state's votes to be certified, or attempts to disqualify enough Democratic votes to throw the election the other way?  Who will stop that?  Is it possible?  

It is not only possible, it is part of the planning.  The fact that they are beyond just considering it, but are ready to implement it can be known because they are telling us this is the case. 
 
Violent Intervention is a Right Wing Plan to Stop an Election

I really hate to be a pessimist, but I believe the incidents of violence on election day, and at places where ballots are counted afterward, will be numerous, tragic and will result in fatalities, especially among the law enforcement personnel who will have to respond to this nonsense.  The open threats of violence are no secret.  The Evangelical groups are justifying their plans by claiming it to be a righteous cause and claiming that God is holding their coat-tails and cheering them on.  A pastor, claiming that he will stand in the doorway of his church, which is a polling place, and physically prevent Democrats from entering the building is no joke.  That's already been attempted, by the way, without consequences to the perpetrator.   

The Heritage Foundation, which is perhaps the most subversive extremist group in the country, has already gone public with its "New American Revolution" rhetoric, and advocates the use of violence in the event that they can't win the election.  As far as they are concerned, the election itself is inconsequential.  They have their agenda and they will move forward regardless, if not peaceably through the ballot box, then violently, in a manner which completely unmasks their Christian veneer. And they're not the only ones.  

I Hope That Preparations Are Being Made for the Worst Case Scenario

No doubt, with every idea that gets floated and every threat that gets made there must be some discernment on the part of those whose responsibility it is to prevent this from happening as to what is a genuine threat, and what is not.  The track record of those making these threats is real enough.  There are multiple cases already, all over the country, of right wingers who are willing to break the law if necessary to get their way.  And it what may very likely be another very close election, there are those who see the opportunity to do just enough damage to steal it for their own cause, because their party nominee, Trump, not only encourages them to do so, but considers it a test of their loyalty. 

In the fight to preserve and protect the integrity of this election, we have no allies in the governors and legislatures of red states, who will be working to undermine democracy and steal the election for their own side, and we have no allies in the Supreme Court, which has become the corrupt institution that the founding fathers feared that it could become if given the opportunity.  It's been poisoned by partisan politics, and its worthless now as a means of enforcing the law.   

And the possibility exists that the corruption of the courts, and the actions of the mob, may be more than can be overcome this time around.  Are there still enough eyes and ears, and enough patriotic Americans, to ensure the integrity of a national election, and then make sure that the will of the people is carried out, and the traitors suffer the consequences of their lawlessness?   

I hope so.  



 

 




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