First, the Great Election Day Con. Then, I’ll answer questions from Twitter followers and questions that came from the “Ask Teri” button on my blog.
I: The Great Election Day Con
I expanded my thoughts about what is happening with Trump’s election day lies for Just Security (based at the New York University School of Law). The piece appeared here.
From the piece:
As long as Trump keeps everyone riled, we all remain caught in the Trump Reality Show.
It now appears that American politics, moving forward, may instead be divided into those who prefer a fact-based world, and those drawn to myth. Those who prefer facts assume that rule of law democracy is everyone’s preferred form of government.
II. Questions from Twitter and the “Ask Teri” button.
(The questions in blue are taken from the “Ask Teri” button. From Twitter, I cut and paste the Tweet.)
Q: I think your followers would benefit from a “what to expect” in coming weeks. It will be more than tweets and lawsuits and I think it will help to prepare for the chaos, even though we expect our institutions to hold.
It’s going to be crazy. You’re all wearing raincoats, so the firehose of falsehoods will slide off, but Trump will do everything he can to keep you riled. Plus he will do things that would rile anyone.
Q: How would you assess the likelihood that The Donald defects, in advance of the end of his term?
I honestly don’t know. My only prediction is that he will insist as he’s walking out the door that he won the election, but was robbed because of massive fraud. It’s hard for me to imagine him leaving in exchange for a pardon because that seems so much like an admission of guilt, and moreover, he knows that a pardon won’t help him with state crimes or shield him from liability.
Q: There is a tranche of 17 year olds in Georgia who turn 18 in time for the runoff. How an we get them on board? I’m in California so I have to do something remotely.
Stacey Abrams is on it. Here’s her Fair Fight website.
This link will get you started with the Georgia Democrats voter protection group. It looks like it’s already updated. The coolest job that can be done remotely is volunteer to work the hotline. They may ask if you’re a lawyer. You don’t have to be. You just have to feel comfortable learning the procedures and helping voters. If you’re in Georgia, please sign up to be a poll worker. If poll worker is no longer available, see if you can be a poll observer. (Poll workers are hired through the county. Poll observers are volunteers with the Georgia Democrats. If poll workers are doing what they’re supposed to do, the poll observers have nothing to do, which is the ideal situation.) So poll worker is more important.
Q: I think that RW media should be held accountable for their deadly disinformation during the pandemic. Your thoughts on a class action suit?
I think someone will do this. The difficulty with a tort action (a lawsuit claiming personal injury from negligent action) is proving causation. The person harmed has to prove that the harm was directly caused by the negligent behavior. So the plaintiffs would have to prove that people were harmed because of the Fox disinformation and not something else. I’d think you’d need people who would swear something like: “I would never have gone to that party if Sean Hannity hadn’t promised me I had nothing to worry about.”
Q: I’m freaking out. First Trump fired Secretary of Defense Esper, a top Pentagon Policy official, top Defense Department intelligence official, and chief of staff to the Defense Secretary. Is this a coup?
I believe what we are witnessing is a cover-up, not a coup. For more, see these threads by Yale professor and CNN analyst Asha Rangappa, here and here.
To begin with, four years of Trump trading foreign policy for his own personal benefit. Four years of Trump pulling the levers of government for his own benefit. Imagine how many times he said some version of: “I would like you to do us a favor, though.”
The military is not going to install Trump as a dictator. Soldiers and generals would have to obey illegal orders and circumvent the Constitution. Not. Going. To. Happen. This country is too big. That said, Trump is up to something. In addition to covering up whatever he’s been doing for the past four years, I’d assume he’s finding ways to line his own pockets.
The real danger isn’t a military coup. The real danger is a successful disinformation campaign. If enough people believe the election was stolen from him due to fraud, he can remain a powerful force on the far right-wing. Destroying democracy by means of a military coup is doing things the hard way. Destroying democracy by destroying the truth is much easier, and more effective.
The courts are not going to install a dictator (which is what ignoring the vote would do). Lawsuits require evidence. Moreover, federal judges with lifetime appointments have no motive to install a dictator and (effectively) give up all their own power to a vindictive person.
Dear doomsayers: Don’t say untrue things like “the entire system is broken.” It’s just as big a lie as “the election was rigged and Trump didn’t lose.”
As Clint Watts explained, a goal of Active Measures is to undermine confidence in public institutions. Trump lost the election, but NOOOOO that isn’t enough. Trump is filing frivolous lawsuits so WE ARE DOOMED.
Yeah, I’m going on a tear. If you’ve heard this lecture before, you can stop reading.
Nobody owes you a democracy. For most of American history, we lived in a hierarchy. People moaning about how bad things are need to consider what life was like in 1850 for a Black woman. She didn’t even own her own body. Literally.
Yes, Trump is a threat to democracy. Yes, the right-wing well-oiled propaganda machine is a threat to democracy.
But when people talk about “the system” and “American democracy,” consider this — until about 1955, we didn’t actually have a democracy. We had Jim Crow. That wasn’t democracy for a lot of people. In the 19th century a woman couldn’t vote.
The “system” people say is “broken” is actually less than 100 years old. We got here because of the hard work of people like Thurgood Marshall, Susan B. Anthony, MLK, Jr. and so many others who literally dedicated their lives getting rid of the 19th century patriarchy.
America didn’t begin to transition to a true liberal democracy until after about 1955.
- 1954: Brown v. Board (the Supreme Court case that held segregation illegal.)
- 1955: The backlash against Brown v. Board picked up momentum. We’re still riding the backlash.
Wanna know why Mitch McConnell and friends cared ONLY about confirming Amy Coney Barrett? Wanna know why they were so determined? Because they are STILL angry at the decision in Brown v Board, and the liberal decisions that followed and changed America.
Trump didn’t appear out of the clear blue sky and fracture a perfectly good democracy. Since 1954, a liberal democracy has been struggling to take hold in America. Trump and friends are doing everything they can to turn back the clock to before 1954 and before 1920.
Before 1920, there was not much of a “deep state.” That was before the regulatory agencies and regulations that prevented [white] men from grabbing and cheating. On the frontier they could grab land! They could grab women!
Before regulatory agencies, they could manipulate prices and fix markets. They could cheat! They could force people to work for pennies! They didn’t have to provide worker safety!
🎵Those were the days🎵
(That’s Archie Bunker singing, not Mary Hopkins)
They wanna go back. Sure, why not. They had it good. The Trumps and Mitch McConnells have always been around. They were pro-slavery. Then pro-Jim Crow. They liked the age of robber barons. They hated the New Deal. They’ll always be around. We push forward. They push back.
We create laws that create fairness for everyone. They roll the laws back. It doesn’t end until we give up. This is why I keep saying that the solution is productive civic engagement.
Doomsaying is not productive.
This is getting long, so I’ll tackle another bunch soon.
The best way to communicate with me is through the “Ask Teri” button on my menu. If you hit ‘reply’ to the auto message that tells you I have a new blog post up, the message goes to a busy account and I lose track of what’s in there.
