All is lost unless people are willing to vote in person and ensure the vote is cast and counted. Grassroots need to be viable to get everyone possible on board to hustle and create more overwhelming votes cast to be counted fair and square. I doubt there is any way possible to do what is required at least in the swing states.
Remember when Barr smirked about history being written by the "winners"? He, Trump, et. al. think they've got the election all figured out. Here's what I think they're going to do:
1. Claim that mail-in ballots are inherently fraudulent and should not be counted. This has been Barr's go to narrative for the last several weeks to set the stage for rejecting mail-in ballots altogether.
2. Get SCOTUS and multiple right-wing state or federal judges to freeze the count on Nov. 3 and declare mail-in ballots not counted by Nov. 3 as invalid either nationwide or in key swing states. If they're really ambitious, they will impose court orders tossing or invalidating many, most or all mail-in ballots in swing states. This is why they are determined to place a hard core right winger on SCOTUS before the election.
3. Attempt to seize and impound any and all mail-in ballots not counted by Nov. 3. Why? Because they're fraudulent and/or have been discounted by court order(s). They may even try seizing ALL ballots to "insure the validity and accuracy of the vote". This also removes the tangible evidence of Biden's win from state and county election officials' hands.
4. Unleash "poll watcher" thugs to disrupt in person voting.
5. If there is any hint of violence at poll locations, deploy police and National Guard forces after declaring riot or martial law provisions and thereby shut down polling stations. If a poll location in a riot zone does post results, those results can and should be discounted because after all, a riot has simply caused too much disruption to validate those results.
6. Because of all the fraudulent mail-in votes and chaos at polling locations, the state legislators "should do the right thing" and simply provide their own slate of Electoral College electors. The newly super right wing SCOTUS will conveniently provide a decision supporting this power grab.
So that's the game plan. I am confident they will try some or all of these actions. I am also confident that their efforts will be so brazenly egregious that loyal Americans will rebel as John points out. The key thing is whether white liberals will have the courage and resilience to step up and apply endless pressure - political, social, and economic - to overcome the attempted coup. The coup can be stopped but it's going to take a massive awakening by many people who simply don't have the experience or perspective to fight for the survival of our country.
...and STILL the Democrats have no viable answer. Marches will not do it... We should be training people in civil disobedience. We need to be talking about economic repercussions, boycotts. Yet Democrats STILL seem to be in a fantasy world in which the election will simply play out fairly.
The civil war is HERE NOW the only rational thing to do is to figure out how to keep it as non-lethal as possible. But there are STILL no clear headed leaders on the Left or in the middle willing to speak the WHOLE truth and put forth a plan of action.
I understand your perspective but disagree with your prescription. I think too many Democrats and liberals have a 'savior' expectation about the Democratic party and politics in general. We keep waiting for the next FDR, JFK, or LBJ to save the day. When contemporary political figures fail to meet the Messiah standard, we criticize them for not providing heroic outcomes.
In my opinion, I am a Citizen and a Patriot. It's MY responsibility to address the challenges we face and not wait for some public figure or political party to tell me what to do. John Stoehr is trying valiantly do his duty with his newsletter, and I comment frequently as part of my own efforts to fulfill my civic responsibilities.
I don't know precisely what we can do to get out of our current predicament, but I do know that waiting for someone else to set the path is unnecessary. Anything anyone of us can do, no matter how small, will contribute to the great cause to save our nation.
All is lost unless people are willing to vote in person and ensure the vote is cast and counted. Grassroots need to be viable to get everyone possible on board to hustle and create more overwhelming votes cast to be counted fair and square. I doubt there is any way possible to do what is required at least in the swing states.
Remember when Barr smirked about history being written by the "winners"? He, Trump, et. al. think they've got the election all figured out. Here's what I think they're going to do:
1. Claim that mail-in ballots are inherently fraudulent and should not be counted. This has been Barr's go to narrative for the last several weeks to set the stage for rejecting mail-in ballots altogether.
2. Get SCOTUS and multiple right-wing state or federal judges to freeze the count on Nov. 3 and declare mail-in ballots not counted by Nov. 3 as invalid either nationwide or in key swing states. If they're really ambitious, they will impose court orders tossing or invalidating many, most or all mail-in ballots in swing states. This is why they are determined to place a hard core right winger on SCOTUS before the election.
3. Attempt to seize and impound any and all mail-in ballots not counted by Nov. 3. Why? Because they're fraudulent and/or have been discounted by court order(s). They may even try seizing ALL ballots to "insure the validity and accuracy of the vote". This also removes the tangible evidence of Biden's win from state and county election officials' hands.
4. Unleash "poll watcher" thugs to disrupt in person voting.
5. If there is any hint of violence at poll locations, deploy police and National Guard forces after declaring riot or martial law provisions and thereby shut down polling stations. If a poll location in a riot zone does post results, those results can and should be discounted because after all, a riot has simply caused too much disruption to validate those results.
6. Because of all the fraudulent mail-in votes and chaos at polling locations, the state legislators "should do the right thing" and simply provide their own slate of Electoral College electors. The newly super right wing SCOTUS will conveniently provide a decision supporting this power grab.
So that's the game plan. I am confident they will try some or all of these actions. I am also confident that their efforts will be so brazenly egregious that loyal Americans will rebel as John points out. The key thing is whether white liberals will have the courage and resilience to step up and apply endless pressure - political, social, and economic - to overcome the attempted coup. The coup can be stopped but it's going to take a massive awakening by many people who simply don't have the experience or perspective to fight for the survival of our country.
The world's oldest democracy?
...and STILL the Democrats have no viable answer. Marches will not do it... We should be training people in civil disobedience. We need to be talking about economic repercussions, boycotts. Yet Democrats STILL seem to be in a fantasy world in which the election will simply play out fairly.
The civil war is HERE NOW the only rational thing to do is to figure out how to keep it as non-lethal as possible. But there are STILL no clear headed leaders on the Left or in the middle willing to speak the WHOLE truth and put forth a plan of action.
Bull! Pay attention.
Www.indivisible.org
I understand your perspective but disagree with your prescription. I think too many Democrats and liberals have a 'savior' expectation about the Democratic party and politics in general. We keep waiting for the next FDR, JFK, or LBJ to save the day. When contemporary political figures fail to meet the Messiah standard, we criticize them for not providing heroic outcomes.
In my opinion, I am a Citizen and a Patriot. It's MY responsibility to address the challenges we face and not wait for some public figure or political party to tell me what to do. John Stoehr is trying valiantly do his duty with his newsletter, and I comment frequently as part of my own efforts to fulfill my civic responsibilities.
I don't know precisely what we can do to get out of our current predicament, but I do know that waiting for someone else to set the path is unnecessary. Anything anyone of us can do, no matter how small, will contribute to the great cause to save our nation.
Then step up, John.
Why are you looking for other people to do work that you think should be done?
What's the plan?