1/ A lot of people, including legal Twitter, are getting this wrong, seeking comfort because we've had so much mental terrorism. But in fact, this is a flashing red alarm signal. And the press is flat misreporting the story.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/20-542_i3dj.pdf

2/ This is NOT a 5-3 a vote to not hear the PA-GOP's challenge to the PA Supreme Court's ruling. This is not Kavanaugh pulling back.

This is an *8-0* vote to not expedite the Court's vote on whether to grant cert before the election with three judges writing a concurrence.

3/ The concurrence is NOT reassuring, it is terrifying. Because it is an announcement that Thomas and Alito are 100% onboard with the radical interpretation of Article II, Sec. 1 espoused by Gorsuch and Alito in the prior opinion.

4/ This is the key language in the Gorsuch/Thomas/Alito concurrence. Note carefully the citation to Art. II, Sec. 1, cl. 2 at the end, demurely dropped in at the end as if of least importance:

4/
Article II, Sec. 1, Cl. 2 reads as follows:

5/ In the earlier Kavanaugh-Gorsuch dissent and in this Gorsuch-Thomas-Alito concurrence, they are coyly embracing the Rehnquist concurrence in Bush v. Gore that was so poisonous, no one else would join it at the time.

6/ The essence of that argument, made more eplicit in the Kavanaugh screed, is that Art. II, Sec. 1,Cl. 2 is a grant of unlimited discretionary power to state legislatures, and only state legislatures, to select electors in whatever mannter they see fit.

7/ It is an argument that any state law or state constitutional provision that purports to constrain state legislators in the selection of electors is unconstitutional and that federal courts have the power and duty to stop either governors or state courts from interfering.

8/ It is an argument, to be blunt, that presidential elections are meaningless civic rituals that state legislatures are free to ignore in selecting electors.

Four justices have now signaled they're onboard with it.

9/ The following states that are trending blue have heavily gerrymandered Republican state legislatures:

AZ, TX, FL, GA, NC, PA, OH, MI, WI, IA, and don't forget the single EV that Nebraska law says Biden will likely get.

That's more than enough to flip a Biden landslide.

10/ They're predominately "Republic not a Democracy!" MAGA nuts, and in many cases Q nuts, who are likely to lose their seats to the 2020 redistricting if they don't find a way to thwart democracy at the local level as well, and thus have nothing to lose.

11/ And now consider the fact that McConnell rushed Barrett onto the Court knowing full well that doing so was basically a burn it all down napalm bomb attack that would guarantee the addition of four justices if Democrats take the Senate and the White HOuse.

12/ He did that for the openly avowed purpose of having her on the court in time to vote on any little "election disputes" that might happen to find their way to the Court.

And he knows how to read a poll.

13/ He rushed her onto the Court that knowing the polls show that this election is not going to be close enough for that to matter *unless the "dispute" is over Republican legislatures of multiple states defying state law and the will of their voters to select Trump electors.*

14/ This all comes amid an increasing right wing drumbeat of idiocy on the right to delegitimize a Biden victory as "fraudulent."

And it is, of course, the exact scenario described in that much poo-pooed Atlantic article. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/what-if-trump-refuses-concede/616424/

15/ Inconceivable because the people won't allow it, you say?

Well that's only true if Trump, Jared, Miller, Barr, Alito, Barrett, Thomas, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Roberts think it's "inconceivable," isn't it?

We know the country is a box of sweaty dynamite, but do they?

16/ In the brains most of our new SCOTUS majority, it's still 1789, it's perfectly legitimate for state legislators to do what they think best as the Founders, hallowed be their name, intended and since it's all perfectly legal, the Little People will defer to their betters.

17/ It's not like a damn one of them has had any contact with normal people in decades now, is it? or that we even matter to them.

And it's not like Trump, Barr, Miller, and the rest of the Trump crime cabal won't do anything to stay in power.

And their supporters have guns.

18/ The Gorsuch/Thomas/Alito concurrence is not reassuring. It is goddamn terrifying.

Unless we recognize it for what, see what's playing out right in front of our face, it is and start working right now, not after the election, to short-circuit it.

19/ May it all collapse under it's own improbable weight, the sheer lack of competence necessary to pull it off, the vast emotional impact of a landslide defeat? Sure. More likely than not, even.

But do we really want to count on that? I'm thinking no.

PS/ 1 And so it begins. https://twitter.com/mjs_DC/status/1322602843661021184