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1. I'm not sure if people understand what is going on within the Trump camp & the bowels of the GOP. The point of the "count the legal but not the illegal ballots" talking point is to normalize to their electorate that some segment of counted votes are fraudulent. Their hope is
2. to convince state legislators in PA, MI, and WI where the GOP holds majorities to refuse to send Biden electors. Yes, this violates state laws. Yes, the courts will invalidate their claims. But their hope is that over a month they'll have accomplished what they've
3. accomplished w @Comey, Bob Mueller, Ukraine, Hunter Biden, Benghazi, & so many other things- simply by using control of the airwaves (Fox News, talk radio, internet- it is an impressive propaganda network) they can convince their half of the electorate that the ends justify
4. the means. Will these state reps TAKE that step? We're not talking a couple thousand ballots, we're talking about massive Biden advantages that have to be "disqualified" by fake claims of fraud. The only close states were all run by the GOP! IDK. But I do suspect they will try
5. Take a sec to stop, look retrospectively back at where we are from where we came in 2015/2016, look what the GOP has not only tolerated but embraced under Trumpism (you've got @LindseyGrahamSC cheerleading stuff CIA has briefed him originates from the Kremlin for God's sake!"
6. As I've said before, by 2018, after 2 or 3 very serious red lines that I had believed impossible for the GOP to swallow were not only passed but BLOWN THREW WITHOUT SO MUCH A GLANCE y supposedly serious people like @marcorubio- at that point I began to adjust my thinking.
7. ESP when comes to Atty. Gen Barr, who, if predisposed to ladies & gentlemen, holds immense power in our system. The only checks on his are the senate and the president. Starting to see the problem, are you? We have an atty gen who is not just an extremist- he is radical. He
8. is outspoken about his radicalism, like JKustice Thomas he makes no bones about the "Brave New World" he envisions. Now both men find themselves positioned (working together and separately) to bring their theoretics to fruition. They probably never really though they'd be
9. afforded this opportunity- so you can be damn sure they're not likely to let it pass them by with an "awww shucks, darn, that woulda been nice!" In Trump they have the ultimate useful idiot. And both Thomas & Barr are well positioned to fill Trump's empty head to their own
10. benefits. If it requires a temporary suspension of democracy to allow them to hold onto power? People in positions like this are quite adept at finding psychological tricks that justify their actions- hence the effort to convince 70 million people that when they illegally
11. refuse to certify Biden's victory what they are actually doing is SAVING democracy, just like they've convinced these same people that the most corrupt president in the history of the Republic (and we've had some corrupt ones, trust me!) is there to Drain The Swamp! It can be
12. done. It WILL be done unless the not-MAGA segment of the country is equally aggressive at pushing out the truth about those ballots. That they are ALL legal. This will take coordinated marketing effort and media to do things it is not comfortable doing- such as not playing
13. a normal game of "norm of objectivity." Instead, the media will need to start to cover the story of Trump's campaign effort to steal the election by falsely convincing Republican voters that there are "illegal" ballots when there are not. This actually should be easy to do.
14. It should be easy to focus on the Trump campaign's months-long effort to set this up because, well, it is a months-long conspiracy that involves Barr, the RNC, FOX News & other conservative media personalities, the GOP state parties, these law firms filing the lawsuits,
15. and many GOP state-level elected. There are MANY threads that someone like @maggieNYT or @brianstelter could be pulling- threads that just might save democracy if they get pulled now, while there's still time. But the GOP literally built inaction & non-responsiveness of Biden
16. and the non-MAGA media into their plan. They understand exactly how regular media functions & thus, built their own plan around the media response. So far, everything is going exactly as they anticipated. Which means, of course, that they are right on track. Again, Trump is
17. a stupid man surrounded by shred actors with much to gain by keeping him in office & potential criminal charges if he's removed. That's one hell of an incentive for the Hail Mary Pass if you ask me.
