I appreciate the excitement around Ed Norton's thread but there is only one problem: Trump is not bluffing. Norton's well-reasoned analysis only makes sense in a fair and fucntioning democracy America is not that. https://twitter.com/EdwardNorton/status/1329728889296355328

Also, the only thing that is keeping this transition on the proper course is Democratic governors and secretary of states. (and the Secretary of state in Georgia) Without those people in power, the local Republicans in those states would side with Trump. That simple.

If a player has a bluff or not, they have to put their cards on the table. We saw Trump's hand a week ago. He is now trying to change the rules and the card dealers (the American people). That is not poker. That is subversion.

Problem with Norton's thread and anyone else who agrees with it is that they still give American democracy too much credit to make sense of this. It won't. This is the literally the people versus an authoritarian party that is trying to subvert American legal institutions.

Basically, you have to look at the GOP as a gangster-funded party lead by a mob-backed, cashed-strapped criminal who allow mass death to protect their clan. You have to drop your velvet ideal of what America is to see Trump and the GOP for what they are: thugs.

Any reasonable or logical analysis of Trump has to go out of the window because neither he nor the GOP are playing by the rules and have made that clear for years. A better theory is to treat the GOP, Trump and their supporters as hostile actors and terrorists.

Until (naive) white people--and it is mostly white people-- drop the veneer of dignity they assign American democracy and the GOP, Trump and his Republican henchmen will continue to tear this country apart and expect Black women to piece it back together again.

END