During the run up to the 2020 election, one of the topics blogged about was how the Ol’ Pussy Grabber would steal the election. Ye Olde Blogge accurately predicted that he would use the electoral college and try to submit alternate slates of electors. Lucky for us, the anti-democratic forces were being led by the likes of Ruddy “Four Seasons” Giuliani and and Sidney “Release the Kraken” Powell and, of course, Trump himself, who can’t lead a damn thing or do anything right.
It was an easy call, though. (a) Trump never does anything without cheating. He’s afraid to risk losing, so he cuts straight to cheating. Based on this alone, the 2016 election was stolen. And (2) once Biden was declared the winner, the only way to “legally” steal the election was through the electoral college.
Now that Trump is choking the Republican Party’s chicken, cheating has been deeply etched into the brand of MAGA so much so that no one can run, or at least thinks they can win, without embracing the Big Lie and promoting the absolute worst policies. In order to be a successful GQP politician, you have to be willing to allow 30,000+ preventable deaths per year to happen due to gun violence; you have to be willing to defend the 1,000,000 and counting preventable deaths from #COVID19; you have to be willing to prevent millions of Americans from being insured by Medicaid; and you have to be willing to condemn women to poverty and death by outlawing abortion. The only people willing to carry that load of shyte on their backs are those afflicted with the dark tetrad personality traits.
Only narcissists, sadists, psychopaths, and Machiavellians are willing to trade American lives and misery so that they can reap the windfalls of insider trader and all that sweet sweet dark money free speech that comes with elected office. Only the absolute worst among us without morals, guilt, or shame believe that the most important aspect of life is that they hold their elected office. In the cease pit that GQP has become, it is only the biggest stinkiest pieces that have floated to the top.
The only question left to answer is how will they try and steal the 2022 election and can we stop them? Unfortunately for us and our democracy, there are corrupt turds floating in the toilet bowl of the Republican Party that have sufficient executive functioning to make a better run at it. Also, lucky for us, there are some who are hanging around with enough moral scruples and concern for democracy to leak bits and pieces of their plan. The illustrious Heidi Przybyla formerly of NBC News has published a piece in Politico on leaked audio and video tape detailing the Michigan Republican Party’s plans for stealing that election.
Voter Suppression and Nullification
We all know about the grand GQP plan to pass voter suppression and nullification laws in various states. Voter suppression means making it harder to register to vote, stay registered, and vote. They’ve done this by creating hoops for voters to jump through to register, purging voter rolls of already registered voters, and then limiting access to polling places and voting methods. Voter nullification means being able to reject ballots that have already been cast so that they are not counted. Most of us think of this happening by allowing the state legislatures to interfere with local elections boards and take over the election certification process.
They have other tools that they are willing to use. They plan on hijacking the mechanics of the election as it is happening.
There are two types of non-voting people staffing polling stations: poll watchers and poll workers.
POLL WATCHERS are people who are present at polling stations and during ballot counting to observe the process. Because elections are administered by the states, each state has laws that govern who can be poll watchers, what they can do, and how they are trained and qualified. However, in general, they appointed by candidates or political parties, so they can be explicitly partisan.
Because of their partisan nature, states have laws that prevent them from intimidating or interfering with the operation of the polling station or the counting of the ballots. And, you guessed it, in 2021, state legislatures across our fair land enacted laws that expanded their powers and allows them to interfere more easily and intimidate more effectively.
POLL WORKERS are usually little old ladies who sit at a table and smile a lot. They help you figure out if you’re registered, tell you what to do if you’re not or there is some other problem, and give you your ballot. They also help set up the polling station, including whatever machines are being used to vote and help get the ballots to the counting stations after the polls close.
They are trained by local elections officials. It is a paid position. Because of the #COVID19 pandemic, many of the older adults who usually did this work didn’t in 2020, and it was taken over by younger folks in overwhelming numbers. Their whole job is make sure that everyone showing up at the polling place has their best shot at casting their vote! That’s their job: understand the process of voting, the problems that might occur, the solutions to those problems, and help people navigate it from standing in line to carrying the cast ballots to the place where they’re counted.
Poll workers play a crucial role in ensuring the strength and integrity of the voting process. They are the lifeblood of America’s election system and they help secure our rights as U.S. citizens.
What is a Poll Worker?
Here’s the Republican plan as stated by a Republican Party operative during a meeting of grassroots activists in Michigan:
- Place their trained poll workers in key polling sites in heavily Democratic districts. The parties send lists of recommended poll workers to be trained and appointed by the election officials.
- Recruit local attorneys who will be in contact with the poll workers through a specially developed messaging app to advise them in real time.
- Develop a network of party-friendly district attorneys to block vote counts in targeted districts.
This is a complete subversion of our electoral process. Poll workers are supposed to be there to help, not cruise the polling places for “suspicious,” read that Black, voters like some common Ross Jeffries wannabe cruising the local disco for hot chicks. It is being done with complete malice aforethought. This is premeditated. It is planned, plotted, and executed.
“Being a poll worker, you just have so many more rights and things you can do to stop something than [as] a poll challenger,” said Matthew Seifried, the RNC’s election integrity director for Michigan.
‘It’s going to be an army’: Tapes reveal GOP plan to contest elections
They set a goal of recruiting 5,600 potential poll workers and recently submitted 850 names to the Detroit clerk. The clerk is legally bound to choose names from the list to ensure “bipartisanship.” In this case, the GQP has put the partisan back into bipartisanship.
The lesson from the 2020 election is that the coup has to have a thin veneer of legality smeared over it. That veneer comes from bringing cases in court. They need lawyers to advise on the legalities of the challenges and then district attorneys to bring the cases. The 2022 election will be fought in the courts. They want to bog the whole thing down to force non-democratic resolutions to contested elections. As Seifried said, “We’re going to have more lawyers than we’ve ever recruited, because let’s be honest, that’s where it’s going to be fought, right?”
Tim Griffin, legal counsel to The Amistad Project, a self-described election-integrity group that was once affiliated with Trump’s campaign through the malodorous machinations of Rudy Giuliani is recorded as claiming that district attorneys are more powerful than members of Congress because they can start investigations, seat grand juries,use subpoenas, and invoke many other legal measures.
Apparently, dancing in the fever dreams of many GQP operatives is cascade of chaos:
- A politically motivated and politically trained poll worker initiates challenges to numerous voters (Black) at targeted polling places (heavily Democratic districts).
- Realtime legal advice is given to the politically motivated and trained poll worker by an equally politically motivated lawyer to make sure that things are mucked up but good.
- Politically motivated challenges to the vote at the targeted heavily Democratic districts are brought to the Board of Canvassers, which have politically motivated believers in the Big Lie appointed to them who are impressed by the shear stink arising from all of the challenges. By Jove, where there’s smoke, there must be fire! Except when it is just dry humping ice in water.
- Politically motivated local district attorneys initiate investigations into polling fraud due to all of the plausible accusations initiated by the politically motivated and trained poll workers, supported by the politically motivated and trained lawyers.
- GQP dominated legislatures then intervene who refuse to certify the election results.
- And presto changeo, Whitmer’s election as governor and Jocelyn’s election as secretary of state are no longer valid.
- Throw in GQP federal and state judges and suddenly even the legal challenges are in doubt.
If you had any doubt about the malice for democracy that courses through Republican veins, this should clear that up for you. They are seeking to dismantle democracy from the inside out. They are going to remove the very pieces, the people, that make democracy work and replace them with people who will subvert the will of the people.
Surely, you’ll share this post, right?
Right? I mean, everyone should know about the GQP plan to destroy our democracy because forewarned, right?
Surely, you’ll like and rate this post because it is so vitally important, right?
Surely, you’ll leave a comment because you’re so outraged and motivated to do your part to preserve our democracy, right/
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Image Attribution
“Domino’s scooters” by Bourguiboeuf is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
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Categories: Political Psychology
The Psy of Life 
Here’s an insight into the GOP that I think you’ll like: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/6/13/2103841/-This-Ex-Republican-Just-Tweeted-The-Best-Thread-About-What-The-GOP-Is-About-Ever
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Howdy Bob!
You know me too well. I think the fellow is all too correct about that, and isn’t it just the perfect expression of narcissism and gaslighting?
Huzzah!
Jack
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Quite so.
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Why are things so messed up? Why is American democracy on life support?
I blame the founders. White privilege and minority rule were forged into the Constitution.
The founders undermined the new republic with 5 impediments to democracy, justice, and stability.
5 Poison Pills:
Slavery
Lifetime Supreme Court Justices
2nd Amendment
Electoral College
Anti-democratic Senate
More:
http://davedubya.com/2022/06/poison-pills.html
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Howdy Dave!
Thanks for the link. I’m being a bit swamped by end of the school year stuff, but should be back to better time management next week.
American history has been characterized by the push and pull between democratic and authoritarian forces. Luckily for us, the democratic have prevailed in all of our crisis points to date. We’ll see if we do again.
Each of those issues listed — other than the Second Amendment — were the result of compromise with authoritarian forces. The Second Amendment as it is currently interpreted is a fever dream. Each of those compromises makes it more difficult to form a more perfect union with spreading equality, but we’ve managed until recently.
Hopefully, the democratic forces will prevail again; although, there is no guarantee. Eventually, should we prevail, we need to eliminate those compromises like we, mostly, did slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment leaves the door open for enslaving prisoners, so we haven’t yet quite abolished slavery.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Elections are fast becoming the privatized levers to power, owned and operated by the Republican Party, CPAC, ALEC, the Federalist Society, NRA, and other anti-democratic forces of darkness and evil.
But we can rely on the institutionalized, traditional, corporate Democratic Party’s “adults in the room” to make it all better, right?
Right.
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Howdy Dave!
I’ll take the Democratic approach over the Republican approach any day. The Republican approach will only lead to violent rebellion. At least the Dems will provide a minimum of existence. While it might not be much, until recently, life expectancy continued to lengthen, social violence declined, systemic racism was diminishing, hunger and poverty was declining. By all metrics, life in the US was continuing to get better.
While our two-party democracy is probably the least democratic system possible, it still leaves the door open for the needs of the average person to influence policy and law, which is better than what the Republicans seem to have in mind for us. Once we vanquish the anti-democratic authoritarian forces (again), we can begin scrapping over corporatism versus leveling the playing field.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Reblogged this on cabbagesandkings524 and commented:
Calico Jack – The plan. already in motion.
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As ever. the cry will rise from the authoritarians of all leanings and flavors; “Hey, we tried that democracy thing. We gave it a chance for 200 years. I just doesn’t, can’t work. We have to try something else.”
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Howdy Bob!
That’s already the cry from authoritarians abroad, so why not homegrown ones, too? I think for our homegrown authoritarians, though, the complaint will be that non-male non-whites will have proportionate representation, eventually, in all levels of government, and that is too much of a risk, so they’d rather go with authoritarian minority white rule.
Huzzah!
Jack
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They have never actually believed in democracy for anybody who is not them.
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Howdy Bob!
The Great Civic Lesson continues. There has always been a segment — a large segment — of our population who does not really support democracy except as an instrument for racial, religious, and ethnic oppression. You can trace that group and their influence throughout US history. Luckily, when they’ve peaked in their power and influence, the forces of democracy have always prevailed. There is nothing that means it must continue to prevail, though.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Yes, ideas of inevitability in social/political/economic matters may be our greatest source of self-deception.
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But such a great source of comfort.
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Opium is also a source of comfort to many.
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And religion, TV, and social media is the opiate of the masses.
Jack
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Yep
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Best trick the devil ever pulled was loading us down with all that puritan pilgrim buffalo dung, thoroughly gaslighting the Cavaliers ~ the lesser sons and daughters of the landed gentry for whom there was no land in
England left to inherit, who brought their unsustainable baronial lifestyles to land grants in the “new world” a hundred years and more before the crew of the Mayflower dumped the disagreeable assholes (think xians singing praises on airplanes) off at the first rock ~ before they ran out of beer and killed them all. They tried to bring serfs and peons, the peasantry, with them but they just couldn’t bring enough, so they resorted first to enslaving the locals and when that didn’t work out (boy howdy) took to importing Africans. The rest, as they say, is history.
Which, of course, only makes itself known to those paying attention …
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The part about the younger sons of the gentry applies well to the entire project of European colonialism. But, in the case of English colonizing, dial back the clock some centuries and you see the Anglo-Saxon conquest of what would become England, an affair as brutal as any in history. Anything new under the sun? Well, I suppose that would be the weapons.
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Indeed, it can be argued it’s all Roman Colonialism, though I tend to see it through the lens of The Church’s response to whatever it was the Templars found in the catacombs of Palestine. I’ve long been a fan of Arthurian interpretations, of tales of red-headed queens and tattooed armies, the Walking Drum. Albion’s Seed.
My point is that part of our, the “American,” history, the history of our peculiar institution, is gaslighted out of the general discourse, yet is so clear in everything we’re seeing around us: the exceptionalism, the purity … I’m still trying to wrap words around it. It’s an unseen caste system that dates to a hundred years and more before the Puritans ate the natives. The Cavaliers brought that, and we can see its evolvution through The Founders, the expansionists, the Robber Barons and to our own gilded class. That whole sense of “I’m so much better than you.”
As I say, I’m still trying to wrap words around it. We talk a lot about gaslighting here, about manipulating a manipulatable population, and here we have perhaps the least known bit of our history that have been gaslight by the Puritan and Cowboy mythos. The root of all of our evils lay in the land grants of the Carolinas, Georgia and Virginia; the genocidal maniacs we’ve made heroes of are a mere manifestation of that evil.
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And we have only to observe the reaction (panic is not too strong a word for it) to the possibility that children might be taught and allowed to think about even one true thing about race history in this country to see the depth and pervasiveness of the mythology.
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Howdy Ten Bears!
The Puritans were largely based on the view that god shows his love through your earthly riches, so if you’re not rich, you’re not among the chosen to ascend to heaven. Consequently, we can treat you like chattel because god don’t care about you. That is at the core of American culture. It takes a long time and a lot of effort to work those foundational items out of deep culture.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Howdy Bob!
The history of Europe has been violent and brutal. I don’t suppose that it compares any more or less favorably to the history of any other part of the world, though. However, not all societies have valued violence as much as the Anglo culture has. For the British and their far flung descendents, might makes right. It is the basis for every action movie ever made.
We are saddled with the purest expression of this sad misguided approach to civilization with our gun culture.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Speaking of action movies, there is this interesting comment on Westerns: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/6/14/2104111/-Guns-didn-t-protect-pioneers-but-coffee-did
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Howdy Ten Bears!
Our historical roots are buried deep in classicism, racism, and misogyny, all of which, are distinctly anti-democratic. The British definitely suffered from a lack of imagination when it came to the New World. They expected their to mined and minted gold everywhere they landed just theirs because god loved them best. Instead, they were shocked to find they had to work for their riches here, so they did the next best thing and made other people work for their riches.
That’s the system we inherited, and those that still benefit from it are loath to change it.
Huzzah!
Jack
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