https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-01-06/how-pro-trump-mob-stormed-us-capitol
Joe Biden is president: Hallelujah! Kamala Harris is Vice President: Hallelujah, and again I say, Hallelujah.
The inauguration ceremony was joyous, tasteful, meaningful and down right cool.
With the presidency, the senate and the congress all in the hands of progressives we should now be able to turn our attention away from the nightmare of Donald Trump and the Reactionary Republicans and focus fully on solving the great economic, medical and social problems of our time.
But we can’t - not just yet. In order to really be free to pursue matters of state we have to finally resolve two lingering and pernicious lies that that still circulate like bad money.
These two lies, stupid and easily disproven, are intimately connected to Trump’s election loss and the Republican attack on the Washington Capitol building just past. And even though Biden is president, and the country and the rest of the world is ready to move on, we have to spike these two lies in the heart and kill them dead. If we don’t they will continue to be used by Reactionary conservatives as talking points (in order to stoke rage and resentment) and cast doubt on every election in which a democrat wins.
Here are the two lies:
-Trump tried to incite an act of insurrection to prevent Biden from being certified as president just because he couldn’t believe that he lost the election.
Why does Donald Trump still refuse to accept the reality of his election loss? Why does he refuse to concede when every state in the nation has certified their votes, congress has certified Biden as the winner, and the country shown him the door?
Simple: he just can’t believe it! Even now the loss is too just too much of a surprise. It was totally unexpected! Donald Trump is a winner, not a loser! He has never lost anything, so how could he lose this election, especially when more than 74 million people voted for him?
It’s certainly true that Trump has a very powerful reality-denying coping mechanism somewhere underneath that yellow helmet of hair that sits on his head. But the election loss should not have been a surprise at all. In fact, his own election team had done an outstanding job of analyzing and assessing his chances of winning. Their work was so good that it almost exactly predicted the final vote count and Trump’s loss.
Alyssa Farah, who just recently resigned as the White House Communications director, knew the work of Trump’s election team very well and said as much.
Here are some of the details Farah told Politico as it appeared, in excerpt, in the Daily Beast: “The results of the election almost perfectly aligned with our internal polling. The Trump team always knew Pennsylvania was going to be a huge uphill battle, as was Arizona. North Carolina would be a squeaker. We’d win Florida. None of this should have come as a surprise to anyone who was following the results.”
You can click on the link to the full interview that Farah did with Politico. It is worth reading to understand how she, like other Republicans, tries to distance herself from Trump while still claiming to be proud of his many (supposed) accomplishments. It is also her chance to try and solidify her allegiance with the election-denying faction of the reactionary Republicans who still refuse to accept the election results because they were just so sure Trump had won.
The fact is that Trump’s own election team really did get it right: Pennsylvania was an uphill battle, and indeed, they lost there. Arizona was a stretch, and they lost it. North Carolina would be close but they would win, which they did. They predicted a win in Florida and they got it.
The exceptional accuracy of the Trump team’s polling, especially in the battleground states, undercuts the claim of his supporters that his crude attempts to force the Georgia Secretary of State to change the vote totals was not illegal because Trump really did believe that he won the state. Their own very accurate polling would never have given him any real idea that he would win there.
Donald Trump knew, or should have known, that he was going to have an uphill battle to win the 2020 election, and probably lose it outright. His continued refusal to concede the election and let the democratic process proceed as it should is due to his wounded ego not wanting to admit that he is a loser. And his words and actions leading up to his supporters storming the Capitol Building can be seen as nothing more than a crude attempt to cheat his way into a victory he never really had any reason to believe deserved to win.
-Republicans have been cheated because they never really had a chance to have their “concerns” and their “questions” of voter fraud addressed.
Let’s put this pathetic and obvious lie to rest: the Republicans have had many chances to challenge the election results. As soon as the election was over Trump’s supporters began to question the voting results and to start raising an endless number of questions and accusations: ballots were lost or misplaced; the ballots were improperly handled or stored; the ballots were not properly “cured”; there were too many ballots for the number of people who lived in a precinct; voting machines were rigged and unreliable. All of these things were done to deny Trump his lawful win.
Every time one allegation was disproven it was followed by another. For more than two months it has continued until senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley tried to stop the January 6th reading of the electoral ballots until an “audit” could be done. Get that? An audit of electoral college ballots that had already been checked and certified by their own state electors.
https://www.businessinsider.com/capitol-siege-antifa-false-theory-republicans-fox-news-2021-1
The conservative media, always the willing and eager lap dogs of Trump and the Reactionary Republicans, did their part to promote this lie. This was especially true in terms of making up one new snivel after another to keep providing ammunition and support for Republican legal challenges.
Now, at the last minute, both the Republican politicians, and the Reactionary media have come down to one last, lingering, snivel: something must have gone wrong with the voting because so many Trump supporters can’t believe that he lost.
You still hear echoes of this theme on reactionary talk shows all the time: “70 million people don’t believe Trump lost, and you can’t dismiss this,” “Voters still have questions that need to be answered and they deserve to a chance to get those answers,” “Republicans are are concerned that there are problems with the integrity of the vote, and no one is willing to listen to their concerns,” or “Republicans have never had a chance to ask the questions about voting irregularities that need to be asked.”
Whine, whine, whine, whine. Enough of these stupid Republican complaints that Republicans’ “concerns” were ignored and that they never had a fair chance to present their case.
All of the Republican allegations, accusations, complaints and questions have been exhaustively investigated. The election was fair and Trump lost.
Trump and his supporters have been trying to cheat their way to victory by challenging the election process and result in four major battle ground states: Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Georgia. Georgia in particular has been subject to Trump’s anger and extortion attempts with threatening phone calls to the Georgia Secretary of State.
Ok, conservatives, for the record, here is why we demand that you shut up forever about this (and fess up to your illegal actions in storming the Capitol Building):
All the governors of those battle ground states you lost have said the same thing: you lost, and the election was fair.
All four Secretaries of State, Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Georgia, have certified that the elections were free of tampering and nothing illegal happened: you lost and the election was fair.
The Republican Secretary of State for Georgia has done three recounts under strict supervision, including a confirming hand recount on the third round: you lost and the election was fair.
Not enough for you? How about this: legal questions of truth or falsehood about elections are settled in our courts of law. This is where you go to get a fair hearing of your case, with rules of evidence, standards of conduct, and a judge or jury to make an impartial decision.
In the federal appeals courts Republicans have had 60 (that’s right, sixty!) chances to have a fair hearing of their allegations of voter fraud and their “concerns” about illegal voting practices. And you have LOST EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. You are 0 - 60!
The judge who struck down Rudy Giuliani’s attempt to overthrow the election results in Pennsylvania had a good explanation for why the Republicans have never prevailed in a court of law (and why they should shut up). “Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of democracy. Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here,” Judge Stephanos Bibas - one of Trump’s own nominees - wrote in a 3-0 federal appeals court decision upholding a district court judge’s refusal to allow Trump’s campaigns to relitigate the case after it was dismissed.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/beyond-embarrassment-legal-experts-say-trump-giuliani-s-floundering-efforts-n1248667
Yeah, just calling an election unfair does not make it so. 60 federal court of appeals lawsuits say - you lost and the election was fair.
Well, how about an appeal to the Supreme Court? After all, the court has been packed with six Reactionary Republican justices, three of which were hand selected by Trump himself. Do you mean to tell me that these people would not listen to Republican “concerns” of voter fraud.
Oh yeah, the Supreme Court refused to even hear an appeal by Trump’s lawyers - you lost and the election was fair.
One last stop. The Attorney General of the United States, Bill Barr. He’s Trump’s hand picked man and a virtual lap dog for him and his policies. What did he say? Yeah, no evidence of fraud to launch an investigation - you lost, and the election was fair.
https://www.businessinsider.com/ag-barr-confirms-lack-of-widespread-fraud-in-election-2020-12
It is time to simply tell Trump and the Republicans to shut up: they have had way too many bites at the apple and failed at every single one of them.
It doesn’t matter a damn if the Republicans can’t believe that Trump lost the election. Your beliefs, absent any evidence, don’t matter. And I don’t care that millions of Trump supporters “feel” the election was stolen. Your feelings, like your beliefs, don’t matter at all in the absence of any evidence to validate them. Certainly Hillary Clinton and her supporters were shocked and couldn’t fathom that she had lost to Trump. But once the votes were counted, and certified, she and they had the integrity to accept the results.
And no sniveling about Trump supporters still having “questions” about voter integrity that “demand” an answer. Every time one allegation has been disproven by an election official or dismissed in a court of law you have contrived to invent another “problem” or find another “concern” that simply must be “addressed” before you will admit to the obvious. This is all just a very thinly veiled attempt to cast doubt on an election that you lost. To hell with it!
Trump and the Reactionary Republicans have lost in every arena of dispute that they have tried. In their frustration that Trump has lost, and at his continual urging and incitement, they resorted to violence and treason. This is why Trump supporters attacked the Washington Capitol building - they felt entitled to something they legitimately lost and like violent overgrown children they just decided that they could take everyone else’s building blocks in a nasty tantrum.
Vote progressive, live progressive, be a true patriot.