Monday, December 19, 2016

On to the EC

I don't expect them to do their Hamiltonian Duty and refuse to seat DJT on the Throne. It would be too much for them to handle in their fifty or fifty one separate meetings around the country, and the Electors would face unknown risks if they were to follow something like a conscience rather than rote. Na ga happen.

But I think I've made clear that I believe neither Trump nor anyone like him should ever become president of these United States, and that I favor nearly any means to thwart his ascension.

If that means a coup, oh well. It's not as if there haven't been coups in the past. Somehow we manage.

The notion that were he to be denied the presidency there would be a civil war is silly, but the fear of it is a brake on the efforts to undo the outcome of the election. The fear of civil war was part of the rationale for seating Bush Jr on the throne back in the day, and the signs of its possibility -- if not probability -- were clearer then than they are now. I witnessed the armed insurrectionists gathering in their thousands at California's state capitol demanding that Bush be seated forthwith -- "or else" -- and I saw the children crying and heard the bellowing of cowardly men with guns threatening the peace and order of the nation if they didn't get their way.

This was happening in many capitol cities, and it was part of the reason why the Supreme Court intervened as they did to stop the recounts in Florida and hand the presidency to Bush Jr and his bloodthirsty cabal.

But the message of that lawless intervention was that the actual vote and actually counting the votes doesn't matter. An intervention will take place -- call it a coup, cause that's what it is -- if the outcome is either in doubt or because the vote doesn't comport with the interests of the owners and sponsors of the government. And there is literally nothing we the Rabble can do about it. Period. End of discussion.

Our Rulers took that tack in 2000 and they were right. There was nothing we could do about it or at least nothing we could do to change it. The catastrophe could not be stopped, and in the end, it could not be delayed or mitigated.

We are still suffering from the consequences of that fateful decision of 16 years ago. And not just Americans are suffering. Millions upon millions are suffering around the world because of it, many in existential crisis. Americans are lucky in that regard; at least most are not yet as bad off as the millions of refugees attempting to survive the horrors and crises brought on by the Bush Jr regime and kept going by Mr. Obama. At least there aren't yet millions of dead Americans due to the horrors and crises precipitated by the Bush Jr regime and carried on with only slight mitigations by Mr. Obama and his bloodthirsty cabal. At least... well, you get the picture.

The mythology growing up around Mr. Trump is that he -- alone -- wouldn't do these things, that he -- alone -- will solve the insoluble by main force (cause he's such an Alpha Male), and he -- alone -- has prevented nuclear holocaust, because he did.

It's horseshit. Pure unadulterated horseshit.

But it's the kind of horseshit that is necessary to prop up yet another illegitimate and destructive occupier of the White House. It's full frontal propaganda.

Believe it at your own risk.

I'm not sure whether the Trump apologists and online defenders actually believe the horseshit they spread day in and day out, but whether they do or not really doesn't matter. It appears that there is a much stronger and more widespread nihilist component among the online critics of the status quo than I would have thought. Always before, they tended to caution against too abrupt change, generally claiming that the ship of state takes time to to turn, and that revolution or overthrow or violence of any kind is ill-advised as a political tool; best to go along with the rule of Our Betters while cogently criticizing their actions. It was better to engage in intellectual exercises than actually do anything against the Ruling Clique.

All that went out the window when it became clear that Trump and Hillary would contend for the White House. Everyone believed that Hillary would win in a walk, so attacking her and hailing Trump as a Savior was not seen as disruptive or destructive, it was seen as part and parcel of cogent criticism. Since the status quo was not actually expected to change, all sorts of hyperbolic hoo-hah was allowed and puffed up charges against the Hag and puffed up defenses of the Evil Clown became the standard of political discourse online and in the campaigns themselves.

The opposite was just as true among Hillary believers and Trump attackers.

The outcome was supposed to be a Hillary win, and she was supposed to be weakened by an R majority congress. It was all gamed out.

When that didn't happen, panic ensued. Panic especially among the faction of the Ruling Clique who had done their due diligence preparing for the continuation of the status quo. But there was also panic among a wide cross-section of the public who recognized the clear and present danger to them that the advent of Trumpian rule of an undivided government represented.

Trump defenders do not recognize the danger, or if they do, they insist the danger was greater with Clinton -- who  everybody knows would have started WWIII with Russia -- and thus the casualty toll under Trump will be less in the end. This is an extraordinary level of foolishness and nihilism, but there you are.

One has to have that sense of disinterest in what happens to others in order to defend Trump and it is nearly universal among his defenders.

As I say, I don't expect the Electors to do their duty today, and I do expect them to elect Trump with somewhat less than the 306 Electoral votes he was credited with on election night.

The next proper step to thwart his ascension is at the initial meeting of Congress in January, when all it would take is one senator's and one house member's challenge to cause a "question" over his election. That will probably happen, as it should have happened with Bush Jr, but no senator stepped up, and so there was no question. This time is different.

We'll see.

The coup seems to have fizzled out for the moment. But you never know.

ADDING:

While the results of the EC vote are not surprising, there was an interesting twist in the whole affair. I'm not sure of the details, but from a quick skim of the news about it, apparently Hamilton Electors were not allowed in several states where Electors wanted to cast protest votes. They were "ordered" to cast votes for the state's popular vote "winner" -- we really can't say who actually won because of the opacity of voting and vote counting -- and when they refused, they were replaced with alternate Electors (that's a new piece of the puzzle.)

Who was in charge of this process is a mystery, but I imagine the information is out there. Some Electors were able to vote their conscience -- and not for Trump or Hillary -- but the majority of those who wanted to go Hamiltonian were prevented from doing so.

Interesting.



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