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Oh you sweet, summer child. After the election ends, we're going to have at least a month of coordinated all-out fighting from the fascists to stop the votes from being certified -- if Georgia's and Arizona's popular vote results get accurately reflected in the final EC tally it'll be a minor miracle -- and years of "stop the steal" election denial and stochastic terrorism after that.
And that's the best-case scenario.
Just like last time I will be holding my breath from November 5 till January 20.
Considering that Biden is currently in power, and the Democratic Candidate is the VP, I don't think there's any danger of a contested transition. Once the votes are counted, the only fuckery the Trumpists could pull would be organized violence, and the military is firmly under Biden's control.
Once the votes are counted
You do realize the MAGAs have been appointing "stop the steal" conspiracists to positions throughout the elections bureaucracy and are trying to recruit 100,000 poll "watchers" (read: saboteurs) specifically to try to stop that from happening, right?
Four years ago, the Trump campaign filed 50+ lawsuits trying to throw out votes because of alleged fraud that were basically all thrown out because no fraud could be found, and failed to stop states from certifying votes because the bureaucrats were doing their jobs. Now, they're in a position not only to severely obstruct the counting and certification in the first place, but also sue over accusations of fraud that will be credible because their dumbass followers will have committed it themselves!
And of course, it'll all be juuuuust stochastic and "lone wolf" enough that the Trump campaign itself will have [im]plausible deniability for directing it. The Heritage-Foundation-stacked courts will fall over themselves in their haste to clear Trump of any wrongdoing, while simultaneously saying "aww shucks we still have to invalidate the vote tho" or slow-walking any case they can't plausibly say that about. This will result in either Trump crossing the 270 EC vote threshold by courts handing him wins for states where whole swathes of results for Democratic-leaning precincts have been thrown out, or throwing out enough results that neither candidate gets 270 votes so that the election gets decided by a "one state, one vote" poll in the House. Either way, Trump regains the Presidency "legally," all Hell breaks loose with Project 2025 and the Supreme Court ruling making the President a king, and American democracy as we know it is over.
Please: save this comment, come back to it on Inauguration Day, and mock me for being wrong when democracy and the rule of law prevails. Be merciless about it! Ridicule me to within an inch of my life for my silly, unfounded worrying. I'm serious: please do that and I will love you for it.
Because I have no greater wish than to be wrong about this.
I'm not reading all that.
I was responding to someone who is worried about the time between votes being counted and the swearing in. The fuckery you mentioned initially doesn't address that, since it occurs during the vote count. If your criticism needs to exceed the scope of my statement, then I'm not going to read it.
No, you were responding to someone worried about the time "from November 5 till January 20." That's very much inclusive of the vote counting and certification, not subsequent to it. If you're gonna use pedantry as a petty excuse for bad-faith contrarianism, the least you could do is not fuck it up!
And "i'M nOt goInG to rEAd iT" -- really? What are you, a small child having a tantrum? Quit huffing hopium and whining about being confronted with reality.
the illegitimate supreme court is very much a danger.
That's true, to a degree. However, If they do something egregious enough, I suspect Biden or Harris will be able to deal with it without expending political capital. What, aside from denying a recount do you think they might do that would have an impact?
Precisely. The real ugliness and violence is currently only simmering. The election is when the boil begins. And the boilover comes after that.
Remember: if Trump wins, there will be disorder, dispersed violence, and then state violence: mass deportations and the disruption and dissolution of various dimensions of the state itself as fascism assumes the helm.
If Trump loses, there will be broad social conflict, disorder, and intensive violence, including a rise in domestic terrorism. I'm actually concerned we will see something like "The Troubles" in Ireland. Federal and state agencies and institutions will be attacked as well as infrastructure: things like power stations and bridges.
There is no threading the needle here. Either scenario results in chaos and violence. Both scenarios result in an increase in danger and a decrease in stability. There's no winning move. We'll think back to this moment as "the good days." Strap in.
To be clear, Trump losing (not just the vote, but also his inevitable attempt to seize power anyway afterward) is definitely the vastly preferable scenario here -- "Troubles" are way better than a full-blown dictatorship -- so stopping him is, if not "the" winning move, at least the do-or-die first step towards it.
There is no validity to a dismissive "eh, either way it's gonna be bad" attitude here. We are in an existential fight to achieve "pretty bad" because the alternative is "absolutely catastrophic."
Recognizing that things are going to bad regardless of who is elected is simple pragmatism. There's nothing dismissive about it at all. Quite the opposite.
Harris winning the election (which, in terms of the electoral college, she's currently on pace to narrowly lose), will not decrease the amount of active fascists in the United States, so, regardless of who wins, there's going to be trouble and there's going to be a lot of work to do that can't be done with upvotes, downvotes, or social media posts.
It would be wise for people to be prepared for what is to come. Ignoring it makes it worse.
Edit: for instance, there is a man in the woods near I-75 by London, Kentucky picking random people off with a rifle right now. I'm afraid we're going to see a lot more of that kind of stochastic terrorism, which will not simply go way if Harris wins. There are serious problems in America.
There's nothing dismissive about it at all. Quite the opposite.
I mean, somebody downvoted your previous response. My best guess as to why is that your "either scenario... there are no winners" bit was perhaps poorly phrased and easy to misconstrue, so that's what I addressed.
somebody downvoted your previous response
I'll be OK. So will they.
The US election cycle is continuous. Someone will win in November, there’ll likely be some bullshit to keep it in the news until inauguration day, then give a week before the party that lost starts the process of finding their pick to contest the next election.
From a foreign perspective it’s tedious as fuck. Our elections are called and wrapped up within 8 weeks, and even that feels too long.
Your comment makes me wonder if 1930s Europeans thought German politics were similarly tedious.