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Remember that the post-2020 US election Time article "The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election"? Somewhere between a victory lap and credit-claiming at a time it was generally thought Trump's political prospects were dead, it was a rare look behind the scenes of retroactively-admitted coordinated political obstruction and shaping efforts.
It was also the article with the memorable distinction of-
Well, the New York Times on Sunday published a more pre-emptive form of democratic fortification: The Resistance to a New Trump Administration Has Already Started.
The article in short is a look at different wings of the Democratic Party apparatus, and steps they are taking in anticipation of a Trump victory to foil the predicted efforts of the 2025 Project. Some of these fears seem a good deal less grounded than others- Trump has been an abortion moderate such that it's hard to see why a Democratic governor would need to stock years of abortion supplies in a state warehouse beyond political theater- but then the article is quite likely a form of political theater. As far as election-year advertising goes, it's both a 'here are all the horrible things that could happen' fear campaign-
-with the ACLU specifically focusing on four areas of potential lawfare-
-but all with a back-edge 'but we thwarted him before and can do it again' of tribal-protection promise.
Not necessarily optimistic, but a 'we will fight for you' solidarity / call for support framing.
While there is the occasional (potentially deliberate) amusing word choice in ways that anyone who has used the term the Cathedral might appreciate-
The core strategies include the following, none of which are particularly surprising but which are good to see identified clearly in advance:
-Passing executive actions in the Biden administration before certain timelines so that Trump can't immediately revert them
-Litigation waves to tie things in court, with recruitment of sympathetic plaintiffs with likely standing already occuring
-Implicitly by virtue of the acknowledged past strategies and current participants, more protests
-More explicitly legal preparations to prevent/limit federal intervention in protests
-A national-scale counter-ICE network to disrupt immigration raids
-Pre-emptively doing self-auditing of activist group finances in preparation of politically motivated IRS scrutiny
-Various state-based nullification theory application (such as 'inter-state commerce doesn't apply to FDA if I already have the goods in-state')
-Use of Never-Trump 'ex-Republicans' groups as part of the Democratic network, especially the Principles First organization.
(Principles First was a Never Trump wing of the Republican Party associated with Liz Cheney that started in 2022 during the anti-Trump former Republican establishment's efforts to reassert control / torpedo Trump's post-presidential prospects by cooperating with the Democrat-led impeachment trial. Since then, and her fall from the Republican Party, it's been casting itself as an alternative to CPAC. Interestingly it also works in concert with Ranked Choice voting lobbying. (In the US, ranked choice voting is often, but not always, associated with the Democratic Party, at least in the sense of pushing for it in Red / Purple, but not Blue, states.)
None of this is unique, unusual, or dangerous. Leftist NGOs and Democratic governors/AGs preparing for a potential second term of Trump. Sinister-sounding quotes like "controlling the flow of information" and "democracy-proofing our institutions" but nothing actually out of the ordinary in terms of real actions. I'll remind you that the vast majority of the actual escalation has come from Republicans. Remember J6? Remember "the election was stolen!!!" 70% of Republicans still believe that crap.
Trump will try some hamfisted executive orders, which will get massacred in the courts like much of his EO's did in his first term. He'll declare victory anyways, and the base will love him because they desire the appearance of "owning the libs" more than any actual substantive policy changes.
In that such sinister actions are perfectly ordinary, yes. Leaning on social media companies to suppress inconvenient stories, wiretapping the opposition campaign, fabricating evidence of Russian collaboration by the opposition, etc.
So the Democrats have a whole bunch of riots, then steal an election, and when the Republicans have one riot and complain about the election being stolen that's the vast majority of the escalation?
Once again, there's no evidence the election was stolen. Just an endless gish gallop from Trump, and his supporters motte-and-bailey'ing him with vastly weaker claims when pressed (e.g. "the election was stolen because the media is biased against Trump") before going right back to assuming the strong claims were true when they weren't being pressed.
Look at you, escalating by claiming there's no evidence. There was that Georgia water main break. And the Pennsylvania election law changes.
The Georgia incident wasn't a water main break, it was a leaking toilet. Nobody was instructed to leave the ballot counting area. No ballots were impacted. This has been documented already.
Alright, you and @Ben___Garrison are getting two things confused. The water leak was earlier in the morning and had nothing to do with anyone leaving. At around 10 pm the Fulton County people decided to call it for the evening and began packing up. They finished around 10:30 and people started to leave, including the media and observers. When they told the Secretary of State's office they were told that they were to continue counting through the night, at which point they went back in and began counting. The water main break only ogt into this story through journalistic sloppiness, I'm guessing because someone with a news outlet Tweeted a rumor they overheard and it got reported as news. Either way, I don't see what this has to do with any evidence of fraud. I'm guessing the argument is that they wanted to get the observers out of there so they could pull all those fake Biden ballots they had hidden under the table and count them, but there's no evidence of this. It's pretty clear from CCTV footage that the ballot boxes they pulled out from under the table at 11 pm were the same ones they pushed under the table at 10:30. I don't know how the observers present would have been able to tell a fake ballot from a real one. I don't know how you can convince dozens of election workers (who are usually county employees and generally don't want to be there) to commit blatant fraud without any of them giving up the whole thing. I don't know how you could convince a Republican state government to go along with the fraud and the subsequent coverup. I don't know the mechanism for how fake ballots are supposedly generated. This entire theory makes no sense. Even if the accusations of the county phonying up a water main break to get observers out of there were true, you still have to prove the fraud.
Interesting. Somehow I follow this place pretty closely, skim the headlines most days and was nevertheless completely unaware of the full facts of this story.
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