We took a long-shot chance and lost this battle. While, small, we did make history. An unprecedented number of electors broke, or tried to break, with expectation and voted for another candidate, in the hopes of influencing a Contingent election in Congress. Unfortunately, only 2 Republican electors broke with their party on the day of. I was hopeful that there would ultimately be more to come forward, but not enough Republican electors felt they wanted to take the risk of Trump’s wrath.
There was also ample evidence that many Republican electors, who might have wanted to vote otherwise, were placing party loyalty or artificial considerations first and foremost. One letter I received from an elector in Georgia, who is the president of a healthcare company, a few days ago demonstrated this tendency. He paid lip service to the “great passion” in the campaign “on both sides of the political spectrum.” While he stated he took his role as an Elector seriously, he believed his role was to strictly respect the wishes of the voters in Georgia as expressed on November 8, without any reflection about what motivations were underlying that vote.
I struggle to understand how any intelligent person can see what Donald Trump is doing and accept it passively. I could understand any one thing individually being rationalized, but the whole host should have tripped every warning—from sexual abuse, to derision of experts and delusions of grandeur, to business failings, to ties to Russia, and so on. We’ve preened ourselves on thinking that Americans have always been on heightened alert to fascism. Perhaps it is too distant in memory. Perhaps we’ve focused too much on the worst excesses of fascism at its full power, and haven’t done enough to educate about how they got that way. Or perhaps we are just too prideful and complacent.
It doesn’t help, of course, that a whole media industry has been built up to support conspiracy theory claims against Democrats. For 8 years, Obama was dogged by far right-wing fearmongering about martial law and death panels and stealing guns. It’s almost understandable if fears of authoritarian rule are just seen as a political tactic in this light.
But we can, and must, fight on.
We cannot allow any gateway to power to go uncontested.
We must wear down Donald Trump and those who continue to enable him until he is no longer in power.
We must take the flag back from those who would seize it from us.
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Action: The next stage is to contest validity of the electoral vote. This is not unprecedented. In the 2004 election, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Representative Stephanie Jones (D-OH) filed an objection to the electoral votes from Ohio based on voting irregularities and held up the confirmation of the electoral votes for 4 hours: www.sfgate.com/…
Senator Boxer said she regretted not filing an objection in 2000. Let’s make sure our party doesn’t have regrets this time either. Call your Democratic Senators and Congresspeople — Including Never-Trump Republicans! — and tell them you want to contest the electoral votes in states that narrowly went to Trump. Be sure to cite specific problems that undermine the integrity of the election results in that state. Strong contenders would likely be Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida. Voting irregularities would be big, but any factors that might have swung those states by a couple percent would be useful. Comey/FBI activity? Russian hacking/Trump collusion? (and recall that some downballot races were targeted too that could have had an effect: www.nytimes.com/...!)
These objections would be filed on January 6, 2016, when the new Congress (this is important—make sure you are talking to your new representatives and senators) reads and approves the Electoral College votes.
Will they stop Trump from taking power? Unlikely. But each roadblock builds on each other. They slow him down, force him to spend resources and attention on defending against these roadblocks rather than thinking about how to ruin the country and enrich himself, and sap him of his lingering aura of false legitimacy.
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P.S. I highly recommend paying attention to those who are speaking out actively against Trump. Although I know a fair number of you don’t like Twitter, it is an excellent spot for this. For example, I’ve found a great voice in Summer Brennan (@summerbrennan), a writer who worked at the UN for 8 years in nuclear disarmament and international security, and through her have been introduced to others. And Evan McMullin (@Evan_McMullin), for all his ideological conflicts with us, has been an extremely vocal opponent of Trump. We’ll need to find allies in all corners to get through this. I can’t say I provide a lot of novel material on Twitter, but I do pass along other content I see (@BioTurboNick).