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I read a friend’s email from last night when I woke this morning. She wrote that if she wasn’t feeling hopeless about the election before, she was after watching Rachel Maddow’s show where she talked about what was revealed in the alarming article in
The Atlantic by Barton Gellman. By now you know that The Atlantic article revealed the details of Trump’s plan for a coup to steal the election by having the Republican legislators in swing states replace the electors pledged to the winner. She certainly has a reason to feel both hopeless and damn anxious now. (Update based on some of the comments: I do not feel hopeless myself, but I do feel anxious.)
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I watched the show too, and Lawrence O’Donnell afterwards. As if learning about Trump’s sociopathic (see story on right) dictatorial authoritarian plan wasn’t bad enough it was being reported that two police offers were shot Louisville where protests about the
Breonna Taylor grand jury decision were going on thus giving Trump more reasons to incite his base.
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I slept fitfully and woke at 3 AM Oregon time when Morning Joe was just starting on the east coast and there was Barton Gellman being interviewed. My anxiety was palpable. I couldn’t get back to sleep.
My friend’s plea to me in her email, as you can see in my illustration, was “can you talk me off the ledge.”
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Hell, Hal… you aren't even sure you can talk yourself off the ledge (or cliff).
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I feel I am being pursued by people who want to destroy me both personally, as I have little doubt that my life ain’t worth a bucket of spit to these people, and they want to obliterate everything I believe in about our country.
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I can't decide whether I’m in the car with Thelma and Louse about to drive off a cliff to certain death being cornered by a small army of law enforcement who want to shoot the shit out of them. Or maybe more optimistically I’m with Butch and Sundance, also being pursued by people who want to kill them, I’ll join them and leap off a cliff with the desperate hope I’ll survive the plunge into the river and make my way with them to Bolivia.
From former Assistant Attorney General for Counterterrorism Joshua Geltzer, who is the founding executive director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection as well as a visiting professor at Georgetown.
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“Here’s what you can do if you’re panicking over Trump trying to steal the election.”
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“There's a lot of concern right now about Trump & how he might handle an election loss after @bartongellman's article & the terrible answer Trump gave to @BrianKarem But we're not powerless to ensure a peaceful transfer if Trump loses.Here's what can be done now.” /1 (Read Twitter thread)
Thursday, Sep 24, 2020 · 5:41:15 PM +00:00 · HalBrown
Not having slept much last night and getting up at 3:30 and writing this starting at 4 AM I am just getting around to the comments after taking a nap. I see that some of the people seem to be responding as if I was contemplating killing myself, or giving up the fight, and I did not mean to convey either of these. This is not what I wrote. If you think it is read the two paragraphs above the videos again. Note that I wrote how this made me feel, not what I wanted to do or would do. If you’ve read my previous diaries you know I am not one to retreat from a fight.
If you only watched Fox News you wouldn’t even know this was happening.