I know how to fix the tampered election
I’m obviously missing something because I’ve seen several articles along these lines lately. Yochi Dreazen in Vox, Dec. 20th:
In a best-case scenario, Russian President Vladimir Putin has managed to persuade tens of millions of Americans to question the integrity of the US political system and the legitimacy of Donald Trump’s narrow win. In a worst-case scenario, the Kremlin just handed the White House to the most jarringly pro-Russian presidential candidate in American history. …
And yet there may be no response. Nor is it even obvious what the response should, or would, be.
Not even obvious what the response should be? ??!?
He points out the disproportionality of a military response and the futility of trying to rig Russian elections back at them when they’re already fully rigged.
All of which seems like barking up the wrong tree in the wrong forest.
The answer is self-evident. You deny them (whoever “Them” are) their ill-gotten gains.
You re-run all the elections that had a whiff of tampering.
This time under the eyes of observers from all concerned parties you hand count the all-paper ballots.
And you do it now. Rerun January 14th. Delay inauguration pending results. Problem solved and tampering rendered pointless.
What is so hard about that concept?
.
Update Dec 26th. It takes me way too long to face reading all the sad links stacked up in my bookmarks. Moscow on the Potomac (Dec 21) provides a detailed, very well sourced article on the appalling level of the Dumpster Fire’s entanglement with Putin.
I grew up in a Russian family in the US. The “better dead than Red” hysteria of the old days was beyond stupid. But this is different. Putin got his start rising to the top of the heap in the KGB. The KGB. Americans seem to have no concept what that means. And that’s the guy who’s messing with democracies all over the Western world.
That’s an existential threat on the order of climate change to democracy and the rule of law, to say nothing of the US way of life.
The only appropriate reaction is to charge at the danger with your hair on fire.
It’s an attack on — and apparently successful takeover of! — this country. Ordering a rerun of the election, now, is essential. Obama could appropriately declare martial law if that’s what it takes to redo the election. Because that’s what martial law is for: extraordinary measures in defense of the country when it’s been attacked.
Instead he’s on vacation and the Dems are trying to figure out how to “work with” that shambling disaster.
Update, 2017-01-24: This is what I was trying to say: @miragonz “it’s like democrats and republicans were playing a board game, then the republicans were like ‘fuck it’ and lit the house on fire, but dems are still just sitting in the burning house trying to win the board game.’
That’s what I was trying to say with ‘hair on fire!’ ‘martial law!’ ‘dooooo something!’ Calling out the fire department is an appropriate response; worrying whether repubs will, zomg!, think you’re partisan is not.
I agree – we need a re-do and hand counting of the paper ballots!
But I know very little of how this can be done, or even if it can be done. Does Obama have the authority to unilaterally order a re-do of the election?
Also, a lot of people are very afraid of martial law and think it would be a disaster under any circumstances, but I don’t know.
We would also need the ballot counting to be monitored by both sides/nonpartisan monitors. In the aborted recount that took place recently in (Michigan, I think?) I read that lawyers for Trump were circling like vultures all over the place, making one objection after another and generally guaranteeing that nothing got done. There were apparently no lawyers for Hillary or Jill Stein present.
Branjor on December 26th, 2016 at 09:39
” lawyers for Trump were circling like vultures all over the place, making one objection after another and generally guaranteeing that nothing got done”
Yes, I read about that too. We (the US) can’t even seem to do a recount right.
/*endless screaming*/
The bit about martial law is me running around in small circles with my hair on fire. It’s not a good thing. Martial law, that is. Me running around in small circles is just business as usual. What I’m saying is “DISASTER! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!” followed by /*endless screaming*/
Seriously, the worst thing about this whole fiasco is watching way too many people nodding along because even recognizing the situation, let alone doing anything, is just icky-poo. Or something.
quixote on December 26th, 2016 at 10:02
Maybe US elections/recounts should be monitored by the UN if we can’t do it fairly ourselves.. Really, I would rather have that than Trump for a “president.”
Yes, that is the most frustrating and frankly disturbing part of it to me. Not even the president had the nerve to tell the American people about the Russian interference in our election due to not wanting to seem “partisan.” And Loretta Lynch was too timid to order Comey not to send the letter for the same reason. So to hell with our country, the integrity of our elections, our right to get the president the majority of us voted for, Hillary’s rights as an American, everything. They are some major milquetoasts. And meanwhile, the republican party is lying, cheating and stealing as much as they want. Al Gore fought in 2000 and lost when the SCOTUS ordered the recount to stop, and ever since then Democrats just roll over and play dead whenever the republicans cheat and steal an election.
Given the situation, I’m not even sure martial law wouldn’t be justified temporarily if that is what it took to re-do the election.
Branjor on December 26th, 2016 at 18:29
Late update. I gather Glenn Greenwald is feeling snooty about people who “invoke the Cold War” by using terms like KGB.
If only. The Cold War was downright cosy compared to the fun fair mad house hall of mirrors we’re in now. Then it was just: Nuclear annihilation today? No, not today. Whew. Maybe tomorrow.
I use KGB because that means what I’m trying to say: one of the most ruthless inhuman psychological and physical torture machines ever invented. FSB or GRU or whatever the technically accurate term is now hasn’t acquired its true associations yet. Which is why they changed the name.
It serves their purpose if you go along with it, you know, Glenn? (You were always a misogynist, which I guess was a tell right from the start. But you were partly part of the resistance once. How’d you go from that to useful idiocy so fast?)
quixote on January 4th, 2017 at 12:20