It's about the process.
Oh, you can follow the horse race, be outraged at Trump and his minions' shenanigans at their convention this week, but it won't make any difference. Just like the pardon of Roger Stone didn't make a difference. Just like the Senate's report on Russia didn't make a difference. Just like Trump's sister's statements won't make a difference.
It's simple folks, in a fair election, Biden wins by a landslide. Oh, I could point to reasons, but that would be a waste of time, the same waste we're going to endure for the next two months in the media. It's a sideshow. Forget the issues, the personalities, the personal attacks, they're all irrelevant. It comes down to the election itself. The actual voting. Who gets to. Whose ballot is counted. How are ballots counted. What qualifies and what is not legitimate. What is the time frame for delivery and counting. Who gets to certify the results.
This is the story and most people are not getting it. Especially those still in thrall to last week's DNC show, believing their hearts are in the right place, that we should all shut up and rally around old Joe and we can ride the wave to victory and a restoration of the good old United States we grew up in. WRONG!
Where to start?
The law. It always comes down to the law. That's how Bush emerged victorious in 2000. The Supreme Court handed him the victory. Because Republican attorneys were more savvy and fought harder than the lawyers representing the Democrats. They played to win. They even had Roger Stone organizing the Brooks Brothers riot in Miami.
So, you need to listen to Larry Lessig on legal shenanigans, ones you're completely unaware of:
apple.co/3jamNX4
Yes, it's my podcast. But Lessig does the talking. Right up front. You don't need to listen for an hour and a half, but you should. There are many ways the Republicans can turn a losing election into a winning one. Or at least muddy the water to the point there's no consensus on a result.
Emotions are irrelevant, at the end it comes down to the law. This is why you don't want to defend yourself in court. You're operating under the illusion if you just explain, the judge will see the wisdom in your words and exonerate you. WRONG! It's not like talking to your dad, deciding what is fair, it all comes down to the statutes. Under the codified law, under stare decisis, i.e. decisions prior, are you guilty or not? It's a game wherein you fit the facts into a system. You can't win Monopoly by jumping from Boardwalk to Park Place, you must pass Go! Remember that. It's kind of like the people who believe Ticketmaster is the devil and if they were in charge, ticketing would be equitable... They ignore history, they assume concert promotion is not an established game executed by serious players. Everybody thinks they can do everything in America, but they're wrong.
Which brings me to the concept of "Useful Idiots."
"How the 'Useful Idiots' of Liberal New York Fueled Income Inequality": nyti.ms/2QkSKiJ
Read this interview, it won't take long. The bottom line is the educated bleeding heart liberals telling us all to shut up and line up behind Biden are the same ones who enabled the rise of the right, they were complicit. I know, sounds wrong, but the truth hurts.
And if you want to go deeper, read the review of the book:
"Kurt Andersen Asks: What Is the Future of America?": nyti.ms/3gp1wqw
It is written by Anand Giridharadas. If you're unfamiliar with Anand, watch his appearance on the unnecessarily canceled "Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj," start at 8:10.
Yes, we have met the enemy and he is us. We not only stood by, we enabled Wall Street and the corporations to remodel America in their vision, where taxes are low, income inequality is high and the average punter has no idea what is going on.
But, once again, the theme of this screed is the election process itself.
Which leads me to:
"What Happens If Donald Trump Fights The Election Results? - Stealing a Presidential election in America is difficult, but it has been done before.: bit.ly/2Ejd69Q
You can scroll past the history of the election of 1876. it lends perspective, but it is not necessary.
Bottom line...they've been war-gaming the election, an organization entitled the "Transition Integrity Project."
Not that this "New Yorker" article is the only coverage of this.
Just shy of a week ago, Michelle Goldberg, who happened to be complicit in the killing of Bernie Sanders' candidacy, her husband worked for Warren, and even after Warren's campaign was decimated she attacked Bernie, wrote:
"Trump Might Cheat. Activists Are Getting Ready. Election sabotage needs to be met with the largest protests yet.: nyti.ms/3aP72le
But bottom line, the articles raising the flag about the system, about corruption therein, about manipulation thereof, are vastly overwhelmed by news about the horse race.
If you think Trump and the Republicans are gonna allow a fair fight and then accept loss you haven't been paying attention. Furthermore, why are you so sure Trump's team won't take to the streets, what makes you sure he won't tell them to take to the streets?
Like I said, it's over. It's as if they played the World Series and the only issue is instant replay. Even better, the Super Bowl, where there are so many nuanced, questionable calls. And then it not only becomes about the calls, but who hired the refs. And then who provided the technical equipment. And then who owns the teams. And then which network broadcast the game. You can go up the food chain and muddy the water to where a great percentage of the public questions the result, then what?
But the same people, the same useful idiots who believed that Wall Street and the corporations were their friends, if for no other reason than the value of their real estate went up, keep focusing on the issues, when they're completely irrelevant. We already ran this movie, they called it the midterm election of 2018. Wherein the night of the results the pundits, these same media people sidling up to the privileged class, said there was no change, that it was business as usual, and then as the ballots continued to be counted found out they were wrong, that there was a sea change, the Democrats took over the House, leftists got elected. And in the ensuing two years conditions have only gotten worse!
Yet we've got those in the DNC, the prognosticators, saying to beware of 2016, that Trump might pull it off again. HE CAN'T! The main reason Trump won in 2016 was because Hillary Clinton had been vilified for decades, to the point where even Democrats wouldn't vote for her. Furthermore, Trump was someone with no record, and now he's got one, and anybody who thinks it looks good is blind.
Then again, the dirty little secret of many Trump voters is that their position has nothing to do with the issues, they just hate liberals that much.
So, Biden vs. Trump is a sideshow. If there were no more politicking, no more coverage, Biden would still win the election. Instead, because it sells papers, like the Kardashians and the rest of the nonsense the media promotes, we'll be subjected to facts and analyses for two months to the point where we'll dig deeper into our holes, argue further for our candidates when it all doesn't matter.
Then again, the press is not fair and balanced anyway. All that coverage of Kurt Andersen's book? It was placed there by PR people. Andersen is a certified member of the journalistic class. You could write the same book and have no chance of being reviewed in the "New York Times," get no ink at all. Kind of like Sarah Kendzior with her book "Hiding in Plain Sight," the "New York Times" and the "Washington Post" wouldn't even review it. But if you want to know the score in today's America it's the number one source. You see Trump is playing by the authoritarian handbook. One that Democrats doesn't think applies to the U.S. and therefore shouldn't be addressed. Because if you do address it, you realize that the law doesn't matter, that it's all about the authoritarian getting their way with the end goal of always remaining in power. Can you say Russia? Can you say Belarus? In Belarus the ruler supposedly lost in a landslide yet he claimed just the opposite, but he's still in power, and despite protests in the street he just shut down media outlets.
And everything's more complicated than it looks. In today's "Washington Post" there's a story about the pandemic killing independent bookstores:
"People want to support their local bookstores. They might be hurting them instead": wapo.st/32k2saF
The bottom line? Books are ordered but they can't be delivered, because they're out of stock and they're printed in CHINA!
You think it's as simple as shutting down TikTok, when the truth is the world is so intertwined that you lose out if you're not playing the international game. Yes, people lost out in globalization, but you can't go backwards, even though the U.S. and the U.K. are trying. I'd explain it to you, but it doesn't feel right so you won't accept it. Stealing the election via the process doesn't feel right so you won't accept it. A fair and just election feels right so you believe in it.
WAKE UP!
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