We live in very dangerous times, with Democrats trying to flip the Electoral College against Trump through cajoling, and when that fails, threats and intimidation.
It still seems unlikely that Democrats will pull it off by Monday, December 19, 2016, when the Electoral College votes. I shudder to think what will happen if Democrats manage to steal the election this way, just as I would have shuddered to think what would have happened in 2008 had Republicans succeeded in stealing the election from Obama using similar tactics.
This Coup de Electoral College attempt is premised mostly on assertions that Russia “hacked the election,” and that there is new information after the election that could not have been considered by voters. In that theory, the Electoral College must act to protect the nation.
That is nonsense. The alleged nefarious connections of Donald Trump and his advisors to Russia were extensively argued during the campaign, as was the claim that those ties led Russia to hack the DNC and John Podesta to help Trump. Democrats even claimed that Trump was involved somehow, and that was in August 2016.
There was an avalanche of bad news about Trump that, just weeks before the election, had Hillary Clinton prematurely arranging an Election Night victory fireworks display. And there was an equal flood, over the course of a year and a half, of negative news about Hillary centering most harmfully around her use of a private server to create a shadow electronic government to shield her records from public view (but not the view of hostile foreign state actors).
And of course, Hillary and her campaign team were their own worst enemies, running a pathetic, inflexible, overly-programmed campaign, while Hillary herself was practically comatose on the campaign trail. Hillary’s collapse at the 9-11 commemoration came to serve as a metaphor for the Clinton campaign, only able to make it to a waiting escape vehicle through the kindness of strangers.
To single out the DNC and Podesta hacks from among the total mix of information confronting voters is just a pretext for attempted larceny. It’s also a rewrite of history.
In the days leading up to and after the election, Democrats and their media supporters were blaming the loss on James Comey’s letter, 11 days before Election Day, notifying Congress that the investigation into Hillary’s email server was being reopened.
I’m so old, I remember Robby Mook, Hillary’s campaign manager, blaming the Comey letter, on December 4, 2016:
Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook on Sunday blamed the Democratic presidential nominee’s loss primarily on the letters from FBI Director James B. Comey regarding her secret email server.Mr. Mook said the letters — particularly the Oct. 28 letter to Congress saying the FBI was reviewing newly emerged emails — were an “incredibly powerful force” that depressed turnout among undecided voters as well as the women and millennial sectors key to Hillary Clinton’s campaign strategy.“At the very end of the race, there were probably more undecideds than in a lot of races before. We do think that because the director of the FBI sent two letters in what was an unprecedented intervention in the election, a total breach of protocol — yes, I think a lot of those undecideds broke against us,” Mr. Mook said.“In fact, I would argue that without those letters, we would have won those, and that’s why we would have won the election,” said Mr. Mook on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
I’m so old, I remember Kevin Drum of progressive flagship Mother Jones listing Three Big Reasons Hillary lost, and the Russians were not one of those reasons, on November 21, 2016. In addition to Millennials and The Working Class divide, Drum blamed (drumroll, please), James Comey:
James Comey. An awful lot of people claim that Democrats are kidding themselves if they blame their loss on Comey instead of their systemic problems. I couldn’t agree less. The Trump campaign thinks Comey made a difference. The Clinton campaign thinks Comey made a difference. The pre-election polls suggest Comey made a difference. The bulk of the evidence suggests it cost Hillary Clinton about 2 percent of the total vote.
I’m so old, I remember the excerable Harry Reid blaming Comey, on November 18, 2016:
Democratic Sen. Harry Reid, who is retiring this year and passing the leadership baton to his colleague Chuck Schumer, knows just who to blame for Hillary Clinton’s ballot box defeat: James Comey.
Reid says Clinton would be the president-elect if the FBI director hadn’t played politics.
‘There is no question in my mind she would have won this election without any problem if Comey had not been the Republican operative that he is,’ Reid said Thursday on MSNBC.
The Senate’s minority leader stated: ‘He is the reason she lost the election.’
I’m so old, I also remember Hillary Clinton blaming Comey, on November 12, 2016:
Hillary Clinton on Saturday cast blame for her surprise election loss on the announcement by the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, days before the election that he had revived the inquiry into her use of a private email server.In her most extensive remarks since she conceded the race to Donald J. Trump early Wednesday, Mrs. Clinton told donors on a 30-minute conference call that Mr. Comey’s decision to send a letter to Congress about the inquiry 11 days before Election Day had thrust the controversy back into the news and had prevented her from ending the campaign with an optimistic closing argument.“There are lots of reasons why an election like this is not successful,” Mrs. Clinton said, according to a donor who relayed the remarks. But, she added, “our analysis is that Comey’s letter raising doubts that were groundless, baseless, proven to be, stopped our momentum.”
I’m so old, I even remember when the Clinton Campaign widely circulated a memo to “Senior Staff” blaming Comey — on November 10, 2016:
I’m so old, I remember Daily Kos blaming Comey, on November 9, 2016:
It appears that Comey cost us at least FL, MI, and PA (65 Electoral votes) and WI would have been a tossup.We would be looking at a 307-231 Clinton victory rather than a 306-232 Trump win.While there may have been other factors in play, this basic analysis supports the hypothesis that James Comey’s decision to politicize the FBI 11 days before the election flipped the final result of the election from Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump.
I’m even so old, I remember how, in the days before the election, Democrats demonized Comey as potentially costing Hillary a win, on November 5, 2016:
By contrast, Democrats rallying behind Mrs. Clinton have made a late-campaign strategy out of fueling outrage at the F.B.I. The campaign published an open letter, signed by dozens of former prosecutors, chastising Mr. Comey. President Obama criticized him. The House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, hinted that he might be pushed from office.“Maybe he’s not in the right job,” Ms. Pelosi told CNN. “I think that we have to just get through this election and just see what the casualties are along the way.”
Now, it’s the Russians, the Russians, the Russians.
It may be that the Russians were responsible for the DNC and Podesta hacks, and did it to help Trump. But it is a huge logical leap to then say that was the decisive factor in the election; that’s not what Hillary, her campaign, Harry Reid and leading progressives were claiming just before and after the election.
Moreover, given all the factors and flow of information, it would be a completely speculative and logical leap to say that Russian interference was so huge that it warrants reversing the election result. It also is a leap to go from the need to investigate, retaliate, and prevent future intrusions, to reversing an election.
Those seeking to flip the Electoral College are playing with fire. There is a slender reed that holds this nation together, and allows for the peaceful transition of power. The clearly pretextual argument being made to reverse the outcome could tear our social order apart.
Which, of course, would be the ultimate victory for Vladimir Putin, and perhaps one he would cherish the most.
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