Democrats are telling us they will not accept a Donald Trump win. Are you listening?
Hillary Clinton said under no circumstances should Biden concede Election Night, and Democrats should plan for weeks and months of litigation and ballot fights.
“The Red Mirage” theory, recently floated by a Democrat data firm and promoted by Axios, predicts that Trump will have a large lead on Election Night that will evaporate in the ensuing weeks as mail-in ballots are counted. It provides a ground upon which Democrats will refuse to concede the election either Election Night or even the following day. Rather, the claimed certainty that there is a wave of Biden mail-in votes yet to be counted is all Democrats will need to make a concerted post-Election Day effort to steal the election.
I wrote about this in “The Red Mirage” theory provides the justification for Democrat mischief post Election Day:
What is the significance of all this?Democrats are going to try to steal the election after Election Day. The way they tried to steal Florida 2000 through selective recounting until the Supreme Court stopped them. If Trump is far ahead on Election Day, there will be pitched battles in swing states to count ballots in Democrat areas that arrive late or that don’t comply with the rules, and to disqualify valid ballots in Republican areas. The “Red Mirage” theory is the excuse to try.Having spent four years perfecting resistance litigation against Trump, there is little doubt that Democrats will try to find a judge somewhere somehow who will issue an injunction or other relief to enable this theft to take place. Such relief may not ultimately prevail, but it will further the chaos.
There also was something called the Transition Integrity Project (TIP), a supposedly ‘bipartisan’ but the Republican side represented by the likes of Michael Steele and Bill Kristol, devoted NeverTrumpers. So the TIP is the Democrat/NeverTrump version of what might happen. TIP released a Report (pdf.), , and almost every scenario they outlines involves Democrat refusing to accept the Election Night result, indeed, the election result at all.
They blame Trump for Democrats refusal to accept the election in a perverse justification for planning to refuse to accept a Trump win.
Specific recommendations include:• Plan for a contested election. If there is a crisis, events will unfold quickly, and sleep-deprived leaders will be asked to make consequential decisions quickly. Thinking through options now will help to ensure better decisions. Approach this as a political battle, not just a legal battle. In the event of electoral contestation, sustained political mobilization will likely be crucial for ensuring transition integrity. Dedicated staff and resources need to be in place at least through the end of January.• Focus on readiness in the states, providing political support for a complete and accurate count. Governors, Secretaries of State, Attorneys General and Legislatures can communicate and reinforce laws and norms and be ready to confront irregularities. Election officials will need political and public support to see the process through to completion.• Address the two biggest threats head on: lies about “voter fraud” and escalating violence. Voting fraud is virtually non-existent, but Trump lies about it to create a narrative designed to politically mobilize his base and to create the basis for contesting the results should he lose. The potential for violent conflict is high, particularly since Trump encourages his supporters to take up arms.• Anticipate a rocky administrative transition. Transition teams will likely need to do two things simultaneously: defend against Trump’s reckless actions on his way out of office; and find creative solutions to ensure landing teams are able to access the information and resources they need to begin to prepare for governing.
One of the authors of that Report, Georgetown law professor Rosa Brooks, has an op-ed in WaPo today which most charitably could be called paranoid and delusional, yet is a continuation of the belief that Democrats need to fight the Election Night result with everything possible, What’s the worst that could happen?
A landslide for Joe Biden resulted in a relatively orderly transfer of power. Every other scenario we looked at involved street-level violence and political crisis….
That crisis, of course, would be created by Trump, according to Brooks:
But Trump refuses to concede, alleging on Twitter that “MILLIONS of illegal ALIENS and DEAD PEOPLE” have voted in large numbers and that the uncounted ballots are all “FAKE VOTES!!!” Social media fills with posts from Trump supporters alleging that the election has been “stolen” in a “Deep State coup,” and Trump-friendly pundits on Fox News and OAN echo the message.Soon, Attorney General William P. Barr opens an investigation into unsubstantiated allegations of massive vote-by-mail fraud and ties between Democratic officials and antifa. In Michigan and Wisconsin, where Biden has won the official vote and Democratic governors have certified slates of pro-Biden electors, the Trump campaign persuades Republican-controlled legislatures to send rival pro-Trump slates to Congress for the electoral college vote.The next week is chaotic: A list of Michigan and Wisconsin electors for Biden circulates on right-wing social media, including photos, home addresses and false claims that scores of them are in the pay of billionaire George Soros or have been linked to child sex-trafficking rings.Massive pro-Biden street protests begin, demanding that Trump concede. The president tweets that “REAL PATRIOTS MUST SHOW THESE ANTIFA TERRORISTS THAT CITIZENS WHO LOVE THE 2ND AMENDMENT WILL NEVER LET THEM STEAL THIS ELECTION!!!” Around the nation, violent clashes erupt. Several people are injured and killed in multiple incidents, though reports conflict about their identities and who started the violence.Meanwhile, Trump declares that “UNLESS THIS CARNAGE ENDS NOW,” he will invoke the Insurrection Act and send “Our INCREDIBLY POWERFUL MILITARY and their OMINOUS WEAPONS” into the streets to “Teach these ANTI-AMERICAN TERRORISTS A LESSON.” At the Pentagon, the Joint Chiefs of Staff convene a hurried meeting to discuss the crisis.And it’s not even Thanksgiving yet.
This is psychiatric-level projection. This is most similar to what Democrats did after 2016, trying to intimidate Electors and circulating Elector names and addresses, rioting during the Inauguration, and launching a years-long and ongoing Resistance with the help of James Comey and other senior FBI and Intelligence Community officials.
This fits with a months-long media push to convince people the Trump will refuse to leave office, to set the stage for Democrats refusal to accept the election result if it favors Trump:
David Harsanyi at National Review, reviewing the WaPo column, correctly calls all this a project to delegitimize a Trump win:
This scenario is what a real-life “coup” might resemble. It is, needless to say, utterly insane that Democrats would destroy the nation’s long-standing and peaceful transition because they refuse to accept the mandated process of electing the president. All of which is to say the proactive — and retroactive — delegitimization of the Trump presidency has been a successful four-year project. It permeates the entire Democratic Party’s information complex.
Democrats and NeverTrumpers are telling you they will not accept a Trump win. Are you listening?
[Featured Image: Inauguration Day riots in D.C., January 2017]
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