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The Steal Next Time
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Morning Shots

The Steal Next Time

The Cheney purge may just be prologue

Charlie Sykes's avatar
Charlie Sykes
May 11, 2021
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(Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

It’s not too soon to start thinking about this. David Atkins writes in the Washington Monthly:

So what happens in 2024 if President Biden or Vice President Harris win the Electoral College, but local Republicans on county boards with majority Democratic votes refuse to certify the election; when state legislatures who have seized control of certification refuse to certify their state tallies; when a potential Republican majority in the House of Representatives refuses to certify the Electoral College tally? What happens when they refuse to certify Democratic wins in purple state Senate races, throwing control of the Upper Chamber into limbo and chaos?

What happens if Biden/Harris wins the popular vote by 8 million votes and 30 electoral college votes, only to see Republicans in states like Georgia and Wisconsin decide that their GOP legislatures will send electors for Trump or Tucker Carlson or Josh Hawley instead? What happens if Democrats legitimately add to their lead in the Senate, only to see Republicans refuse to certify those tallies as well, keeping GOP Senators in place for the next session?

I would like to think this far-fetched. At this point, I’d like to be able to assure you that is too bizarre to be real; or that it is panic mongering and hype.

But, ladies and gentlemen, I give you January 6… and the rapid devolution of the GOP into full-fledged election denialism. The purge of Liz Cheney may just be prologue. As Greg Sargent writes:

This combination is toxic: Republicans are untethering themselves from any obligation to recognize future legitimate election outcomes, which will provide the rationale to overturn them, a freedom they are also effectively in process of appropriating. Cheney is insisting on a GOP future premised on a full repudiation of these tendencies, and getting punished for it.

**

Mona Charen sees the same thing. Please take the time read her in this morning’s Bulwark, ā€œThe Steal Next Time.ā€

She asks: ā€œWho will prevent the next attempt to overturn the will of the voters?ā€

Let’s be clear: The substitution of Stefanik for Cheney is a tocsin, signaling that the Republican party will no longer be bound by law or custom. In 2020, many Republican office holders, including the otherwise invertebrate Pence, held the line. They did not submit false slates of electors. They did not decertify votes. They did not ā€œfindā€ phantom fraud. But the party has been schooled since then. It has learned that the base—which is deluded by the likes of Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, and Mark Levin—believes the lies and demands that Republicans fight. As my colleague Amanda Carpenter put it, the 2024 mantra is going to be ā€œSteal It Back.ā€

If Cheney must be axed because she will not lie, then what will happen if Republicans take control of Congress in 2022 and are called upon to certify the Electoral College in 2024? How many Raffenspergers will there be? How many will insist, as Pence did, that they must do what the Constitution demands? How many will preserve any semblance of the rule of law and the primacy of truth?

With this sabotage of Cheney, House Republicans are figuratively joining the January 6 mob.

**

Exit take:

Twitter avatar for @SykesCharlie
Charlie Sykes @SykesCharlie
WTF. Really, WTF?
Twitter avatar for @AliVelshi
Ali Velshi @AliVelshi
In a letter to GOP members arguing for the removal of Liz Cheney, Kevin McCarthy writes: ā€œWe are a big tent party. We represent Americans of all backgrounds & continue to grow our movement by the day. And unlike the left, we embrace free thought & debate.ā€
9:44 PM āˆ™ May 10, 2021
1,438Likes168Retweets

Bonus take:

Twitter avatar for @allahpundit
Allahpundit @allahpundit
why won’t liz cheney move on
Image
11:05 AM āˆ™ May 11, 2021
496Likes81Retweets

ICYMI: Must read from the Wapo: ā€œThe making of a myth.ā€

ADDISON, Tex. — Key elements of the baseless claim that the 2020 election was stolen from President Donald Trump took shape in an airplane hangar here two years earlier, promoted by a Republican businessman who has sold everything from Tex-Mex food in London to a wellness technology that beams light into the human bloodstream.


Get out, they explained. Matt Lewis writes:

When they jettison Liz Cheney on Wednesday, the Republican Party will send a message to whatever sane conservatives remain inside its circus tent: You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.

There’s a routine where Trumpists, most recently Matt Gaetz, go on about how, ā€œThey aren’t really coming for me. They’re coming for you. I’m just in the way.ā€ That’s not true (they’re after Gaetz, for instance, for allegedly paying for sex with teenagers) but it is another classic case of victimhood and projection.

No matter what nonsense House Minority Leader and craven Trump toady Kevin McCarthy says about how ā€œwe are a big tent partyā€ that ā€œembrace(s) free thought and debate,ā€ ousting Cheney from her role in Republican leadership isn’t just about Cheney. It’s about rooting out millions of center-right Americans who just aren’t crazy enough to be members of today’s Republican Party.


A coalition of the non-crazy.

Twitter avatar for @MilesTaylorUSA
Miles Taylor @MilesTaylorUSA
This might be a good week to start a ā€œWe’re Not Crazyā€ coalition to counter GOP extremists.
12:12 PM āˆ™ May 10, 2021
2,335Likes174Retweets

Watch this space: later this week, we’re going to see the announcement of a ā€œCommon sense coalitionā€ — a ā€œbroad alliance of current and former Republicans and independentsā€ whose mission will be to push back against the ā€œfear-mongers and conspiracy theorists.ā€

Given the state of the GOP, that may be quixotic, but the group will include former members of Congress and state officials, former officials from past GOP administrations, and prominent conservative thinkers and writers.

It is not exactly a third party, but that’s not out of the question.

ā€œWe’ve got to force the Republican party back from the ledge,ā€ a spokesman says, ā€œor else lay the groundwork for something new and better.ā€

**

And there is this: 5-6 CDT Today:

Twitter avatar for @Principles_1st
Principles First @Principles_1st
Thrilled to announce @AdamKinzinger will stop by our grassroots Rally for Liz tomorrow to reject the Big Lie & stand for truth with us in advance of the House GOP vote. šŸ‡ŗšŸ‡ø Register here & let’s show Liz she’s not alone: eventbrite.com/e/principles-f… #PrinciplesFirst #CountryFirst
Image
9:49 PM āˆ™ May 10, 2021
1,784Likes375Retweets

**

Meanwhile:

Twitter avatar for @RonFilipkowski
Ron Filipkowski @RonFilipkowski
Lindell tonight announces his master plan. He is going to play his ā€˜evidence’ for one hour each night for 5 weeks on his new platform. After that ā€œeveryone in the countryā€ will rise up and pressure the Supreme Court so much that they will vote 9-0 to make Trump president again.
Image
1:44 AM āˆ™ May 11, 2021
500Likes104Retweets

Worlds collide:

Twitter avatar for @MollyJongFast
Molly Jong-FastšŸ” @MollyJongFast
On this episode ⁦@NewAbnormalPod⁩, we have ⁦@SykesCharlie⁩, ⁦@EricTopol⁩ and ⁦@JohnAnzo⁩
podcasts.apple.comā€ŽThe New Abnormal: Josh Hawley Is Basically Making Meth For MAGA Nation on Apple PodcastsIn this episode of The New Abnormal, Bulwark Editor-In-Chief Charlie Sykes tells Molly Jong-Fast why Josh Hawley and his fellow GOPers have major Breaking Bad vibes when it comes to supplying the Trump base with BS and the two surmise what is going on in McCarthy’s goldfish brain. Plus! TNA’s favori…
10:40 AM āˆ™ May 11, 2021
81Likes16Retweets

Quick Hits

1. Bring on the Liz Cheney Death Match

Amanda Carpenter writes that Cheney’s likely ouster will force the conversation about January 6.

Had Cheney voted to impeach Trump and then quietly moved along to whitewashing the insurrection (like most other Republicans) then no one may have realized how deeply the Trump brain worms had penetrated the GOP leadership hive mind. She’s giving the party a public MRI.

Yes, the results of this test are awfully ugly, but they may be useful in the end.

GOP leaders would have never admitted how closely they planned to remain tethered to the twice-impeached president who presided over the party’s loss of the House, Senate, and White House. We wouldn’t have known how content they are with Trump’s big election lie. Cheney exposes their complicity. Until she piped up, everyone was on pace to rally under the red elephant flag and chant ā€œFire Pelosi!ā€ They would have seamlessly moved on from January 6 and started campaigning on Trump’s 2020 election lies for 2022.

But Cheney played spoiler. And yes, this time it’s different.


2. Remembering Pete du Pont

J.F. Riordan in today’s Bulwark:

I got to know him in the 2000s—long after he left Delaware’s governorship and ran for president—when he was on the board of directors of a foundation where I worked. He was already in his late sixties, and had a particular grace and sophistication, along with an unselfconscious boyish charm. But he was a serious person, with firm values and strongly held views, and one had a profound sense of his candor and honesty. I imagine that disappointing him would not have been a happy experience. I saw the casual way he could put a rude or foolish person on notice, like a musketeer with an easy flick of the sword.

The first realization of his intelligence could be gleaned by the look in his eyes—interested, sparkling, seemingly always with a glint of humor. He asked pointed questions, he thought deeply, and he listened carefully. He treated everyone—no matter their rank or status—with the same genuineness and respect, and unlike many of his colleagues, he never assumed someone else would do the dirty work. It may seem a small thing, but in a room full of heavyweight capitalists and intellectuals, he carried other people’s plates to the kitchen.


Cheap Shots

Kevin McCarthy: Yes.

Twitter avatar for @MJGerson
Michael Gerson @MJGerson
ā€œIs the speakership worth achieving when it involves the sacrifice of your character, your country and your dignity?ā€
washingtonpost.comOpinion | Meet Kevin McCarthy, political hollow manWith his fealty to Trump, the House minority leader shows himself willing to sacrifice character, country and dignity for personal gain.
6:32 PM āˆ™ May 10, 2021
479Likes118Retweets

So good. (Do yourself a favor and watch.)

Twitter avatar for @RandyRainbow
Randy Rainbow @RandyRainbow
All aboard the GOP Express. Next stop crazy town. šŸš‹šŸ¤ÆšŸŽ¶ #ClangClangClangWentJoshHawley
Image
1:52 PM āˆ™ May 10, 2021
45,755Likes13,624Retweets

A ā€œdamned old wry-necked, squint-eyed, white-livered scoundrel.ā€

Twitter avatar for @jbf1755
Dr. Joanne Freeman @jbf1755
The James Buchanan Award A fine award for poor leadership during a crisis. Buchanan was called, during his lifetime: ā€œthat damned old wry-necked, squint-eyed, white-livered scoundrel.ā€ A fine 19th century insult. https://t.co/JnI7M3glqa
Twitter avatar for @SykesCharlie
Charlie Sykes @SykesCharlie
ā€œI hereby nominate House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for the James Buchanan prize, awarded for monumental smallness in a time demanding leadership. ā€œ https://t.co/ezikbrxCfr
2:38 AM āˆ™ May 11, 2021
288Likes53Retweets

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