Trump’s Farewell Fiasco
Adam J. White on the president’s post-election lawsuits and the real constitutional stakes.
Leading The Bulwark…
Trump’s Farewell Fiasco
Adam J. White: The president’s post-election lawsuits and the real constitutional stakes.
🎧 On the Pods…🎧
Victory Lap?
On today’s Bulwark podcast, Sarah Longwell, Bill Kristol, and Jonathan V. Last join Charlie Sykes to discuss Joe Biden’s big weekend, Four Seasons Total Landscaping’s role in history, and what to worry about between now and January 20, 2021.
Not My Party
Tim Miller’s weekly video series normally comes out on Thursdays, but it was delayed until the election was called. It’ll be taking a two week hiatus, and then will return to cover the Trump/Biden transition.
🔐For Bulwark+ Members:
Did you miss our Saturday night livestream? We shared our thoughts after Joe Biden’s victory speech, and you can tune in right here.
We’re going to be doing more livestreams in the coming weeks, but they’re only for members of Bulwark+. Please consider joining, and you can get access to these informative and fun chats!
From The Bulwark Aggregator
According to Trump, Nearly Everyone Is Conspiring To Deny Him His Rightful Victory – Jacob Sullum, Reason
Lame-duck Congress and lame-duck president face huge challenges in coming weeks – Erica Werner, Paul Kane and Yasmeen Abutaleb, The Washington Post
Trump Supporters, Like Their Leader, Refuse to Face Reality – Peter Wade, Rolling Stone
Trump spokesperson posts fake Washington Times front page of Gore win – Maria Arias, Axios
A little-known Trump appointee is in charge of handing transition resources to Biden — and she isn’t budging – Lisa Rein, Jonathan O'Connell and Josh Dawsey, The Washington Post
Infamous ‘Hoax’ Artist Behind Trumpworld’s New Voter Fraud Claim – Will Sommer, The Daily Beast
Mr. Trump, Tear Down This Wall – Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic
In today’s Bulwark…
Those Obama-Trump Counties
Stephanie Muravchik and Jon A. Shields: What it means that the president held most of them.
He’s Fired
Tim Miller: Donald Trump has been resoundingly defeated. Enjoy it.
A Good Man for a Wounded Country
Richard North Patterson: After years of Trump, Biden’s decency and normality are a balm. Now he must turn toward the enormous challenges ahead.
Alex Trebek, 1940-2020
Bill Ryan: One constant in a world of change.
Martha McSally, Arizonans Are Just Not That into You
Shay Khatiri: She lost two Senate elections in a row. Maybe her latest defeat will become an opportunity to reinvent herself again?
Spiritual Warriors on Behalf of Donald Trump
Thomas Lecaque and J.L. Tomlin: Putting the recent rhetoric of some of the president’s evangelical supporters in historical context.
The Revenge of John McCain and John Lewis
Shay Khatiri: The two heroes’ legacies might be visible in the 2020 map.
🚨OVERTIME 🚨
Hope you had a good weekend. The morning after our Bulwark+ livestream, I took the wife, dog, and twins to Skyline Drive. I convinced the twins that the visitor’s center was Smokey the Bear’s house and they had a blast.
Later that night I got around to making the Kasha Varnishkes I had hoped to make a few days earlier. They were good, but the twins did not appreciate buckwheat.
Trumpland is still processing the results.
Unfortunately, as discussed on today’s podcast and previously in The Bulwark, there’s a long road ahead in this department. And some may never get there.
The Georgia GOP eats itself. While Georgia Democrats are preparing for the two special elections in January, the inability to accept that Joe Biden won and Donald Trump lost is causing the GOP to become a circular firing squad. Both incumbent Republican Senators issued a joint statement calling on the Republican Secretary of State to resign.
More on Four Seasons Total Landscaping. The guy Rudy trotted out? Turns out he has a very interesting history as a fringe candidate and political gadfly. We still don’t know the full story of the Four Seasons landscaping debacle. But hotels typically like getting paid to host events. Did the Trump campaign offer to pay the landscapers to host? Do they think they’ll get paid?
When the MAGA Bubble Burst… Do read McKay Coppins on Steve Bannon’s election night fete, and when reality caught up with the room. (Just like the reality that Bannon will likely be pardoned in a few weeks.)
My favorite part is when Raheem Kassam, a professional troll and generally vile dude has a breakdown and kicks out Coppins and Rosie Gray and then films it. Will he release his tirade? I hope so.
"Like it or not, that’s why the uneducated morons voted for Trump. And it’s why we’ll vote for Kanye." This is an actual sentence typed, and published in The American Conservative. As a member of the Swift family, we’re not fond of Mr. West, but still, this is befuddling.
Virginia is not sending their best… Two armed QAnon believers and Trump supporters drove their Humvee up to Philadelphia to look into the election, decided to get involved (read the story I don’t want to spoil it) and ended up getting arrested. Just remember that QAnon is a dangerous conspiracy that dials up the temperature and its adherents do crazy things, and the GOP is embracing it and its supporters. Whether it’s Kevin McCarthy or Nikki Haley. The short-term future of a party whose leaders do this is not bright.
D.C.’s Mayor should practice what she mandates. I get wanting to attend history, like Biden’s victory speech, but when you are setting the policy about self-quarantining, you shouldn’t be exempting yourself.
Building the Browns. I am never a Browns optimist (though this season had a better start than most in my lifetime), but their YouTube show about the behind the scenes work looks really interesting this week. It’s about how they run the massive scoreboard / hype / gameday operation. It looks like SpaceX mission control, but for a franchise with 118 losses in the last 10 years.
How Fox took this weekend’s news… Off air.
This is what happens when you bring idiots and quacks on to tell viewers what they want to hear for ever and ever and ever and then expect a different result. There’s always been a war between the news and the opinion side, but the news side is beginning to put its foot down… lightly.
Well, that’s it for me today. Hope your weekend was as enjoyable as mine. Remember, there’s still a while to go until the light at the end of the tunnel. A lot of crazy things are going to happen between now and January 20th, 2021, and now. And we are here to cover it for you with clear-eyed analysis for you. If you haven’t joined Bulwark+ yet, you can right here:
I, for one, am glad that (while I’ve been honored to have been part of Inaugural ceremonies and cover the last three) that this time around I can sleep in and enjoy festivities from home. (Below, me serving as the escort for former VPs at Obama’s 2009 Inaugural.)
Questions, comments, thoughts? Drop me a line: swift@thebulwark.com.
And if you’d like to share today’s OVERTIME, you can here:
—30—