The Daily Parker

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Criminal conspiracy to disrupt the election

That's what Josh Marshall calls the president's ongoing disinformation campaign:

Often we think about his chatter as though it’s annoying and distracting but as long as he finally respects the results and doesn’t take steps to prevent people from voting that it will all have been words. No harm, no foul. But of course that isn’t remotely the case. Think about it this way. How much time are you thinking about who will win the election in the ordinary sense: i.e., who will get the most electoral college votes in a more or less free public vote. And how much are you thinking about whether the President will use his executive powers to disrupt the election or remain in power despite losing? I venture to say you’re probably spending quite a bit of time in that second mental space.

Much of the current push against vote by mail appears to be an effort to set up a situation in which the President is in the lead with election night results (not at all improbable) and then goes to court to prevent the mail-in vote being counted, using the premise that mail-in votes are somehow inherently tainted. Can he get away with that? Probably not. But with enough toady judges he might be able to drag things out past January.

It actually doesn’t matter what his plan is or even whether he has one: the uncertainty is a feature rather than a bug. The President is already saying the winner has to be known on election night, something that almost certainly won’t happen unless there’s a blowout result. Again, more doubt. More uncertainty. Will the election even matter? Will he use his power to stay in office?

He'll lose, most likely. And I'm confident we'll have a new president on January 20th, because that's what our Constitution requires. It just might be Nancy Pelosi.

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