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The 2024 Presidential Election Is on the Ballot This Year

  
Via:  John Russell  •  2 years ago  •  17 comments

By:   theprospect (The American Prospect)

The 2024 Presidential Election Is on the Ballot This Year
If Republicans seize control of swing-state election administration in the midterms, they will steal the presidency.

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S E E D E D   C O N T E N T



In the recent Republican primary election for Pennsylvania governor, state Sen. Doug Mastriano won handily, beating his nearest rival by more than 20 points. Not only is Mastriano a right-wing extremist and die-hard believer in Donald Trump's Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen, he was a central participant in the January 6 putsch. He spent campaign money (much of it coming from local billionaire Jeff Yass) organizing multiple buses of putschists and attended it himself, though he insists that he did not participate in sacking the Capitol.

If Mastriano wins, there will not be a presidential election in Pennsylvania in 2024. No matter what the votes say, he will exercise the powers of the governor's office to declare that the Republican candidate won.

It's a virtual certainty that enough Republicans are going to be nominated for key election administration posts in swing states that if they win, what holds in Pennsylvania will hold for the United States. In sum, if Republicans sweep the midterm elections this year, there will not be a presidential election two years later.

The Pennsylvania governor appoints the secretary of state, who oversees the electoral process, and certifies the results after a presidential election. Up until today, that has been a perfunctory process, but potentially no longer. Not only is Mastriano a deranged maniac who has banned the press from his campaign rallies and regularly appears with QAnon cultists, he has also promised to somehow "decertify" the 2020 results (though there is no legal procedure for doing so).

If Mastriano had been governor in 2020, he would have overridden the election, by hook or by crook, and handed Pennsylvania's electoral votes to Trump. That would have cut Biden's total down to 286; Trump would have needed to steal just two more states to be able to claim victory—still the case in 2024, though the electoral vote distribution has changed slightly.

Reuters recently investigated 15 Republican candidates for secretaries of state in all the swing states but Pennsylvania (Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, Arizona, and Nevada), and found that ten of them "have either declared that the 2020 election was stolen or called for their state's results to be invalidated or further investigated."

Enough Big Lie Trumpers will surely be nominated to account for the rest of the necessary electoral votes, should they win—especially when we remember the threats of violence levied against most every Republican who refused to go along with Trump's attempt to cling to power in 2020. Republicans are not known for standing up to conservative extremists, and in any case most of those 2020 officials have since been purged from the party (with a few exceptions like Georgia's Brian Kemp).

It's worth emphasizing that when Republicans win elections handily, as Mastriano did this week, they don't raise a peep about voter fraud. This is because they do not have a good-faith belief that the voting system is unreliable. Their true core belief is that Democrats are inherently illegitimate and un-American; convincing themselves of crackpot voter fraud theories is how they give themselves permission to cheat. This process is greatly helped, of course, by a febrile, paranoid mindset and mind-blowing levels of credulous stupidity.

Just witness the numerous Republicans who have been caught voting illegally (apparently including Trump's former chief of staff Mark Meadows), or illegally casting multiple ballots, or organizing absentee ballot fraud. Indeed, most of the Republican members of Congress who voted to overturn the 2020 election won re-election on the exact same ballots. To conservatives, votes are fraudulent if and only if they are for Democrats.

One of the greatest virtues of democracy is that it channels political conflict into peaceful appeals to the voting population. But should Republicans win enough positions to cheat their way to victory in 2024—that is, if they end American democracy—that will not mean they take power automatically. It will instead mean that they will have legitimized similarly extreme tactics from anyone who opposes them, and political competition will move to other planes: legal pressure, mass protest, and even possibly violent conflict. Whether one thinks it is right or wrong, that extralegal action will become the only way to act politically.

After all, it's not like future dictator-for-life Donald Trump could point to some American tradition of peacefully submitting to despotism. On the contrary, this country was founded on the idea that governments derive "their just powers from the consent of the governed," and that "whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it." If I were a Republican, I would be a lot more wary about trying to seize permanent national power by fraud.


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Sparty On
Professor Principal
1  Sparty On    2 years ago

Lol .... it’s too late for this John.  This fall Dems will reap what they have sown no matter how hard they try to spin it away with gimmicks like this.

They went too far and now will pay the price.

Prepare for it ....

 
 
 
Sean Treacy
Professor Principal
2  Sean Treacy    2 years ago

or, state Sen. Doug Mastriano won handily, 

Democrats worked to  have Mastriano  win the primary and now they want to claim he's a threat to democracy.

They must be lying about Mastriano. Think of the alternative. That would mean they are helping a man they genuinely believe is a threat to the Republic get elected. 

 
 
 
Ronin2
Professor Quiet
2.1  Ronin2  replied to  Sean Treacy @2    2 years ago

They actively worked for Trump to win the Republican nomination; because they thought he was an easy win for Hillary. So why not?

They don't give a shit about what is best for the country. Just maintaining their power.

The same argument can be twisted around. The 2024 election is on the ballot this year. If Democrats win they will steal the presidency. They have been trying to put in election laws at every level that favor them. They don't even try to deny it. Their version of "fair". They want criminals to be able to vote; they want immigrants (both legal and illegal) to be able to vote; and give them half a chance and they will want select foreigners outside of the US to be able to vote. 

Democrats are still screaming that the 2016 election was stolen. Despite having no proof of even a single vote being changed. Their savior Barack Obama even said no votes were changed. They got the Republican candidate they hand picked in Trump; and their chosen one Hillary Clinton. She still found a way to lose. The Democrats have been butt hurt ever since. 

The real threat is the Democrats and left trying to change this country into China. It will be a dysfunctional, non working, criminal haven, and morally bankrupt. But it will be their version of China non the less.

 
 
 
Hallux
Masters Principal
2.1.1  Hallux  replied to  Ronin2 @2.1    2 years ago
The real threat is the Democrats and left trying to change this country into China.

The US faces a number of threats and one of them is propagating such nonsense. The same b.s. is tossed around in Canada and the Liberal Party has not moved a millimeter leftward toward China.

 
 
 
Sparty On
Professor Principal
2.1.2  Sparty On  replied to  Hallux @2.1.1    2 years ago

Radical progressive/leftist movements in USA represent a small minority of Americans and are a clear and present to our union as we know it.    same as the radicals on the right.

Our little brother up north can do what it wants.    We don’t really care ...

 
 
 
Tessylo
Professor Principal
2.1.3  Tessylo  replied to  Sparty On @2.1.2    2 years ago

Hateful trumpturd enablers/supporters are a hateful not so small minority of americans and are a clear and present danger to our union as we know it.  

 
 
 
Sparty On
Professor Principal
2.1.4  Sparty On  replied to  Tessylo @2.1.3    2 years ago
Hateful trumpturd enablers/supporters are a hateful not so small minority of americans and are a clear and present danger to our union as we know it.  

Lol .... stop projecting

 
 
 
Hallux
Masters Principal
2.1.5  Hallux  replied to  Sparty On @2.1.2    2 years ago
We don’t really care ...

I'm sure Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington and Alaska do.

 
 
 
Vic Eldred
Professor Principal
2.1.6  Vic Eldred  replied to  Sparty On @2.1.2    2 years ago

I don't know about anyone else, I would hope they would take Monkeypox seriously.

 
 
 
afrayedknot
Junior Quiet
2.1.7  afrayedknot  replied to  Ronin2 @2.1    2 years ago

“The real threat is the Democrats and left trying to change this country into China.”

No, the real threat is those determined to return us to rule under their puritanical standards.

It must be ‘our way’ or no way, ignoring the fact  that ‘our way’ does not speak to the reality that the demographics will either require them to adapt or eventually go the way of the dinosaurs they are. Take the win in 2024, but it will be a Pyrrhic victory…as the times they are a changin’.

 
 
 
Tessylo
Professor Principal
2.1.8  Tessylo  replied to  Hallux @2.1.5    2 years ago

We don't really care ...

That's it in a nutshell to today's republicans/gqp

 
 
 
Hallux
Masters Principal
2.1.9  Hallux  replied to  Tessylo @2.1.8    2 years ago

They just talk that way.

 
 
 
Sparty On
Professor Principal
2.1.10  Sparty On  replied to  Hallux @2.1.5    2 years ago

Nah, we don’t.    Sometimes you just need to let a whiner, whine themself out.

 
 
 
Tessylo
Professor Principal
2.1.11  Tessylo  replied to  Hallux @2.1.9    2 years ago

No, they really don't give a fuck about anyone else but themselves.  

 
 
 
Tessylo
Professor Principal
2.1.12  Tessylo  replied to  Sparty On @2.1.10    2 years ago

[Deleted]

 
 
 
Sparty On
Professor Principal
2.1.13  Sparty On  replied to  Tessylo @2.1.12    2 years ago

[Deleted]

 
 
 
Dismayed Patriot
Professor Quiet
2.1.15  Dismayed Patriot  replied to  Ronin2 @2.1    2 years ago
The real threat is the Democrats and left trying to change this country into China.

That's just non-sensical rhetorical ranting propaganda without a lick of truth in it. All but the far left (and far right) fringe embrace our constitutional Republic as well as capitalism and have never seriously considered abandoning them.

If Democrats win they will steal the presidency.

And what would one base such a moronic conclusion on? Where is the evidence Democrats have ever "stolen" an election? It's just more Cheeto Benito fantasy that has clearly poisoned conservatives minds.

They have been trying to put in election laws at every level that favor them.

That's another hilariously ignorant claim. Which party was it that the courts found targeted black Americans with "surgical precision" in their voter ID laws they've passed?

" North Carolina judges struck down the state's latest photo voter identification law on Friday, agreeing with minority voters that Republicans rammed through rules tainted by racial bias as a way to remain in power .

The law "was motivated at least in part by an unconstitutional intent to target African American voters ," Superior Court Judges Michael O'Foghludha and Vince Rozier wrote in their 100-page majority opinion.

The ruling reflects "how the state's Republican-controlled legislature undeniably implemented this legislation to maintain its power by targeting voters of color," said Allison Riggs, the plaintiffs' lead attorney.

In July 2016, a federal appeals court struck down several portions of a 2013 North Carolina elections law that included a voter ID mandate, saying GOP lawmakers had written them with "almost surgical precision" to discourage voting by Black voters, who tend to support Democrats.

Judges Strike Down North Carolina Voter ID Law They Say Is Racially Biased : NPR

Conservatives trying to deflect and claim it's their opponents that are "cheating" (even though they provide ZERO evidence) and claim they're supposedly trying to craft election laws that benefit them is just spineless deflection of their own parties guilt after getting caught red handed doing the things they accuse others of.

 
 

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