CSotD: Ballots and Bull
Skip to comments
Bennett’s commentary on Dear Leader’s interference with the election process is particularly apt, because, like the destruction of the East Wing of the White House, it has no legislative backing, came with no warning and represents an ego that has gone completely off the rails.
It’s hardly the first indication that Trump is slipping a cog, though for years he’s prattled on about stolen elections and made accusations of fraud that haven’t stood up to the most elementary examination. But not only has he now resurrected that bizarre obsession, but he’s indulging in fantasies like expecting both Dulles Airport and Penn Station to be named after him.
And he recently topped that bit of narcissistic nonsense by claiming that it was actually Chuck Schumer’s idea, because, golly, opposition legislators spend most of their waking hours thinking of ways to honor their political opponents. You’d have to be a fool to believe it, but you’d have to be a lunatic to have promoted the absurd idea.
We’ll deal another day with his claim that some mysterious aide has been posting racist themes on his Truth account in the middle of the night, though we can, for the moment, cue the “Sure, Jan” memes.
However, Rogers is well within reason to mock the raid on the Fulton County Board of Elections, which was so covered in nonsensical excuses that they dragged in Tulsi Gabbard in order to justify the claim that foreign governments had interfered in the elections.
Which, BTW, hardly fits in with all the years of condemning and dismissing the “Russia Russia Russia hoax.”
The snatching of those ballots is certainly consistent, as Ariail suggests, with his previous attempt to persuade Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to come up with phony ballot numbers in order to swing the election his way, which was not only dishonest on its face but was shrouded in additional lies and nonsense.
Kearney repeats an apocryphal quote often, but falsely, attributed to Stalin. But the fact that Stalin never said it doesn’t mean it isn’t applicable, at least as a “wise old saying” rather than an actual quote.
Besides, however Trump feels about Stalin — assuming Wharton’s finest honor student has even heard of him — Dear Leader has expressed admiration for other dictators like Orbon, Putin, Xi, Kim and Duterte.
Juxtaposition of the Day
Smith is on firmer ground with this prediction, which is clearly fanciful not because nationalized elections would necessarily threaten ballot integrity but because putting the vote in Dear Leader’s hands would.
Trump probably wouldn’t make such an obviously fake division in the count, but it’s only an exaggeration, not a suggestion of something that couldn’t happen to a fatal-but-unverifiable degree.
As Hands points out, he genuinely has made a declaration that his political party should run the elections, which is so colossally asinine a proposal that it is a challenge for cartoonists to satirize, and, we can hope, so divorced from common sense and basic patriotism that even the lockstep GOP would refuse to pass enabling legislation.
That is not, however, to say that the Republican lickspittles would stand in the way of his intent to nationalize the elections, though it’s probable that even the loyalist Supreme Court would point out the obvious ways in which the scheme contradicts the Constitution that Dear Leader swore that he would “to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend.”
Though perhaps the Roberts Court would find that he has indeed done it to the best of his ability and thus satisfied the requirement. We should take nothing for granted these days.
And Lord knows there are plenty of MAGA supporters willing to re-instate the poll taxes that once kept the underclass from voting, in the new, slightly different form of requirements for $150 passports and trips to far distant government offices in places with no intercity public transportation, in order to obtain birth certificates, assuming such documents were recorded in the first place.
Poll taxes were not struck down by the courts. They were outlawed in the Voting Rights Act, and that bit of legislation is hardly safe, either from a GOP-majority legislature or from the Roberts Court.
When fairness and universal suffrage are dismissed as “woke,” why expect that the unfair S.A.V.E. Act — which throws up much the same sort of practical barriers as the poll tax — could not be passed by Congress, signed by the President and upheld by SCOTUS?
The Founders were careful, both in the body of the Constitution and in the Bill of Rights that was attached to it, to preserve the integrity and autonomy of the states. In fact, one of our current ironies is how rightwingers have, for years, claimed states rights under the 10th Amendment, but now that they see a chance for federal dominance, have suddenly gone from Antifederalist to Federalists with a fervor that would appall the original holders of those terms.
Part of it is greed, part of it is a lust for power, much of it is the natural, illogical outcome of a cult of personality, the kind that looks to put a living president on the coinage and begin naming airports and railway depots after Dear Leader while he remains in power.
Even those who are able to qualify to register to vote under the S.A.V.E. Act — and it would be a strong majority of potential voters — would be uncertain of the integrity of the vote count, if it fell into the hands of a federal government dominated by a single party.
This result doesn’t seem like an unfortunate, unintentional byproduct of an intent to reform the system and avoid election fraud. Quite the opposite, as Duginski says.
Rather, breeding doubt about the integrity of our elections, and suggesting that people not born in this country are actively attempting to pervert our system of government, is a deliberate move to frighten the majority into accepting totalitarianism as an instrument with which to protect America.
And if you believe it, we’ll throw in a pair of valuable golden sneakers and a wonderful golden phone.
All it costs you is an old, worn-out Constitution that you’d never read and weren’t using anyway.
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
Comments 23
Comments are closed.