"Georgians, and Americans in general, overwhelmingly support voter ID laws, for example. Such laws poll strongly even among allegedly disenfranchised African-Americans — whose turnout in 2012, following a wave of ID laws, actually exceeded whites’ in the re-election of a black president. In fact, the normalization of ID in everyday life has only increased during the past year of vax-card requirements — a policy pushed by Democrats. And Biden did something truly dumb this week: he cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election in November now that his proposal for a federal overhaul has failed: 'I’m not going to say it’s going to be legit.' No sitting president should do this, ever. But when one party is still insisting that the entire election system was rigged last time in a massive conspiracy to overturn a landslide victory for Trump, the other party absolutely needs to draw a sharp line. Biden fatefully blurred that distinction, and took the public focus off the real danger: not voter suppression but election subversion, of the kind we are now discovering Trump, Giuliani and many others plotted during the transition period.... And why have they wildly inflated the threat to election security and engaged in the disgusting demagoguery of calling this 'Jim Crow 2.0'? The WSJ this week tracked down various unsavory GOP bills to suppress or subvert voting in three states — three states Obama singled out for criticism — and found that they had already died in committee. To argue as Biden did last week in Georgia that the goal of Republicans is 'to turn the will of the voters into a mere suggestion — something states can respect or ignore,' is to add hyperbole to distortion...."
Writes Andrew Sullivan, in "How Biden Lost The Plot/Listening to interest groups and activists is no way to get re-elected" (Substack).
January 22, 2022
"[State voting] laws — like that recently passed in Georgia — are far from the nightmares that Dems have described, and contain some expansion of access to voting."
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57 comments:
If you want us to believe you’re serious Democrats offer up Marc Elias as a gesture of your commitment.
But when one party is still insisting that the entire election system was rigged last time in a massive conspiracy to overturn a landslide victory for Trump…
To be fair it isn’t just one party- go back and read those thinly veiled victory lap articles from the leftie rags.
Mollie’s book will also help set you straight…
Really? "Far from the nightmares that Dems have described"?
If there is anyone left who doesn't know that the Democratic Party has been lying for years now about every issue that has come up -- well, I guess he or she will end up dying in ignorance. Everyone else knows how false the Democratic claims have turned out to be in every instance. How some of them go on voting for that party's candidates, I cannot imagine. But now they can see the results, God help us. How much worse those results are going to get no one can know at this point, but prayers might help.
Brandon is turning into a real gift to those fighting for better government. The only question is whether we can survive his remaining time in office.
C'mon Andy...it's not that hard to figure out.
If a Democrat wins, it's a fair election, and casting doubt on the results is an insurrection.
If a Republican wins, the election was stolen, and pointing that out is the height of patriotism.
The Dems and Fake News never talk about the details of the so-called voting rights bill. That’s the tell.
The bill is named after John Lewis. How did John Lewis get elected for years and years if the system was corrupt?
And then we heard Biden tell us we are on the side of Democrat Bull Connor if we oppose federalizing the election.
A serious and intellectually honest person can’t take the Dems seriously. They want to dupe people and change the law so that they can stay in power forever.
Election Subversion, indeed.
https://www.bizpacreview.com/2021/06/09/ga-judge-orders-strangely-pristine-mail-in-ballots-that-look-photocopied-to-be-guarded-1086324/
If only Comrade Stalin knew!
I mean, seriously, does Sullivan think Biden was ever really a moderate who planned to return things to normalcy after Trump?
That was just his brazenly dishonest pitch to the electorate.
Convincing dishonesty is Joe Biden's superpower and the secret to his success, but Andrew Sullivan is supposed to have some insight into what's actually going on.
election subversion, of the kind we are now discovering Trump, Giuliani and many others plotted during the transition period
I am not a member of that set that Sullivan labels we.
Indeed, the nefarious Jim Crow voting law we passed in Georgia was meant to make the already difficult path to the polls for Black people simply impossible. It failed miserably with record voting in the Atlanta mayoral election which resulted in, another, Black mayor. Back to the drawing boards with literacy tests next up.
I expect the admin to go harder left after the midterms. They're looking at massive losses, which will mostly hurt purple seat Dems and will likely force a major power struggle between the Old Guard of Pelosi and Schumer and progressive activists. With the donor class increasingly progressive and woke, I expect that faction to win. Meanwhile, everyone knows that Biden won't run again, and that means Harris will likely face a primary challenge. Either the Biden WH, or a Harris WH, will want to get as far left as they can in order to appease the base.
"[State voting] laws — like that recently passed in Georgia — are far from the nightmares that Dems have described, and contain some expansion of access to voting."
He writes as if facts matter.
"Georgians, and Americans in general, overwhelmingly support voter ID laws, for example. Such laws poll strongly even among allegedly disenfranchised African-Americans — whose turnout in 2012, following a wave of ID laws, actually exceeded whites’"
He writes as if facts and public opinion matter.
"And Biden did something truly dumb this week: he cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election in November"
Why dumb? Next, he'll tell us it's terrible! They shouldn't do that! It's terrible! Only from the point of view of a nice, reasonable commentator who has yet to recognize the Dems for who they are, though he's getting there. Like Althouse.
"No sitting president should do this, ever."
Ah, see, it's terrible! He shouldn't do that! It's terrible! He "needs" to draw a sharp one! Listen to Andrew, Joe!
"of the kind we are now discovering Trump, Giuliani and many others plotted during the transition period"
Say what?
"To argue as Biden did last week in Georgia that the goal of Republicans is 'to turn the will of the voters into a mere suggestion — something states can respect or ignore,' is to add hyperbole to distortion...."
Well, yeah. So? Dems fight--for power, to transform the country, facts and rules and traditions be damned. The fight is also against the Sullivans and Althouses of America. As long as the nice women and the nice sorta moderates like Sullivan let them get away with it, cuz the GOP is so eeevill, Dems will keep at it. So far, they put up no real resistance. So the Dem degrading of the institutions continues.
How could anyone think Joe Biden would be a uniter? Look at how he chose to announce his candidacy, pushing the Charlottesville hoax and the claiming Trump's following was rooted in racism and white supremacy. As I recall, Althouse blogged at the time that it was "disqualifying". And he's only doubled down on fomenting hate, fear and division since.
If Mr Wibble is correct and the Dems go hard left after the expected midterm wipe out, that would be great news. It would be an attention getting, suicidal action by a group of spoiled teens and be the beginning of a move back to normalcy in the polity and hopefully in society. Memories of McGovern’s campaign come to mind. Mondale as well. I was very pessimistic after 2020 but I now think the next 12 years are the Republicans to lose. Being tactically smart is not a Rep trait historically though.
Until a person admits that the Democrats used their allies in the deep state, not to mention the media, to actually subvert the 2016 election and ensuing 4 year term of PDJT, with consequences far more grave than 1/6, they have no credibility to talk about defending elections.
How breathtakingly myopic: imagining the Democrats are what they were under Kennedy, instead of the Maoist vermin they now are. Pretending it's still the 1960s? Physician heal thyself.
Twenty years ago, Hillary Clinton claimed “You can’t professionalize until you federalize (and unionize) airport security” and thus was born the TSA and it’s abuses of civil rights.
How long until an AOC starts demanding a federalization of poll workers?
"...but election subversion, of the kind we are now discovering Trump, Giuliani and many others plotted during the transition period."
Whatever they are seriously looking into for the post election transition period is not the same as doing a serious deep dive on what took place during the actual election, the actual voting period. That is the reason there was and continues to be so much discord and divergence of opinions on what took place. Nothing was looked into. Instead it was tossed out of courts, refused to be researched by reporters, refused to even be allowed into media discussions. Instead of discovery we had a national chorus of the word 'debunked', when nothing was even looked at, let alone debunked. Instead it was furiously censored to the point of making one wonder- why so furious?
Andrew Sullivan always almost gets it. Democrats have been questioning the results of every GOP Presidential win for many of the past elections. But the bigger question remains: Why, when a huge majority (over 80%) of Americans approve of voter ID, including the Black community, why is the Democratic Party against it? Why is the Democratic Party requesting no voter ID, mass national ballot mailings, all mail-in elections, and- of course, ballot harvesting?
It doesn't take a 7 year old to know how to cheat. Yet our media, which is apparently full of 6 year olds, plays along with it as if the Dems really are earnest in their search for free and fair elections. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Biden is malicious, cynical, self-serving and corrupt. He deserves only ridicule and contempt as an officeholder. He's toxic and destructive. He's not a product of his DC environment. The DC environment is a product of people like him.
Delaware has stricter voting laws than the new Georgia law, but you wouldn't know it with the puppet playing president in the White House.
I think Bob Boyd just cut through the noise and nailed it.
Now do the Democrats project to subvert the Electoral college by overruling state voters based on the results in LA County.
12 Democrat states have passed this. Sullivan never examines his own premises if he’s not gonna like the answer. Asserting legal rights is not subversion.
"Head to San Francisco to support Mayor Breed’s attempt to rein in anarchy."
You mean the same Breed that has turned a blind eye to this anarchy for months/years until it got so bad she couldn't ignore it?
As said, our democracy hangs in the balance we we don't pass new voting laws because the 2020 election the most honest, corruption free election in the history of ever.
I was going to write a comment saying that Sullivan sounds very nitpicky and unpersuasive because cute logical points don't carry much weight in this kind of debate. But Sebastian already made this point, so I won't bother.
Sebastian wrote: "He writes as if facts matter. ... He writes as if facts and public opinion matter."
'I’m not going to say it’s going to be legit.
The Fact of the Matter IS:
Any election that fails to elect Democrats, by Definition Is Not Legit
Any election that fails to elect Democrats, by Definition Is RACIST!!!
Any election that fails to elect Democrats, by Definition Is Voter Suppression
Give us the name and the face of a single citizen who is denied the right and ability to register or vote under any existing state law or practice.
Until this demand begins being put to our Democratic leaders and friends, we will continue to live with this narrative that Mr. Sullivan calls "a distortion". He's being charitable.
But when one party is still insisting that the entire election system was rigged last time in a massive conspiracy to overturn a landslide victory for Trump, the other party absolutely needs to draw a sharp line.
Is the whole party saying that there was a "a massive conspiracy to overturn a landslide victory for Trump?" I don't hear many elected Republicans saying that Trump won by a landslide. I think it's more that there are questions about what happened in a handful of states. Sullivan's dismissing those concerns without looking into them.
"To argue as Biden did last week in Georgia that the goal of Republicans is 'to turn the will of the voters into a mere suggestion — something states can respect or ignore,' is to add hyperbole to distortion...."
Sullivan's right, but as others have noted, Democrats have long felt that "our democracy" is in doubt or in danger if Democrats don't win. Biden himself says the "who gets to count the vote" matters the most, and that suggests that the actual votes are something like raw material to be sculpted to achieve a pleasing result. Cynicism about "our democracy" is rife and with good reason.
The enduring feature of the Biden Residency will be Race Hustling.
He is trying to outdo Obama in that regard.
Temujin, this is perfect. "Andrew Sullivan always almost gets it."
But ultimately, Sullivan almost always disappoints.
Shorter Sullivan: My team -D - they lie sometimes and it sure is icky.
Plus- Icky Trump and please ignore all the obvious shenanigans that went on in the wee hours of the night in targeted precincts after the 2020 election. You have no right to complain about it.
I guess we are just going to forget how Hillary planted the Russia Russian collusion lie - and the FBI, and all her insider Maddow-hack minions went along with it. for over 3 years. and it was all lies. All while these same hacks ignored Hillary's economic ties to Russia.
Because Hillary's lie was directed AT Trump - (Hate-zez so much!) two-faced-to-the truth Sullivan- DOES NOT CARE about that big lie.
If Mr Wibble is correct and the Dems go hard left after the expected midterm wipe out, that would be great news. It would be an attention getting, suicidal action by a group of spoiled teens and be the beginning of a move back to normalcy in the polity and hopefully in society. Memories of McGovern’s campaign come to mind. Mondale as well. I was very pessimistic after 2020 but I now think the next 12 years are the Republicans to lose. Being tactically smart is not a Rep trait historically though.
I'm on the fence. The GOP establishment seems to love the tactic of letting the dems overreact, running squish candidates just conservative enough to not depress the base, and winning on the backlash against the left's overreach.
I do think that one aspect of the Trump Era has been the way in which the people who take aim at him so often end up shooting themselves in the dick. Biden may be the ultimate example of this: they moved heaven and earth to get a dementia-addled old pervert into office, but in the process burned through whatever shreds of institutional credibility and social capital they had left. They don't have a large enough majority for a mandate or to push a hard left agenda, but they have a progressive base demanding that they do so. Meanwhile, Trump was defeated, but not repudiated, and the disaster of the Biden admin may very well set the stage for a second Trump admin unburdened by COVID, and in a position to bring the US out of economic doldrums. Rather than a lame duck second term, they may give him the chance to be even more consequential.
. Biden does what he’s told by the people behind the curtain. He’s just a puppet standing there trying to remember his lines. Occasionally, he goes off script and blurts out the truth. If he or the democrats don’t win an election, then it isn’t “legit.” Of course the election isn’t legit (in his mind). If the democrats don’t win, after all they make sure the fix is in well before hand to fudge the numbers and have fake ballots cast. They make sure that they get the number of votes they need in each area in order to win. So, how could they lose if they made sure the election was rigged before hand? If they do lose, then it wasn’t legit because their cheating wasn’t sufficient enough.
The election is rigged. Isn’t that what Trump said? Of course it was.
I believe the democrats stole the 2020 election….you cannot change my mind. The fix was in during the elections process in the urban democratic strongholds. Mail in ballots must be very carefully inspected - checked and double checked for signature authenticity, residence, voter rolls etc. I saw poll workers in Atlanta opening the mail in ballots and tossing aside the envelopes with “signatures” on them without giving them a glance. Mail in ballots will be the key to the next election as they were in 2020. Covid was the perfect storm for the democrats to send out mail in ballot en masse so anyone could fill it out and “vote”. That will be how the democrats want all elections to go in the future. You don’t need voter ID if a ballot arrives in your mailbox without requesting it.
Whenever the R's do ANYTHING that might help them, the MSM cries bloody murder and screams to high heaven. The R's then cuck out, as usual. Or do the minor, semi-worthless thing they proposed and it makes little difference.
The D's then propose massive changes that help them, and the MSM presents it as "no big whoop" and the R's as oppose it as racists, and "scaremongers".
And whenever Sullivan poses as some sort of "reasonable centrist" just remember "Trig's baby", his hysterical denunciation of any who opposed the Iraq war when he supported it, his support for Hillary and Biden and his over-the-top hatred of Trump.
There are diverse precedents for Democrats who think that all's fair in lust and abortion. Some are more empathetic than others in time and space.
Lurker 21 said...
I don't hear many elected Republicans saying that Trump won by a landslide. I think it's more that there are questions about what happened in a handful of states. Sullivan's dismissing those concerns without looking into them.
Lurker 21 understates Sullivan's hyperbole.
But when one party is still insisting that the entire election system was rigged last time in a massive conspiracy to overturn a landslide victory for Trump, the other party absolutely needs to draw a sharp line.
Isn't the allegation more like dubious practices in a handful of blue counties in select swing states, as if by coincidence?
Another old lawyer said...
Temujin, this is perfect. "Andrew Sullivan always almost gets it."
But ultimately, Sullivan almost always disappoints.
Call it the Sullivan "Provincetown Hedge." A perfunctory overture by Sullivan sufficient to maintain a heterodox stance so that he can defend against outright excommunication from the predominantly leftist gay enclave.
Another old lawyer said...
Temujin, this is perfect. "Andrew Sullivan always almost gets it."
But ultimately, Sullivan almost always disappoints.
That's how you end up being a MSM "conservative", you kinda-sorta understand where people on various parts of the conservative spectrum are coming from and attempt a Jane Goodall type explanation to the Left, but you never quite get it because if you did you'd never get published in the NYT/Atlantic/NYRB etc.
AS with the left.. it's always a "plot"
When you've lost Sullivan...
The trouble begins with the unshakable belief that most people in the country favor Democrat policies.
Therefore, if election lost: Voter Suppression! The will of the people has been impeded!
See also: Anything the Dems dream up is immediately supported by a majority of Americans who undoubtedly support Dem policies.
It's the basis on which their entire worldview rests, and the far left is determined to see just how far it stretches before it breaks.
So has Biden outperformed America's expectations by still being alive after a year?
Or has he underperformed America's expectations by not just fucking dying already?
Trump believed he should have won in a landslide, because he so great and Biden so weak, and that he could only lose through fraud. Sullivan riffing on that.
Psaki had a freudian slip of the tongue and told The View who the REAL President is...https://twitter.com/i/status/1484665202872225792
“... but election subversion, of the kind we are now discovering Trump, Giuliani and many others plotted ....”
Sullivan just can’t help himself. This drivel strains the bound of credulity. We can’t know for sure if QuidProJoe stole the election, but it is indisputable that illegalities and irregularities in the process favored him. No comment about the election should ignore that.
What a tribute to Democrat hypocrisy that despite 2020 and the black turnout for Obamessiah that they now claim a fair election cannot be had without their bill. Sullivan is right about that. Only their committed dupes will buy that.
Meanwhile, stupid Republicans campaign on investigations and revenge against Democrats and their minions instead of on the real issues, e.g., energy, inflation, Middle East peace, crime, etc.
“... but election subversion, of the kind we are now discovering Trump, Giuliani and many others plotted ....”
Sullivan just can’t help himself. This drivel strains the bound of credulity. We can’t know for sure if QuidProJoe stole the election, but it is indisputable that illegalities and irregularities in the process favored him. No comment about the election should ignore that.
What a tribute to Democrat hypocrisy that despite 2020 and the black turnout for Obamessiah that they now claim a fair election cannot be had without their bill. Sullivan is right about that. Only their committed dupes will buy that.
Meanwhile, stupid Republicans campaign on investigations and revenge against Democrats and their minions instead of on the real issues, e.g., energy, inflation, Middle East peace, crime, etc.
I enjoy the complete lack of concern by both sides and absolute lack of addressing the complaints, valid or invalid, from opponents. It is almost as if both sides are playing this for the concerns solely of their side, and not trying to convince anyone else who might have doubts.
It is an interesting strategery, not to be misunderestimated, but lacks a certain something that signifies no confidence in the position held.
>>We can’t know for sure if QuidProJoe stole the election
We absolutely can know.
Those in power don't want to know, so they are making it impossible to ask the question.
“To argue as Biden did last week in Georgia that the goal of Republicans is 'to turn the will of the voters into a mere suggestion — something states can respect or ignore,' is to add hyperbole to distortion...."
Trump asked some state legislatures to do exactly that, set aside the Biden electors chosen by their voters and replace them with Trump electors chosen by the state legislatures. McConnell has said that idea is crazy, so maybe all Republicans don’t share that goal, but Trump still seems to lead the Republican Party.
yes because those votes were not legitimately cast, that's why there was the phony water leak that prompted the coordinated pause, that enabled the fraud,
Clinton still had enough brain cells to shift to the right after 94. Biden will just keep doing what his handlers/ALF workers tell him.
Truly weird article. "For that matter, why did the Democrats design massive cumbersome bills in 2021 — like BBB and the voting rights legislation — which are so larded up with proposals they are impossible to describe in simple terms? Why did they not break out smaller, simpler bills — such as the child tax credit — and campaign on one thing at a time?"
And on and on. Why are the Democrats the way they are? Andrew Sullivan hates every single thing they do, but it never occurs to him that that would make him a Republican.
MikeR said...
Truly weird article. "For that matter, why did the Democrats design massive cumbersome bills in 2021 — like BBB and the voting rights legislation — which are so larded up with proposals they are impossible to describe in simple terms? Why did they not break out smaller, simpler bills — such as the child tax credit — and campaign on one thing at a time?"
They made big cumbersome bills because teh "Progressives" insist on holding hostage everything to their extreme demands.
Sullivan is complaining because he's a Democrat who's not stupid enough to be a "Progressive".
Here's your pro-tip Mike: You dont' ahve to agree with AOC on everything in order to be a Democrat
Readering said...
Trump believed he should have won in a landslide, because he so great and Biden so weak, and that he could only lose through fraud. Sullivan riffing on that.
Trump believes that Democrat "vote counters" only exclude poll watchers when they're committing fraud.
And that no actual vote counters stop counting on election night while they still have ballots to count, unless they're committing fraud.
Since the dems did both, and did them in the States Biden needed to "win", Trump, like anyone else who's not an idiot, thinks the Democrats stole the election
Too bad none of the non idiots has been able to put together a persuasive case for election fraud after one year. Listening to Trump on the subject is embarrassing.
Readering said...
Too bad none of the non idiots has been able to put together a persuasive case for election fraud after one year.
I just gave you a persuasive case. in fact, it's so persuasive you don't have a single argument against it.
Do you really think that just because you go through life with your head up your backside, so does everyone else?
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