AHA! Ideas change.
The unthinkable became thinkable midmorning of September 11, 2011.
Ideas change.
It was a typical Tuesday morning. I was awake at 5:00 a.m. Pacific Time, at my computer, with CNBC in background on the TV. There was an accident at the World Trade Center.
Then the second plane hit. Our understanding of our world flipped. One plane is an accident, two is a plan. And then the Pentagon and the plane crash in Pennsylvania. This was a coordinated attack.
Over the next few days some of our presumptions ended, with giant consequences for Americans. We learned that planes themselves could be weapons, that plane hijackers needed to be resisted, that the top floors of landmark buildings were targets. We learned to be suspicious. Most of all we realized that we were vulnerable.
We have had another realization. The idea that any president would conspire to remain in office after having lost the election used to be a crazy idea. It was unthinkable -- almost. Bill Maher had burnished his reputation as cranky critic by saying in his comedy show that Trump would overturn the election if he lost. "I don't see him leaving willingly." "I don't see him leaving under any conditions."
In the fall prior to the 2020 election a serious article in The Atlantic Monthly warned Trump might refuse to leave. This wasn't comedy.
It’s democracy’s most dangerous instant: the interval when power changes hands, testing whether the nation stays moored to self-governance.
But the article had a kind of campfire ghost-story element to it. It was scary but make-believe. The article quoted Lindsay Graham:
“I’m not buying into that nutty stuff. I’m not worried about that.”
Graham called it "nutty stuff," meaning that Trump's plan ran into a wall of idea-inertia in the weeks after the election. It was all so new. Vice President Pence looked for guidance from another former Republican VP, who said it was unthinkable. A Republican Attorney General in bright red Idaho said no: “The legally correct decision may not be the politically convenient decision." But Trump saw the Texas lawsuit, which attempted to stop the vote count in Wisconsin, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin, as the way to overturn the election. The Texas lawsuit alleged fraud, and if their elections were questionable they could be discarded by a decision-maker. Court observers called it a "Hail Mary." The U.S. Supreme Court turned down Texas, but not on substantive grounds. It said Texas lacked standing.
Trump's unwavering claims of victory, his support for the January 6 riot, and his condemnation of Pence combined to change mainstream opinion among habitual Republican voters. GOP officeholders and thought leaders accept the ends, if not Trump's means, although some support those, too. And Trump returning as president, whatever his sins against democracy, is thought better than return of a Biden-Harris presidency. Overturning an election is wrong, and it would certainly be wrong were Kamala Harris to attempt it, but it is a forgivable misdemeanor for a Republican. Going forward it needs to be done under pretext of legality.
The idea and the mechanism is in place. The GOP electorate is prepped to believe that any election is questionable. Vote tabulating companies won lawsuits, but not the hearts and minds of Republican voters. County and state election certifiers are in place ready to dig in their heels and find reasons to object, which will throw off state counts, pushing states against hard deadlines, justifying state legislatures stepping in. It is now mainstream to say that certifications by courts are illegitimate, filled as they are with Democratic judges, RINOs, and cowards.
Accept a loss? Never. Conceding an election loss is shameful, not patriotic. The unthinkable is now thinkable
I have posted a one minute version of this post to YouTube and other social media sites. It is an experiment: