Day: November 12, 2019

Read the Kentucky election story below the fold and try to argue that it doesn't all go down just like this: It is nearing midnight on November 3rd, 2020. Trump has lost by lots in the popular vote and by a little in the electoral college. He does not concede. Having complained about Democratic cheating for months leading up to the election, he allows stories like the one below to bubble thought the internet. The press covers "both sides" of the controversy. Chris Coons reserves judgement in the interest of bipartisanship. Within a day or two people of every political flavor are edgy. One night, a shot rings out. Mayhem ensues. Windows and skulls are broken. Trump declares a national emergency. Under the National Emergencies Act Trump has virtually unlimited discretionary power if supported by the Senate and Supreme Court. He declares the election invalid. The constitutionality of that use of emergency powers is endorsed by a 5 to 4 majority in the Supreme Court.

Both Biden and Coons think that there is some special potency to their brand of bipartisanship, but there are differences in how both men explain away the ongoing ineffectiveness of bipartisanship. For both of them, bipartisanship is a magic key that will unlock every door and solve every problem, but when bipartisanship inevitably fails as it always does in the age of Rove/Bush/Trump/McConnell, Coons typically believes that the pursuit of bipartisanship by Democrats wasn't obsequious enough. Coons views the failure of bipartisanship as a failure of Democrats to compromise sufficiently. Biden, on the other hand, simply misremembers the past and lives in a fantasy world in which bipartisanship always works in spite of 30 years of evidence to the contrary.

Matt Viser ✔ @mviser Joe Biden remarks that he called about a dozen Senate Republicans to encourage them to vote on Merrick Garland. Then he says with Trump gone, Republicans will again find political courage. Left unsaid: Republicans stalled on Garland before Trump was nominated, or elected.