Sometimes I do my best thinking while I’m running or hiking and a thought occurred to me yesterday while I was out for a run. In a lot of ways, the crusade to overturn the election is like the Republican crusade to defund Obamacare.
How? I’m glad you asked.
For one thing, both are campaigns that are aimed primarily at the Republican base rather than at voters at large. Sure, Obamacare was unpopular among the country as a whole (at least until Republicans presented their plan to replace it in 2017), but it was a pretty even split. On the other hand, the ACA was deeply unpopular among Republicans.
Second, neither ever had a chance of success. I spent a lot of time in years past explaining why a congressional minority could not force their will on the majority (math is hard!), but many were convinced that just holding out a little longer would force the Democrats to yield. It was never in the cards.
Overturning the election was also never in the cards. This is doubly true since the bumbling Trump attorneys could never find anywhere close to enough evidence of fraud to show that the outcome of the election was in doubt. Even if they could find evidence of fraud that would stand up in court, the likelihood of forcing new elections, which Trump might still lose, in enough states to change the Electoral College outcome was always a bridge too far.
Third, Republican voters in their bubbles don’t understand that they were sold a bill of goods in both cases. The talking heads assure them that victory is nigh, just as they did back in 2013.
The Republican failure to defund Obamacare was preordained from the start, but Republican voters viewed it as a sellout and a failure of will. That ultimately led to the rise of Donald Trump.
Already, the grifters on the right are selling the base on the notion that Trump was not able to overturn the will of the people because Republicans sold him out. Where will the base’s anger lead this time?
Photo credit: Jon Tyson/unsplash.com
From the Racket
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