latest updates are like "the gop guys who planned to oppose this certification are now secretly meeting to debate what to do" and i'm like trying to psychically manifest amongst them so i can knock their heads together, i'm so mad
props to this wapo reporter analyzing the toxic masculinity angle here (not using those words but), talking about this "faux machismo" thing that these people have going on, he's like "these are the people who go to military surplus stores because they think it makes them cool"
apparently people are asking the cabinet to meet and invoke the 25th amendment and honest question: do we have a fucking cabinet right now? or is it all "acting" cabinet members?
currently regretting listening to a podcast that taught me all about cults because cnn is reporting on how trump's been acting in private since losing and oh boyyyyyyyyy is it familiarrrrrrrrr
like i hesitate to call him a cult leader specifically because he's not like... he didn't start qanon, he doesn't communicate with lieutenants or anything, he's not really creating managing or leading the cult
oh my god i just actually heard what trump said to his supporters shortly before this started it literally included the words "we will never take back our democracy through weakness" he really did fully tell them to do it
it's already a powerful sign to be like "no, actually, we're coming back and doing this tonight" but i think it would be even more powerful for them to be doing their certification in the trashed congressional chamber
I'm really looking to the republican electors who suddenly need to come to terms with how they actually are not safely ensconced in the DC bubble and this escalating domestic terrorism and white nationalism can reach out and touch them.
don't take this as gospel 'cause i could easily have missed some but melania trump's chief of staff is the first person so far to be like "i'm resigning over this disgrace"
i like this one guy being like "from everything we've heard, pence has taken over handling things and trump isn't involved in any of the disaster response and i never thought i'd say it's a relief to hear that the president isn't involved in responding but here we are"
this really is the final rebuke on the last four years, the surge to restore democracy and patriotism in the face nationalism and attempted dictatorship
oh cool one of the photojournalists for wapo is currently livestreaming that she's being arrested and she- oop no literally as i was typing the cops told them they were letting the press go
but the woman filming right now is the journalist who just almost got arrested, she was literally in the process of explaining that she and the other person she's with had said they were press and didn't know what they were being arrested for
YEAH THERE WASSSSSSSSS one at the rnc, one near the capitol somewhere (i forget where), and the dnc also had to clear out because of a "suspicious package" but i haven't heard the dnc brought up again so
i like how apparently mcconnel did a whole thing at the start of the vote counting being like "fellow republicans, don't send the country into a death spiral" as if he wasn't instrumental in getting us to this point and only ducked out like a month ago
i can only barely tolerate pence talking like this right now because he'd previously declared that he wasn't going to take part in trump's fucking coup
like on the one hand fuck you you've been involved this whole damn time, but he had previously decided to follow principles on this and so him making a speech based on principle is marginally less hypocritical
to give another minor sliver of credit to mitch and pence here, this sort of principled stance is more-or-less the only thing i've ever respected about the republican party?
but like if, *ifsix months from now it turns out that people like mitchhave* had this little incident cause them to be like "holy shit what have i been undermining my principles for what am i doing???" and they stop playing silly buggers, i'm willing to give that tiny minuscule grain of credit back
it is genuinely killing me that all these very good things all these republican senators are saying is against the backdrop off all of them voting not to eject trump from office a fucking year ago
marshall just babbled for like a billion years and said he wants to make a commission to give states advise on how to make their elections more secure but what about this thing today?
"it was thrown out on procedural grounds so the merits haven't been heard" THOSE PROCEDURAL GROUNDS EFFECTIVELY MEAN "HEY IT KINDA SEEMS LIKE YOU'RE TRYING TO PULL SOME BULLSHIT AND THE COURT ISN'T GONNA SUPPORT YOU IN THAT"
literally the procedural grounds are "hey it's interesting how you didn't have any issue with this process for years until it became clear that trump had lost"
idk, I've got a bit of respect for Sasse, though given the values he expressed in that speech it's interesting that he's never a swing vote that they talk about.
any respect i could have for the others is having to dig its way back up from the pits of hell, where it plunged when they didn't vote to remove trump from office
today they're all going to say pretty words, and i will judge those pretty words to see which ones i'm willing to give a second chance to if in the coming year they appear to have actually learned their lesson since the election
but yeah i'm fully like... just fuck all these people. the last 4 years generally and the last year specifically have demonstrated that all their pretty words about principles and about the rule of law are bullshit and what they say means nothing.
but also it's not impossible that number of them have looked at what happened today and started thinking "holy shit, how much have i compromised my values, what have i attached myself to, what am i doing" and so i'm willing to give them the opportunity to demonstrate that
and i don't necessarily expect them to suddenly realize that Kindness And Charity Matter Actually (the unchristian pigs) but if they stop undermining the fucking country then i can at least believe that they think they're doing the right thing, even if i think their morals are lacking in the extreme
see, this right here is a lovely example of how i can give a person one shred of credit for standing by the constitution before their political career, while also thinking he's a fucking despicable and disgusting human being
like good job sir you are making the right choice for the right reasons and have a clearly outlined argument explaining why these objections undermine the country in an indefensible way, now please get in the box and stay there
pointing out that everyone can say whatever bullshit they want on the congressional floor but that the moment people get under oath in a court of law they can't provide any evidence of actual voter fraud
basically the steps are 1) someone brings in an objection 2) everyone debates it 3) they see if the objector and a second are still going forward with the objection 4) they vote whether to do anything based on the objection
the nightmare part is that this is specifically about certifying arizona's results, and before today people had been threatening to oppose pennsylvania and georgia's electoral votes too, so if they still go through with it (and based on what those senators have done so far, they might) we get to repeat this process again
i'm trying to figure out if there are more trumpers in the house because it represents at a more granular scale and thus gets the pockets of True Believers, or if they just feel safer voting to reject because one vote doesn't make as big a difference in the house as it does in the senate
like, yes, right, but if you don't resign then it's like "really even this didn't do it?"
i'm so glad obama's just allowed to talk like this now