Alexandra Erin
@alexandraerin
Today, in We Are Winning But We Haven't Yet Won - Donald Trump dissolved his "very distinguished voter fraud" panel, which has recently admitted to not been able to meet or do anything but answer legal challenges for months.
I put this in the category of We Are Winning But We Haven't Yet Won because note what his next move is: refer the question of voter fraud to the Department of Homeland Security.
When stymied, the authoritarian escalates.
DHS (which contains both ICE and customs/border protection) has quietly been the site of most of Donald Trump's most horrific policy victories.
You know the kind of security theater we go through at airports? Inconvenient and embarrassing for many of us, terrifying and traumatizing for some of us.
Imagine that, on the way to the voting booth.
Imagine ICE standing out in front of polling places, looking for people who "don't look like they're supposed to be voting". Imagine them secretly staking out some polling places. Which ones? You don't know.
Alabama had cops out pulling over cars and detaining people on their way to vote, visibly intimidating others who witnessed this.
Even DHS does not invoke these specific tactics... we as a country have shown we are willing to swallow quite a bit when it comes from a bottle labeled "National Security".
Whatever follows, we are sure to see some pundits with the hottest of takes, claiming that the very distinguished frauds should have been allowed to do their job, and that we played into Trump's hands by resisting them and giving him an excuse to invoke national security.
Somehow "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." has become "Don't take a single step, it only leads to a thousand mile journey." in a lot of people's minds.
E.g.: Don't fight Trump, it'll only lead to fighting Pence.
But if we don't fight this mess every step of the way, they'll just do whatever we want and claim a mandate.
The truth is that we are winning, but we have not yet won.
I think the very distinguished fraud panel was on life support from the moment it became public that they couldn't conduct any business due to the legal challenges. Trump doesn't care about results, but he does care about appearances. Looking ineffectual == capital crime.