"Election Interference?" Arguing with the Daily Signal

 RantWoman does not usually read The Daily Signal. She made an exception for this article:

https://www.dailysignal.com/2020/12/17/how-democrats-attempted-a-2016-electoral-college-coup/ 

This article came to RantWoman on X / Twitter with the hashtag #ElectionInterference . Oh, you mean like #TFG (the former guy) saying out loud on the campaign trail "Russia are you listening?"  RantWoman does not here want to rehash all the tangles of the 2016 election but probably some of the public is going to need refreshers.

For now RantWoman considers it important to engage about the article because "Oh the Democrats did it too" is certainly going to be bandied about the court of public opinion even if it like whatever got presented in 60+ cases #TFG lost in 2020 it will not hold up in court. 

With that in mind, aiming to energize and motivate but hopefully not to overwhelm, RantWoman comments:

1. BOTH parties should do a better job of picking candidates and responding to the public mood. Start with some real basics like "Is this candidate eligible for a security clearance?" "Does the candidate already have so much legal action related to their business that one wonders how they have any time for their job?" "Will the candidate release 10 years of tax returns?"

2. In early 2016 there were already LOUD #GOP voices expressing concern about the presumptive nominee. How come that concern went nowhere?
3. For the Dems' part, RantWoman barely wants to touch Hillary's failure to build on Obama momentum, failure to look credible to Bernie bros, and failure at ALL to campaign in some key swing states. Hillary's assumption that she was winning, blinded her to LOTS of realities that opened the door to #TFG. Also, RantWoman recommends staying on the offensive against disinformation wherever it comes from.

4. Voters cannot rely only on parties (or the courts either). Voters ourselves need to stay engaged from the outset, shaping policy statements and messaging, registering voters, getting out the vote, monitoring vote counts....

5. No one should run unopposed! Saying it again, NO ONE should run unopposed! Who is willing to toss their hat into an election ring?

6. How electors get apportioned should be decided by states not by parties. That should avoid basically disenfranchising all the losing candidate's voters and reduce the odds of an electoral college victory wildly out of line with the popular vote. RantWoman is well aware the racist history of the electoral college and of concern that the electoral college gives low population states influence on Presidential outcomes way out of proportion to their population. Part of why RantWoman would prefer to do away with winner take all but not do away with the electoral college is that it could become too easy to ignore states that have small populations but important roles in the national economy. There is already two much division between large population mostly coastal states and the red heartland. The way to fix this is for there to be more diverse candidates in the heartland and for the coasts to listen better to heartland issues.

7. RantWoman here notes that around the 2017 inauguration, there were MASSIVE overwhelmingly nonviolent protest marches, massive marches with negligible numbers of either arrests or serious injuries. The airport occupations when #POTUS45 imposed his Muslim ban were also overwhelmingly nonviolent. Overwhelmingly nonviolent protests are AWESOME. By the time people were out protesting, though, it was really too late. This time around, people need to engage early and stay engaged,especially since the putative front-runner in one party is already promising to violate his oath of office almost as soon as he is sworn in.
RantWoman's impression of the 2016 campaign to switch electors is that it started comparatively late in the election cycle, maybe even after the election. In 2020 on the other hand, #TFG was already aware that he was losing and by early summer had already begun all the plotting that led up to the #J6 single biggest one-day violent crime wave in the US since 9/11 Bluntly, he was not going to leave office no matter what.

8. Another current thread in the national conversation is how do the #BLM #BlackLivesMatter protests of 2020 compare to #J6. This issue has swum out of the muck of #TFG talking about his plans for any future administration and for using the military against protestors in ways he was not allowed to do in 2020. 

     These comments acknowledge points that people in Seattle and Portland suspected. Forces of reaction seem eager, as often happens, to exploit reaction to the most negative images of protests. RantWoman is also turning into Protest Curmudgeon about people making their points without creating a lot of negative imagery. 

9. More alarming in terms of veering toward authoritarianism is concern RantWoman read on X/ Twitter that holding up military promotions and confirmation of diplomats is intended explicitly to leave lots of positions for a second #OrangeGuy administration to fill with loyalists who will do his bidding.

10. It's not like the US is shy about interfering in other countries' elections! RantWoman has a separate rant brewing about this point and the #OrangeGuy defending himself from conspiracy charges in Washington DC. Stay tuned.