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Trump makes likely illegal demand of Georgia’s governor in wild twitter outburst

Trump makes likely illegal demand of Georgia’s governor in wild twitter outburst

President-elect Joe Biden will assume the office of the American presidency in 51 days and yet Donald Trump is still insisting that he won the election. His ludicrous attempts to overturn the results have been repeatedly thrown out of the courts and his team has failed to provide even a scrap of evidence to back up their allegations of widespread voter fraud. To everyone except the most diehard MAGA fanatics, it’s clear that Donald Trump lost this election by an overwhelming margin.

Trump’s efforts to undermine faith in the integrity of our elections damage our Republic in obvious ways, but it’s also starting to damage his own party. As the president and his lackeys work to convince state-level GOP officials to finagle a win for Trump, they’re pitting the frothing Trumpist hordes against some mainline Republicans who aren’t quite ready to completely destroy our democracy.

Yesterday, Trump went directly after the Republican Governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp. Kemp has been a loyal supporter of Trump, but his refusal to override the will of the people of Georgia to hand the state to the president earned him a Twitter attack in which Trump called him “hapless” and urged him to use his “emergency powers” to “overrule his obstinate Secretary of State” and force a “match of signatures of envelopes.” Georgia’s Secretary of State is Brad Raffensperger who is also a Republican.

Add your name to tell Trump: You Lost! Concede!

The soon-to-be-ex-president went on to claim that a signature match would uncover a “‘goldmine’ of fraud'” and help him to “easily WIN the state.” He added that the number of envelopes should also be checked against the number of ballots and that it would be “so simple, so easy to do.” His claim that Republicans “are angry” is certainly true but their angry because the president has convinced them that the election was stolen when it wasn’t, not because they have any legitimate cause for anger.

As usual, Trump failed to provide any evidence for his outlandish claims and seems to be either delusional or simply stroking his ego in bad faith. Joe Biden won Georgia and rather than accept that simple fact Trump has decided to wage war on his own party.

Kemp’s office felt the need to respond to the president’s attacks yesterday. The governor’s Communications Director Cody Hall told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that “Georgia law prohibits the governor from interfering in elections.” Hall explained that Georgia’s Secretary of State is responsible for overseeing elections and that the governor does not have the power to override them.

“As the governor has said repeatedly, he will continue to follow the law and encourage the Secretary of State to take reasonable steps — including a sample audit of signatures — to restore trust and address serious issues that have been raised,” added Hall.

Rather than heed this perfectly reasonable explanation, Trump doubled down on his ill-advised attack today. He tweeted to urge Kemp to “do something” and claimed that the governor is allowing his state to be “scammed.” He repeated his order to check signatures and count signed envelopes against the ballots.

“Then call off election. It won’t be needed. We will all WIN!” Trump concluded, seemingly calling for Kemp to unilaterally cancel out the will of the people of Georgia and violate the state’s election laws.

It’s unclear exactly how he wants Kemp to cancel an election that already happened but luckily there is no legal mechanism that will allow him to do so. Trump can demand illegal election interference all he wants, it won’t work and he won’t get a second term. Joe Biden will be president. Deal with it.

It’s important that the Republican Party never be allowed to wash this stain out. They’ve empowered and supported a would-be authoritarian for four years and now, as he is trying to execute a soft coup, the party is silent. There is some small joy to be gleaned from the fact that Trump is now turning on his allies, but it doesn’t make up for the incalcuable damage being inflicted on our democracy.

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