There’s a meme going round. I jumped on the memewagon, made my own, and Instagrammed it.
You’d be amazed how many friends now think I’m the sort of monster who puts ketchup on steak. Speaking of which, I like mine somewhere between medium rare and medium. Donna likes hers raw. When I grill steaks I give hers five minutes per side; six to seven per side for mine. Which results in me bringing hers in before mine’s ready, so by the time we eat hers is starting to get cold. Nothing’s easy, is it?
Another thing going around: people blaming Trump for ending National Guard COVID-19 deployments one day short of the 90 days required for troops to receive GI Bill education benefits. Well, certainly Trump approved it and thus should get some of the blame, but I know goddamn well this was a Department of Defense decision. They did the same thing with National Guard troops deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq in 2003. It’s military policy … they do it all the time.
Dear Leader shot out a couple of tweets yesterday morning. I don’t know. Is it time to start worrying about the 2020 election?
Most commenters focused on Trump’s threat to cut federal funding to Michigan and Nevada if they allow voting by mail. Which is super weird, because lots of states, including many that are firmly in Republican control, not only allow but encourage voting by mail, and have for years.
Not me. I’m more focused on Trump’s use of the words “illegally” and “illegal.” And not just because I’m surprised he spelled them correctly.
Recall that after the 2016 election, Trump, smarting over Hillary Clinton’s popular vote victory, tweeted this: “In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.”
Trump had convinced himself then, and from all I can tell still believes, that there is rampant voter fraud in this country (all of it favoring the Democrats, of course). Or maybe he doesn’t believe it, but sees it as a way to attack election results he doesn’t agree with. Do I actually have to point out that there is no voter fraud?
Yes, I think we should be concerned. If the November vote goes to Biden, Trump is certain to claim Biden’s win illegal, the result of wholly made-up voter fraud. Concerned not so much with Trump, who is after all entirely predictable, but with the Republican-controlled Senate and Supreme Court, which just might allow Trump to overrule election results … illegally.
Back to the meme: a lot of people feel they’re getting boned by 2020. Me, I think the old bone went in when the Electoral College stole the 2016 election from the American people.