{"id":7288,"date":"2022-02-20T15:21:29","date_gmt":"2022-02-20T15:21:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=7288"},"modified":"2022-02-20T15:21:29","modified_gmt":"2022-02-20T15:21:29","slug":"the-revealing-trump-white-house-debate-over-whether-to-seize-voting-machines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=7288","title":{"rendered":"The revealing Trump White House debate over whether to seize voting machines"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“By December 2020, as President Donald Trump was trying feverishly to overturn Joe Biden\u2019s election win, his closest remaining advisers had broken into two warring camps<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both factions, at this point, supported and encouraged Trump\u2019s strategy to retain power:pressuring state legislatures, state officials, and members of Congress to throw out results in key states, claiming they were tainted by fraud. Both were even interested in using the federal government\u2019s power to seize voting machines in key states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But one camp, led by Sidney Powell and Michael Flynn, wanted to go even further and use the military to seize those machines \u2014 while the other, led by Rudy Giuliani, thought that was a bridge too far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Think of it as a divide between the dangerously unhinged and the totally batshit.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The story makes clear just how dire things were for democracy at this point. Everyone around Trump was recommending extreme measures that, if successful, would have amounted to stealing the election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet even some of Trump\u2019s unhinged, irresponsible, and conspiratorial advisers, like Giuliani, were still trying to steer him away from the even worse actions counseled by Powell and Flynn, who seem to have been totally unmoored<\/a> from factual and political reality at this point.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“while some officials might have refused to go along with Trump\u2019s whims, he did have the option to replace them but simply chose not to \u2014 due to his own calculations that this would be too far, or because other advisers talked him out of it. But there was no guarantee that Trump, who had been willing to push so far already, would back off here. If he were just a bit more stubborn and willing to stretch the boundaries of his power, the election 2020 crisis could have grown far worse.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“\u201cMike Pence did have the right to change the outcome,\u201d Trump said in a statement…\u201cUnfortunately, he didn\u2019t exercise that power, he could have overturned the Election!\u201d That same day, he\u00a0mused at a rally<\/a>\u00a0about pardoning January 6 rioters. In a battle between the unhinged and the batshit for Trump\u2019s favor, the latter camp may be gaining strength.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/2022\/2\/1\/22912394\/trump-giuliani-seize-voting-machines-military<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“By December 2020, as President Donald Trump was trying feverishly to overturn Joe Biden\u2019s election win, his closest remaining advisers had broken into two warring camps.<\/p>\n

Both factions, at this point, supported and encouraged Trump\u2019s strategy to retain power: pressuring state legislatures, state officials, and members of Congress to throw out results in key states, claiming they were tainted by fraud. Both were even interested in using the federal government\u2019s power to seize voting machines in key states.<\/p>\n

But one camp, led by Sidney Powell and Michael Flynn, wanted to go even further and use the military to seize those machines \u2014 while the other, led by Rudy Giuliani, thought that was a bridge too far.<\/p>\n

Think of it as a divide between the dangerously unhinged and the totally batshit.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“The story makes clear just how dire things were for democracy at this point. Everyone around Trump was recommending extreme measures that, if successful, would have amounted to stealing the election.<\/p>\n

Yet even some of Trump\u2019s unhinged, irresponsible, and conspiratorial advisers, like Giuliani, were still trying to steer him away from the even worse actions counseled by Powell and Flynn, who seem to have been totally unmoored from factual and political reality at this point.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“while some officials might have refused to go along with Trump\u2019s whims, he did have the option to replace them but simply chose not to \u2014 due to his own calculations that this would be too far, or because other advisers talked him out of it. But there was no guarantee that Trump, who had been willing to push so far already, would back off here. If he were just a bit more stubborn and willing to stretch the boundaries of his power, the election 2020 crisis could have grown far worse.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“\u201cMike Pence did have the right to change the outcome,\u201d Trump said in a statement…\u201cUnfortunately, he didn\u2019t exercise that power, he could have overturned the Election!\u201d That same day, he mused at a rally about pardoning January 6 rioters. In a battle between the unhinged and the batshit for Trump\u2019s favor, the latter camp may be gaining strength.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1104,864,431,221,372,198],"class_list":["post-7288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-authoritarianism","tag-autocracy","tag-democracy","tag-donald-trump","tag-election","tag-elections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7288"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7289,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7288\/revisions\/7289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}