Election wargaming: "The bad news: in each scenario other than a Biden landslide, we ended up with a constitutional crisis that lasted until the inauguration, featuring violence in the streets and a severely disrupted administrative transition." https://www.the-american-interest.com/2020/08/06/getting-from-november-to-january/

"Our democratic system relies on certain norms, including that the losing candidate will concede when the writing is on the wall. But a candidate who has the backing of his party to contest an election can easily do so well into January."

"Perhaps the most sinister finding of our scenario exercises was that a normatively uninhibited incumbent has a large, structural advantage because he sits as the commander of the awesome power of the executive branch."

"The two biggest dangers that the scenario process uncovered were the possibility that a false 'fraud' narrative could take hold, or violence in the streets could escalate. President Trump indeed appears to be laying the groundwork for both."

"Scenarios suggest the most aggressive—which is to say normatively uninhibited—strategies are more likely 2 succeed. Whichever side claims the narrative immediately & creates 'facts on the ground' indicating they intend to physically keep/take the presidency is likely 2 prevail."

"But even if the country and our system of government gets through the transition more or less intact, whoever is in the White House will be presiding over a deeply traumatized country where the losers are likely to feel not only aggrieved but afraid."

ICYMI, read this thread & the linked piece & ask yourself: when it comes down to the crucial few weeks after a contested election, are Dems going to have the unity & spine to outplay a fully organized, "normatively uninhibited" right & its giant propaganda network?

Hint: we ran this experiment once already, in 2000, and the results were pretty conclusive.

One last note on this: one reason the RW will be better prepared is that their narrative doesn't depend on facts, so they don't need to wait to start constructing it. It's already being blasted out on Fox et al. Dems will refrain until "all the facts are in" & thus fall behind.

All right, fine! The tweet to Pelosi was unfair, I deleted it. Let me try to express what is frustrating me in more coherent form, thereby making this interminable thread even longer.

Start here: the upcoming election will almost certainly be disputed.

The naive liberal way of viewing that eventuality would be, "if that happens, we'll do our best to discern the actual facts & present them to the appropriate institutions, which will make the appropriate decisions." As we saw in 2000 (& every year since), that doesn't work.

In actual fact, in any contested election, in an atmosphere of fear & uncertainty, "whichever side claims the narrative immediately & creates 'facts on the ground'" is likely to prevail. The way to "claim the narrative immediately" is to *already have the narrative in place.*

So, as we speak, & every day through the election, RW politicians & media are spinning that narrative: Dems are going to steal it, mail-in voting is vaguely shady somehow, antifa Soros something something. This will convince the base, but even outside the base ...

... as we've seen again & again, a consistently repeated narrative, even if frequently "factchecked," seeps its way into public consciousness & becomes familiar. Casual/disengaged folk conclude, even if only subconsciously, that there "must be something to it."

Dems, meanwhile, have their usual melange of tepid messages, exacerbated by their lack of any analogue to Fox et al. They are piss poor at message coordination & they have no media machine to coordinate for them. The "Trump is trying to steal the election" message ...

... is *out there*, if you look for it or happen to catch it, but it is not ubiquitous in the way the RW message is (what with the president & the biggest cable network tag-teaming). The result of all this will be, when the election dispute happens ...

... one narrative will be familiar & vaguely "sound right" to the disengaged masses. Then there will be polls & Dems will throw up their hands & say, "oh well, the public isn't with us on this. Fighting too hard would be unpopular." As though public opinion just *happened*.

This asymmetry has been true for years, of course, and on most issues, but we're heading up to a period of weeks or months that will decide the fate of American democracy. It's existential. Dems can't cure the asymmetry overnight, of course ...

... but, like, maybe they could all just say the same stuff for a while? Maybe every Dem who encounters a microphone could say it? Maybe all the fractious interest groups on the left could repeat it? It does, after all, have the benefit of being true.

There are very, very basic things about the US right that the bulk of the US public does not understand. That's not fully the fault of Dem leadership, of course, but whoever's fault it is, it's about to lead to the ruination of the country, so...maybe time to try to change it?

And with that I will finally Log Off and go play with my new pup.