The question Hopkins raises is not a prediction. It is a structural observation, and the historian recognizes it as such. Democratic systems do not typically fail because one side wins and the other loses. They fail because the machinery through which winning and losing are determined — the certification process, the courts, the independent administrators, the chain of public confidence — is allowed to degrade before anyone has agreed on what to do if it breaks. Hopkins is asking the operational question. The historian’s task is to supply the pattern.
It is worth being precise about something Hopkins gestures toward but does not name directly. The word “rigged,” applied to American federal elections, did not enter the mainstream political vocabulary through both parties simultaneously, through accumulated evidence, or through the findings of independent courts. It entered through one man, in one direction, applied exclusively to outcomes he did not produce. Before November 3, 2020, American elections were contested, disputed, and litigated — but the framework of shared legitimacy held. What changed was not the evidence. What changed was the sustained, deliberate application of doubt as a political instrument. January 6th was not the beginning of that instrument. It was the demonstration of what the instrument could do when enough doubt had been accumulated. The historian files that date not as an endpoint but as a proof of concept.
Now attend carefully to the man Trump has placed in charge of delivering your ballot.
David Steiner, Postmaster General of the United States, testified under oath about the 2020 election. He did not say Joe Biden won. He said Joe Biden was sworn in. That is not a semantic distinction. That is a tell. A man responsible for the physical delivery of mail ballots in every federal election in this country will not say, under oath, that the last election produced a legitimate winner. He will only acknowledge the ceremony that followed. And that same man has now testified that states refusing to surrender voter rolls to the Trump administration will not receive mail ballot delivery. The infrastructure of electoral doubt and the infrastructure of electoral mechanics now reside in the same hands. Hopkins asks who has a plan. The historian notes, with precision, that someone does — and that it is not the opposition.
File the date when the Postmaster General testified that mail ballot delivery would be conditional on the surrender of voter rolls. Note which administration installed a conspiracy theorist to run federal disaster response, then removed him not for the conspiracy theories but for the attention they attracted. Note which president expressed fury, in front of witnesses, that his own party’s senators had voted to assert war powers — the constitutional authority Congress has held since 1787. Note which administration intervened in a California election probe in ways that have now been documented. These are not isolated episodes. They are a sequence. The sequence has a direction. And the direction has been declared, repeatedly, in public, by the same man who declared it on November 3rd, 2020, and has not stopped declaring it since.
What Hopkins identifies as a planning failure is also a historical failure. Every authoritarian consolidation studied in the modern period has moved through the same phases: the erosion of independent institutions before the crisis, the absence of agreed procedures during it, and the subsequent inability of the opposition to coordinate because the ground had already shifted beneath their feet. The Weimar Republic did not lack politicians who understood what was happening. It lacked a shared answer to Hopkins’s question. What happens after? Who coordinates? Where is the plan? The historian’s discomfort with the current moment is not that the threat is unfamiliar. It is that the preparation is not commensurate with what is already known. We are not preparing for a hypothetical. We are preparing — or failing to — for a contingency that has been announced, attempted, and partially executed. The California probe is not a warning. It is a data point.
Jack is correct that hope is not a contingency plan. The historian would add only this: when the actor has already told you what he intends, and demonstrated that he means it, and is now four years further into consolidating the institutional tools required to carry it out, the absence of a contingency plan is not an oversight. It is a choice. The confusion is not a bug. It is, in the cases historians have studied most carefully, the point. Doubt does not require proof. January 6th required only enough people, uncertain enough about what was real, for long enough. Imagine what four additional years of an increasingly functional and legally fortified Justice Department can manufacture from that same raw material — not a mob this time, but paperwork. Not a breach, but a process. Not a crowd at a door, but a Postmaster General who will not say the word “won” when asked about the last election. Authoritarian consolidations rarely repeat their first act. They refine it.
What responsible citizens can do — and Hopkins lists these with characteristic plainness — is exactly what this playbook historically works to prevent: building knowledge of how the system actually functions, demanding transparency before the crisis rather than during it, insisting that officials explain procedures publicly while explanation is still possible. The time for that work is not after the next provocation. Given what is already documented, given what has already been attempted, given what has already been said out loud by the man now positioned to attempt it again with more tools and fewer constraints — the time was some while ago. The historian does not say this to induce panic. The historian says it because the record is clear, and clarity is the only honest response to a threat that has already introduced itself.
The question that keeps Hopkins awake is the right question. The historian’s only addition is this: we are not being asked to imagine something unprecedented. We are being asked to prepare for something that has already happened once, that the participants have promised to do again, and that will arrive next time wearing a suit and carrying a legal memo instead of a flag. A Postmaster General who acknowledges only a swearing-in and not a victory. A Justice Department reshaped to serve the man rather than the law. A California probe that tells us interference does not wait for Election Day. Preparation now is not catastrophizing. It is the minimum the evidence demands. And the evidence has been accumulating, in public, since November 3rd, 2020, from the mouth of the same man who is still speaking.
Jane...you did the thing I was reaching for and couldn't quite grip: you moved it off the terrain of prediction...entirely.
The question was never "will it happen"...it's "is the machinery sound, and do we have an agreed answer if it isn't."
Framing doubt as an instrument...rather than a mood is EXACTLY right...and...it's the reframe that makes the planning argument from earlier in this thread...CLICK into place.
This is the announced contingency. This is the one...we keep being told not to waste time on.
The Steiner detail...is the part that should stop people cold, because it isn't rhetoric... it's on the record. I say again, It. Is. On. The. Record.
The SAME hands that hold the instrument of doubt...now hold the literal mechanics of delivery.
When the official responsible for moving ballots tells the Senate...plainly...that delivery is now CONDITIONAL on states SURRENDERING their voter rolls...we are past the stage of IMAGINING an attack surface. It's been BUILT...in public...and described UNDER OATH.
Your closing image is the one I'd want every reader to sit with: it won't arrive as a breach next time...it'll arrive as a PROCESS.
Not a crowd at a door...but a memo...a rule...a signature.
That's the form consolidation takes once it's learned from its FIRST attempt.
Thank you for this, Jane. It deserves more than a comment box, and I may come back to it at length.
I started reading with anxiety. Now, as I’ve finished this article, I plan to contact my governor’s office, mayor’s office and local election officials to ask the questions you brought up! It feels good to have an action plan! Thanks!
Anxiety is what they're counting on...it freezes people.
An action plan is the antidote...and you just built one.
Making those calls matters more than most people realize; election officials and local offices track what they're hearing about...and a few SPECIFIC...informed questions carry real weight.
If you're up for it...jot down what they tell you.
Other readers here...are about to do the same thing...and hearing how your offices actually respond would help ALL of us.
Contingencies must be planned for - and NOT by people who believe they can predict which scenario will occur, or even is more or less likely to occur. That skews the planning. Those people can help to fine tune plans, but they are terrible at developing plans.
Being prepared means being equally prepared for all contingencies. NOT because they are equally as likely, but because there must be a considered response ready independent of the accuracy of "predictions" - planning that is not dependent upon either fear or hope, but a realistic understanding that once a probability becomes a reality, regardless how unlikely that might have been, it becomes THE reality that we must ready to address.
The fear of "wasting time" on "unlikely scenarios" makes those scenarios more dangerous - and due to the complex non-linearity of systems and human nature, may well make the those scenarios MORE probable.
(Very simply, e.g., if the opposition knows that a scenario is theoretically unlikely and planning has been minimal, it will encourage them to produce that scenario. Might that not even apply to the "unlikelihood" that someone who was known to be as ignorant AND corrupt AND sadistic as DJT could possibly gain power? The fact that we were unprepared for him made him a much MORE "useful" - and perniciously attractive - idiot.)
Dr. David...you've specified the thing I was circling....but didn't name: good planning has to be robust to being wrong about which scenario hits.
The moment your prep depends on your forecast being RIGHT...you've built a single point of failure into the whole damn structure.
The predictor...and the planner... are different jobs...and you're right that confusing them corrupts BOTH.
The one refinement I'd add cuts in your favor: you can't literally prepare equally for infinite contingencies...so the real discipline is sorting by CONSEQUENCE...rather than by likelihood. (I'll write a story sometime in the future about how sorting by likelihood put me in a really unfavorable position years ago.)
A scenario that's unlikely...but....CATASTROPHIC... earns more planning than one that's probable...but trivial...because once it lands...the probability that mattered going in...is irrelevant. It's now the only reality in the room.
Your strategic point is the part too few people sit with: visible unpreparedness...is itself...an incentive.
It doesn't just fail to deter the bad outcome...it advertises an opening.
That's the deterrence logic running in reverse; and yes, it absolutely applies to how we got here. We treated a certain outcome as too absurd to plan for...and the absurdity...became the attack surface.
A general strike is one of the FEW real levers ordinary people hold; the kind of power an administration can't litigate away...or route around with a memo.
When institutions wobble...mass, coordinated, nonviolent REFUSAL to carry on as normal....is historically one of the things that actually MOVES the ground.
But...here's the catch, and it's the whole point of the piece:
A general strike...that's a hashtag on the day of the crisis...is a FEELING.
A general strike with networks...strike funds...agreed triggers...and people who've already decided...in advance what would move them to walk...that's a PLAN.
The first evaporates by lunchtime. The second...CHANGES OUTCOMES..
So...yes. Put it on the list. And...then let's do the unglamorous work...of building it ...BEFORE we need it...not during.
You’ve made some assumptions Jack. “Credible evidence” is one of them. Delays is another.
There is a line in the sand to be drawn. Magats and Trump will draw it. Dems can approach that line and challenge it. Elias and many are. This is our bulwark. Playing the “what if” game sows doubt for sure. I don’t want to. Our guys in charge are moving to the right direction. States are stopping voter intimidation and Trump 0-9 in court on the voter rolls shit. A blue tsunami makes it hard to gain 150,000 votes when defeated by 500000.
I have faith and confidence in the system we have prevailing. Credence given to challenges and gaslighting MUST be dismissed in unified style and I really don’t see scotus halting or challenging a blue tsunami.
Tom..I appreciate the fire...and we want the same outcome.
But...I think the piece got read as the very thing it was arguing against...so let me be clear about what I actually said.
I didn't assume credible evidence. I didn't predict delays.
I named them as contingencies to be ready for.
That distinction is the ENTIRE spine of the article. Collapsing "what if we plan for it" into "he thinks it'll happen" is exactly the reflex...that leaves people flat-footed.
Planning for a scenario isn't predicting it...and...it certainly isn't sowing doubt; insurance companies...hospitals...and the military do it PRECISELY because they're confident enough...to look the bad case in the eye.
And...here's where I'll push back hardest, because you picked an interesting example to reassure me with.
You cited the voter-rolls fight as a win column... "0-9 in court." But they stopped fighting in court.
This week the Postmaster General told the Senate...UNDER OATH...that the Postal Service will NOT deliver mail ballots...in states that refuse to hand their voter rolls over to the administration.
That is the thesis of my entire article....delivered in a single news cycle:
It didn't arrive in combat boots...it arrived as a POSTAL RULE.
Unfortunately...a blue tsunami doesn't help you...in a state where the ballots never reach the mailbox.
Margin math assumes the ballots get counted. This is an attempt to change whether they get SENT.
So...no...I'm not giving credence to gaslighting.
Demanding evidence...before accepting extraordinary claims...and preparing for a contingency...are not the same act; the first dismisses lies...the second protects against them.
Faith and confidence are good fuel. They are not a plan. You may well be right that SCOTUS won't touch a landslide...I hope you are. But "I hope you're right" is the EXACT sentence this newsletter exists to retire.
We are on the same team.
I'm not asking you to doubt the win.
I'm asking you to make the win...uncontestable...by knowing what comes AFTER it. That's not panic. It's the seatbelt you put on...while fully intending to arrive safely.
What is the plan if millions of Americans sincerely believe an election was compromised…and there is credible evidence that serious interference occurred?
Tom...now you're asking the exact question the article was built around. So let me answer it straight.
First...I'd split your sentence in two...because it contains two very different emergencies.
"Millions sincerely believe"...and..."credible evidence exists"...are not the same crisis...and they don't have the same plan.
Sincere belief that's wrong is a legitimacy problem. You don't beat it by yelling "you're wrong"...you beat it with transparency built BEFORE the count:
Observable chain-of-custody...bipartisan canvassing...published procedures...results people can audit without taking anyone's word for it.
The plan there...is pre-committed standards...so the answer is already on the record before the doubt arrives.
Credible evidence...of actual interference is a different animal...and the plan is documentation and standing. Not a viral post.
A record clean enough...and a plaintiff with standing fast enough...that a court can act on it in days...not months.
That's the unglamorous infrastructure...the Eliases of the world, exactly as you said.
So...the "plan" isn't one heroic move. It's making BOTH failure modes boring ...AND...survivable in advance.
That's the whole reason I won't let "I hope you're right" be the plan...it covers NEITHER case.
Great question, Tom. This is the conversation I wanted!
The what if assumes acceptance. I agree preparing for a contingency is warranted. A plan is of course the proper response. “I hope you are right”. I was giving credence and awareness to what is being done. Might not be enough but warrants hope and confidence.
The postmaster general is in direct violation of postal service rules. Not to mention election interference. That presidential executive order is in direct violation of the constitution. I cannot see it being upheld even if it reaches scotus (doubt it will get there in time). Should that happen I look forward to your upcoming thoughts on if it does and is upheld. Could we be looking at secession?
Don't you find it interesting that there was never a question as to wether our Election's were free, fare and ligament until trump decided to switch from being a Democrat to Republican, and run for president?!! It's true there's been Republican Rigging in presidential elections prior to trump, but there's still No Massive Voter Fraud from our public elections. I share your concerns in the coming midterm's and beyond, Jack. DonOld has made his plans well known to Stop swathes of citizens from Voting, and my hopes are the States, Congress and Judges can stop this Travesty coming down the pike. Thanks for sharing your expertise and insight tonight, and will reStack ASAP 💯👍
Do we have a plan? Just some thoughts because I’m anxious.. trembling.. sick.. terrified. Yeah, I know.. that won’t help anything and I’ll work through it.. or at least I’ll try. Remember, I’m your reader with panic disorder and Meniere’s Disease and this is hard. I’m going to be a basket case by September and certainly October. I’ll try to find things to do to counteract those unhelpful emotions.
Do I think the Republicans have a plan if they lose? or even if they win? They won’t win a fair election.. or at least not many. Absolutely! Do I think Democrats do? Maybe the “concept of a plan” or bits and pieces.. here and there. For instance, I suspect Mark Elias and his team has a plan because I’ve listened to him and he expects to need that plan.. some counties.. states? Yeah, probably. But an overall solid, coordinated plan? I highly doubt it and that’s way beyond concerning because I really believe we’re going to need it.
I read the comments before I came to make my own and the one I found most helpful was by BG Lund because I need something to do. Our Governor (Josh Stein) here in North Carolina and our AG (Jeff Jackson) stay in touch so I think making those calls would be useful. I need to find city and county officials to call that are on our side because we’re still far too red here in rural WNC. I’ve made some low level local contacts so I’ll start there.
Thank you, Jack. This is hard… REALLY.. HARD… but I’ll do my best.
This especially applies currently to mail in ballots. What are the contingency plans? The responses of the states’ attorneys general? The local officials who send out the ballots? The states who have only vote by mail? And so on. Thank you for your clear and succinct questions for whatever contingencies and the need for upfront transparency.
Jack is correct.
The question Hopkins raises is not a prediction. It is a structural observation, and the historian recognizes it as such. Democratic systems do not typically fail because one side wins and the other loses. They fail because the machinery through which winning and losing are determined — the certification process, the courts, the independent administrators, the chain of public confidence — is allowed to degrade before anyone has agreed on what to do if it breaks. Hopkins is asking the operational question. The historian’s task is to supply the pattern.
It is worth being precise about something Hopkins gestures toward but does not name directly. The word “rigged,” applied to American federal elections, did not enter the mainstream political vocabulary through both parties simultaneously, through accumulated evidence, or through the findings of independent courts. It entered through one man, in one direction, applied exclusively to outcomes he did not produce. Before November 3, 2020, American elections were contested, disputed, and litigated — but the framework of shared legitimacy held. What changed was not the evidence. What changed was the sustained, deliberate application of doubt as a political instrument. January 6th was not the beginning of that instrument. It was the demonstration of what the instrument could do when enough doubt had been accumulated. The historian files that date not as an endpoint but as a proof of concept.
Now attend carefully to the man Trump has placed in charge of delivering your ballot.
David Steiner, Postmaster General of the United States, testified under oath about the 2020 election. He did not say Joe Biden won. He said Joe Biden was sworn in. That is not a semantic distinction. That is a tell. A man responsible for the physical delivery of mail ballots in every federal election in this country will not say, under oath, that the last election produced a legitimate winner. He will only acknowledge the ceremony that followed. And that same man has now testified that states refusing to surrender voter rolls to the Trump administration will not receive mail ballot delivery. The infrastructure of electoral doubt and the infrastructure of electoral mechanics now reside in the same hands. Hopkins asks who has a plan. The historian notes, with precision, that someone does — and that it is not the opposition.
File the date when the Postmaster General testified that mail ballot delivery would be conditional on the surrender of voter rolls. Note which administration installed a conspiracy theorist to run federal disaster response, then removed him not for the conspiracy theories but for the attention they attracted. Note which president expressed fury, in front of witnesses, that his own party’s senators had voted to assert war powers — the constitutional authority Congress has held since 1787. Note which administration intervened in a California election probe in ways that have now been documented. These are not isolated episodes. They are a sequence. The sequence has a direction. And the direction has been declared, repeatedly, in public, by the same man who declared it on November 3rd, 2020, and has not stopped declaring it since.
What Hopkins identifies as a planning failure is also a historical failure. Every authoritarian consolidation studied in the modern period has moved through the same phases: the erosion of independent institutions before the crisis, the absence of agreed procedures during it, and the subsequent inability of the opposition to coordinate because the ground had already shifted beneath their feet. The Weimar Republic did not lack politicians who understood what was happening. It lacked a shared answer to Hopkins’s question. What happens after? Who coordinates? Where is the plan? The historian’s discomfort with the current moment is not that the threat is unfamiliar. It is that the preparation is not commensurate with what is already known. We are not preparing for a hypothetical. We are preparing — or failing to — for a contingency that has been announced, attempted, and partially executed. The California probe is not a warning. It is a data point.
Jack is correct that hope is not a contingency plan. The historian would add only this: when the actor has already told you what he intends, and demonstrated that he means it, and is now four years further into consolidating the institutional tools required to carry it out, the absence of a contingency plan is not an oversight. It is a choice. The confusion is not a bug. It is, in the cases historians have studied most carefully, the point. Doubt does not require proof. January 6th required only enough people, uncertain enough about what was real, for long enough. Imagine what four additional years of an increasingly functional and legally fortified Justice Department can manufacture from that same raw material — not a mob this time, but paperwork. Not a breach, but a process. Not a crowd at a door, but a Postmaster General who will not say the word “won” when asked about the last election. Authoritarian consolidations rarely repeat their first act. They refine it.
What responsible citizens can do — and Hopkins lists these with characteristic plainness — is exactly what this playbook historically works to prevent: building knowledge of how the system actually functions, demanding transparency before the crisis rather than during it, insisting that officials explain procedures publicly while explanation is still possible. The time for that work is not after the next provocation. Given what is already documented, given what has already been attempted, given what has already been said out loud by the man now positioned to attempt it again with more tools and fewer constraints — the time was some while ago. The historian does not say this to induce panic. The historian says it because the record is clear, and clarity is the only honest response to a threat that has already introduced itself.
The question that keeps Hopkins awake is the right question. The historian’s only addition is this: we are not being asked to imagine something unprecedented. We are being asked to prepare for something that has already happened once, that the participants have promised to do again, and that will arrive next time wearing a suit and carrying a legal memo instead of a flag. A Postmaster General who acknowledges only a swearing-in and not a victory. A Justice Department reshaped to serve the man rather than the law. A California probe that tells us interference does not wait for Election Day. Preparation now is not catastrophizing. It is the minimum the evidence demands. And the evidence has been accumulating, in public, since November 3rd, 2020, from the mouth of the same man who is still speaking.
#HOLDFAST
Jane...you did the thing I was reaching for and couldn't quite grip: you moved it off the terrain of prediction...entirely.
The question was never "will it happen"...it's "is the machinery sound, and do we have an agreed answer if it isn't."
Framing doubt as an instrument...rather than a mood is EXACTLY right...and...it's the reframe that makes the planning argument from earlier in this thread...CLICK into place.
This is the announced contingency. This is the one...we keep being told not to waste time on.
The Steiner detail...is the part that should stop people cold, because it isn't rhetoric... it's on the record. I say again, It. Is. On. The. Record.
The SAME hands that hold the instrument of doubt...now hold the literal mechanics of delivery.
When the official responsible for moving ballots tells the Senate...plainly...that delivery is now CONDITIONAL on states SURRENDERING their voter rolls...we are past the stage of IMAGINING an attack surface. It's been BUILT...in public...and described UNDER OATH.
Your closing image is the one I'd want every reader to sit with: it won't arrive as a breach next time...it'll arrive as a PROCESS.
Not a crowd at a door...but a memo...a rule...a signature.
That's the form consolidation takes once it's learned from its FIRST attempt.
Thank you for this, Jane. It deserves more than a comment box, and I may come back to it at length.
#HOLDFAST
-Jack
Thank you, Jack.
Jane...you're most welcome!
-Jack
Absolutely agree 👏
I started reading with anxiety. Now, as I’ve finished this article, I plan to contact my governor’s office, mayor’s office and local election officials to ask the questions you brought up! It feels good to have an action plan! Thanks!
BG...this is exactly why I write it.
Anxiety is what they're counting on...it freezes people.
An action plan is the antidote...and you just built one.
Making those calls matters more than most people realize; election officials and local offices track what they're hearing about...and a few SPECIFIC...informed questions carry real weight.
If you're up for it...jot down what they tell you.
Other readers here...are about to do the same thing...and hearing how your offices actually respond would help ALL of us.
Go get 'em...and thank you for reading!
-Jack
Will do!
100%
Contingencies must be planned for - and NOT by people who believe they can predict which scenario will occur, or even is more or less likely to occur. That skews the planning. Those people can help to fine tune plans, but they are terrible at developing plans.
Being prepared means being equally prepared for all contingencies. NOT because they are equally as likely, but because there must be a considered response ready independent of the accuracy of "predictions" - planning that is not dependent upon either fear or hope, but a realistic understanding that once a probability becomes a reality, regardless how unlikely that might have been, it becomes THE reality that we must ready to address.
The fear of "wasting time" on "unlikely scenarios" makes those scenarios more dangerous - and due to the complex non-linearity of systems and human nature, may well make the those scenarios MORE probable.
(Very simply, e.g., if the opposition knows that a scenario is theoretically unlikely and planning has been minimal, it will encourage them to produce that scenario. Might that not even apply to the "unlikelihood" that someone who was known to be as ignorant AND corrupt AND sadistic as DJT could possibly gain power? The fact that we were unprepared for him made him a much MORE "useful" - and perniciously attractive - idiot.)
Dr. David...you've specified the thing I was circling....but didn't name: good planning has to be robust to being wrong about which scenario hits.
The moment your prep depends on your forecast being RIGHT...you've built a single point of failure into the whole damn structure.
The predictor...and the planner... are different jobs...and you're right that confusing them corrupts BOTH.
The one refinement I'd add cuts in your favor: you can't literally prepare equally for infinite contingencies...so the real discipline is sorting by CONSEQUENCE...rather than by likelihood. (I'll write a story sometime in the future about how sorting by likelihood put me in a really unfavorable position years ago.)
A scenario that's unlikely...but....CATASTROPHIC... earns more planning than one that's probable...but trivial...because once it lands...the probability that mattered going in...is irrelevant. It's now the only reality in the room.
Your strategic point is the part too few people sit with: visible unpreparedness...is itself...an incentive.
It doesn't just fail to deter the bad outcome...it advertises an opening.
That's the deterrence logic running in reverse; and yes, it absolutely applies to how we got here. We treated a certain outcome as too absurd to plan for...and the absurdity...became the attack surface.
Thanks, Dr. David!
-Jack
General strike.
Kenough...now you're speaking my language.
A general strike is one of the FEW real levers ordinary people hold; the kind of power an administration can't litigate away...or route around with a memo.
When institutions wobble...mass, coordinated, nonviolent REFUSAL to carry on as normal....is historically one of the things that actually MOVES the ground.
But...here's the catch, and it's the whole point of the piece:
A general strike...that's a hashtag on the day of the crisis...is a FEELING.
A general strike with networks...strike funds...agreed triggers...and people who've already decided...in advance what would move them to walk...that's a PLAN.
The first evaporates by lunchtime. The second...CHANGES OUTCOMES..
So...yes. Put it on the list. And...then let's do the unglamorous work...of building it ...BEFORE we need it...not during.
That's exactly the binder I'm asking us to write.
-Jack
You’ve made some assumptions Jack. “Credible evidence” is one of them. Delays is another.
There is a line in the sand to be drawn. Magats and Trump will draw it. Dems can approach that line and challenge it. Elias and many are. This is our bulwark. Playing the “what if” game sows doubt for sure. I don’t want to. Our guys in charge are moving to the right direction. States are stopping voter intimidation and Trump 0-9 in court on the voter rolls shit. A blue tsunami makes it hard to gain 150,000 votes when defeated by 500000.
I have faith and confidence in the system we have prevailing. Credence given to challenges and gaslighting MUST be dismissed in unified style and I really don’t see scotus halting or challenging a blue tsunami.
Vote and attack the MAGAs. We gonna win.
Tom..I appreciate the fire...and we want the same outcome.
But...I think the piece got read as the very thing it was arguing against...so let me be clear about what I actually said.
I didn't assume credible evidence. I didn't predict delays.
I named them as contingencies to be ready for.
That distinction is the ENTIRE spine of the article. Collapsing "what if we plan for it" into "he thinks it'll happen" is exactly the reflex...that leaves people flat-footed.
Planning for a scenario isn't predicting it...and...it certainly isn't sowing doubt; insurance companies...hospitals...and the military do it PRECISELY because they're confident enough...to look the bad case in the eye.
And...here's where I'll push back hardest, because you picked an interesting example to reassure me with.
You cited the voter-rolls fight as a win column... "0-9 in court." But they stopped fighting in court.
This week the Postmaster General told the Senate...UNDER OATH...that the Postal Service will NOT deliver mail ballots...in states that refuse to hand their voter rolls over to the administration.
That is the thesis of my entire article....delivered in a single news cycle:
It didn't arrive in combat boots...it arrived as a POSTAL RULE.
Unfortunately...a blue tsunami doesn't help you...in a state where the ballots never reach the mailbox.
Margin math assumes the ballots get counted. This is an attempt to change whether they get SENT.
So...no...I'm not giving credence to gaslighting.
Demanding evidence...before accepting extraordinary claims...and preparing for a contingency...are not the same act; the first dismisses lies...the second protects against them.
Faith and confidence are good fuel. They are not a plan. You may well be right that SCOTUS won't touch a landslide...I hope you are. But "I hope you're right" is the EXACT sentence this newsletter exists to retire.
We are on the same team.
I'm not asking you to doubt the win.
I'm asking you to make the win...uncontestable...by knowing what comes AFTER it. That's not panic. It's the seatbelt you put on...while fully intending to arrive safely.
Thanks for being here, Tom!
#HoldFast
-Jack
What is the plan if millions of Americans sincerely believe an election was compromised…and there is credible evidence that serious interference occurred?
Tom...now you're asking the exact question the article was built around. So let me answer it straight.
First...I'd split your sentence in two...because it contains two very different emergencies.
"Millions sincerely believe"...and..."credible evidence exists"...are not the same crisis...and they don't have the same plan.
Sincere belief that's wrong is a legitimacy problem. You don't beat it by yelling "you're wrong"...you beat it with transparency built BEFORE the count:
Observable chain-of-custody...bipartisan canvassing...published procedures...results people can audit without taking anyone's word for it.
The plan there...is pre-committed standards...so the answer is already on the record before the doubt arrives.
Credible evidence...of actual interference is a different animal...and the plan is documentation and standing. Not a viral post.
A record clean enough...and a plaintiff with standing fast enough...that a court can act on it in days...not months.
That's the unglamorous infrastructure...the Eliases of the world, exactly as you said.
So...the "plan" isn't one heroic move. It's making BOTH failure modes boring ...AND...survivable in advance.
That's the whole reason I won't let "I hope you're right" be the plan...it covers NEITHER case.
Great question, Tom. This is the conversation I wanted!
-Jack
The what if assumes acceptance. I agree preparing for a contingency is warranted. A plan is of course the proper response. “I hope you are right”. I was giving credence and awareness to what is being done. Might not be enough but warrants hope and confidence.
The postmaster general is in direct violation of postal service rules. Not to mention election interference. That presidential executive order is in direct violation of the constitution. I cannot see it being upheld even if it reaches scotus (doubt it will get there in time). Should that happen I look forward to your upcoming thoughts on if it does and is upheld. Could we be looking at secession?
As usual - great info/questions.
#HoldFast
Thank you, James Gagliardi!
-Jack
Don't you find it interesting that there was never a question as to wether our Election's were free, fare and ligament until trump decided to switch from being a Democrat to Republican, and run for president?!! It's true there's been Republican Rigging in presidential elections prior to trump, but there's still No Massive Voter Fraud from our public elections. I share your concerns in the coming midterm's and beyond, Jack. DonOld has made his plans well known to Stop swathes of citizens from Voting, and my hopes are the States, Congress and Judges can stop this Travesty coming down the pike. Thanks for sharing your expertise and insight tonight, and will reStack ASAP 💯👍
Also, is there a plan if we win
Do we have a plan? Just some thoughts because I’m anxious.. trembling.. sick.. terrified. Yeah, I know.. that won’t help anything and I’ll work through it.. or at least I’ll try. Remember, I’m your reader with panic disorder and Meniere’s Disease and this is hard. I’m going to be a basket case by September and certainly October. I’ll try to find things to do to counteract those unhelpful emotions.
Do I think the Republicans have a plan if they lose? or even if they win? They won’t win a fair election.. or at least not many. Absolutely! Do I think Democrats do? Maybe the “concept of a plan” or bits and pieces.. here and there. For instance, I suspect Mark Elias and his team has a plan because I’ve listened to him and he expects to need that plan.. some counties.. states? Yeah, probably. But an overall solid, coordinated plan? I highly doubt it and that’s way beyond concerning because I really believe we’re going to need it.
I read the comments before I came to make my own and the one I found most helpful was by BG Lund because I need something to do. Our Governor (Josh Stein) here in North Carolina and our AG (Jeff Jackson) stay in touch so I think making those calls would be useful. I need to find city and county officials to call that are on our side because we’re still far too red here in rural WNC. I’ve made some low level local contacts so I’ll start there.
Thank you, Jack. This is hard… REALLY.. HARD… but I’ll do my best.
#Holdfast
~Susan
This especially applies currently to mail in ballots. What are the contingency plans? The responses of the states’ attorneys general? The local officials who send out the ballots? The states who have only vote by mail? And so on. Thank you for your clear and succinct questions for whatever contingencies and the need for upfront transparency.