Won’t give up power

Angus Johnston is a professor at CUNY. He is a historian and an advocate of American Student Activism. He recently tweeted a thread about an interview Speaker Nancy Pelosi had with the New York Times. It’s a long thread, so I’ll only discuss highlights.

Pelosi said that she doesn’t trust that the nasty guy won’t give up power voluntarily if he loses the 2020 election.

Lots of people, especially those who study authoritarian regimes, have already pointed that out. But it is a big deal that the Speaker of the House is saying it. I’m pleased she recognizes the possibility.

So…

Why aren’t the mainstream and progressive media all over this story? This is the Speaker warning of a Constitutional crisis. The conservative press definitely is and we can guess how they’re trying to spin it (though I’m not wading in those waters to find out).

Why aren’t important follow up questions being asked? Such questions as… What does Pelosi think the nasty guy will do if he loses? What steps will she take to guard against that? What do other prominent Democrats think? Prominent Republicans? What do constitutional experts say?

Another question… This implies the nasty guy is planning to steal the election (as was done in 2016), so what is being done to prevent that? Hope for the best is a bad plan. If this is the plan how does telegraphing it to the GOP help? It normalizes the theft of the election.

The first tweet to comment is from ProudSkeptic:

I'm really concerned that she says this, yet doesn't take it seriously enough to call for impeachment. Pretty sure this is the perfect example of something impeachable.

Another response (on a different Twitter thread), from Deborah Roseman:

Apparently the plan is: When they go low, we... trip over them.