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Nov. 3, 2020 - The Muckrake Political Podcast
40:30
We Have To Get This Asshole Out Of There

It's here. Election Day 2020. Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman discuss the day of reckoning, prepare for the best and worst case scenarios, and speculate as to just what Donald Trump is capable of in order to maintain power.   To support the show and unlock exclusive content, become a patron at http://patreon.com/muckrakepodcast  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Time Text
Get your ballots in and have them in long before the 3rd.
And have them counted before the 3rd.
And have an election where we can say to the world that we know who won and we know who lost.
Last night Trump said he was going to fire Dr. Fauci.
Isn't that wonderful?
I got a better idea.
Elect me and I'm going to hire Dr. Fauci.
And we're going to fire Donald Trump.
Hey everybody, welcome to the McCracken Podcast.
I'm Jared Yates-Hexton.
As always, I'm here with Nick Halseman.
The day's here!
Election day.
2020, Nick.
The day that we've all been waiting for.
In many ways, we've been excited about the possibility of voting Donald Trump out of office, the possibility of being rid of this blight on America and culture.
And on the other hand, it is also the day of reckoning.
And we are facing a reckoning.
How are you feeling?
Well, here's the problem with calling today the day of reckoning because we've had a few of these.
We've had the Mueller report.
That was supposed to be a day of reckoning.
We had the impeachment.
That was going to be the real reckoning, right?
Or not.
I guess we knew that wasn't really going to go anywhere.
This is just like, you know, this is Lucy with the football in her hand and I'm really worried that we're either Charlie Brown or we're... Who has the stink lines?
It's not Linus.
Who has the stink lines coming out of them?
Pepper... Oh, you had to ask that.
Oh, no.
It's not... Oh, this is bad.
This is a bad start.
Peppermint Patty?
You know.
No, it's not Peppermint Patty!
Linus.
Isn't it Linus who's stinking?
No, Linus carries around the... We gotta edit this out at this point.
Oh, but this is funny.
Pigpen, isn't it?
Pigpen!
Absolutely.
That's who it is.
So we have to figure out if we're either Charlie Brown or Pigpen at this point.
This is live podcasting.
We're not editing anything.
No.
We're talking about one of the most consequential elections probably of our lifetimes.
And we just spent the first part of it trying to remember this marginal Peanuts character.
Is there stink lines coming off of him?
But is there any more appropriate, you know, metaphor than that?
I don't think so.
I think that captures exactly what we all are.
I'm gonna have to gather my bearings on this one.
I have to tell you I've spent, so we're actually, obviously you're listening to this on election day, we're taping it on Monday, November 2nd.
It feels to me, so I live in the south, I live down in Georgia, it feels to me like a couple of days out from a hurricane.
So like now you kind of know if a hurricane is going to hit your state, you know, by a couple days you have the cone of probability or whatever.
And so, you know, you sort of start wrapping your mind around the possibility of it.
You go out to the store, you buy a few canned goods, which by the way everyone, if you haven't already, you should go get some water and some canned goods.
It doesn't mean there's going to be a disaster, but it's not a bad idea to be prepared, you know, in case all hell breaks loose.
So go get some water, go get some canned goods if you haven't already.
Not a bad thing.
And if nothing happens, if society doesn't crumble, if we don't have some sort of constitutional crisis, knock on wood, you got SpaghettiOs to eat.
So you got that going for you.
But it feels like that weird calm before the storm.
And I've sort of been walking around in a weird sort of a headspace, both just absolutely terrified by the possibility that things could go wrong, but also enchanted by this mystical possible outcome where maybe America could be possibly saved and we could be looking at some sort of reckoning for Donald Trump.
And it's a weird headspace to be in.
You know what it reminds me of when you talk about preparing for a hurricane is when it's the really big hurricane and you have to leave and people don't leave.
There are that subset of the community that just simply will not leave their house.
If it's a fire that's coming out here on the West Coast or if it's the hurricanes there, they will not leave.
And I feel like that also applies to this election too.
Somebody is in the house not leaving in the midst of this destruction going around around them.
I guess it's the Republicans, right?
Yeah, I mean, that's the thing, is we're actually seeing right now, I mean, it's way too on the nose of a metaphor, but these Trump rallies where Trump comes out, absolutely lies to his supporters and his followers.
They leave, they walk outside, and suddenly the buses that were supposed to take them back to their cars aren't there.
And by the way, not only are they not there, they're not coming.
You know, because that's Trumpism personified.
He needed you to come in there and make a nice backdrop for him to go out and rant and rave.
By the way, last night, he's in rare form right now.
I don't know if you had a chance to see this, but within a couple of seconds last night, he told the crowd, and he's like, don't tell anybody, but I'm going to fire Dr. Fauci when I get reelected.
And then he claimed that Joe Biden had had cosmetic surgery, said that he wanted to physically fight Joe Biden, and then more or less said, I'm going to steal the election.
And that was all within like a 25 second time span, like a little window there.
And then of course you walk outside and nobody's going to drive you to your car.
And that's racism.
And it's freezing.
And your older relatives are probably going to have to be taken to the hospital.
Right.
Because they wanted to go to a Trump rally and engage in some group delusional behavior.
That, I mean, you can't ask for a better metaphor of this entire thing.
No.
And in case you missed what he said in the 25 second span, you can go to any number of cities the rest of the day where he'll be performing the exact same shtick.
This is the other issue is what really blows me away when you watch these clips, the audience is raptured and they laugh.
at these lines that I'm not even sure are supposed to be laugh lines, but even still, the ones that are, are such poorly phrased and poorly done jokes as they are, he wouldn't even make it on stage at the open mic on a Monday at Zaney's in like 1984.
This is not even like good comedy, but he's got these people in the palm of their hands, and they will laugh at the slightest pause that he does.
And that's what's so frustrating and scary about this is that there's no sense of like, of reality here with him.
They simply are enraptured by this image they have.
And he has, he understands at the very least, while he might not have all of his mental acuity, he understands how to deepen this connection with them and to get them to respond on command.
One of my favorite subplots of the Trump era is your fascination with Trump's stand-up routine.
Because you really get a lot of enjoyment out of analyzing how he tries to get his laughs, how it's not actually funny, what it's actually doing.
I hope I get to miss that in the future.
I hope that we could possibly get to a point where we don't have a president that tries to be some sort of entertainer.
What's interesting is that there's always a rule of three when you're doing stand-up.
Well, his rule of three is to repeat something three times to sort of somehow Spengali-like convince his audience of what he's saying.
So that there's an evil version of that rule of three, too, that he does.
And you can watch for it every time.
And yet, these people don't realize it.
That's what's so weird about it.
Like, they don't realize where they are.
Now, here's the other thing.
This is my other fascination.
They will say the same thing about everybody on the other side.
Everybody else is the one who are the sheep, who are completely conditioned to laugh whenever their politicians, you know, say something funny.
That's what they'll say, too.
And that's the weird stalemate we've gotten to the point where, you know, even if Biden wins, this is still a country that's very concerning to me.
Yeah.
I mean, we've talked about it in the past.
Biden defeating Trump is only the beginning of a much larger fight.
And we would be remiss if we didn't talk About the fact that over the weekend, a caravan of Trump supporters in decked out trucks carrying flags looking just like caravans in other countries that have carried out sectarian violence and genocidal violence.
And by the way, I haven't heard a sufficient explanation for how this thing happened.
If they knew that the Biden-Harris bus would be driving by and they like got together.
These are the stories that need written.
I need to know how that situation occurred.
But of course we have a caravan of Trump supporters who surrounded the Biden-Harris bus.
And in the process, there's, of course, videos out there where they're like running people nearly off the road.
And they're intimidating whoever is on this bus.
I assume it's some sort of surrogate or whatever.
And they eventually have to cancel the Biden-Harris rally because of this harassment and intimidation.
The people who do it see it as a victory.
And then, because we are living in the most batshit fascistic timeline right now, Donald Trump, the President of the United States of America, retweets this and endorses it saying, I love Texas.
And then in the rally last night in Florida, Goes on the record saying, oh, you know, people all the time are like, will you denounce these people?
And he's like, I love it.
I love it when my supporters do stuff like this.
And this, of course, this podcast is coming out on Tuesday, Election Day.
We have every reason to believe there's going to be widespread intimidation, if not violence.
And we also know that besides there being widespread intimidation and violence, that no matter what happens in this election, it's more than likely going to lead to more intimidation and more violence.
And Joe Biden winning actually spurs on a lot of these people, who God knows if Trump tries to declare victory, which is what he's told everybody who will listen to him, that he plans on declaring victory on election night, We're looking at a really volatile situation, and we've been talking about this for a little while now, and not because we're being alarmist, we're not being hyperbolic.
We're in a really dangerous moment right now, and we have to understand that.
Like, on top of all that spitting golly techniques and all the stuff that he does to his supporters, we need to understand that there's a population in this country that has been fundamentally radicalized.
Absolutely, it's a great way of saying it.
And here's the ultimate irony, well there's a lot of ultimate ironies, but here's one of them, is Trump spends the entire September and October demanding the FBI investigate his political rivals and Biden to get dirt on them to win the election.
And instead, what do they get?
An FBI investigation into these Trump supporters in Texas who are running people off the road and trying to intimidate the bus.
So, it tells you that there are still some pillars of our government that function somewhat properly.
And by the way, there was a police escort that eventually kind of got there and settled things down.
We also saw this happening in New Jersey where they were closing down highways.
And the police eventually do kind of show up and sort of restore some version of order.
We have to talk about that though.
About exactly what those things were.
The intimidation of the Biden-Harris bus seemed like, you know, I guess in some sort of twisted, demented way, you could make the argument that it was a lark.
You know what I mean?
That it was just something to do for sport or whatever, even though it was criminal.
The shutting down of an interstate, to me, was really interesting for this reason.
It felt like a dry run for something.
It felt like it was seeing what Trump supporters could organize.
Whether or not that's trying to shut down thoroughfares or highways or voting sites today, Election Day, or something moving forward.
And I have to tell you, by the way, I don't know if you've seen it yet.
I just want to recommend for everybody this documentary, 537 Votes, by a guy that I know, Billy Corbin.
It's on HBO.
And it's all about the 2000 election and how that was stolen.
It will keep you up at night, which I think actually at this point is necessary to understand how these things happen and how Republican dirty tricks, including by guys like, I don't know if you've ever heard of them, Roger Stone.
You know, we have these people who engage in these dirty tricks to steal elections, to mess around with the electoral process.
I just have to wonder if things like shutting down an interstate, for no reason, by the way, because what are they protesting?
You know what I mean?
Like their guy is the president.
They had no stated goal.
They just did it to do it.
Meanwhile, by the way, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention this.
Law enforcement didn't really do anything about it.
They didn't suffer any consequences.
It's not like in a BLM protest or some sort of, you know, anti-fascist protest.
It's not like they cracked skulls.
You know, they basically gave them, you know, a procession.
What is this about?
And what are they trying to do?
And I think we need to wrap our heads around the possibility that this is some sort of a test run.
I'm willing to chalk it up to sort of desperation mixed with the fandom that Trump has created out of politics where this is like a team that you root for and that when you see the other team lose, that's the biggest validation you can get.
And so when they see that they can shut down the interstate, right, or that little Whatever, what do they call it?
The Turnpike in New Jersey.
That's just sort of the big middle finger F you, we did something.
Again, that's my take on it.
I don't know how deep rooted it is in terms of what's being prepared for later.
But it just feels like it's some sort of tailgate for them.
I think it's both.
I think that's the really concerning thing with all of this is we have a group of people who have gotten to the point, and by the way, now that you're talking about it, the gears on my head are starting to go, it's like soccer hooligans.
You know what I mean?
not only are fervent about their fanhood, but they're also just joyous in the possibility of violence against rival clubs.
It's a really insidious, toxic thing.
And I actually don't think Americans are really...
I don't think they get it.
Outside of people who've maybe gone to Eagles or Raiders games at some point, you know.
Oh.
We don't necessarily have the same thing.
Sometimes we'll have a shoving match or a fight at a game or something, but we don't have anything even approaching the hooligan problem that Europe does.
Listen, I experienced it a little bit.
I was in Argentina two lifetimes ago wearing the Argentinian national soccer team jersey It's the national soccer team jersey for the entire for Argentina But because I wandered into another neighborhood who they fervently, you know, Las Bocas was like their team I was under you know They were starting to yell at me and like I kind of felt a little bit in danger because of that even though it was
It's the equivalent of wearing a United States jersey, you know, when you wander into like the Mavericks, you know, jurisdiction Dallas or something like that.
It's crazy.
But that's the kind of fervency, is that the word?
Whatever that we were looking for, that this engenders and develops.
And they've expertly been able to fold it back into politics.
And here's the problem with that is in sports, there is a loser.
Okay, that happens.
There's a winner and there's a loser.
And there is that notion where you want to cheer or not cheer and have that satisfaction.
But there shouldn't be losers when you're talking about politics, in theory.
Right?
We're all part of the same team.
And people will suffer, suffer greatly when there's a loser.
I think that's the other problem I have.
This is not about, it shouldn't be about winning.
It should be about everybody being treated decently and letting the government help people when they need it.
You know, as you say that, like all of a sudden the world just went sepia tones and I started hearing the theme song of the Andy Griffith Show.
That's how outdated that sounds.
You know, it really does.
And I think that really speaks to where we're at right now.
That feels like we're going down to the fishing hole to catch a couple for dinner.
And you're exactly right.
The idea is supposed to be that we're making a decision about where we go and what happens in the future and who determines policy or whatever.
But you're supposed to have a president who believes that they are the president for everybody in the country.
Well, that's not what this is.
We have a president right now who carried out a genocide against blue states and Democratic voters, including his own voters.
They got tossed in there too during the pandemic.
We have a guy who doesn't care about state secrets.
He doesn't care about making sure that people aren't suffering.
I mean, it's a completely outdated idea because he's destroyed it.
I mean, the Republican Party got us here.
But Donald Trump has capitalized on it and has created an environment where that just sounds so quaint at this point.
Yes, but it's exactly what Joe Biden is running on.
And he is going to win this election by 8 to 10 million votes.
I bet.
Is that the official Nick Hauserman prediction?
8-10 million?
I mean, if Hillary got 3 million more, he's getting at least 6-7, I would say at least that, more.
Again, it doesn't matter because of the Electoral College, but I have a feeling, I mean it does matter, but nonetheless, I have a feeling that what he's running on is resonating to some degree.
Now here's a question we need to parse.
Is it Biden and what he's saying and what he's inspiring or not?
Or is it simply just the outsized hate for Trump that is motivating all these extra votes?
I mean, I'm sure it's a combination of both, but I kind of wonder what exactly is the prominent force here?
Well, that's the question, isn't it?
I mean, that's what we're going to have to figure out.
I think it's probably more of the latter.
I have to tell you, it felt so good to vote against that asshole again.
You know what I mean?
There was just something, and I've just spent, it feels a lot today on top of the anxiety of it, but it just feels like, you know, there'd be days back when I was in school and you knew that you had a fight the next day.
You know what I mean?
I'll see you in the alley across the street from the school and it's just like, You know, listen to LL Cool J. Mama said knock you out.
I'm just getting pumped up about it.
And it just feels like, and this is terrible but it's true.
I mean, I'm a human.
I want that, I want that dude just humiliated.
I just want him to be publicly rejected and humiliated to the point where he doesn't have a leg to stand on anymore.
You know what I mean?
Like I want, I want the full, And by the way, just a quick plug, if you are a patron, or you become a patron, over at patreon.com slash muckrakepodcast, tomorrow night, or tonight!
I keep doing it!
because we're listening to this on election day.
I want by 11.30.
And by the way, just a quick plug.
If you are a patron or you become a patron over at patreon.com slash muckrakepodcast tomorrow night or tonight.
I keep doing it tonight at 9.30 Eastern.
From 9.30 to 11.30 Eastern, Nick and I are going to be covering election night live.
So that is patreon.com slash muckrakepodcast.
You can get exclusive content and episodes and watch the election results with us.
But I want by 11.30, by midnight tonight, I want Donald Trump to have a Scrooge-like moment where he has to face the full force and consequences of everything that he's done wrong.
That's where I am on that.
And maybe that's petty.
Maybe that's small.
But that's where my mind is.
And that's what I want.
My wife has dedicated her life to helping others as a doctor, a pediatrician.
She took an oath to help kids, babies, survive this world, right?
When you hear what she says she wants to happen to Donald Trump, it is just filthy.
No one deserves this kind of treatment that she wants to have happen to him.
And I like to sit in the corner just like cheering her on, like, yeah, keep going, right?
I'm wondering if someone's listening on our Siri or on our Alexa and is going to get us in trouble.
But I want it.
OK, there's a scene in one of these James Bond movies with Daniel Craig where he's being tortured on a chair naked.
I want that to happen.
That's what I picture right now when I think about about Donald Trump and what he's going to do.
I want to see him naked attached to a chair being tortured like they did with Daniel Craig.
Parody podcast.
Parody podcast.
That's all you gotta say.
Parody podcast.
I just truly, and you know, to bring this thing in, I... This is a really important day in American history.
Really is.
This is... Because, you know, in 2016, there's so many arguments that can be made about why people voted for Donald Trump, and white supremacy and aristocratic supremacy are at the top of them.
There were other people who were brought in and they either bought in because they had, you know, they had a fight in terms of race, in terms of, you know, their identity that they believe themselves to be and what they thought America used to be, whatever.
We know who he is.
I mean, we knew who he was in 2016, but we now know who he is as a president.
He is, he is a pox on America.
An absolute pox.
And I'll just say, I can't imagine there are a lot of people listening to this podcast who are undecided or whatever.
If you're listening to this and you're undecided and you're thinking about not voting and you're registered, go vote.
Go vote.
And on top of that, be ready for anything tonight.
Because I have to tell you, and we haven't talked about it yet, there's a plan to undermine this election.
And it doesn't matter how many million Joe Biden wins by.
I mean, Trump has told everybody who will listen, He plans on declaring victory on election night, you know, before all the votes are counted, and then, you know, using legal means to try and undermine these things.
And by the way, how many court cases have we seen in the past week where the Republican Party has tried to disenfranchise millions of Americans?
Yeah, there's at least four or five, and they're all encouraging it because they're going against them.
It's the beginning of it.
The question is whether or not it ends up with the Supreme Court.
That's the big question here, is whether or not the Donald Trump stealing of the election ends up in front of the Supreme Court.
We won't know that tonight, but I think tonight we will have a pretty good idea, by the time that our live coverage ends, we'll have a pretty good idea of the trajectory of where this thing is going.
And it is incredibly consequential.
All we need to do is get through, I think, three days of counting of the votes.
If we could just get through three of those days and have those votes, whatever they got until that point, certified and put into the count, I would feel pretty good.
If they're going to somehow have an injunction that stops that right away, on Wednesday, by tomorrow, 8am, 7am, whatever, That's going to be the more concerning thing because most of these legislatures have the contingency to continue voting for like the two days or three days as long as they're postmarked by Election Day.
What we've seen in some of these court cases is that they're trying to stop an extended version of that or another three days on top of that because they're being inundated by so many mail-in ballots.
I think all of that is logically sound.
that within those three days, at least, if they're going to go around the clock, which I imagine most states will do if they're that full, that that would be, you know, that would be enough to, to, you know, certify a victory for Biden at that point.
I think all of that is logically sound.
The problem is when you, you know, I just made some tea.
It's like when you turn the heat up on the kettle, you know?
Like, we talked about this and if you haven't yet and you're looking for something to listen to as you're waiting on results to come in, we did our election preview last week.
Yeah, it was grand.
You should go give it a listen, see what we think is going to happen tonight.
I will tell you that if what we predicted comes true, if the Democrats take back the Senate, Hold on to the House of Representatives, which it seems statistically likely that those two things will happen.
And it becomes apparent that Joe Biden might win the presidency, or is well on his way to winning the presidency.
We start having a situation where Republicans around the country sort of have a choice.
And I'm talking about states where this is, you know, the presidency is going to be decided.
They have a choice at that point.
Do they count their losses and they move forward and, you know, they respect votes?
Or do they double down in a panic in order to try and hold on to the presidency in the face of a Democratic Congress?
At that point, do legislatures start monkeying around with this stuff?
Do they start trying to steal the vote?
Do they have more motivation to steal the vote at that point?
I think that's very likely.
That they do.
I think that once the temperature starts getting turned up on that kettle, we could see a lot of people making a lot of regrettable decisions and moving a lot of different places.
Three days of counting sounds right, but I have to tell you, we might see by the end of tonight that this thing is going to go into hyperspeed.
Like, these people don't go to sleep.
You know what I mean?
Like, it's not like at like 1.30 on election night if there's a presidential contest in question.
It's not like these people go to sleep.
Like, these people are making a lot of money.
I was saying this on the Bourbon Talk last night.
There's a lot of people who are planning on putting their kids through college because of the legal battles off this.
You know, there's a lot of major, major wealth to be made on a contested presidential election.
So, I don't know.
I think we either have an understanding of what this is going to be, my midnight tonight, or we're looking at a protracted, unfortunate, I mean Sarah Kinzier said it on our show, election season, not election night.
And that is, that's a really horrific thought, but I think it's something we need to be prepared for.
You know, it sounds like the Trump administration tried to get all their people to vote on the day of as much as possible so that we give some sort of ephemeral lead to him in the beginning that might override what will be coming in as they start counting, you know, today, earlier this morning.
It seems like that's a really hard thing to overcome.
It's based on the sheer numbers that are coming in.
We're going to be 100 million votes placed Before the election which is insane now that said I don't I wonder if we're gonna have we had a hundred hundred twenty three million votes cast in 2000 in 2016 so the question there is is how many of those votes that would be in person?
Shifted to sent in by about because we might not have that many more total I would imagine we are because it seems like everyone is motivated now So we'll get to 130, 140, 150 million, which is still going to be amazing and probably the highest we've ever had.
I know 2016 was the highest we ever had, so this will definitely break that.
But that's the other question there is, would that even work?
And that would seem to be the only way to give Trump any momentum would be to say, "Well, we do have more counted votes at 8:00 Eastern today." to propel them into some argument.
But again, it doesn't really matter.
Here's the other thing that's interesting is the people that work in the Trump administration would never have gotten hired by any other administrations, right?
This is collectively some of the worst qualified people. - It's a gaggle of losers is what it is. - And so that's what's also concerning because these people know that there's no role for them in any other governmental positions once Trump is out of office.
So that's when you start wondering how desperate these people are going to be to help infect this election as well.
And that seems to be a pretty clear answer, too.
Well, we've talked about this, too.
The Republican Party has been engaging in a long-term project that is nearing its completion.
They've taken over the judiciary.
They are a vast minority party.
They don't really have electoral viability anymore.
The question is whether or not they'll go kindly into that good night.
And nothing that they have done and no behavior that I've seen from them tells me that they're willing to do that.
So I think it is completely within the realm of possibility that they're going to try something.
In terms of numbers, and I'll just say this because this is something people need to remember.
Polls don't mean anything.
Like, we understand that, like, we understand by looking at the polls that Joe Biden is probably going to win the presidency.
We understand that because of, you know, the margin of error or whatever.
But, you know, that's not going to necessarily mean that Donald Trump is going to take this in stride or he's going to tip his cap and be like, congratulations American people!
I would have gotten away with it too if it wasn't for you kids, you know?
And on top of that, what you just brought up is something that nobody really wants to talk about, which is because of the pandemic and because of the massive waiting in lines that the Republican Party has created around the country, people might be going to vote early and that just might be the norm now.
We don't know how many people are going to show up today.
I mean, we're in the middle of a generational pandemic.
Maybe people wanted to get in and get out.
I certainly did.
I went and voted early so I could get it done and not have to stand in line for hours.
And my God, we shouldn't have to stand in line for hours.
So here's the truth.
We have fundamentally no idea what's going to happen today.
And I don't say that to scare people.
I want people to understand that this is not a tidy narrative.
I talked about it last night on the Bourbon Talk thing.
This is not the season finale that we've all been led to believe that it is, right?
We don't live in a TV show.
This is a really messy thing.
We're talking about power.
And we're also talking about whether or not the Republican Party survives.
Right?
We're talking about whether or not the Republican Party can even engage in politics on a national level anymore.
I mean, the numbers there tell us that they can't.
Right.
So, yeah, we can't take anything for granted in this situation.
Well, if you need a guide, if you're wondering for any extra information about what you should be looking for today, to me it's really four states.
It's going to be Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Arizona.
I think that Biden needs to win three of those four to kind of guarantee the victory.
So if you look at those four, and most of those are Eastern, so like those returns are coming in a little bit earlier than the others, except for Arizona, that seems to me that that sort of swath across the country that will indicate what's going to happen.
Now, if you want to watch Florida and Pennsylvania, you know, if obviously if Trump gets those two, then it's time to start making plans to move out of the country.
Because I think Trump wins the whole thing if he wins both Florida and Pennsylvania.
I mean, it's certainly not clear that Biden can win everything else and then he won't win.
But that would indicate to me something way off with the polls as well.
So those are the four I'm looking at right now.
First of all, Florida is so frustrating to me.
And it continues to be a thorn in the side of our free and fair elections.
So I don't want to deal with that.
Because by the way, in the 537 documentary you talked about, which is a fantastic documentary I watched, They didn't even get into the Supreme Court's involvement in it, really.
They kind of just focused on the local politics of Florida and Miami, specifically, and how Elian Gonzalez ends up being a huge part of this, of the national election.
And that was crazy to me, because I hadn't even considered that up until then.
So I don't even want to look at Florida.
Florida just is a frustrating thorn.
I don't want to deal with it.
So that's why I'm going to focus on those four states.
And I'll feel really great about it if he can get three of them.
I, you know, we talked about this in the election preview.
I think this election, and this tells you how the country is changing, I don't think Florida or Ohio will really play into this election.
I actually think Trump will probably win both Florida and Ohio.
And if you say that in any of the most recent elections, that person's going to be the president.
You know, like that used to be the avenue, the two that you fight over.
I think Michigan goes for Biden.
I think Mark Kelly in Arizona brings Biden over the line in Arizona.
Yeah.
We talked about it.
I think Biden gets over 300 electoral votes if this thing's allowed to play out.
The problem, again, is that I think Trump understands that as well.
And he has made every attempt so far to undermine the election, to talk about voter fraud, to plant that seed in the minds of literally everybody, and I think that's the route that we're going.
Whether or not they turn on that machine is the big question.
And I keep saying it, the best case scenario is that we hit this Goldilocks number of defeat where Trump just becomes a sour grapes, lame duck.
He's like, I didn't want to be your damn president anyway, what a nation of losers.
And then he goes off and joins a media company and becomes the anti-president who goes on TV every night and broadcasts from a facsimile of the Oval Office.
Which, by the way, will be dangerous in and of itself.
But it kind of feels like that's the direction that is the best for the country at this point.
The best that we have on the table.
But I have to tell you, I keep warning people on this not just to be prepared for it.
Because we live in a society that is changing so quickly all the time and the cycles are weird and reality shifts constantly, write down on a piece of paper what your red line in the sand is.
What happens tonight or in the next couple of days when Trump tries to subvert democracy, what's the red line that he crosses that you take action?
And you get in the street and you organize, you engage in mass action, solidarity, and protest.
What is it?
Because you need to be ready for it.
Because when you have authoritarian regimes and when you have authoritarian movements, these things happen very quickly and we tend to get lost in the shuffle.
So be prepared.
Write that down somewhere.
Be prepared and understand that it is a possibility.
Yeah, the worst case scenario, just to throw it out there, would be it's clear that Biden wins.
It's being certified that way.
And he simply will try and do lawsuits across 10, 12, 15 different states and then won't leave, won't concede.
Right, like that's the whole thing.
And that will just play out.
I mean, again, if it's certified and Biden wins, like, yeah, they're going to have to take him out of the White House.
But for however long that lasts, if it's five days, if it's five, six, seven, three days, whatever it is, that's what's going to be even more awful about it.
And that can be the unrest we're going to see.
Right.
The longer he tries to pull this out or to delay this, the more energy that these followers of his have.
To go out and do what you mentioned in the beginning, you know, cause all sorts of civil unrest.
And that's the fear.
In Los Angeles, I'm not worried to go out and celebrate in the streets, you know, but I would be worried in several places in this country to go out in the streets and be celebrating.
Like southeastern Georgia?
Sure.
By the way, Georgia, you know, Georgia's not going to go for, I mean, you know, 538 has Biden winning by almost a point in Georgia.
Do you know that?
I have seen that.
I don't think it happens.
Again, I think what happens with Georgia and this, I think, gets into where Georgia is and where it's going.
I think a more accurate reflection of what's happening in Georgia is seeing a split Senate, like where you have, you know, Warnock wins, Ossoff barely, barely loses, and the state goes for Trump.
And I think that that shows where Georgia is going and where it's at at the moment.
But that being said, I think that we're looking at Arizona.
We're talking about the possibility that Texas is in play.
I mean, this is a shifting election.
This is a moment that I think, if you looked over the past few elections, it's almost unthinkable that we're talking about the states that we are.
And that should give hope to people.
But we have to also understand that we have We have a different type of president here.
We have a different type of candidate who's willing to do anything to maintain power and control.
And so as a result, you have to be ready for anything.
Absolutely.
Well, I have to tell you all, I hope that you have a safe and quick trip to your polls.
Do not forget that nobody is allowed to keep you from voting.
If anybody tries to interfere, there are plenty of numbers out there that you should call.
I would program the ACLU in your phone just to have that, you know, at the ready.
If someone tries to intimidate you, they need to be reported.
Don't mess around with these people.
Don't get in fights with them.
Tell them that you have a right to vote.
If they ask you who you're voting for, tell them it's none of their business.
If you are in line when a polling place closes, you legally are allowed to vote.
Make sure that you get out and do this.
Do not look back on this moment in history and have questions about whether or not you could have made a difference.
This is an absolutely crucial, important election.
We have to get this asshole out of there.
We just have to.
A reminder that we will be broadcasting live for our patrons.
Go over to patreon.com slash muckrickpodcast to become a patron.
We'll be turning on our broadcast stream at 9.30 Eastern and going until 11.30 Eastern.
Who knows?
Who knows what's going to happen tomorrow night?
At some point, like, we might have to say, sorry everyone, I gotta go in the street.
But make that list of the things that would get you in the street, that would engage you in mass protest and action.
This is an absolutely crucial time.
I would also be remiss if, before we signed off, if I didn't tell everyone we're really thankful for you.
This has been an absolute hellish march through the Trump administration and we've gotten this far and now is our opportunity to speak out and reject him.
But I'm incredibly thankful for our listeners and I know you are as well.
I am.
Thank you guys so much.
Yeah, you're the absolute best.
Again, we're going to be broadcasting live tonight with the election results coming in starting at 9.30 Eastern.
We'll be back on Friday, but I have to say, Nick, I think it's almost a foregone conclusion that we're going to have to do an emergency podcast this week.
And maybe it's just to get together and celebrate.
Knock on wood, maybe that's what we're doing.
But yeah, I have a wild feeling you and I are going to be talking probably on Wednesday.
Without question, for sure.
Let's hope it's a positive one.
Let's hope it's a jubilant podcast.
But again, a reminder that voting out Donald Trump is only the beginning of a much, much, much larger fight.
If we manage to vote this asshole out, let's celebrate and get ready for the bigger fight to come.
Everybody, if you need us until probably our emergency podcast, you can find Nick over at Can You Hear Me?
SMH.
You can find me at J.Y.
Sexton.
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