Ben Rhodes called that picture "a permanent stain on the American story." It was taken June 2nd. Within a day, Mark Esper had walked back National Guard involvement in the protests, forcing Bill Barr to get LaMigraSWAT to stand in. Within a week of that, LaMigraSwat had been dissipated from Portland.

It is abundantly clear that this administration will do everything that it can to set up an oligarchic dictatorship. I have been surprised and disheartened by the stuff they've been allowed to do by the people who could stop them. However, consequent events have demonstrated that while the resistance to their authoritarian moves are tepid, support for said-same is more so.

If the Republicans had been driven by agreement and assent, rather than grudging opportunism, we'd be done already. That much is clear. Right now, the people running the country are the ones who think they have the most to gain personally. The available gain, however, is diminishing at a rapid clip.

You'd never heard of Louis DeJoy prior to May 6. Few people had. There simply aren't that many bootlickers left. The GAO determined an hour ago that the acting DHS brass can't even legally hold the position. That opens up a whole bunch of legal challenges about what they've done. Team Trump, in other words, can do a whole bunch of shit in the short term. If that keeps them in power, they have a better chance of making it long-term. But what they're building and doing don't have the structure behind them to withstand legal challenges.

I heard you say "so what?" Trump doesn't build coalitions. He doesn't have a legacy. Outside of his cult of personality he has no coattails. Inside of his cult of personality he has no rewards. We've watched four years of craven opportunists weigh how long they have to orbit the black hole in order to advance their interests. The less they have to lose, the more they have to gain. This is why we're now intimately familiar with lightweights like Stephen MIller. Peter Navarro? He's a Wall Street in-joke. Also Defense Production Act policy coordinator and special advisor to the president. We've seen Larry Kudlow doing choppertalk. There are vastly more qualified individuals out there, many of whom are idealogically aligned with the fascists. Yet they've been absent from public policy because their calculus says to stay away from the black hole.

"In addition to Massachusetts and D.C., Monday's filing was brought by Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin."

WolframAlpha won't give me a quick'n'easy read on the population of those states. However, seventeen states means 34 senators. If 17 governors decided that an election was illegitimate we would be in a full-blown constitutional crisis... but we also wouldn't be accepting another Trump term until all the votes were counted. And there's been a lot of state coordination from the very beginning.

The Supreme Court doesn't owe Trump shit. And they don't appear to be particularly beholden to his interpretation of the law. Say what you will about Brett Kavanaugh (and there's plenty to say), but he sided with the majority in saying 'naah voting matters.' Right now, Roberts' legacy is saving Obamacare... and gutting the Voting Rights Act. He's sided pretty succinctly with voting rights ever since, almost as if he learned something. You get even a couple states to argue that the election was unfair and it will go to the Supreme Court.

Judicial: Even if they could rule justly, it would move at a glacial pace and America would lose

We're losing now. Badly. We continue to lose. However, one thing 2020 has taught us all is we can always lose worse.

here's the real question: who still has something to gain from a Trump administration? Now - how much do they have to gain from an illigitimate Trump administration? If you can convince me that number is greater than the number of opportunists who stand to gain more from a different administration, I too shall be concerned. But as I see it, the reason the Trump back bench is so weak is because nobody of any real weight thinks they can get anything out of it anymore.