Conservatives v. fake conservatives

Sometimes a major controversy tells you who are your friends – and who pretend to be, but aren’t. The case of Texas v. Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin fits that bill today. True conservative commentators recognize that upon this case will depend whether we have Constitutional government anymore – or not. Fake conservatives holler that the case is insane, frivolous – or a metaphor too disgusting to repeat, even to men only.

Background: the Texas lawsuit

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed this Motion for Leave to File Bill of Complaint with the Supreme Court near midnight Monday.

TX v State Motion 2020-12-0… by Breitbart News

And also this motion for a preliminary injunction or TRO, or for a stay of rulings.

TX v State Mpi 2020-12-07 F… by Breitbart News

Since then, seventeen States have joined in an amicus curiae brief to support the Texas motion. Kyle Becker had an embed of the amicus brief.

Allen West had predicted earlier that at least seven States would so join.

Texas filed that lawsuit for a good reason: only the Supreme Court can settle this election now.

These “separate elections of Presidential electors” all go to one election. Many detractors of this case have backed the “National Popular Vote Compact.” So they cannot now argue that this is not a national controversy.

Conservatives weigh in

Conservatives know the stakes here. Yours truly laid the stakes out here:

Another commentator at RedState.com (more on them later) focused on the “compelling theoretical case.” Which is: shall a handful of States make a compact to appoint Democratic electors, now and forever, regardless of how their respective residents vote? For that is what the four defendant States have done, with their convenient and informal amendments to statute and constitution. When they do that, they deny the equal protection of the laws to those seeking elective office.

These are the only two offices where the voting in one state has a direct impact on the voters of other states. For those two offices, do states have cognizable rights to expect that each and every other state will conduct elections for President and Vice President in a manner that guarantees ballot integrity, and a fair and accurate count of the votes?

Fake conservatives don’t think so

Well, evidently a certain cadre of persons, calling themselves conservatives, don’t think so. CNAV expects such canards from leftists. After all, they benefit the most, ostensibly, from the widespread fraud the Texas lawsuit exists to protest. One doesn’t expect to hear it from people calling themselves conservatives.

And so we come to Erick Woods Erickson, founder of RedState, who now has his own radio program. Ever since Fox News and the Associated Press called the election for Joe Biden, Erickson has defended that call. “Voters rejected the Republicans’ messenger and the Democrats’ message,” he said by way of explaining the narrative the cheaters would have us accept. Namely that millions of American voters split their ticket and voted for Biden on one hand, and Republican candidates for Senate and House seats on the other. Either that, or cast only one vote up-ticket for Biden and no votes down-ticket.

Erickson never once presented exit polls or any other evidence for such behavior on the part of the electorate. Why must he? Because it’s never happened before, that’s why. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Especially since the ostensible outcome of this election, with stair-step adds of votes to the eventual “winner,” violates all applicable statistical laws.

This is not to say not one person split his ticket. But it is to say that no one ever heard of so many splitting their ticket before.

From irresponsible claims to yes, but…

In that same piece, “Messenger v. Message,” Erickson dismissed as “irresponsible” the suggestion of outcome-changing fraud in Presidential elections. He then said, “Oh, don’t be such Democrats!” to those of us who recognized voter fraud when we saw it. And again and again he dismissed every piece of evidence anyone sent his way to show that outcome-changing fraud did take place. He walks this fine line. Yes, election fraud did take place. But no, it did not determine the outcome.

But how does he know that? How can he, who accuses Trump voters of defaming Dominion Voter Services, say with such confidence that this company did not rig the elections? Didn’t he hear Eric Coomer of Dominion say,

Trump’s not gonna win. I made [Foxtrotting] sure of that.

And say it to members of Antifa, the Democrats’ brownshirts? He doesn’t even care about Fulton County poll workers dismissing all poll challengers, with a fabricated story about a water main break, and then hauling suitcases out from under a table, opening them, extracting pre-filled ballots, and counting and scanning them as if they were legitimate!

He just takes the word of a fake conservative Secretary of State with a reputation for aiding and abetting fraud (and cutting secret deals involving consent decrees he has no business signing) that those ballots were legitimate.

About Lin Wood telling people not to vote

After that, attorney Lin Wood let his frustration get the better of him. He called for disaffected Republicans to sit out the upcoming runoff. His reasoning: unless elections in Georgia change radically, the same cadre who gimmicked the election of Presidential electors, will gimmick the runoff also.

CNAV would not so advise. Unless people cast their votes, they may not complain about a fraudulent election afterward.

Vote, and the choice is yours. Don’t vote, and the choice is theirs.

As a corollary: vote, and you retain the right to complain when someone steals the election. Don’t vote, and you forfeit that right. If you don’t vote, you cannot claim injury in fact, the first element of legal standing.

But did Erick Erickson, former election attorney, say that? No. He uncorked this canard about Lin Wood wanting to sabotage the Senate. In so doing he made much of Lin Wood’s past history of supporting Democrats and even giving them money. Well, that was then. This is now. Lin Wood would never have taken Nick Sandmann’s case against Mainstream Media if he were a Deep State secret agent.

And perhaps Lin Wood’s prior association with Democrats makes him so effective against them today. He knows the depths of legal depravity of which they are capable.

Latest throw-in with fake conservatives

And so we come to Erick Erickson’s dismissal of the Texas lawsuit. Erickson briefly mentions Ken Paxton being under investigation. Anyone who does anything for conservatives in Texas will soon find himself under investigation. Tellingly, no court has yet convicted Paxton of any wrongdoing.

Moving on, Erickson calls the Texas lawsuit so “stupid” that he claims brain damage from reading the pleadings. “Clowns!” he cries. “Losing Presidential candidate!” And:

These states seek to interfere in the internal affairs of other states when those states are not actually electing the President, but allowing their voters to chose members of the Electoral College.

Which means: no one may ever have standing to argue that electoral fraudsters have co-ordinated their attacks on election integrity. Therefore, if outcome-determinative fraud has occurred in, say, four States in combination, no one may ever complain about it.

If that is the serious argument Erick Woods Erickson chooses to make, then only one possibly appropriate response remains:

Taking apart the arguments of fake conservatives

Erick Woods Erickson here serves as a perfect (and willing) proxy for Senator Mitt Romney (RINO-Utah) and other fake conservatives. CNAV will now take his argument apart:

Were this to succeed,… the states will start suing each other at every election as a bit of theater.

Aren’t they doing that already? Besides which, “internal affairs” do not legitimately include condoning, or even aiding and abetting, election fraud. If “non-interference with internal affairs” were the rule, no one could ever prosecute anyone for spousal or child abuse. Nor even for kidnapping.

A bullet list follows with a collection of tu quoque allegations. And he cites not one report for any of them, verifiable or not.

The remedy is not the Supreme Court’s intervention on behalf of some sore losers, but challenging the electors in the House of Representatives.

Actually Representative Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) plans to do just that. And Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) will hold hearings to gather evidence to support his signing-on to that challenge. In any event, it is not for Erick Erickson, who likely never practiced law at that level, to say what is, and what is not, an appropriate remedy. It is rather for those having a grievance to exhaust all remedies and show a record of such exhaustion. Which is the least thing that Ken Paxton and company propose to do.

Reductio ad absurdum

Wait for Gavin Newsom and Andrew Cuomo to give this precedent a whirl. Wait for progressive states to start suing conservative states over religious liberty, transgender rights, police brutality, tax policies that “steal” residents of progressive states, etc.

Erickson knows better than that. Recall: elections of Presidential electors are the one thing States do that affect other States and their residents. None of the above “grounds” falls into that category.

If voters in Georgia are outraged with the outcome in Georgia, their remedy is not for Texas to save them from themselves, but for them to save themselves by moving to Texas or voting differently in the next election. Even the voters of Georgia do not constitutionally have the right to sue their own state for the general enforcement of election laws. Other states surely stand in even a worse position.

How can voters “save themselves…by voting differently” after voter fraud had established itself as an unassailable new norm? Why shouldn’t they have standing, as far as that goes, to sue for general enforcement of election law?

So that leaves the expedient of moving out-of-State. Actually they wouldn’t have to move all the way to Texas. South Carolina, Florida, and Alabama all border Georgia, and conservatives rule in each. But that leaves Georgia Democrats free to forge their signatures on absentee ballot requests and “vote” in their names forever. What recourse have those voters then? The Eleventh Amendment says they may no longer sue their former State in federal court.

Who is the clown?

I’m really tired of the Republican Party beclowning itself for a losing candidate out of fear for that candidate’s voters.

Oh, yeah?!? Well, let’s just see about that! CNAV has already said what we Trump voters have to fear. This goes beyond Mr. Erickson already telling us that we needed psychiatric intervention. Did he hear about Michigan State Representative Cynthia Johnson (D-Detroit) threatening a “soldier”-like retribution against us?

Furthermore, she has a history of cussing out witnesses to such fraud.

Does Erick Woods Erickson care to throw in with the likes of her? This is the sort of person with whom fake conservatives now find themselves in bed. CNAV has heard of “strange bedfellows,” but this is the limit.

How the fake conservative revealed himself

Erick Erickson has his own history. He founded RedState. But then he disinvited then-candidate Donald Trump from his “Gathering” event, after Megyn Kelly had the bad sense to cross Trump and Trump called her on it. After that, he swore he would never vote for Donald Trump. Ever.

He then resigned from RedState, citing a desire to spend more time with his family. But if he meant that seriously, why didn’t he retire? He did not.

Since then, he’s developed a reputation with those still at RedState as one of many fake conservatives. One columnist cited Erickson as an example of what he meant, when he (the columnist) said,

Republicans whine about being tired of defending Trump. [But] it’s exactly how they got Trump!

Very likely Erick Woods Erickson had to leave RedState because, after that disgraceful disrespect of Donald Trump, his staff rebelled. No one seems to have left any statement about Erickson’s leavetaking. But one can well imagine them telling him, “We won’t be part of your organization when you pull stunts like that! You’re ruining our reputations!” And so, he left.

And now here he is, continuing to call true conservatives sore losers. He even goes so far as to accuse us of incitement to violence. This while the only incitement is on the Democratic side. But that’s what fake conservatives do. To paraphrase Paul of Tarsus, “have nothing to do with such people.” (II Timothy 3:5.)