The Road to Splitsville WV GOP SNAFU

The Newsletter for Subscribers to THE SPLIT

Are you ready for this? (Hint: No, you are not.) Some Republicans in the West Virginia legislature have proposed a bill stating that…well, here’s David Kurtz of the solid, dependable Talking Points Memo yesterday:

Take, for instance, the resolution that four GOP  lawmakers introduced Sunday in the special session in West Virginia. It’s as extreme as anything I’ve seen in the last few years. The proposed resolution, inter alia, calls on West Virginia not to “recognize” the results of the 2024 presidential election if “election fraud in any state was a major reason that resulted in a candidate for President obtaining a majority in the Electoral College.”

Anybody who knows how many beans make ten knows that when a Republican cites “election fraud,” what he or she means is, “when our side loses.” And, indeed, Kurtz notes that “election fraud” is defined in the text as “a laundry list of bogus right-wing claims,” adding, “By this definition, Special Counsel Jack Smith’s ongoing prosecution of Donald Trump could be sufficient grounds on its own for West Virginia to refuse to recognize a victorious Kamala Harris as the legitimate president.”

We doubt that the bill will pass. “But what if it did?” Okay, but come on, even the knuckle-dragging Republicans in Wes—“BUT WHAT IF IT DID?”

Well, then, here’s what would happen: We don’t know.

They don’t know. Kurtz suggests—somewhat facetiously, he adds—that for a state to refuse to recognize the rightful, legal election of a President would be “secessionist.” (He also notes that, for West Virginia to secede would amount to a stupendous irony, given the fact that the state was created in 1861 by counties in western Virginia who voted against joining the rest of Virginia in seceding from the Union.)

As one of us (SR) keeps having to remind the other one (EW), The Split is not about secession. The separation of the red states from the blue USA in our future-fictional-or-is-it?-alternate-history will be a matter of mutual consent. Still, it deserves mention in The Road to Splitsville.

This is not because it’s a bold, union-be-damned red-state legislative act that could very well inspire others and lead to a national schism. (It probably won’t become law, and West Virginia is more purple, anyway). Rather, because it represents election denialism (presented via whiny, bad-faith Republican Party self-pity) taken to a new, legislative level, and is therefore symptomatic of the combination of desperation, stupidity, and self-destructive party loyalty that someday could result in a split.

Kurtz quotes this from the daft—sorry; draft—resolution:

That, the State of West Virginia will not recognize any election of the Democrat candidate for President during the 2024 election cycle if the Republican presidential or vice-presidential candidate is assassinated, seriously injured during an assassination attempt, incarcerated, de facto eliminated or barred from the ballot in any states, or is the subject of legal actions that preclude their effective campaigning…

Never mind the taunting, schoolyard-bully use of “Democrat,” by which Republicans from sea to shining sea have traditionally signaled their unflagging ability to be petty assholes without a hint of class. (If you hadn’t noticed, they also refuse to say the name “Kamala” correctly.) What the language of this proposal seems to imply is that, in the D.C. insurrection case, Judge Tanya Chutkin could, say, rule that Trump’s lawyers should respond to Jack Smith’s indictment by the third week in October, and the indignant crybabies/traitors among the West Virginia Republicans would consider that so upsetting and distracting as to constitute a legal action precluding Trump’s effective campaigning. And, therefore, the state would not “recognize” a Harris victory.

Would such a thing be legal? Would it be Constitutional? Who cares! These are Republicans we’re talking about. If they have to break (or, via the Supreme Court, re-write) the law in order to put Trump in office so he can break or re-write all the other laws, they’re happy to do it.

Things get more interesting if we pretend to take this seriously for a minute. Say, at least as regards the Electoral College, Harris wins in a close race—270 to 268. And say she wins West Virginia. Would this refusal to recognize the outcome mean that she doesn’t get West Virginia’s four electoral votes? If she doesn’t, then she doesn’t win; it’s 272 to 266, Trump. If she doesn’t win, there’s nothing to not recognize. So she does win! Or does she?

Or maybe she does. Maybe her having won the four electoral votes is a fait accompli, and there is no provision in this idiotic law to reclaim them from her. Then West Virginia’s position will be that she won, and is President, but the state does not “recognize” that fact. What can that possibly mean?

Above, Kurtz calls this “extreme.” And, to the extent that the legislators behind this resolution are sincere, well-meaning public servants diligently striving to do what’s best for their constituents, it is. But to what extent is that actually the case? Ha ha, don’t make us laugh.

No, these are Today’s Republicans, a Krazy Klown Kult (yes, KKK; coincidence, we assure you) for whom the purpose of government work is not to make the voters’ lives better, but to make rich people’s lives better; not to make the lives of America’s enemies worse, but to make Democrats’ lives worse. The GOP, at the state as well as the national level, has rotted and decomposed into a political party actively hostile to government itself (not to mention women, minorities, the environment, and truth), a gang of thugs whose only goal is to acquire power and, with it, wealth.

This laughable legislation is not meant to be enacted. It’s meant to signal to the Party, and to Donald Trump, that these four legislators are with the program, that they’re Trump loyalists concerned about assassination, incarceration, and legal actions, none of which have threatened Harris but all of which have threatened, and continue to threaten, their Leader. They’re signaling their willingness to fuck with something as fundamental as their state’s Federal responsibility—its very status as a state in the US--in order to prove their fealty.

How might that lead to Splitsville? Not because they hope it will directly trigger a mass exodus, but because it’s yet another brick removed from the firewall that separates the everyday normal from the batshit unthinkable.