ONCE AGAIN, REPUBLICANS ARE THE ODDBALLS

There's a lot of news today and I've been struggling in vain to find a Big Idea that ties current stories together, so I'll abandon that effort and just respond to these results from the recent AP-NORC poll by restating a simple fact:

Once again we get the same results we've gotten over and over again in other recent polls: at least two-thirds of independents agree with nearly every Democrat on major issues -- and a majority of Republicans are on the other side.

I'll keep saying it: Democrats are the normal people in America. Republicans are the out-of-touch, beyond-the-pale extremists. A majority of them think it's fine for America to take Greenland by force or coercion. Large majorities of them think Trump's arbitrary and onerous tariffs are just fine, and think ICE and the Border Patrol are doing a terrific job in Minneapolis and elsewhere.

They are not normal Americans. People who are dissatisfied with Donald Trump's presidency are normal Americans. Our political culture needs to wake up to this fact.

I'm not a real journalist, but maybe some people who really are journalists -- independent or otherwise -- need to conduct some safaris to the heartland to find the many Americans who aren't upscale, overeducated city-dwelling white liberals but who loathe Donald Trump anyway. They're there. They're everywhere. There are millions of them, and they're invisible.

Even a shellacking of the Republicans in the midterms might not get the point across -- pundits will say the vote was merely "thermostatic," or they'll fixate on winnable races Democrats lost. Even when Trump lost the popular vote in 2016, he was seen as the candidate who represented the zeitgeist, much more so than when Joe Biden won the most votes of any presidential candidate in American history four years later, and despite the fact that Biden's popular-vote margin was three times greater than Trump's in 2024. (Even Hillary Clinton's popular-vote win in her 2016 Electoral College loss was greater than Trump's popular-vote win eight years later.)

Democrats represent the zeitgeist now. It's time for the political world to acknowledge that.

IN EL PASO, TRUMP'S COWBOYS WANT TO CREATE AN AIRBORNE MINNEAPOLIS

In my post yesterday, I was obviously wrong to speculate that a war with Mexico was about to start. I say this even though it's clear that President Trump desperately wants to invade Mexico, as he said in two separate Fox interviews last week. One was with Sean Hannity:

President Donald Trump suggested in a new interview that the U.S. military could launch land strikes on drug cartels in Mexico.

“We’ve knocked out 97% of the drugs coming in by water. And we are going to start now hitting land, with regard to the cartels,” Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity in an interview aired Thursday night.

“The cartels are running Mexico, it’s very sad to watch and see what’s happened to that country,” Trump said.

The other was with Larry Kudlow:

Speaking in an interview with Fox Business host Larry Kudlow, Trump said his administration initially focused on disrupting drug shipments at sea, claiming those efforts reduced drug flows by roughly one-third. He said the strategy is now shifting to land-based operations to prevent traffickers from adapting by rerouting shipments.

“Now we’re going to start on land,” Trump said, arguing that hitting trafficking networks on land would stop smugglers from simply moving operations back to boats.

I'm sure you know by now that air traffic was shut down in and around El Paso after a U.S. anti-drone laser was fired at a target that turned out to be a party balloon. CBS News (which still seems to be functioning as a legitimate news organization) reports that tests of anti-drone technology have been underway for months, and the Department of Defense/War has insisted that the tech doesn't endanger commercial air traffic:

The Pentagon had undertaken extensive planning on the use of military technology near Fort Bliss, a military base that abuts the El Paso International Airport, to practice taking down drones.

Two sources identified the technology as a high-energy laser.

But the folks at the Pentagon had to act like cowboys:

Meetings were scheduled over safety impacts, but Pentagon officials wanted to test the technology sooner....

The airlines were under the impression that the airspace closure was put into place out of an abundance of caution because the FAA could not predict where U.S. government drones might be flying. The drones have been operating outside of their normal flight paths. The airlines were also aware of the apparent impasse between the FAA and Pentagon officials over the issue because the Pentagon has been using Fort Bliss for anti-cartel drone operations without sharing information with the FAA, the sources said

An aviation industry official told POLITICO that the restriction was put in place because the Defense Department has been using drones & testing some counter-drone techn in the airspace, which neighbors Mexico, without sharing critical safety info on such operations w/ the FAA https://t.co/kvHdiuby2b

— Oriana Pawlyk (@Oriana0214) February 11, 2026

But it wasn't the military that deployed the weapon that endangered commercial air traffic, as The New York Times tells us:

The abrupt closure of El Paso’s airspace late Tuesday was precipitated when Customs and Border Protection officials deployed an anti-drone laser on loan from the Department of Defense without giving aviation officials enough time to assess the risks to commercial aircraft, according to multiple people briefed on the situation.

To me this feels a little like Minneapolis: Wannabe macho men in the Trump administration are choosing to act in ways that recklessly threaten public safety, while refusing to coordinate their actions with other parties that have a stake in the matter. And, of course, the macho men include immigration agents.

To some extent, this is part of the Trump/GOP War on Democrats, as Forbes notes:

Local officials, primarily Democrats, criticized the abrupt closure, and said local officials were not given proper warning. “I want to be very clear: this never should have happened,” El Paso Mayor Renard Johnson said in a statement on social media. “You cannot restrict airspace over a major city without coordinating with the city, the airport, hospitals, and community leadership. That failure to communicate is unacceptable.” Johnson said emergency flights were grounded during the closure, forcing medical flights to reroute to Las Cruces, New Mexico, a city about 45 miles northwest of El Paso. Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., also said he would demand answers from the FAA about “why the airspace was closed in the first place without notifying appropriate officials.”

The Pentagon and CBP kept the FAA out of the loop and then the FAA kept local officials out of the loop. The notion that we'll fight over some issues but work together on others is antiquated and passé. It's a war of all against all now. I'm sure that'll make America great.

I THINK WE'RE ABOUT TO INVADE MEXICO (OR ARE WE?) (updated)

I'm leaving this post in place with updates, despite the fact that I seem to have guessed wrong. Or maybe I didn't?

*****

WTF?

The Federal Aviation Administration is closing the airspace around El Paso International Airport in Texas for 10 days, grounding all flights to and from the airport.

A notice posted on the FAA’s website said the temporary flight restrictions were for “special security reasons,” but did not provide additional details. The closure does not include Mexican airspace.

There are also FAA restrictions in New Orleans and, as El Paso Matters notes, in "a large patch of southern New Mexico west of Santa Teresa."

We didn't even close down air traffic for this long after 9/11. Flights began taking off again on September 13.

I think we're going to war, folks.

Here's an NBC story from November:

The Trump administration has begun detailed planning for a new mission to send American troops and intelligence officers into Mexico to target drug cartels, according to two U.S. officials and two former senior U.S. officials familiar with the effort.

The early stages of training for the potential mission, which would include ground operations inside Mexico, has already begun, the two current U.S. officials said. But a deployment to Mexico is not imminent, the two U.S. officials and one of the former U.S. officials said....

Under the new mission being planned, U.S. troops in Mexico would mainly use drone strikes to hit drug labs and cartel members and leaders, the two current U.S. officials and two former U.S. officials said. Some of the drones that special forces would use require operators to be on the ground to use them effectively and safely, the officials said....

Unlike in Venezuela, the mission being planned for Mexico is not designed to undermine the country’s government, the two current and two former U.S. officials said.

This won't work -- nothing we've done in the so-called War on Drugs for the past 55 years has worked -- but it will probably give Trump a poll bump.

Pressure from Europe prevented Toddler Trump from playing toy soldiers in Greenland -- he has to do something to have fun, right?

So brace youselves, folks. I think this is what's coming.

UPDATE: How will an assault on Mexico poll? The idea of military action against Mexico was fairly popular in September 2023:

About half of Americans support sending U.S. military personnel into Mexico to fight drug cartels, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll, though there is less backing for sending troops without Mexico's approval....

According to the seven-day Reuters/Ipsos poll, which closed on Thursday, 52% of respondents said they supported "sending U.S. military personnel to Mexico to fight against drug cartels," while 26% were opposed and the remainder were unsure. Republicans were supportive by a 64% to 28% margin; Democrats were narrowly opposed, 47% to 44%.

When asked if the United States should do so without the permission of the Mexican government, however, the numbers changed dramatically. Some 59% of poll respondents opposed unilateral action, while 29% were supportive. Fifty-one percent of Republicans opposed unilateral action, compared to 40% who supported it.

But now -- and this is probably tied to Trump's general unpopularity -- it's much less popular. According to a Politico poll conducted last month, only 32% of Trump 2024 voters support military action against Mexico. That number will go up, obviously, when it happens. But overall, 59% of poll respondents oppose military action against Mexico and only 19% support it. Opponents include 49% of Trump 2024 voters.

And according to a Quinnipiac poll published last month:

Voters 57 - 37 percent would oppose the United States taking military action to attack suspected illegal drug facilities in Mexico, if this meant acting without the permission of the Mexican government.

I think support for this action will increase once it happens, but it will be a quick sugar rush for the GOP, and it's unlikely to last. When Trump uses the military, he never follows through. He likes to do a quick strike and then walk away -- planning for "the day after" is, I guess, for haters and losers. Assuming this attack happens, many Americans might forget Trump did it by summer, and it could be mostly forgotten by Election Day.

*****

UPDATE: WTF, again?

The Federal Aviation Administration lifted the closure of airspace around El Paso International Airport on Wednesday morning—an abrupt shift after previously grounding flights to the Texas airport for 10 days over what Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said was a “cartel drone incursion.”

In response to a drone incursion, that rank amateur Sean Duffy was going to close down air traffic for a week and a half? For longer than we shut it down after 9/11?

Or was the shutdown based on a test? The New York Times says:

Another person familiar with the situation had described the cause of the shutdown as a test of anti-drone technology. It is unclear if the closure was directly related to the presence of drones or how the technology was deployed.

Maybe this is the true story -- the members of Trump's cabinet generally knows nothing about their subject areas, and think it's unmanly to actually learn things. So Duffy or a subordinate might have genuinely thought a ten-day shutdown was an appropriate response to an incursion that I'm sure isn't unprecedented.

Or maybe we were going to war and it never occurred to these morons that shutting down a major airport for a week and a half would be a news story, so they didn't realize that the Mexican cartels would be tipped off. Who knows?

WHEN TRUMP LEAVES OFFICE, YOU'LL BARELY NOTICE THE DIFFERENCE IN THE GOP

Here's a disheartening headline in The New York Times:

Without a Border ‘Invasion,’ Texas G.O.P. Turns to an Old Enemy, Islam

Republican politicians and strategists in Texas are amping up anti-Muslim rhetoric as a way to energize Republican voters after several elections when the border was the animating force.

As I was saying yesterday, Republicans can't successfully run on their real agenda -- making the rich richer -- so they run on culture-war issues and wager that their voters won't notice that the party never makes their lives better (a successful bet in recent decades, in Texas and many other states). When one issue isn't enraging and motivating voters, there are others waiting in the wings. That's what's happening in Texas now.

The attacks on Islam are a notable shift for a party that has spent the last several election cycles focused on the Mexican border. Warnings of migrant “caravans” and a criminal invasion have lost their sting with a Republican in the White House and new policies that have halted most border crossings.

Attacks such as ...?

Ads for Senator John Cornyn of Texas have touted his fight against “radical Islam.” Texas Republican lawmakers created a “Sharia-Free America Caucus” in Congress. Gov. Greg Abbott has labeled one of the nation’s largest Muslim rights groups a terror organization.

A “Save Texas from Radical Islam” dinner north of Dallas last month featured Steve Bannon, a former adviser to President Trump, the conservative commentator Glenn Beck and the Dutch right-wing leader Geert Wilders — and attracted party activists and Texas House members. The State Senate is weighing legislation requested by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick to ensure Texans “are never held under the heel of ‘Sharia law.’”

Just on Monday, the state’s hard-right attorney general, Ken Paxton, announced he would investigate a proposed real estate development in Kaufman County, east of Dallas, as a “potentially illegal ‘Sharia City.’”

Paxton, of course, is running for Cornyn's Senate seat, and many polls show him beating Cornyn in the primary and winning the general election. But in case you think Cornyn is one of the "good" Republicans, check out this nakedly Islamophobic ad he's running:



Some Republicans in Texas are worse:

Islam came up repeatedly on Thursday night at a gathering of several dozen party activists and voters who had come to a restaurant in The Colony, a suburb of Dallas, to support a far-right challenger to the area’s conservative Republican state representative ... Lt. Col. Larry Brock, an Air Force veteran who served two years in prison for entering the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Mr. Brock spoke for several minutes about Islam.

“We should ban the burqa, the hijab, the abaya, the niqab,” he said, referring to different head and body coverings worn by some Muslim women. “No to halal meat. No to celebrating Ramadan. No, no, no.”

The author of the Times story, J. David Goodman, doesn't fully understand what Texas Republicans are afraid of:

The state party put a resolution on its primary ballot asking whether Texas should “prohibit Sharia law,” a term that refers to Islamic religious rules but has long served as a catchall to signify expansions of Muslim culture and religion that opponents say threaten American values.

No, this isn't just fear of "expansions of Muslim culture and religion." These people believe that Muslims want to replace current laws in America with Muslim religious law. They think Muslims want to force your wife and daughters to wear burqas, while banning pork and bacon. (They probably believe Muslims want to turn America into an Islamic theocracy because many of them want to turn America into a Christian theocracy.)

Now here's a little perspective, from a Texas Monthly story on the same subject (free to read here):

Conservative Christians run the state government. Muslims in Texas represent an estimated 2 percent of the population. What little political power the community wields is concentrated in a handful of suburban enclaves in North Texas and greater Houston. The Muslim population, if generalizations can be made about such a diverse group, tends to be socially conservative and politically mixed.

Nevertheless:

[Bo] French, who is running for a seat on the Texas Railroad Commission, has called on Donald Trump to “round up every Muslim in America” and deport them. He has warned that if nothing is done, Texas could end up like Dearborn, Michigan, the Arab-majority city. (No matter that it voted for Trump in 2024.)

Valentina Gomez, a twentysomething Colombian immigrant running for a Central Texas congressional seat after moving to the state from Missouri, where she lost an election in 2024, released footage of herself incinerating a Quran with a blowtorch. “Vote for me so we can kick every dirty Muslim out of Texas,” she said in a separate social media post.

And one congressman sees A Conspiracy So Vast:

“We’ve gotta be much more aggressive,” Central Texas Congressman Chip Roy told Glenn Beck in late December, in regard to cracking down on Islamic groups. He mused—vaguely, conspiratorially—that there existed a “criminal organization” connecting antifa, George Soros, and Muslim organizations in Texas. “It’s all connected,” he said, “it’s all connected.”

One thing I'd like you to notice is that this is not being driven by Donald Trump or the White House. As I regularly point out, the GOP wasn't a mellow, moderate party until Trump came along. Trump accelerated the extremism, but it was always there, and it was on the rise independently of Trump. Fox News, talk radio, and newer media and social media outlets have created increasing amounts of ragebait in order to keep voters angry at Democrats and loyal to Republicans. This would have happened even if Trump had never entered electoral politics, and it will keep happening when he's gone, unless we somehow manage to turn the GOP into a pariah party that's shunned by decent people.

What's happening in Texas is in part a reaction to local matters, particularly this:

In September, Abbott signed into law House Bill 4211, which took aim at sharia compounds—fantastical concoctions. This was in response to a ferocious conservative campaign against EPIC City, [a] proposed master-planned community near Dallas.... Created by the East Plano Islamic Center, a prominent Collin County mosque, and rebranded late last year as the Meadow, the residential development would reportedly include more than a thousand homes, a faith-based K–12 school, a community college, and a place of worship. The issue exploded in early 2025, after [right-wing online commentator Amy] Mek labeled the development a “402-acre sharia city.”

... EPIC’s critics didn’t argue for a more inclusive project. Instead, they sought to scuttle the development by creating the impression that it would function as a no-go zone for non-Muslims, a sort of Lone Star caliphate. This was a stretch, to say the least—the developers stressed that the community would comply with Fair Housing Laws and pledged to allow people of any faith. They were flooded by death threats and hate mail.

The Times story reports:

Mohamed Ebeida, a research scientist who immigrated from Egypt, said often when he and his children would go to pray at the Plano center on Fridays, protesters told them they were “going to hellfire.”

“Do you want a society where every group alienates each other?” he said.

No, they want as society where they alienate everyone they don't like, and their enemies don't get to push back. They don't want to share power, but stirring up hate is how they win and retain power.

WE'RE RACIALLY DIVIDED SO REPUBLICAN VOTERS WILL REMAIN DISTRACTED

Here's a response to Bad Bunny's joyful Super Bowl halftime show:

Beyonce and Ricky Martin performed at Bush's 2000 inaugural is a thing I think about a lot when considering how much more culturally isolated and extreme the right has become.

— Zeddy (@zeddary.bsky.social) February 9, 2026 at 10:16 AM

In the 2000s, a number of Establishment Republicans -- George W. Bush, John McCain, Lindsey Graham -- wanted comprehensive immigration reform and wanted it to be identified with their party. They hoped this would win them favor with Hispanic voters. But the right-wing messaging that resonated most with their own voters was anti-immigrant. Bush's immigration push died in 2007.

Immigration reform wasn't the GOP's main goal. Its main goal was to cut taxes on the rich, cut regulations for big corporations, and slash the social safety net. It's an agenda that's not easy to sell to voters -- so, over the years, the GOP has distracted voters from this agenda by stirring up anger and hate. The GOP knew that Fox News, talk radio, and right-wing online publications were building party loyalty, and they gave propagandists more or less free rein to make voters angry at immigrants, Black people, white liberals, the media, gay people, feminists, entertainers, and gun-control advocates (that's a partial list).

For the most part, this permanent campaign of distraction was electorally successful. Even when Democrats scored big victories at the polls in 2008, Republicans came roaring back in the 2010 and 2014 midterms. And then Trump won two victories, and nearly scored an Electoral College win in 2020.

For the GOP, on balance, distraction has worked. Trump's major legislative wins have funneled huge amounts of money to the wealthy. And even if we have free and fair elections in November and Democrats do well, the GOP might still control the Senate as well as the White House and the Supreme Court.

Was building an electorate that hates half the country and cheers the brutalization of non-whites and their allies a worthwhile price for the wealthy backers of the GOP to pay? I think their answer would be "Oh, sure." They got their money. They don't care if the rest of us are at one another's throats.

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO KID ROCK (updated)

It's almost time...

How will the headliner, Kid Rock, celebrate Faith, Family, and Freedom? I assume that a recent flurry of negative publicity means that he won't be performing this early hymn:

... social media users honed in on Kid Rock’s 2001 song, “Cool, Daddy Cool,” which contains the lyrics, “Young ladies, young ladies, I like ’em underage, see some say that’s statutory (but I say that’s mandatory).”

But that's hardly the only Kid Rock song that would seem a tad out of place if it showed in his set list at a concert celebrating Faith and Family.

I've been writing posts about this jamoke since 2004, when it was first reported that he might perform at the Republican convention in New York. (That year he performed at an event in the city during the convention. He finally made it to the main stage in 2024.) In 2004, I wrote:

Which songs from his catalog should Kid serenade the Values Party with?

"Pimp of the Nation"? "Fuck U Blind"? "Balls in Your Mouth"? "Killin' Brain Cells"? "3 Sheets to the Wind (What's My Name)"? "Early Mornin' Stoned Pimp"? "Drunk in the Morning"?

All of those are genuine Kid Rock songs, mostly from his early years.

The 1990 song "Pimp of the Nation" would be an interesting choice for tonight's performance, since it includes these surprisingly prophetic lyrics:

And because I do so much pimping
One day I'll probably walk with a limp
And drive a big Lincoln
Wearing an unbuttoned shirt
And be a fifty-five year old pervert

(Well, the last line is prophetic, at least -- Kid Rock turned 55 in January.) This is also a song that begins with a statement of principles that seems ideally suited to a party led by Jeffrey Epstein's former best friend:

There's only two types of men
Pimps and Johns
There's one type of bitch
And that's a ho

I don't know if you'll be able to get through the entire song. I at least got as far as the verse in which he claims to be pimping Zsa Zsa Gabor, Tipper Gore, Robin Givens, Latoya Jackson, and Roseanne Barr (who, for all we know, might actually show up and perform it with him someday).



Below you'll find Kid Rock's performance of "Balls in Your Mouth" at Woodstock '99, the festival now known as "Rapestock" for its abysmal security and high number of sexual assaults. He introduces the song in part by summarizing his politcal philosophy at the time:

You want me to get political? Well, this is about as deep as Kid Rock thinks: Monica Lewinsky is a fuckin' ho, and Bill Clinton is a goddamn pimp!

Charming -- but surprisingly timely, given that Donald Trump himself recent told a reporter, “See, I like Bill Clinton. I still like Bill Clinton.”

In a way, Kid Rock is the perfect musical act for the age of Trump, a guy who spent his early years obsessed with dehumanizing sex, but who is now regarded as a defender of faith and family even though he hasn't really changed at all.

The Kid Rock who recorded these early songs is the real Kid Rock, not the guy who prances in front of a flag. I hope he performs "Balls in Your Mouth" tonight -- and, since it's Sunday, I hope he performs it while waving a copy of Charlie Kirk's posthumous book:

Throw your hands in the air, church people:



*****

UPDATE: And speaking of Bill Clinton, here's another pious Kid Rock lyric (found via Reddit):

Erika Kirk, your thoughts?

ON TRUMP AND THE MIDTERMS, JAMELLE BOUIE STILL DOESN'T GET IT

The New York Times has published another roundtable discussion about the potential for President Trump and his allies to prevent a free and fair election in November. The participants, once again, are Jamelle Bouie, Michelle Cottle, and David French.

Bouie still believes that Trump is very limited in his ability to manipulate the midterms; it's the contrarian hot take he wants to be known for these days. But he knows he's getting pushback, so he tries to clarify what he thinks:

Setting aside the fact that the executive — or the president, specifically — really has no legal authority here, I want to be very clear about what I’m saying here. I’m not doing the thing where I say, “Well, we can’t do that. It’s illegal.”

I’m saying that for example, if you are the head of a board of elections or you lead your precinct in Georgia and Donald Trump calls you and says, “I want you to throw out ballots,” you can say to Donald Trump, “OK” — and then ignore him. There’s no authority he has over you.

Sure, local election officials can say no to Trump if he askes them to toss ballots. But will they? And will it be an ask this time, the way it was in Georgia in 2020? Or will Trump's troops simply seize the ballots?

Bouie makes a valid point when says this:

... I actually think it’s really important to listen to how Trump talks about this. He doesn’t actually talk about it in terms of the midterms.

His mental model for the election is the presidential election. He is preoccupied with his loss in 2020 and losing the popular vote in 2016. Sending the F.B.I. to Georgia, to take materials from the 2020 elections, to me, suggests that all of this is less about subverting the elections that are actually going to happen and more about finding material for Trump to be able to say, “No, I actually won.”

And maybe the fact that Trump is more fixated on 2020 than he is on the midterms will actually save the midterms. But as Cottle points out, he also has reason to fear big midterm losses that would give power to Democrats. Bouie concedes that, but insists that Trump can't really act unless he has the public on his side:

... we can imagine a world where Trump is a popular president, where his approval rating is 55-45, and he’s riding high.

... in that world, I could see this maybe working.

... if we get to November and Trump’s approval rating has dipped from where it is now, if that’s where Trump is politically, then all of the screaming about fraud and illegals in the world isn’t going to change the fact that people can see with their plain eyes that the man is unpopular and that people are going to respond accordingly.

Trump can't act with impunity unless he's popular? Really? He's unpopular now, and he's acting with impunity anyway. People are trying to stop him -- Democratic groups are trying to do it in the courts, and citizens are trying to do it in the streets, and they're having some successes -- but he just keeps coming.

David French seems the most clear-eyed about this. He thinks the people we really need to worry about are Trump's underlings:

... if you look at the Stephen Miller side of things, in many ways, what we’re seeing and what reporting is demonstrating is that he’s more ruthless often than Trump’s own instincts. This is a big part of MAGA — they’re more vicious, more cruel even than Donald Trump....

When you see a situation where Trump is raiding Fulton County; Bannon is saying, “Get ICE all around polling precincts”; Trump is waiting for that phone call from Tulsi Gabbard; Tommy Tuberville is saying, “Get rid of voting machines” — you’ve got this environment where MAGA is very focused on the midterms because they’ve been governing like they’re never going to lose power.

... the Steve Bannons, the Stephen Millers, they have a generational project and I don’t think that they want to see their generational project go up in flames after two years, after 2024.

These people believe that they and their allies should run the country forever because they believe they're the only genuine Americans. They don't believe in democracy because they don't believe Democrats deserve to vote.

And French is right about lower-level election officials:

I just don’t think people realize how much a median county committee-level Republican in a lot of red areas is radicalized on this issue and willing to go to the barricades on this issue. So, that’s the X factor here....

You have a whole superstructure beyond that of people who have been extraordinarily radicalized on this issue from year after year after year of misinformation, disinformation: Illegals are voting, great replacement theory, etc., etc.

So, he has a lot of willing partners down to the precinct level who firmly believe that if Republicans lose, it’s because the fix was in.

They don't think Democrats should vote either.

As he has in the past, Bouie talks about agency, pointing out that Trump and his subordinates aren't the only people who have it:

... there are other people with agency besides them. I’ve been emphatic about this recently and I think it boils down to that I’m just tired of the assumption that Trump and those around him are the only people with agency.

But who has more agency? We don't know. Bouie suggests that good people can stop Trump just by paying attention:

This is a place where I just think public vigilance is actually going to be the most potent thing. If Americans are intensely apathetic about the election, then there’s going to be more opportunities for shenanigans.

But if Americans are very attentive or care very much, if they’re very motivated to go vote — and at this stage, it looks like there’s going to be at least a large number of Americans who can be very motivated to go vote — then the extent to which you can do much is actually radically reduced.

People are going to notice if you are trying to stop the vote count and they’re going to complain and they’re going to act and they’re going to react.

But people are noticing-- and reacting to -- the terrible things the administration is doing now, and they're still being done. ICE is still terrorizing people in Minnesota and elsewhere. We got five-year-old Liam Ramos out of the horrific Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas, but there are more than 200 children still detained. Maybe a combination of legal challenges and mass outrage will forestall the worst, but we don't know.

Bouie seems to believe that a civic-minded populace ought to make it impossible for the administration to steal any election. I hope we have that much power, and that much determination to save democracy. It remains to be seen whether we do.