REPUBLICANS ARE TRYING TO ROY COHN THE MIDTERMS

The Department of Justice is brazenly intervening in the Alaska Senate election, on the president's orders.

Donald Trump says he ordered the Department of Justice to sue the state of Alaska in an effort to block the results of a U.S. Senate election from being certified, unless the incumbent Republican wins.

Government attorneys filed a lawsuit Friday arguing that the presence of Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. on the ballot would confuse voters who support the sitting senator, Daniel S. Sullivan, in the unusual matchup of two candidates with the same name up against a Democratic candidate.

“I’m the one that said do it,” Trump told reporters Friday. “They have two Dan Sullivans.”

As The New York Times notes, this has already been litigated at the state level. (Keep in mind that the Constitution says that states run elections, though they're constrained by laws Congress passes. The Executive Branch has no role to play.)

Carol Beecher, the director of the state’s Division of Elections, initially rejected the other Mr. Sullivan’s application to run for the Senate seat, finding that he was not a good-faith candidate and was trying to confuse or mislead voters. But Mr. Sullivan sued, and a trial court held in June that he could be on the ballot. The Alaska Supreme Court affirmed that ruling.

The Trump administration appears to have no case.

“It is one of the weakest election lawsuits I’ve ever seen,” said Richard H. Pildes, a New York University law professor who specializes in election issues. “It should have no realistic chance of success in the courts.”

While the administration is doing this, it's also threatening election officials in California.

The Department of Justice sent letters on Friday to local election officials across California demanding that they help identify potential noncitizens on their voter rolls and set aside their ballots.

The letter — sent to every county in the state, according to a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles — also said local officials would “risk significant federal scrutiny” if they failed to comply with the Justice Department’s demands.

Some of what the Justice Department has sent to California counties is already demonstrably wrong:

In rural Inyo County, along the Nevada border, the registrar of voters said the list she was sent included just two people, and neither of them had been issued ballots. Danielle Sexton, the registrar, said her records showed they had never voted anywhere in California.

And in Mendocino County, a rugged stretch on the north coast, the registrar said the list she received was completely wrong.

“It’s not our voters that were listed,” said Katrina Bartolomie, the Mendocino clerk-recorder. “It’s from another county.”

Meanwhile, the administration's efforts to obtain unredacted voter roles have been rebuffed in court in 27 out of 27 cases. The intimidation efforts in Alaska and California are likely to suffer a similar fate.

But apart from the Trumpers' apparent belief that they might as well try everything in case something works for them, especially when taxpayers are footing the bill, I see something else going on here.

This is an effort to create a vibe. I'm sure "vibe" is not the word the president would use, but it's a concept he's familiar with.

Trump learned how to manipulate public opinion from his early mentor, Roy Cohn. The mob lawyer's advice was simple: Never apologize. Never admit error. Never admit defeat. Always stay on offense.

Cohn wouldn't have used the word "vibe" either, but a major reason for this strategy is that if it works, it creates what we'd now call a vibe. The vibe is: We're fighting. We're the aggressors. And we're going to win.

I think that alone is intended to motivate the portion of past Republican base voters who up to this point seemed likely to sit out the midterms or vote Democratic. Up till now, the vibe has been: Democrats are winning. Democrats are winning in places where they shouldn't be winning. Trump is weak. The MAGA era is over. This White House aggression is meant to create a new narrative and a new vibe, even if none of the aggressive acts succeed.

They think their voters will turn out if they see their party fighting. I think that's also a major reason Vivek Ramaswamy is all in on that ad featuring a denunciation of his opponent, Amy Acton, by Acton's pedophile-enabling, fugitive-harboring mother: In Ramaswamy's view, it doesn't matter that the ad is morally repugnant and dishonest, nor does it matter that even some Republicans have denounced it. Ramaswamy may not care whether voters believe it -- he just wants them to believe that he fights.

This is what Trump's supporters have always said about him: he fights. Until the price of gas crossed $4 a gallon, it didn't seem to matter to them whether he fought wisely, or fought for the right things. He could fight people who have no impact on their lives -- Rosie O'Donnell, Kaitlan Collins -- and they'd cheer.

For weeks we've been talking about terrible Republican candidates (Ken Paxton, Roger Marshall), and Democrats who are clearly punching above their weight (James Talarico, Jon Ossoff). If we start talking about GOP aggression -- it's already happening in the Ohio governor's race -- the vibe might shift. And somewhere in hell, Roy Cohn will be smiling.