As the battle over the recount of votes continues to grind on, we are beginning to see some lines form that gives us a hint on how things will play out over the next four years should the Electoral College or the Congress eventually decide to recognize Joe Biden as Commander-in-Thief.

While many of us have no intention of ever recognizing Joe Biden as a legitimate president unless and until President Trump concedes that he lost in a free and fair election, For my part, I’m 100% with my colleague Shipwreckedcrew in Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton Takes a Hard Line on Potential Biden Cabinet Picks: No to Susan Rice for Anything. That is, no Biden nominee should be confirmed unless the Senate is convinced that person had no role in supporting the Russia Hoax, no role in impeachment, and not even the most tenuous of ties to any business that operates in Communist China or that lobbies for either Communist China or businesses that operate there.

It is equally clear that there is a movement in some regions of alleged conservatism and with the GOP to give Joe Biden a chance. They are willing to give him his “honeymoon.” They want this all to be over, and, just like the Russia Hoax, they will blame anyone who fails to let the Democrats have their way. Case in point:

The precedent that Republicans are establishing is that nobody should concede until they've exhausted weeks of legal options that cannot change the outcome, and until the Electoral College formally votes. They are not gonna like this precedent the next time they win.

— Philip Klein (@philipaklein) November 18, 2020

This is something you’d expect from any given Vichy Republican/Conservative. As Mollie Hemingway points out, this criticism coming from someone who treated, at least for public consumption, every jot and tittle of the Russia Hoax as the truth is a bit ironic.

If you had held Democrats of the last four long and unconscionably brutal #Resistance years to even some of the standards you now say Republicans must hold immediately and without question, your opinion on it would surely hold more weight with people.

— Mollie (@MZHemingway) November 18, 2020

And even if you had done that, which I totally missed, you're comparing legal battles in courts of law about legitimate voting integrity problems to rampant spying/leaking/special counsel activism/impeachment, refusal to accept the legitimacy of POTUS for years, etc.?

— Mollie (@MZHemingway) November 18, 2020

Important to remember that Rothman and Commentary helped seed the Russian collusion hoax https://t.co/EicO5CCniB

— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) November 18, 2020

Noah Rothman and the rest of Grifter, Inc. on the fake right peddled the Russian collusion hoax — fabricated by a Clinton-funded foreign agent in the employ of a sanctioned Russian oligarch — and now want everyone else to pretend it never happened. https://t.co/cqeALXv5Fp

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) November 18, 2020

First and foremost, conceding an election is irrelevant to the Constitutional process. I don’t have a problem with someone conceding they have lost a free and fair election to an ethical opponent, but I don’t see any reason to do so if those circumstances do not exist. Likewise, exhausting legal challenges is a right open to both candidates. Criticizing a candidate for availing himself of his rights is sort of like saying the accused is a bad person based solely on their refusal to plead guilty and accept their punishment. The Electoral College exists to bring finality to presidential elections. If it doesn’t, then Congress does.

Now we get on to my favorite whenever our quislings tell us how important it is to cave, whataboutism. It is a silly argument made by people who have nothing better to offer. Democrats are going to do what they are going to do. They are going to act to arrogate more power to themselves and do whatever they can to restrict anyone’s ability to resist their demands. Nothing President Trump will do is going to have any effect on the way a possible Biden/Harris administration acts or how the next Democrat to lose a presidential election conducts themselves. In fact, in this case, President Trump is acting pretty much like Joe Biden was advised to act.

Flashback to late August:https://t.co/PRFuYtp5Gc

— The TV Grump (@TheTVGrump) November 11, 2020

The fact that media that is somewhat conservative is already making haste to kiss Joe Biden’s posterior is a sign of what lies ahead in the event the recount does not play out as we would wish. They will support a Biden/Harris administration and treat those who oppose it much as how they tried to marginalize Devin Nunes and anyone else who challenged the Russia Hoax.

And if Republicans demand vote audits/court oversight, Democrats might accuse the next GOP president's Supreme Court nominee of being the ringleader of a secret gang rape cartel, @philipaklein. Their allies might even start burning cities to the ground! https://t.co/pcZPiK9axK

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) November 18, 2020