PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: If you really care about the environment, and global warning, could y’all please stop hyperventilating all at once! You’re literally suffocating the vegetation with a carbon dioxide overload. Thank you.
Man, Trump really got into all of your kitchens with this last round of sturm und drang, didn’t he? I mean about somehow circumventing the will of the people, and calling troops out into the streets to stay in power and shit. And no, my rather glib start to this article is in no way intended to relate that I don’t take the possible consequences seriously. With this crazy bastard, anything can devolve into a total cluster fuck. But because Trump and his toadies are jumping right to these potential dire consequences, everybody else is jumping right to them too, without stopping to think as to what would have to transpire in order for them to become reality. And that is by no means a sure or easy course.
It’s hard to know exactly where to start, simply because Trump has thrown out such a total meshugass of mayhem and destruction to scare people. But let’s start here, and then we’ll work our way down, OK? Okie-doke.
As is so often the case, the simplest solution is the vest one. A total, righteous fucking blowout. And as we speak, 38 days before election, the omens auger well for that outcome. Right now, Trump is trailing in every single swing state that he must carry in order to get a second term, and he is trailing, even, or within the margin of error in states that have no business even being in play, such as Texas, Georgia, Florida, and North Carolina. One of the easiest ways that Trump loses the three states that got him the White House in 2016, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, is by having to neglect them in order to spend all of his time trying to shore up Arizona, Texas, Georgia, Florida and North Carolina.
But there’s more. Trump’s absolute best gambit is that he is ahead in enough states to reach 270 on election night, allowing him to claim victory and insist that all votes counted after that point are invalid. This allows him to send his army of third rate legal beagles into battle in the state courts, fighting to exclude voted left to count after election night. But being Trump, he just couldn’t resist shooting off his big mouth and broadcasting his strategy to the world, leaving everybody else plenty of time to offset it.
But there are already worrying ripples on those waters. MSNBC reported multi hour waiting lines all over the commonwealth of Virginia for their first two days of early voting. They also reported that there were 2.5-3 hour lines in suburban Chicago DuPage county. And these are not Trump voters, they are Biden voters. We know this because there are clots of drooling Trombies across the street, shouting at them and waving Trump-Pence signs. But they’re out there, and they’re banking votes that will be counted on election night.
And the cavalry has already arrived. Retailers and other businesses are announcing that they will pay full time employees to register, train, and be poll workers. And even the millennials are steeping to the front. MSNBC reported that in places like Philadelphia, Chicago, Atlanta, and Miami, there is a virtual army of millennials that are stepping forward to volunteer as poll workers, protecting the frost tops who normally take that duty from the coronavirus. In fact, some cities are saying that not only do they have enough volunteers to staff all polling places, they actually have a surplus of volunteers. This is critical, as it speaks directly to the level of engagement of the youth voters in this election. If they’ll work the polls, they’ll likely vote. And as a card carrying, dues paying old fart, let me be the first to say thank you, and we’re sorry for all that nasty shit we said about your electronics.
OK, so much for the rosiest scenario, now it’s on to the meat and potatoes. Trump’s threat is based on litigation after the actual election itself, aimed at suppressing and discarding ballots. It has been reported that Trump and the RNC have an army of more than 1000 lawyers, ready to descend like a plague of locusts after election day, filing motion after motion to suppress the votes. Oh. No. Please, hold me, I’m so scared. For starters, there is the fact that there are 50 states in the country, 1000 lawyers assays out to 20 lawyers per state. Considering that any legal action will take place in the state capitol, this seems like a bit of overkill.
Next, let’s look at the representation Trump has ready itself. Trump can’t get good lawyers, just look at his impeachment brain trust. Not only is trump a notoriously difficult client who won’t take direction, he has violated the cardinal rule for legal litigators, he doesn’t pay his fucking bills! Nobody wants to touch him with a 10 foot pole.
But now, let’s just get down into the weeds a little bit. In order to get a case in front of the United States Supreme Court, it means that Trump lawyers will have to file suit in a Federal district court. And that’s a problem. because, while this might be a federal election, constitutionally it is still the individual states that administer and oversee the election. And that means that Trump’s lawyers are going to have to prove that there was massive misconduct of voter fraud in the state, under the state’s rules, in attempting to overturn the will of the people. Which is going to be a bitch, sine in 30 years of concerted GOP effort, not a single study has ever shown that massive voter malfeasance of fraud exists.
But now, let’s look at the record of Trump’s DOJ in court cases. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. Now granted, even if you work for the Department of Justice, you’re going to lose one in a while, that’s just the way things go. But I have never seen anything like the almost Roman spectacle of the Trump DOJ losing in court. Normally, the judge just writes his ruling down, and reads it from the bench. Most court decisions are fairly brief and to the point. But the judges in Trump DOJ cases tend to write rulings the size of Tom Clancy novels. And then they sit there gleefully on the bench and read them, cuffing the DOHJ lawyers around like a tetherball.
And the Supreme Court is not any better. They have regularly squashed Trump’s cases like a bug in rulings from the bench. Chief Justice Roberts has been a frequent adversary, quite possibly in retaliation for Trump having saddled him with the likes of Brewski Brett. His own appointee, Justice Neil Gorsuch took a stand with him in conjunction with Chief Justice Roberts. Supreme Court Justices are prideful men and women, and they don’t appreciate the President publicly treating them like they are a chattel commodity.
And one more thing before we go. the threat of armed US military presence to quell civilian protest following the election. Trump is threatening to dust off the centuries old Insurrection Act to put active duty military troops into the streets to quash protests following election day. Except maybe not so much. It was publicly reported to day that JCSA Chair General Milley, and Defense Secretary Mike Esper have spoken about timing the announcements of their resignation letters should Trump try to call the troops into the streets of America. And worse yet was public reporting that there have already been Pentagon discussions as to which units would be responsible for physically removing Trump from the White House should he refuse to vacate on inauguration day after losing. The decision seems to be that it would not be Marine special forces or Seal Team Six, but rather US Marshalls, and/or the Secret Service that would drag Tubby kicking and screaming from the premises. Which is just another indication that the military is processing the information, and will follow the constitution, and not Donald Trump.
So, be calm. This is indeed an existential threat to the form of democracy that we have held near to our hearts for more than two centuries. But when you put aside all of Trump’s bombast and bullshit, publicly reported evidence seems to indicate that the very institutions that have held this republic together for more than 240 years, will not fail now. Obviously, the best solution is to show up and vote in person early when and wherever possible, and to make the margin so crushing that the Trump forces have nowhere to go in trying to prove fraud. There are 38 days left until election day, Our own future is literally in our own hands.
Thanks Murf. Your take on the situation has me feeling a lot better.
Another example of the level of engagement: I made my first serious stab at texting for the Biden-Harris campaign today. I say “stab” because even as I was reading the day’s assignment, which was for all of two minutes, it was suddenly getting deleted…followed by an announcement five minutes later by word that the day’s work was done! Conclusion: MAJOR surplus of volunteers, all of whom we can count on voting.
Trump’s on course to lose and he knows it. That leaves him with nothing but fear tactics that people should STOP taking seriously. And DON’T bother bringing up Bill Barr, whose impressive string of failures should run him out of the legal profession as surely as his corruption.
Don’t forget, almost all of the supreme court justices were appointed by Bush 1 and2 and Obama. Thomas, Alito, and Roberts were appointed by bushes who hate trump. I think the only really trump loyalist on the supreme court is brewski boy. I don’t see the supreme court on at least this issue backing trump.
Um, I wouldn’t be so quick to rely on Thomas’s appointment by H W Bush as anything of relevance. Thomas, despite his claims of being an “originalist” when it comes to interpreting the Constitution and the law, he’s shown himself to be an absolutist in letting his far-right conservative bias override any “original” intent that might conflict with his “principles.” (For instance, he maintains there’s absolutely NO “right to privacy” in the Constitution–and he’s somewhat correct in that particular phrase doesn’t appear in the Constitution–but, without an inherent right to privacy, there’s NO basis for stated rights, like “freedom of religion” and “freedom of speech.” Additionally, the Constitution does contain the 9th Amendment which states–very clearly–“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” So, effectively, under the 9th Amendment, ALL of us have a GUARANTEED right to privacy. Again, though, that doesn’t fall into line with Thomas’s beliefs so he ignores the ORIGINAL INTENT of the Constitution to preserve and uphold his bias–what right-wingers have attacked as “judicial activism.”)
There’s also the 4th Amendment: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” If that’s not about privacy I don’t know what is.
They seem to forget that the 9th amendment says that the rights named aren’t an exhaustive list.
I still wonder what exactly is the theory of original intent, or even constructionism. It seems that these terms are thrown around to cover whatever agenda those who sa the believe in them actually have. And you gotta love the usual negative spin conservatives apply, for example, Alito on abortion says that there is no constitutional right to an abortion. Well, the converse is true, as well. There is no constitutional prohibition. The rule of thumb generally is that in the absence of a prohibition, a right exists, not the converse. And so, his rule should clearly apply to the Constitution. As for “original intent,” One cannot simply take the wording at face value because the framers wrote a good bit of clarification in the Federalist Papers, not to mention other documents and letters addressing a number of issues.
As you say, if the goal is to understand original intent, then the Federalist Papers must be consulted as part of every ruling. However, they deny the Federalist Papers whenever those writings are inconvenient.
Original Intent is the theory that when exercising judicial review a judge or Justice should do so by adhering to what the founders who wrote and ratified the Constitution would have intended. Pretty wild when one takes into account the beliefs and practices of the time, like “bleeding” for all manner of medical ailments, that the concept of flight was considered sorcerty (the first balloon in France and it’s inhabitants came under attack by farmers with pitchforks when it landed which could just as easily have happened here), talking into an instrument to a person in another house or even the other side of town, or watching images on a movie screen or later a TV screen would have been considered sorcery, unholy or even (for some, still at that point) witchcraft! Many of Franklin’s drawings of inventions, as well as those of DaVinci (from whom he borrowed at times) were considered with at best bemusement by most of his contemporaries. Even paved roads and machines to transport people and goods instead of horses and horse drawn carriages and wagons were beyond their imagination. There would be scientific advances to come they didn’t even dream of. Yet originalists would have us consider laws regarding transportation & interstate commerce, telecommunications and so many other things through the lens of men who couldn’t have imagined the things that have come to pass.
Strict Constructionists carry a bit of this but they are more in the “plain text reading” mode, and by plain text they mean the original Constitution with bare tolerance for even the Bill of Rights, much less later amendments. To them, if the Constitution doesn’t explicitly spell out something in black and white text then it doesn’t exist. Hence the nonsense such as “the word privacy doesn’t appear anywhere in the Constitution” and other such b.s.
Of course, as you say they have a way of ignoring things that ARE there such as the first clause of the second amendment as in “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state” when it suits them. They react with horror at the thought of including European legal philosophies that influenced our own Constitution and early laws and SOCTUS decisions yet will cite them when crafting tortured legal opinions like Scalia’s Heller opinion.
The judicial activism hypocrisy lives deep within them!
Thomas follows Alito. (He’s only spoken in court like twice, in the entire time he’s been a Justice. He knows he’s not qualified.)
I don’t think the Bushes’ contempt of Trump is relevant to what the justices they appointment may think or do. At least it shouldn’t be. Each justice is supposed to be independent. If the Supreme court refuses to back rump’s play, it had better be on the (de)merits and not based on partisan loyalty.
When Trump and his family are dragged from office, they will be kicking, screaming, cursing and crying. I’ll record it all and set it as my new ringtone. I promise.
That’s what spoiled toddlers do, although it wears better on a 2y/o than grown ‘men’. Ur right not to worry. Let the losers, who seem to be sweating blood, worry about looming jail time along with a humiliating defeat. Guess Americans aren’t willing to sacrifice our children to an autocratic pimp after all. Better stock up for the global party. Ding dong the witch is dead…dance munchkins dance for Frump is not only merely dead, he is quite sincerely dead.
Brilliant post! Your best work yet!
“Not only is trump a notoriously difficult client who won’t take direction, he has violated the cardinal rule for legal litigators, he doesn’t pay his fucking bills! Nobody wants to touch him with a 10 foot pole.”
AH! Now we know the reason for Trump’s trying to get Barr to do all the legal work to protect him. He can’t get anyone who actually BILLS hours to a client so he resorts to an employee who “owes” him.
Like I told my husband last night, Trump lost in 2016 by 3 million votes. He has not increased his following since then. I also realized that all the fuss about the mechanics of the election, when Eric said that his father was merely trying to ensure the election is fair. Such BS! All he really does is start chaos, confusion and controversy. The only real question is, why are we paying attention to him?
Murf it’s wonderful to hear you say all that, ‘cuz it shows that the brains and now the will are on our side. Sometimes I think we give the stable genius a little too much credit. He literally is, as he once called his Secretary of State in his moments of projecting, “dumb as a rock.” The only thing he has is an ego size of Jupiter and as much gas. He gets his ideas from TV and in the end reacts only to his instinct – borne of ignorance, devoid of intellect, and as much will and capacity to learn as an amoeba. I think, we are witnessing Trump the swollen head of pus laden body Trumpism, instinctively spitting venom as it gasps for air. The genius in dividing this country has made things really simple, as we are all quite aware, Trump who spits at everything we consider decent, has inadvertently laid bare all the ugliness of this society, and made the equation not about the Dems v. GOP but something much more basic, goodness and decency of the people vs fear of change, our ability to learn to become a better version of ourselves v our predilection for the status quo, or maybe even more simply – good vs not so good? Now, that one we all understand.
I mean “the millennials are coming, the millennials are coming!” That definitely brought a smile to my tattered spirit.
From a decent American, the antithesis of everything Trump and the current GOP,
“—from our experience, our wisdom, and our belief in the principles that have guided us for two centuries. …[F]or me it always seemed more like the great rediscovery… of our values and our common sense.”
-President Reagan
Oh, Murf, thanks for helping me off the ledge; after a steady diet of all things drumpf and his minions for the last three days, I was ready to jump!
Don’t jump!
I like your point about Grump and lawyers. I’d like to add that, inasmuch as for the last couple weeks we’ve been hearing that the Grump campaign is so broke that they can’t afford a 15 second radio spot on an AM Country/Western station in Buttfuck, Arkansas, he clearly doesn’t HAVE money to pay lawyers with. Maybe he could pay them with hamberders?
Maybe his lawyers can use the cartoon character Wimpy’s method of payment: “I’ll gladly lawyer for you Tuesday, for a ‘hamberder’ today!”
This is very helpful, Murph. Thanks!
this for sure helps but what about his nut case whacko followers who actually drive their 17 yr old son to a riot with a rifle “to defend” themselves. They will be rabid when he loses.
They go too rabid, they’re doomed. As Richard Matheson put it in his seminal novel I Am Legend, “Normalcy is a condition of the majority, not just one man.” Change that last to “bitter white people” and the point remains. They might wind up being domestic terrorists but their only accomplishment there will be body counts, none of which will ever be big enough to stop the tide.
We should not ignore the fact that no matter what the outcome of the election, if it is not finalized b January 20, 2021, the current mandate ends and Trump must ONSTITUTIONALLY vacate the presidency. And then unless and until the outcome is decided, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, aka Nancy Pelosi, in this case, would CONSTITUTIONALLY become president. And, OMG, what she could do in just a few short weeks, even days!!! Gotta love it. If Trump disputes, pray for a huge delay!
And Trump et al. also aren’t doing so well in DC courts either–thinking both McCabe and then Strzok/Page are going to get him and Barr for what was done to them. The big argument for Strzok/Page? The one being discussed here in this thread: the right of and to privacy. In their case, their personal text messages were released by the Republicans in the House and the DOJ. Which cost them their jobs, almost their marriages, and more.
So glad you deconstructed how we go forward and how this is going to turn out well if all of us keep the faith and plod/drag ourselves across the finish line. Thinking the vote this time is going to be, as Glenn Kirshner says, “too big to rig.”
I do not want McCabe, Strsok, and Page to exact vengeance. I want them to pursue justice, because to paraphrase a favorite commentator, “Justice is what matters, not vengeance.”
Allow me to join the throng thanking you for this article. Brilliantly thought out & beautifully expressed, Mr Murphy, I’m going to print it off to keep handy (bedside sounds good) for moments of need. For sure we have a battle on our hands & there will be very dark times ahead, but we have to believe that the essential goodness of the American democracy will triumph over this tinpot tyrant, his moronic disciples & his corrupt enablers.