The Final Assault will Fail
It appears that as of this date, January 2, 2021, Donald Trump has largely failed in his attempt to hold power after the Inauguration on January 20, a little less than three weeks from now. However, he has dramatically succeeded in his attempt to divide Americans, to pit American against American, to make Americans decide whether to love him or hate him, and there is very middle ground remaining. That does not mean that middle ground is not viable, nor is it invalid. However, simply put, the middle ground is a return to our Constitutional norms and the institutions that keep our society somewhat intact.
First, Trump's efforts to intimidate voters, bully voters, delay ballots, and in general suppress enough votes in key states to win the election was, thankfully, a failure. The response of Trump and his team ("The Election was Rigged") was less a reflection of a belief that genuine fraud occurred, and more a shock that, in spite of Team Trump's best efforts, people turned out in record numbers to vote early, vote absentee, and vote in person on November 3rd. On election day, an unknown number of ballots were stuck in U.S. Post Offices, a result of the planned misfeasance of Postmaster General DeJoy. In many states, deliberate actions were taken to make absentee voting very difficult (the Texas plan, which failed, to provide a ridiculously low number of drop boxes in heavily populated counties).
The Team Trump response, then, became one of clogging up state and federal courts with challenges. These challenges have failed in epic fashion. Then there were requests for recounts, including hand recounts, of ballots in several states. These were duly conducted. The results were predictable: there were small shifts in ballot counts in both directions, and not enough to make an ounce of difference. That is why election experts have repeatedly told anyone who will listen that recounts are important in close local elections when a relatively low number of votes are cast in the election; a handful of votes will make a difference. In a presidential race where the margin of difference is 10,000 votes, a recount is an administrative exercise that proves the state in question knows how to do recounts.
The basis of both legal and election challenges is the set of baseless and absurd claims of fraud. The voting software from "Dominion" and "Smartmatic" were deliberately rigged by Team Biden. Never mind that none of these claims have been proven in court. The claims persist. A secret server was kept under guard somewhere in Germany, and U.S Special Forces troops had to conduct a raid to retrieve it. The Dominion software algorithms were hacked. And while the equipment and software from these two companies are used in a majority of states, Team Trump claims that fraud took place only in a few states, all of which were won by Biden. Quite convenient. Dominion was paid off by conspirators. It is with good reason that Dominion, a for-profit corporation, is suing many of Team Trump's representatives. Libel is all fun and games until someone with actual cause threatens to sue you.
Never mind, also, that such claims are thoroughly illogical. If I were a election-rigging conspirator, I would not stop with the presidential election. I would make sure that I rigged the House and Senate elections, as well. Instead, what happened? The Democrats retained the majority in the House, but just barely. The Republicans clawed back several seats. As to the Senate, the Republicans retained the majority. A 50-50 Senate could result from the Georgia run-off election, but why not fix the election to provide a clear majority? Any election-rigging conspirator worth their salt would have made sure that the close elections were won by the Democrats. Iowa and North Carolina were both exceptionally close elections, as predicted. Why not make sure the Democratic candidates won those races? Just for fun, ambitious conspirators would have made sure Jaime Harrison defeated Lindsey Graham in South Carolina. None of this happened. The fact is that Team Trump is claiming that the presidential election was rigged in key states, while numerous Republicans were elected or reelected, for offices at local, state, and national levels, on the same ballots.
When these attempts failed, Team Trump engaged in its most shameful strategies, and that is one of using the Constitutional processes to overturn the clear election results. In several swing states, the Republican Party has nominated "alternate electors." Numerous members of Congress signed on to an absurd lawsuit by the Texas Attorney General to invalidate the election results in swing states. Congressman Louie Gohmert sued the Vice President of the United States, hoping that the court would order the Vice President to discard the Electoral College results in swing states. Now, a majority of Republicans in the House say they will challenge the results of the Electoral College votes on January 6th. The basis for all of this is the notion, floated openly in right-wing media, that state legislators can, on an ad hoc basis, decide to select any old electors that they want. They cannot. Laws in nearly every state already prescribe how electors are selected and how elections are certified. The elections have been certified and the electors have been selected, all in accordance with existing state and federal laws. But these minor and somewhat inconvenient facts do not change the alternate reality that many seem to live in.
I realize I am being a bit sarcastic. And, it would be easy to dismiss all of this with sarcasm except for this: a sitting President of the United States lost an election, and for the very first time in American history, that sitting President is attempting, by any means possible, to invalidate that election. His final, and most dangerous gambit, is to either stop or interrupt the official counting of Electoral College votes on January 6th. Many Republican House members will challenge electors from several states. At least one Republican in the Senate will go along with these challenges. What will be the result? The count will be interrupted for a matter of hours, in accordance with the Electoral Count Act of 1887. Everyone should read it. The point of the law is to provide structure, and it does so by allowing both houses an opportunity to debate challenges. Congress is pretty good at debating, but the law only allows a set number of hours for this debate, and both houses must agree that their is cause to invalidate votes of certified electors. The inevitable result of the threatened challenges is that Joe Biden will be officially proclaimed as winner of the election.
The much more dangerous action by the sitting President of the United States is his call for supporters to show up in Washington, D.C. on this same day. An unknown number of Trump supporters will descend upon our Nation's Capital to claim in one loud voice that the election was rigged. A whole lot of Trump's supporters are enthusiastic and vocal, but not dangerous. They are ordinary Americans troubled by what they believe is an unfair election. Their beliefs are aided and abetted by Newsmax, OAN, and Fox News. Thought leaders like Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones lie, but too many people believe such lies. Again, such a protest might be notable but harmless, because in the end, the process will play out in the Capitol itself. However, a large number of Trump supporters are violent. These people will be challenged, unfortunately, by violent extremists who disagree with them. Violence and vandalism will take place. Elected officials will engage in "both sides" rebukes on social media. All of this plays directly into Trump's thinking. If he cannot win legally, he will win illegally. And if that does not work, he will try to burn it all down.
He will not win. No matter if January 6th turns out to be a bloody day or a day of relative but uneasy calm, it does not matter to Donald Trump. He never really wanted the job of President of the United States in the first place. He wanted the title. He wanted the perks. He wanted people to call him "sir." He wanted to hear "Hail to the Chief" played when he walked in a room. He wanted to be saluted by Marines and Airmen when he climbed aboard official presidential aircraft. He never wanted the job of creating coherent policy. He never wanted the job of negotiating with Congress. He liked the gatherings of world leaders, but quickly became perceived as the boring buffoon at the office party. He was bored by the detail of international negotiations and diplomacy, but loved the photo ops and the overly-flattering letters from Kim Jong Un.
From a domestic perspective, Donald Trump has appeared to want to sow division, or exacerbate existing division, within American society. It is difficult to understand why anyone would claim this as a goal, but this appears to be his goal. His claims of a rigged election, which began months prior to the election itself, caused Americans to choose sides. This was utterly predictable, given his history of reactions to events. His management of the COVID-19 pandemic was awful. He used the pandemic to appear in press conferences in which he blamed nearly everyone else for the spread of the virus. He managed nothing. That we have usable vaccines is the outcome of hard work of scientists both inside and outside of government. Trump has deliberately exacerbated long-standing racial divisions in our society. Likewise, he has deliberately used religious divisions, which already were there, to set himself up as some kind of "anointed one." In actuality, by Christian "end-times" thinking, Donald Trump appears to be more "Antichrist" than "Christ," a man who specializes in "great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect" (Matthew 24:24).
So, what is the "middle ground" I am talking about? Those of us claiming to be moderates are often assailed by both Left and Right. Moderates are falsely accused of being invertebrates unwilling to take a stand, too willing to make compromises with anyone, just to keep some semblance of order. But that is not what I advocate. Instead, the middle ground to me is reliance on our Constitutional norms. Whatever one's views of the Founding Era, here is the beauty of the U.S. Constitution: it provided a pretty good framework, or scaffold, upon with to hang future laws and practices that have allowed us to make progress, even if stunted and circuitous, toward a more just society. The Constitution sets up practices that end up working pretty well to stop would-be authoritarians.
Elections in the United States are a mess, but a good mess. One of the reasons they are a mess is that they are under the purview of the states, and they are administered at the county level. That's a result of the Constitutional design. There are thousands of elected and appointed officials in charge of elections. There are many hundreds of thousands of poll workers and temporary employees, both volunteers and paid, who pass out ballots and count ballots. Any grand conspiracy would need to somehow work through all of this mess. The Team Trump claims of conspiracy and rigging would make a lot more sense if the United States had some unitary election system run through a supercomputer in Washington, D.C. We do not have that. We have a system that must adapt to conditions like a pandemic where millions of people voted early or by mail. But, it is a system where election officials and secretaries of state make sure elections are free and fair. Getting back to divisions, one of the most shameful aspects of Team Trump's efforts has been its success in maligning the reputations of honest public servants involved in elections. In spite of all of this, the election system, its administration, and the certification of legally-cast ballots has stood against the assault on the process.
Another Constitutional norm that seems to have held is separation of powers. The courts have rightly rejected nearly all of the challenges to the elections. An independent judiciary is the bane of an authoritarian's existence. Donald Trump transparently installed, with the help of the Senate, several Supreme Court Justices in an open attempt to have a backstop for the election. However, in the few cases where the Supreme Court has been involved, it ended up rejecting Team Trump challenges. In other words, the justices acted like judges, as people whose interest is the law.
Congress is not acquitting itself well, as noted by the predicted challenges to the Electoral College. However, in the end, the rules laid our for Congress by a previous Congress will provide the final stop of Donald Trump's noisy protest against our Constitution. On January 20, 2021, Joe Biden will take the oath of office. Donald Trump will leave office like a man who farted in the elevator of the Empire State Building, and then got off on the second floor. But, he will leave office. The damage he has inflicted is real and lasting. We will need to continue to work through it. We do need to try to quit hating each other and heal the Nation. But, in the end the result will be the same: Constitution 1, Donald Trump, 0.
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