Category Civil Liberties

Our elections ARE at risk, if you know who gets his way

Pat Ryan Leave a comment

The most surprised I ever was about anything in my life was the day I watched on television as thousands of members of MAGA world rioted at the U.S. Capitol, physically assaulted the law officers on duty there and tried to illegally interfere with the peaceful transfer of presidential power, because they believed Donald Trump’s lies that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen from him.  Ultimately they only delayed the work of Congress, and the fact that the criminal convictions of more than 1200 people for their actions that day were erased by TFG’s clemency doesn’t mean it didn’t happen; it did, and we all saw it.  He hasn’t stopped lying about that ever since; he’s now laying the groundwork to easily steal the next election.

Earlier this month the president repeated a call for the Republican Party to nationalize federal elections.  Despite the Constitutional provision that elections for federal office are to be run by the states (or perhaps just ignoring the Constitutional direction, as he often does), Trump appeared on a podcast and said he “believed the federal government should ‘get involved’ in elections that are riddled with ‘corruption,’ reiterating his position that the federal government should usurp state laws by exerting control over local elections.”  You shouldn’t be surprised to learn that the places he believes to be “riddled with corruption” are places where Democrats do well.  Only  places where Democrats do well.

Mr. Trump’s comments and an intensifying Republican push in Congress to tighten voting laws — along with an F.B.I. move last week to seize ballots and other voting records from the 2020 election from an election center in Fulton County, Ga., — suggests a broader drive by the president and his allies to sow distrust of American elections ahead of midterm balloting in November.

Mr. Trump himself has repeatedly forecast in recent months that Republicans would lose midterms, after the party was rattled by losing several local races last November, and a Democrat won a special election in Texas last week in a district that Mr. Trump had won by double digits.

Voting by noncitizens happens rarely, and it is already illegal in federal elections. But Mr. Trump and many of his allies repeatedly and baselessly insisted during the 2024 election that noncitizens were flooding to the polls — a campaign of misinformation that has ramped up in recent weeks as the election nears.

The Justice Department, which has been newly politicized under Mr. Trump, is demanding that numerous states, including Minnesota, turn over their full voter rolls as the Trump administration tries to build a national voter file.

You’ve got to give the Trumpers credit for being better organized about election rigging this time around: his new director of election security and integrity, “with the power to refer criminal investigations…into things that have been thoroughly debunked,” is “Kurt Olsen, a rather prominent character in Mr. Trump’s election denialism movement. Mr. Olsen, who is a lawyer, was considered by people in the first Trump administration to be a fringe menace.”  Fox, meet henhouse.  (No, not that Fox.)

No matter how many times the results of the 2020 election have been rehashed, Mr. Trump’s fixations have not abated. Mr. Olsen’s position is proof of that.

But he is not the only one. The president has installed proponents of his fraud claims all across his administration. And increasingly, he has started to cast doubts on the coming midterm elections as Republicans face potentially big losses in November.

(snip)

“Kurt Olsen has a history of abusing his law license to spread lies about our elections,” said Christine P. Sun, a senior vice president at the States United Democracy Center, a nonprofit group that works with state officials to bolster confidence in their elections. “Now, he’s using his role in the administration and the power of the federal government to take actions fueled by those same lies. It’s part of a multipronged approach that threatens state power over our elections.”

Mr. Olsen has said he began his career in the 1990s at the large corporate Washington firm Kirkland & Ellis. He went to Christmas parties at the home of Jeffrey A. Rosen, a partner in the law firm at the time who would go on to become the acting attorney general during Mr. Trump’s first term, Mr. Olsen has said. Mr. Olsen has said that he never did any election legal work.

During the frantic weeks following the 2020 election, Mr. Trump and others immediately began claiming, without evidence, a wide variety of problems with election machines. Mr. Olsen, too, came to believe that “something was not right,” he said in a legal deposition in 2023.

(snip)

That started him on a path of taking on cases that many other Republican attorneys avoided putting their names on, including one brought before the Supreme Court in December 2020 seeking to reverse Mr. Trump’s defeat at the polls. Mr. Olsen has said that the team worked “round the clock” to put the case together.

After the Supreme Court rejected the case, Mr. Olsen said he spoke to Mr. Trump and discussed a strategy to have a similar suit brought by the Justice Department. He also pressed his old colleague Mr. Rosen to bring the case on behalf of the country.

But Mr. Rosen told Mr. Trump in an Oval Office meeting that the case would not be accepted because of a lack of standing. Mr. Trump responded that Mr. Olsen had promised it was a “slam dunk,” according to a report from the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Even after Mr. Trump left office, Mr. Olsen continued to press the false claims about election machines. He found a like-minded ally in February 2021 when, according to Mr. Olsen’s testimony, Mr. Trump introduced him to Mike Lindell, the chief executive of MyPillow, who has become best known for promoting the falsehood that voting machines are often rigged and have flipped elections.

The two worked together for years with a movement of activists and cybersecurity experts around the country to promote conspiracy theories about election machines through lawsuits, media appearances and yearly conferences.

Mr. Lindell was a public face of the movement. With less bombast, Mr. Olsen served as the lawyer for many of the cases, including an attempt to overturn the 2022 election for Arizona governor. Mr. Olsen represented Kari Lake, an election denier who ran failed campaigns for statewide office in Arizona. (She was also rewarded with a role in the new Trump administration, one that allowed her to oversee the firing of most of the journalists at Voice of America.)

Repeatedly, though, Mr. Olsen faced resounding defeats. In Arizona, he was sanctioned in federal court for making false claims. In Georgia, a legal effort on behalf of the DeKalb County Republican Party challenging the state’s use of election machines failed.

Still, the movement’s proponents have survived despite those defeats.

Heather Honey, who was a witness for the unsuccessful lawsuit that Mr. Olsen brought on behalf of Ms. Lake, was given a position in the Department of Homeland Security overseeing election integrity. Marci McCarthy, who was the chairwoman of the DeKalb County Republican Party, now oversees public affairs at the department’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

Clay Parikh, who served as an expert witness for Mr. Olsen in his cases in both Georgia and Arizona, is now a special government employee whose analysis was relied on in the F.B.I.’s Fulton County investigation, according to the affidavit.

And not least is Mr. Trump himself — the man who keeps trying to rewrite the country’s past and is now in charge of its future.

An important point to acknowledge here is that there may be  good reasons to have the federal government involved in running elections.  In a 2012 book UCLA law professor Richard Hasen argued that an independent, non-partisan body in charge of national elections “could decrease the amount of partisan fighting and litigation over election rules, increase the competence of election administration, and assure we have a system run with integrity and fair access to voting.”  But one thing has changed his mind…actually, one person:

Donald Trump has caused me to abandon this argument. As I wrote in the New York Times last summer, when the president tried to impose his authority over various aspects of American elections via an executive order: “What I had not factored into my thinking was that centralizing power over elections within the federal government could be dangerous in the hands of a president not committed to democratic principles.”  At this point, American democracy is too weak and fragile to have centralized power over elections in the hands of a federal government that could be coerced or coopted by a president hell-bent, like Trump, on election subversion. [emphasis added]  Courts have ruled that parts of Trump’s executive order are unconstitutional because the president has no role to play in the administration of elections.

Trump’s comments on nationalizing elections ironically prove the point that we should not nationalize elections. He apparently wants to target the administration at blue states, doing who-knows-what to make it harder for people to vote for Democrats. He desperately fears a Congress controlled by Democrats that could check his and his administration’s power. As he did in 2020, when he unsuccessfully attempted to overturn the results of the fair presidential election that he lost to Joe Biden, Trump hangs it all on voter fraud. His comments to [Dan] Bongino about noncitizens voting, just like his comments about mail-in balloting, show Trump as either a liar or delusional. The amount of election fraud of this type is extremely rare. We know it because states, including red ones like Georgia—where Trump’s administration recently raided election offices in a serious threat to the 2026 vote—have gone hunting for fraud and found very little.

(snip)

We should now look to states to step up the competence, integrity, and accessibility of their election systems. They serve as the front line against election subversion. Diffusion of power in the states makes it much harder for Trump to mess with the midterm elections. Whether or not the Framers intended it, our messy, decentralized, partly partisan, uneven system of administering elections turns out to be the best bulwark against would-be authoritarian presidents.

This is another example of an overworked Trump trick: telling lies to “create” a problem where none exists (massive election fraud) so he can suggest a “solution” (nationalizing elections) that would allow him to benefit…himself, in this case, to take official, legal control of elections so he can dictate the results.  If it works in the 2026 midterms – helping Republicans maintain control of the House and the Senate – what might happen in the 2028 general election?

He’s daring us to stop him.

This is EXACTLY what the First Amendment protects us from

Pat Ryan Leave a comment

In the dark reality of the second Trump Administration and its near-daily attacks on the legal and Constitutional protections of the American way of life, I’ve resolved not to be that guy with the kneejerk rapid response to every “outrageous” action dreamed up by the Christian nationalist lawyers who plan and execute TFG’s official agenda.  Because if I did, there wouldn’t be enough time left in the day for sleeping late or watching TV, for playing golf or doing any of the things I like to do; sounding the warning about you know who is a thing I am increasingly uninspired about.  I figure, those who know the threat already know; those who know and don’t care aren’t listening anyway; the rest can’t read, I guess.

But our government blatantly violated the First Amendment to the Constitution yesterday, and I felt the need to say something even though others have and will say this, but I want to say it too.

Since the Bill of Rights was ratified December 15, 1791, my favorite Constitutional amendment has protected our basic freedoms: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”  When it comes to free speech, what it means is that we can say we want (within some limits) without censorship by the government.  It doesn’t mean that your boss or your church or your spouse can’t punish you for what you say, or that your friends can’t ostracize you from the group chat or not invite you to the neighborhood barbecue; it means you have “the right to articulate opinions and ideas without interference, retaliation or punishment from the government.”  As explained in an article by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, freedom of speech

…has long since been interpreted by the Supreme Court to mean that all American speech can not be infringed upon by any branch or section of the federal, state, or local governments. Private organizations however, such as businesses, colleges, and religious groups, are not bound by the same Constitutional obligation. The First Amendment experienced a surge in support and expansion in the 20th century, as Gitlow v. New York (1925) determined that the freedoms promised in it are applicable to local, state, and the federal governments. Further, subsequent Supreme Court decisions from the 20th century to the early-21st century have determined that the First Amendment protects more recent and advanced forms of art and communication, including radio, film, television, video games, and the Internet. Presently, the few forms of expression that have little to no First Amendment protection include commercial advertising, defamation, obscenity, and interpersonal threats to life and limb.

Yesterday we all learned that the ABC television network, a division of the Walt Disney Company, announced an indefinite suspension of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”  That decision was announced after Nexstar Media Group announced it would preempt Kimmel on the 23 ABC-affiliated stations it owns due to comments Kimmel made “concerning the killing of Charlie Kirk”.  Nexstar owns and/or operates more than 200 local TV stations across the country, and it has every right to decide which programs it will air and which it will not.  As the possessor of a government license to operate a broadcast outlet, it actually has a responsibility to do that.  Whether or not you or I agree with Nexstar’s stated reason for deciding to pull Kimmel, that decision is entirely within the law and does not violate anyone’s First Amendment rights.  And if ABC pulled the show from the network as a means to try to placate a large business partner, that’s perfectly legal, too.  A little cowardly, maybe, but not illegal.

Now, just as background, be aware that both Nexstar and Disney are in line to get government approval for separate planned deals: Disney’s ESPN is trying to acquire the NFL Network, and Nexstar still needs final approval to buy Tegna, which owns 64 stations in 51 markets across the country.  Hmm, seems familiar: Paramount, which owns CBS, was awaiting government approval on a merger…then it settled a meritless $20 BILLION suit filed against it by Trump (for $16 million) and that led to the “big fat bribe” comment on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” and then CBS cancelled Colbert (ten months in the future).  Paramount received the merger approval three weeks later.  But back to our current story.

You see, before Nexstar made its announcement yesterday and before ABC then followed up with its announcement, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission appeared on a podcast and criticized Kimmel’s comments.  That’s cool.   Brendan Carr said the FCC “has a strong case for holding Kimmel, ABC and network parent Walt Disney Co. accountable for spreading misinformation.”  Uh, I guess that’s OK if he means the agency responsible for regulating the use of public airwaves won’t permit the misuse of that shared resource.  But then Carr said “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to take action on Kimmel or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

That doesn’t sound very much like the government threatening a business over its exercise of free speech, does it?  Take care of it…or else. ( Hey, nice network ya got there; be a shame if anything happened to it.)

The point of free speech is that you can say what you want and not face “intimidation, retaliation or punishment” from the government.  Like, say, the FCC chairman (a Trump sycophant) threatening the licenses of ABC affiliates who air Kimmel because he (and Trump) don’t like what Kimmel says.

FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez criticized the administration for “using the weight of government power to suppress lawful expression” in a post on X.

“Another media outlet withered under government pressure, ensuring that the administration will continue to extort and exact retribution on broadcasters and publishers who criticize it,” said Ari Cohn, lead counsel for tech policy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. “We cannot be a country where late-night talk show hosts serve at the pleasure of the president.”

Like, the president who said “as he flew home on Air Force One on Thursday…networks that give him bad publicity should “maybe” have their licenses taken away. (The FCC regulates local TV station licenses, not networks.)”  Proving beyond all question that he really does not understand the role of the press in America.

Bill Carter, an editor-at-large at LateNighter who has spent 40-plus years covering late-night comedy and the television industry, said “nothing even remotely like it has ever happened before.” Calling the Trump administration’s recent actions an “affront to the Constitution,” Carter stressed the role previous late-night stars like Johnny Carson played in public discourse.

Carson “spoke comedy to power,” Carter said. “And that’s what late-night shows have done ever since.”

Other expressions of shock and anger rolled through the Hollywood Hills and Capitol Hill on Thursday, as concerns mounted about a new era of government censorship.

“This is beyond McCarthyism,” Christopher Anders, director of the Democracy and Technology Division for the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement. “Trump officials are repeatedly abusing their power to stop ideas they don’t like, deciding who can speak, write, and even joke. The Trump administration’s actions, paired with ABC’s capitulation, represent a grave threat to our First Amendment freedoms.”

“Jimmy Kimmel has been muzzled and taken off the air,” comedian Marc Maron said in an Instagram video posted early Thursday morning. “This is what authoritarianism looks like right now in this country … This is government censorship.”

“This isn’t right,” actor and director Ben Stiller wrote on X.

Damon Lindelof, the writer-producer of the hit TV show “Lost,” vowed to take action against ABC’s owner, Disney. “I can’t in good conscience work for the company that imposed [Kimmel’s suspension],” he said.

There are many more reactions in this story, including from that fun couple Barack Obama and Roseanne Barr.  Click the (gift) link above to read them all.

My point is, this action – a government official threatening government action against a company over speech he (claims he) finds offensive – is as stark an example as I can imagine of what the First Amendment does not allow.  And, it’s just the latest example of what seems to be a top goal of the thinnest-skinned man ever to be our president: to punish any and all who would dare criticize his any or every action. (Gift article, too)

Billionaires are accelerating their efforts to consolidate control over media platforms and the president is eager to help them do so, provided they shut down his critics. If they don’t, he threatens to use the levers of government — particularly those designed to remain independent — to financially punish them. None of this is secret; the brazenness is, at least partly, the point.

(snip)

The systematic effort to censor American media isn’t exactly subtle. The president has not disguised his intentions or his reasons. He has gone to some trouble to emphasize that he wants to control who’s on television and what they say. (And in newspapers too — in the past two months, he has filed lawsuits against the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.) When Colbert’s “Late Night (sic) with Stephen Colbert” was canceled in July, Trump posted “It’s really good to see them go,” “and I hope I played a major part in it!”

For some valuable perspective on this big Constitutional issue, and the tiny-fisted tyrant at the center of the storm, I close with this:

David Letterman, the king of a previous generation of late-night TV hosts, spoke about Kimmel’s suspension at the Atlantic Festival in New York on Thursday. He said that as host of “Late Night With David Letterman,” he had mocked presidents across six administrations without fear of retribution.

We “attacked these men mercilessly,” Letterman told Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg. “Beating up on these people, rightly or wrongly, accurately or perhaps inaccurately in the name of comedy, not once were we squeezed by anyone from any governmental agency, let alone the dreaded FCC.”

“The institution of the President of the United States ought to be bigger than a guy doing a talk show. You know, it just really ought to be bigger,” Letterman added. “By the way, I have heard from Jimmy. He was nice enough to text me this morning, and he’s sitting up in bed taking nourishment. He’s going to be fine.”

Recommended viewing

Pat Ryan Leave a comment

Among the things that happened today related to the Trump Administration:

  • The Senate voted a do-over, choosing to reclaim more than $9 billion dollars in funding that Congress had already approved for foreign aid and domestic public broadcasting; another House vote before the end of the day Friday will make it official.
  • The Administration widened its scope in fights with the nation’s universities, announcing an employment discrimination investigation against George Mason University for, apparently, daring to admit it had considered race and gender in hiring decisions to meet diversity goals that the government, until very recently, supported.
  • The House passed new legislation aimed at “boost[ing] the legitimacy of the cryptocurrency industry” but prohibiting members of Congress and their families from profiting off of the variety known as stablecoins…but pointedly NOT prohibiting the president and his family from participating as they grow their crypto scam empire.
  • The Senate Judiciary Committee chairman decided no one needed to hear the objections from Democrats to the nomination of Trump legal bully Emil Bove to a seat on a federal appeals court (one step shy of the Supremes!) and called for the vote, prompting the Democrats to walk out of the hearing…and hope the Senate parliamentarian will find the GOP leaders broke several Senate rules and today’s action is null and void. Bove is the guy who has denied the very believable whistleblower accusation that he told his subordinates at the Justice Department that the proper response to a court ruling against the Administration would be to tell the judge to “fuck off.”

There’s more, much more, but I hate a long list.

This is what the Trump Administration calls flooding the zone: doing so much stuff so fast — and not being afraid to be called on some of it by the courts — that people feel confused and the news media can’t keep up. MAGA America thinks that’s great, of course (except when they are fomenting revolt against the Supreme Leader and he tells them not to be duped by Democrats and that no one cares about Jeffrey Epstein anyway. So there.). I think the “flood the zone” tactic achieves its goal pretty effectively and the rest of America is struggling to keep its head above water. So I have a little life preserver for anyone who needs confirmation that, no, it’s not just you who feels overwhelmed.

This week’s new episode of “Frontline” on PBS is “Trump’s Power & The Rule of Law,” and you can watch it online at the Frontline website right here. Like most of the work on this series, which debuted in 1983, this extensive report carefully lays out the facts on the W I D E range of individual issues that are part of TFG’s current effort to take personal control of every aspect of the national government, for his personal benefit. As the producers put it, “FRONTLINE goes inside the high-stakes showdown between President Donald Trump and the courts over presidential power. Trump allies, opponents and experts talk about how he is testing the extent of his power; the legal pushback; and the impact on the rule of law.” Note that reference to the inclusion of Trump allies: there is extensive use of interview bites from multiple Trump Pumpers who get plenty of opportunity to have their say, uninterrupted by any nettlesome interviewer. I found that part to be perhaps the most frightening, hearing them describe what they want to have happen.

This report won’t make all the bad men go away, but it will help you get a better handle on what unconstitutional efforts by this White House and its henchmen are underway so you can direct your resistance as you feel most appropriate. Very much worth your time.

It ain’t over unless we let it be

Pat Ryan 1 Comment

The tariff fetishist is starting a trade war with our friends and our foes, and it’s going to mean higher prices for you and me, just as predicted by all sane economists. But he says he “couldn’t care less.”

The leader of the free world is trashing his country’s friendly relations with neighbors and threatening a new era of manifest destiny that is forcing some world leaders to publicly acknowledge they cannot trust America to be a loyal friend and ally. (But TFG suddenly changes his tune when one of them calls him on it.)

The chief of the executive branch of government authorized what amounts to a group of consultants to fire government employees and carry out cuts to government budgets, none of which has been authorized by the legislative branch which is suddenly incapable of protecting its own lawful perogatives. The action is sloppily conceived and largely illegal, and being sold to the public as fulfillment of a campaign promise to lower the cost of government…with hopes it will also clear financial objections to a planned upcoming extension of tax cuts for wealthy Americans. (And today he attacked unions representing federal employees.)

The champion of law and order is allowing the illegal kidnapping of people from American streets and having them held in secret, people whose “crime” was lawfully expressing an opinion contrary to the president’s or appearing to be an undesirable. And the guy who has never shut up about the alleged “weaponization” of the U.S. Justice Department by his political enemies to persecute him has installed an acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia who is accused of threatening his political opponents and supports the president’s ludicrous calls to impeach judges who rule against questionable Trump policies. And, the president has brazenly used government authority to intimidate lawyers and law firms from daring to oppose his actions or represent anyone who does. Or who has at any time in the past. (The highly-respected conservative jurist Michael Luttig believes Trump will ultimately lose his legal fight against the courts; long-time federal trial attorney and columnist Sabrina Haake hopes the chief justice gets a chance to get specific about what presidential actions don’t qualify for immunity.)

The man who harshly criticized a previous president’s use of executive orders as a “power grab” is doing all this through an unprecedented wave of executive orders that is apparently not a power grab at all. Dan Balz sees it as evidence of Trump’s desire to rule rather than to govern: he can’t be bothered waiting for a Congress (that is already controlled by the party he controls) to pass laws when he can act as king and simply issue edicts.

Is all of this part of the MAGA plan? Is all of this what those Americans wanted to have happen, or expected to happen, when they re-elected him? For many of us who did not vote for him, there is a tendency to feel some level of helplessness, which I think is at least part of the administration’s intent with the non-stop pace of activity. But Timothy Noah reminds us that we don’t have to give up.

Surveying this Boschian hellscape, many good people will despair. Yes, Trump is much more dangerous than he was during his first term (which was harrowing enough). He’s more giddily reckless about impounding funds, shutting down agencies, disobeying court orders, and using the government to punish political enemies. But if you allow yourself to tune out this ugliness, you might as well have voted for the man. The president is counting on such demoralization.

(snip)

How can ordinary citizens fight back? To scout the best approaches, I canvassed activists, lawyers, scholars, politicians, and union leaders for advice. Some of what they suggest will lie beyond your abilities, expertise, financial resources, or sense of personal safety—in which case, choose something you can do. Just about everyone I spoke to emphasized that there is no silver bullet—no single arena, not even the courtroom, where Trump’s illegal power grab can be stopped. “There’s no messiah” who will “sweep in and make everything better,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. That’s up to you and me. The good news is there are a lot of us.

Indeed, there may be even more than we can know just yet. Because Trump isn’t careful about whose interests he acts against, Resistance 2.0 has potential to evolve into a bipartisan movement. “Successful authoritarian regimes determine what their winning coalition is,” observed Leah Greenberg, co-founder of the resistance nonprofit Indivisible, “and then they work very hard to keep that coalition together.” Trump lacks such discipline, and as a result he frequently screws over natural allies.

Trump alienates the military by installing as defense secretary Pete Hegseth, a boozer and womanizer who called an officer of the Judge Advocate General’s Corps a “jagoff” and, after he was confirmed, fired the top JAG officers in the Air Force, Army, and Navy. Trump alienates Big Pharma by installing as health and human services secretary a recovering heroin addict, womanizer, and (according to his cousin Caroline Kennedy) “predator” who less than two years ago said, “There’s no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective.” As HHS Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recommends treating measles with cod liver oil and letting bird flu spread unchecked through poultry flocks. Trump Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says, “I’m not worried about inflation,” and “access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American dream.” Trump, meanwhile, terrorizes Wall Street with market-killing tariffs and stray threats not to honor the national debt.

No matter who joins this fight, it won’t be won next week, or next month. Barring impeachment and removal, Trump will be president for four long years, and not even his allies expect him to become less authoritarian and kleptocratic. So pace yourself. But the sooner you join in, the more effectively we can limit the damage.

The article goes on to outline a number of ways that each of us can do something, the best each of us can, to be part of the resistance, from protests to lawsuits to just staying informed. Don’t give up: the fight isn’t over.

As the coach used to say each Monday, let’s talk a bit about the happenings of last week

Pat Ryan Leave a comment

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times… (Been done.)

It was the worst night of my entire life… (Take it easy, Princess.)

What in the actual f**k were you people thinking… (Leave that approach to Jon Stewart.  How about this:)

I am very disappointed with the result of the presidential election, and I’m concerned about what’s going to happen starting next year.  (OK…keep going.)

It’s not that I was firmly convinced that Kamala Harris was going to win and am now staring at the returns in disbelief.  I definitely wanted her to win, but wasn’t deluded into thinking there was only one possible outcome.  I am bewildered to think that more than 73 million Americans think the former guy – now the once and future guy, I guess? – is the best person for the job.  Unless they really don’t think that at all.

Now I’m reading (see the reading list below, and thanks to everyone who kept this such a secret until after the whole thing was over) that Trump, as opposed to Harris or Joe Biden or apparently any other Republican, represents a dramatic change from a system that these people do not trust.  Strenuously do not trust.  The theory is that Trump voters don’t really agree with everything that comes out of his mouth; some things, sure, but not everything.  But they do want a major change from the status quo.  They want to throw out the scoundrels of the political establishment, and they trust that anything is better than what we have right now.  Even crazy, lying, fascist Trump is, they think, preferable to more of the same old same old.

While recognizing that all of us only have two real choices in this race by the time we get to November, I’m still surprised that so many people would vote for Trump.  A guy who lies to us so profoundly and so often, who is a convicted criminal, who has shamelessly used public office to enrich himself; who offers a plan to fight inflation and lower prices with tariffs that will undoubtedly raise prices instead, who promises to deport tens of millions of people in a plan that will be enormously expensive and disruptive to the labor force and economy as well as probably inhumane, who promises the unattainable instantly (end the wars in Ukraine and Gaza?  Easy peasy) with no clear plan of action.  Or any plan at all.

I’m worried about what’s going to happen next.  We were surprised in 2017 when he didn’t become more presidential or tone down the rhetoric or act more like what we were used to, but this time no one should be surprised if he does some of the out-there things he promised to do.

–he promised massive tariffs on foreign goods; we’ll all pay higher prices for those goods because the higher prices will be passed along to us by the seller.

–he promised (allegedly) vaccine denier Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. control of our public health agencies; yeah, what could go wrong there.

–he promised to jail his critics; First Amendment, Schmirst Amendment.  Stand by for other protected rights to be ignored.

–he promised the largest mass deportation in American history; waiting now for the (multi-million dollar) plans to construct a new generation of internment camps while he strong-arms our allies to accept repatriation.

–he promised to settle the wars in Gaza and Ukraine; stand by for “America First” plans that will provoke Iran, threaten Ukraine’s sovereignty (to the benefit of Russia), and put the NATO alliance in jeopardy.

You get the picture.  If Republicans end up with control of the House of Representatives as well as the Senate, we’ll also see Trump’s sudden support for Project 2025 and any other effort to push the Christian nationalist agenda to remake America civil society in their image.  And he’ll do it all while, as he did the first time, illegally enriching himself (hello, Emoluments Clause, my old friend).

Oh yeah, there’s this result, too:

image

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

To those thinking, how could Trump possibly win – that’s not who we are: Michelle Goldberg makes the case that maybe it is:

“Trump’s first election felt like a fluke, a sick accident enabled by Democratic complacency. But this year, the forces of liberal pluralism and basic civic decency poured everything they could into the fight, and they lost not just the Electoral College but also quite likely the popular vote. The American electorate, knowing exactly who Trump is, chose him. This is, it turns out, who we are.”

The polls say Trump won big with male voters; Elizabeth Spiers explores just which men they mean: Trump’s appeal to men was

“a regressive idea of masculinity in which power over women is a birthright. That this appealed in particular to white men was not a coincidence — it intersects with other types of entitlement, including the idea that white people are superior to other races and more qualified to hold positions of power, and that any success that women and minorities have has been unfairly conferred to them by D.E.I. programs, affirmative action and government set-asides. For men unhappy with their status, this view offers a group of people to blame, which feels more tangible than blaming systemic problems like rising economic inequality and the difficulty of adapting to technological and cultural changes.”

Bernie Sanders’ take:

“It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them…First, it was the white working class, and now it is Latino and Black workers as well. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they’re right.”

David French calls the vote a revolt against the ruling class and a faithful effort by those who believe Trump fulfills a prophecy.  (Honest to God)

Democratic mega-donor (and one-time candidate himself) Michael Bloomberg wonders how Democrats could possibly lose to such a bad candidate.

Just for fun, here’s a “deep dive” (as the kids say) on the scary details of Project 2025; Christian nationalists are unlikely to let this opportunity pass.