Senators: our last hope against Trump
I have been dismayed by the near complete inaction in Congress, in particular the Senate, in 2020 so far. Their strategy might have made sense before. However, we have crossed a line. If the Senate does not act by disavowing Trump and Trumpism, our country’s democracy, and power, and wealth and stability is at dire risk. This is not a Republican vs. Democratic fight, this is a fight for our country.
This winter the Senate acquitted Trump of narrow charges relating to his attempts to manufacture a controversy to undermine Joe Biden by withholding support for Ukraine until they played along. Narrow or wide, it was clear from the start that the Republican-controlled Senate was not going to convict Trump. While I did not support this decision, the strategy was clear and pretty simple, and it worked.
Trump gained power when all but one Republican senator voted to not convict him, just as he gained power after spinning the Mueller investigation as a victory, even though it was clearly damning. The Republican-controlled Senate was executing a strategy — convicting Trump would throw an otherwise clear incumbent reelection into great risk, and this would likely put Republican control of the Senate at risk as well. Democratic primary challengers were fighting each other, and it was far from clear which candidate would prevail. With a seemingly strong economy and stock market the incumbent Trump was going to win unless something bad happened.
The Republicans stuck together, and the many key Senators up for re-election saw a clear path to victory, following Trump whose fortunes were also now secure.
And then Coronavirus landed. Trump’s response was and still is based around some kind of denial. Somehow, despite horrifying numbers of cases and deaths, and continued failure to lead a national crisis at a federal level, the virus continues to win.
Now as we move into September, cases appear to be leveling off at around 40,000 per day, and deaths still close to 1,000 per day, hardly a victory. This may be skewed by Trump’s continued resistance to testing, which he claims merely increases case count. Students are back at school, flu season is coming, and we’re all facing coronavirus fatigue, and still simple mitigations like mask wearing remains politicized. The prognosis isn’t good.
The irony of Trump’s response is that had he just done what other countries did, we would have had a much less severe problem, with far fewer cases, far less impact on our economy, and far less impact on the lives of millions of Americans. Trump could have been a world hero, a leader, vindicating himself for all the other things he’s done to antagonize our allies and embrace our enemies. But Trump did Trump — a simplistic anti-science stance supported by Fox news, fighting the “deep state” rather than simply following the well-established plan for fighting the next pandemic. It is what it is, he says.
Trump’s worldview is his own, and that should scare Congress
It’s important to understand that Trump’s view of the world is absolutely his own, and anti-science, anti-rational, conspiracy-theory-driven and generally paranoid policies are what he does, even when there are options that would be clearly better for him. Further, Trump clearly believes his role as president is his and his alone, and that he is some sort of messianic force for good. Psychologists assert that Trump displays malignant narcissistic personality disorder and this is driving his personal and world views.
Whatever the cause, no one can expect Trump to act more rationally, or in a more expected or “normal” way. Republicans understood the cynicism of their impeachment votes. And they understand that Trump is not going to help them win the election. Indeed, there are strong indications that as Trump has consolidated power, he’s acting less rationally than anyone would expect of the President. Trump is a liability.
Still, Trump has delivered an ongoing series of Republican wish-list items, reducing or hampering the ability of various government agencies to be effective, allowing the Senate to confirm nearly 200 judges (including 2 supreme court judges), and passing a massive tax cut largely benefiting wealthy people. Trump has indeed fed the Republican agenda, while defending his transgressions as “hoaxes” promulgated by furious and crazy leftists of the Democrat party. Rational or not, Trump knows how to survive.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world, and the Northeast US states are still doing battle with coronavirus but have largely reduced cases and subsequent deaths. New York has reduced cases from more than 10,000 per day to around 600, with deaths falling to fewer than 10 in a day, down from 1,000. But it’s clear that any victory will be temporary — we’re entering autumn and we’re struggling to maintain the simple controls: masks, gatherings, and other steps.
Trump continues to muddle our response, in particular ongoing attempts to stifle and suppress testing, since more testing is how we find more cases. As with his other anti-rational behaviors, this kind of math is absurdly simplistic, and yet … the number of cases seems to be going down at the moment, and most of what Trump does, and his great strength seems to be oriented around what happens in any given moment. Chaos and uncertainty play into his approach to life, so more chaos can often be better.
Coronavirus Has Made Everything Worse, Including Trump
Still, Trump’s denial of Coronavirus badly damaged his chances of reelection. As the US approaches 200,000 deaths, 10 million or more jobs still gone and businesses failing, many schools still remote and others struggling to avoid killing students and teachers, Trump is still largely ignoring, or undermining out response. During the Republican convention there were catastrophic fires, a record breaking hurricane, another unjustified police shooting and subsequent Black Lives Matter protests. And the current state of Coronavirus.
Since gaining the presumptive nomination, Joe Biden has lead Trump in national polling, steadily sitting with a 7 to 10 point lead over Trump, even in the critical states needed to ensure an electoral college win. Trump’s often horrifying and inhuman policies, combined with his utterly failed response to coronavirus have resulted in a latent and broad fury amongst Democrats, Independents, and even some Republicans. There is a brewing storm of anger that, if it holds, will result in huge turnouts and sweep Trump from office in a landslide and leave the Senate and House in Democratic control.
But huge turnouts and a landslide are far from a certainty. We still have 65 days, and Trump is working hard to foment chaos.
In any typical election cycle, such a lead, and such anger would lead to an obvious, inescapable and huge defeat. But this is absolutely not typical. Obviously coronavirus is a factor. Black Lives Matter protests seem to be a factor. Trump, however, seems to have an ability to repress any moral or human positions and instead take any and all actions he believes will result in him holding onto power.
Listening to Trump’s convention one might conclude that all is well, except for the threat of the country being overtaken by radical left-wing forces. Nearly all of the statements made to support this idea were pure fictions.
Trump’s behaviors are driven by his belief in his absolute power. He has successfully enrolled a subset of the country who hear his ideas and feel vindicated, supported, and empowered. His voice is amplified, rationalized, and further radicalized by Fox News, the top rated news channel with millions of viewers. Trump, plus Fox News is a powerful pair of forces.
Law and Order: Vigilante Unit
Trump’s strategy, recovering from the hit he took from coronavirus, is to focus on a Law and Order message. Peaceful protests by citizens seeking racial justice and policing reforms are presented as domestic terror that must be shut down using force lest our cities are overrun by crime and chaos. The enemy is “the Democrat” whose leaders are universally condemned as being weak, toothless, and powerless to take on the growing threat of lawlessness and disorder. Underlying this message are strongly racist messages, stoking fears of suburbs being overrun by Black (criminal) people, Brown (criminal) immigrants taking American jobs, and Muslim (terrorists) threatening our country.
Trump’s messages are far more than political statements. Months ago, media reports might have called them “dog whistles” — lightly coded messages to people who knew what certain words really meant. But now, the messages are strident calls to action, with the larger message of the Republican National Convention being the platform Trump used to deliver them.
Black Lives Matter protests have been largely peaceful, but not completely so, keeping in mind that the protests are against police brutality and the frequent killing of Black people. Protesters have used fireworks and various projectiles to resist police lines and, especially after dark have seemed to turn more confrontational. Scenes played by the media of riot police clashing with unruly mobs play directly into Trump’s narrative of urban rot and chaos that must be suppressed by force to maintain Law and Order. And if these protests are not sufficiently violent or destructive, Trump has invented a non-existent enemy called antifa (anti-fascists). His army, properly motivated, have repeatedly been found to incite or cause violence whose source is falsely ascribed to protestors or antifa.
This strategy, of inciting chaos and violence against mostly peaceful protestors makes for compelling TV, and when twisted by Fox will lead to further violence. Lest we think this is some liberal trope, Trump’s outgoing strategic advisor Kellyanne Conway said this week on Fox, “The more chaos and anarchy and vandalism and violence reigns, the better it is for the very clear choice on who’s best on public safety and law and order.” Yes, more chaos and violence helps Trump. And she’s right.
So it should be no surprise that several days later, on Saturday afternoon, a massive convoy of armed Trump supporters drove into Portland, Oregon on hundreds of pickup trucks, shooting protesters with paintball and pepper balls. So far, one person has been killed.
We have a president who is willing to go to any end to retain power. Any end. He was impeached because he got caught trying to create a false controversy involving Joe Biden. As coronavirus cases are still happening, Democrats have encouraged voting by mail, and Trump has not only delivered messages about how this will somehow invalidate the election, he has replaced the postmaster general of the USPS who has made dramatic and rapid changes that have resulted in huge delays in mail delivery already, even before the expected flood of mail-in ballots. Now he’s calling his troops (armed with pickup trucks, guns, and weapons) to clash with peaceful protestors.
Senators Must Take Action Now
Now it’s time to pause and think about what all of this means.
A wide swath of politicians, pundits, analysts, and thought leaders agree: Trump has all the qualities of an authoritarian dictator. He has consolidated power in the White House and agencies by appointing his donors, friends, and family to key roles. He has actively purged those who don’t support him from positions of power. He has enrolled his cabinet, including William Barr, the US Attorney General, Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State, Mnuchin in Treasury and most others. Many in his cabinet are replacements for predecessors who were fired for not being sufficiently loyal. By one measure, turnover is 91%. Trump has found and appointed loyalists.
Trump has repeatedly asserted that the outcome of the election is “rigged”, due to focus on voting by mail. He has not agreed to accept the outcome of the election. And as noted earlier, installing a donor and Trump supporter as head of US Post Office has and will result in further uncertainty about election returns.
In particular, consider the following: a great many Democratic voters have or plan to vote by mail while far fewer Republicans plan to. In the past, we have watched elections at night, typically getting a result of sufficient size for media outlets to call the outcome for one or the other party. We have almost always known the winner by midnight or perhaps a few hours later. This year could be very different.
Trump Wants the Supreme Court to Decide the Election
Indeed, based on votes counted from election station returns (live voters) it could look like Trump has won, broadly and decisively on election night. As far as I know, it has never been the case that mail-in ballots have decisively switched the outcome of the in-person vote, although they certainly were important in the contested election of Gore vs. Bush in 2000. That election was not decided until early December, and then by a Supreme Court decision. It seems not just possible, but downright likely that the 2020 election could be decided by the Supreme Court.
If the election does come to the Supreme Court, there’s one more factor: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, now 87, is battling pancreatic cancer and has been for some time. Were she to die before the election is resolved the court would have one fewer liberal-leaning justice, leaving the balance at 5 conservative and 3 liberal justices. Further, there would undoubtedly be a huge fight to replace Ginsburg. In any case, there’s already some conservative leaning of the court, although one hopes that they are independent enough, in particular John Roberts, to see what Trump is and make the right call.
Trump’s term has been disastrous. While rational minds could argue the merits of legislation, such as the tax cut, or many executive orders that have undone changes made by the Obama administration, no rational argument can be made for the response to coronavirus. It has been an unmitigated disaster with loss of life, loss of jobs, loss of international power, and loss of stability of government. Coronavirus was not caused by Trump, but the resulting horror we have all lived through since March, and will likely live through more and worse outcomes moving forward are absolutely Trump’s failure. This is indisputable.
Our Senators Need to Get Some Courage
Before we get to the pure chaos of a disputed election, with the very real risk of Trump gaining another four year term, we have one last check-and-balance in our nearly failed state. The Senate could get some balls. All reports suggest that many or most Republican realize that Trump can indeed single handedly destroy our American experiment, or more accurately, he already has. Indeed, the political calculation of reelection is beginning to look dire for many Republicans in both houses of congress. Even the right-leaning Real Clear Politics poll aggregation suggests Democrats will take over the Senate and hold the House (Aug 30). At the moment, Trump is losing, and so are Republicans.
In January, the Senate acquitted Trump in the impeachment. This may have been a strategically smart decision at the time, if rather cynical. The Senate now has another chance, and even a chance to retain control — they need to flee from the existential threat of Donald Trump. They need to undermine him, throw him under the bus, and reject him. There are several ways they might accomplish this goal in a way that would let them present their change of heart as righteous indignation. There are certainly scores of outstanding legal issues they could unblock.
Right now, the strategy seems to be poll-watching. As long as Biden is well ahead, maybe, just maybe they’ll squeak through without having to do anything.
However this strategy is a huge risk: we know Donald Trump will do anything in his power, and he clearly has a great deal of power, to undermine the election. He has an army of his “base” that he has mobilized. He can back this up with federal troops and create the foundations of civil war. For now he has the support of at least some in Fox News. He is in control of the DOJ, State, Commerce, Treasury, and arguably has a distinct advantage in the Supreme Court.
The Senate must be courageous. They must start disavowing Trump and Trumpism, loudly, broadly, and decisively. Yes, this may put their current political aspirations at risk. But any who thinks standing with Trump will be a future resume builder is clearly delusional. Trump is a cancer, and he must be excised.
By way of example they could do what Ted Cruz did and have a clear and unmitigated dismissal of all that Trump stands for. Please watch this, and hope that like Senator Cruz, many of the others are able to speak their minds.
I don’t think it’s overstatement to say that our country’s democracy, standing in the world, well-being, and future stands in the balance.
