Rebuild the Guardrails, America

“But if such a thing as legal objectivity ever existed, it was obliterated 20 years ago with Bush v. Gore. It was then that the Supreme Court proved by a 5-4 vote, that it was a purely political branch.” Elie Mystal, The Nation

For Halloween to fall two days before the election is one haunted house too many, an added torture, another crack of the psychological whip, as the country votes and votes and votes, and begins to hold its breath. The big turnout that is essential to a Biden victory looks as if it’s happening, but after the Shock of 2016,  I am ever skeptical. This is the United States of America, a crumbling, bumbling, empire that is in the hands of a crime family, and all manner of election fuckery is possible. 

Someone should ask stone faced Mike Pence this question: Mr. Vice President, If you trust the American people as much as you say you do, why does your party make voting so hard for so many people? How do you square that circle, Mr. Vice President? 

After exposing my brain to news reports and podcasts over the past few days, I’m feeling  anxious, testy, and nervous. I got to thinking about guardrails.  Like many others across the country, I’m trying to game out the various ways Trump can lose, and still hold his office. These are numerous and unsettling. If Trump’s time in office has taught us anything it should be this: the guardrails failed. From the start, four years ago, Trump has been testing the limits on his power. The American “system”, once thought so stable and secure, hasn’t stopped him. For all its flaws, the Mueller Report was conclusive about Trump’s obstruction of justice, a charge for which he should have been impeached. But the Senate, elected to office by a minority of the population, with the absurdity of populous California and under-populated Wyoming having equal power, is in the hands of a far-right GOP which refuses to play by established rules and norms. When every GOP senator, with the exception of Mitt Romney, voted to acquit Trump, a guardrail fell.  

Trump landed Marine 1 on the Emoluments Clause. Trump and his crime family have diverted millions of taxpayer dollars to the Trump Organization. Totally without shame, the Trump Gang will never meet a profitable conflict of interest they won’t embrace. Trump should have hit a guardrail the first time he dipped his beak in the public till, but he didn’t. A few Democrats grumbled about it, some media outlets reported on it, but there wasn’t a groundswell of outrage from the public. 

What protection do we have against demagoguery? When the Democratic-controlled House sent the White House a subpoena, Trump either sued or flat-out refused to comply, and he demanded that other federal agencies do the same. His party turned a blind eye and deaf ear every time. The founders feared majority rule, so they built in a few circuit breakers, the Electoral College being the kingpin. Trump can lose the popular vote by a pretty wide margin and still win the Electoral College. Every analyst I’ve listened to or article I’ve read points out that 2020 is not 2016. Joe Biden is not Hillary Clinton. Trump isn’t the brash challenger, he’s the president, and more than 220,000 Americans have died through his incompetence and malice. His party, with very few exceptions, has aided and abetted Trump in his ill-fated effort to outwit Covid-19. If Trump’s not held accountable -- if the solid majority of us who think competence in government is a good thing, an important social benefit, can’t hold him accountable -- who or what institution will? 

I think of Highway 1 in California, the twists and turns, the many bridges, and how almost every time I’ve driven Highway 1, some stretch of it has been under construction. Our democracy should be like that, always being maintained at some key junction, shored up, rebuilt, inspected with critical eyes. The Federal Courts need reform. We have to fix our chaotic voting system. It’s time to ditch the Electoral College. We’re not living in the 18th century, and the Founding Fathers were not gods. They were white men, mostly of wealth, who created a system that spreads power around, with three co-equal branches designed to contain the others’ power. These white men understood the tyranny of kings. A system in some kind of balance was the idea, right? It was the best hope for a stable government and society that could expand and prosper; a government that is constantly falling apart can’t do those things. We can thank the Founders for the basic framework, imperfect though it is, commend them for an admirable run at self-government, but we have to make some repairs, restore balance to the system so that we have a chance to face and survive the massive climate challenge that is already here. The road we’re driving cannot get us where we need to go. 

Are You Ready for Minority Rule?

 “Things are always changing. This is just one of the big jumps instead of the little step-by-step changes that are easier to take. People have changed the climate of the world. Now they’re waiting for the old days to come back.” Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower

It was cold in the apartment this morning. I started the coffee brewing and donned my heavy Chelsea Football Club sweatshirt. Although I didn’t want to, I looked at the news; it confirmed what I knew -- the GOP had succeeded in ramming Amy Coney Barrett down our throats eight days before the presidential election. 

Mitch McConnell achieved his dream of cementing minority rule, and said as much on the floor of the Senate. The cynical, corrupt man from Kentucky held the power, and he used it with ruthless efficiency. I wondered what might have happened if the tables had been reversed and the Democrats held a majority and tried to seat a moderate associate justice at warp speed. Would the Dems have trampled Senate rules, procedures and norms? I doubt it. They don’t have the killer instinct or sufficient disregard for the institution. For far too many years, the Dems believed they could deal with the GOP on level terms, as if both sides play by a common set of rules. They don’t. It was this naivete on the part of Barack Obama that drove me crazy during his first term. No matter how many times Republicans dissed him, Obama kept trying to find common ground. Obama wanted to make policy, the GOP only wanted to expand its power. Even if the GOP had been a minority party, I think McConnell would have found a way to block the Democrats from rushing to confirm a justice. Appeals to rules and fairness work on Democrats, but bounce off Republicans like BB’s off armor plating. 

I don’t know what will happen on November 3rd and in the weeks after. I’m not confident that Biden will win, despite early indications that the turnout will be record-setting. What I imagine, though, is that regardless of the results, Trump will preemptively claim victory, either on election night or the next day, and FOX News and Breitbart and all the other Trump mouthpieces will amplify his claim. Trump will blitz the public with tales of massive fraud, cheating, and fake absentee ballots. Lawsuits will follow in all the states where the vote tally is close. Trump might hold rallies in those states, and encourage his supporters to demand a halt to the count by marching on election offices in a sea of MAGA red. After living through the 2000 election, it’s not a stretch to imagine the final outcome being decided in Trump’s favor by a hyper-partisan Supreme Court. 

And then what? 

For many years the Dems believed they could deal with the GOP on level terms, as if both sides play by a common set of rules. 

Even if Biden prevails -- and let’s hope he does -- Trump will have more than two months to plant boobytraps, string Claymore mines, and retaliate against his perceived enemies. That’s a long interregnum, particularly with Covid-19 resurgent in many states. Trump & Company have surrendered to the pandemic, raised the white flag, folded the tents and let the horses and mules run loose. Damn the needs of the people, let them fend for themselves. The coming winter looks long and dark. Despair lives next door. In less than four years, Donald J. Trump has driven a wedge between millions of Americans. His talk of red and blue states, his sowing of mistrust in public health experts, and in simple measures like wearing a face covering; his constant lying about the severity of Covid-19, which he knew about in February; his demands for loyalty over competence; his grift and self-dealing; his cruelty and stupidity. The man is a reckless and destructive sociopath, and we are not free of his evil stench, not by a long shot. Trump may lose at the polls in a margin too big to steal, as legal analyst Glenn Kirschner puts it, but we shouldn’t for a moment think Trump will leave the national stage. His cult followers, the people who wear the red hats and can’t get enough of his act, will still believe in him, listen to him. If Trump calls them to Mar-A-Lago, they will go. If Trump tells them to march into the Gulf of Mexico, they will, like lemmings off a cliff. 

Tell me, please, what happened to America? 

In a week at least the fund-raising text messages and emails that daily barrage my phone will end. I remind myself that the antidote to despair is to focus on what is within my control. The present is a soap bubble. The old days aren’t returning. Octavia Butler is right -- things are always changing. 

Land of the Free & Other Fairy Tales

 

“Those overwhelmed by despair seek magical salvations, whether in crisis cults, such as the Christian Right, or demagogues such as Trump, or rage-filled militias that see violence as a cleansing agent.” Chris Hedges 

I’m writing this on the morning of the final debate between Trump and Joe Biden. I’ve listened to a number of pundits and political junkies talk about the format, the moderator, and how Trump might react if his microphone is silenced. Can Trump keep his shit together this time and allow Biden to talk without being interrupted? I agree with the pundits who maintain that this last debate is more important for Trump than Biden. The former vice president may be the challenger but the pressure to deliver a “normal” performance rests on Trump’s back.  Biden prepped, it’s a certainty that Trump didn’t bother. The lies, as always, will come thick and fast. 

Given the way Trump has ranted at his recent rallies, his attacks on the press, and the way he rambled on about low-flow showerheads and toilets at one of the gigs, I wonder if Trump is headed for his Howard Beal moment, a full-on meltdown on national television. It would be fitting if the medium that made Trump is also the medium that brings him crashing down. I don’t imagine this debate will change many minds, any more than I can imagine how any voter can be undecided at this point in the game. 

Let’s be clear: if Trump pulling himself together and pretending to be rational for 90 minutes is portrayed as a near-miracle in the media, that’s because the bar is down in the muck and Trump put it there.

American myths -- freedom, liberty, justice for all -- crash head-on into American hypocrisy. For decades the United States painted itself as the gold standard when it came to free and fair elections, and we never shied from lecturing less civilized and sophisticated nations about their election practices even though for most of the 20th century we systematically disenfranchised millions of African-American voters. Voting procedures vary from state-to-state and, since 2010 when John Roberts and his Federalist Society pals opened the spigots and flooded our political system with  unaccountable corporate cash in the Citizens United decision, then gutted the Voting Rights Act three years later, making it possible for Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Kentucky, Texas, and North and South Carolina to erect new obstacles, resurrect some old ones, and once again render the act of voting difficult for folks of lesser means and darker pigment. 

Those in power don’t like to share. The powerful and wealthy make voting difficult for certain segments of the American electorate because they want as little democracy as possible. 

LATER. 6:30 P.M. 

My wife and daughter are watching the Trump-Biden “debate” behind me, but both are on their phones. I’m plugged in, listening to Fela Kuti at higher than normal volume in order to drown Trump’s voice out. The man sickens me. He is everything that is crass, cruel and crooked in this life. He’ll lie for his life tonight, force Biden to defend, maybe stumble. My phone keeps pinging, another Democratic Party group warning me that Trump will be reelected unless I chip in $25 in the next five minutes. Joe is counting on me. Brian, it’s Kamala...Then, ominously: TRUMP IS KILLING BIDEN...saving his presidency...staging a last-ditch assault for reelection. It’s too much. I need more music, louder... have to keep these voices out of my brain. Twelve or thirteen days until the last day to cast a vote. Feels like an eternity. 

Trump is like Dracula. He has an insatiable appetite for power and wealth, to be loved and adored, and the only way to kill him is to drive a stake in his heart, shove a crucifix up his ass, and take off his hairpiece. Trump needs his hair, it’s like his battle armor. The debate should be nearing its merciful end, and then the tea leaf reading can begin, hourly polls, trends, probabilities, what ifs, analysis, the hunt for nuance and secret messages, a clear winner. Like I said this morning, if Trump managed to behave himself and exercise a 12-year-old’s impulse control, he may do his campaign a boost, give it a last spasm of life before the lights dim. How many undecided voters is Trump chasing, how is he going to turn them at this point? Let’s be clear: if Trump pulling himself together and pretending to be rational for 90 minutes is portrayed as a near-miracle in the media, that’s because the bar is down in the muck and Trump put it there. Trump hasn’t acted normal or been coherent in months. If Biden held his own, got in a couple of good licks on the Coronavirus and the economy, he should be fine. 

Here’s my mantra: It’s not 2016. This is a different race under very different conditions. 

I think the post-game analysis is underway. 

Injustice Nation

 

“For five decades, the Court has, with striking regularity, sided with the rich and powerful against the poor and weak, in virtually every area of the law.” Adam Cohen, Supreme Ineqiality: The Supreme Court’s Fifty-Year Battle For A More Unjust America

Dispirited. Another week of soul fatigue. The fuckery goes on as the election nears. Suppression tactics in full swing. It’s not subtle. Strip large urban areas of ballot drop-off boxes. Reduce the number of polling places so voters have to endure long lines and hours of waiting to exercise their right to vote. If the powerful wanted people to vote in large numbers, they would make it easy to do so. Instead they (state level Republican legislatures and secretaries of state) make it hard for as many people as they can. Aided and abetted by the Supreme Court’s gutting of the voting rights act, they create formidable barriers. According to Rick Wilson of the Lincoln Project, Florida excels at election fuckery, which explains, in part, why so many of the leeches that squirm their way to the top of the GOP hierarchy hail from Florida. Rick Scott. Ron Desantis. Marco Rubio. The list goes on. Right-wingers and the State of Florida have had a long love affair.

Ever since Robert Bork spoke his mind too freely, the confirmation process has been like bad Kabuki theater. The whole shebang is a farce, and most of the time the hearings are dull, ponderous, long on posturing opportunities for senators, and devoid of substance. 

Amy Coney Barrett will be confirmed as the newest Supreme Court Justice and will park her uptight, reactionary butt in RBG’s old chair. The Democrats can’t stop this confirmation train, not even with dynamite. It’s a done deal. The Court will soon have six Catholics. Think of that. When John F. Kennedy ran for Senate in the mid 1950’s, and then president a few years later, his Catholic faith was a big deal, a campaign “issue” because it made WASPS uneasy. Today’s WASPS have nothing to fear because this Catholic-laden court will protect their class interests. Amy Coney Barrett hails from some weird Catholic sect in South Bend, Indiana, and reminds me of someone who has been indoctrinated. The first time I saw her photograph I thought she could be a character from Westworld. Like a robot, she was programmed to evade, to duck and dodge, to bob and weave, and refuse to take a position on the simplest matters of law, like whether or not the Constitution allows the president to change the date of a national election.  Ever since Robert Bork spoke his mind too freely, the confirmation process has been like bad Kabuki theater. The whole shebang is a farce, and most of the time the hearings are dull, ponderous, long on posturing opportunities for senators, and devoid of substance. 

I felt the weight of the times today. It was 95 degrees outside in the middle of October, in a year when 4 million acres of California has been torched by wildfires and the long term weather forecast points at a mild, dry winter for a swath of the country. The drought will worsen, the risk of devastating wildfires will increase; the cycle is as vicious as it is obvious, but don’t bother trying to convince the US Supreme Court; after all, climate change is a contentious public issue. Fuck. I have this sinking feeling that the next several years will be grim for millions of people. My family isn’t impervious to these riptides, and I find myself worrying about the future.  Even if we manage to push Biden and Harris across the line next month, the road will be rough. It’s going to take a concerted effort to powerwash Trump’s shit stains from every federal agency. Even if Democrats flip the Senate -- which is absolutely necessary if we are to have any hope -- the GOP, though weakened by it’s romance with Trumpism, will still do everything possible to thwart Biden and Harris. We can’t fool ourselves. A Biden victory will not restore the nation to the state it was in when Trump took the reins. The shit we’re in is much deeper; Trump has done a number on America. Trump bent the nation over and sodomized it. 

To stop backsliding into the abyss, the Democrats must win the Senate and the White House and hold both long enough to appoint justices who are not products of the Federalist Society.  If the country is to make any progress on the thicket of intertwined problems staring us down -- from climate change and health care as a right, to racial and economic justice, gun control, campaign finance reform and mass incarceration, mass surveillance and militarism -- we must have more democracy, not less, but thanks to Mitch McConnell and the reactionary Federalist Society, that’s a ways off. The Nixon Court has become the Trump Court. Fire in the hole, America. 

Power must be one hell of a high, better than opium. 

Time for Voters to Kill the Game

 “So it was not without a keen and profoundly morbid sense of curiosity that kept me and Cromwell locked into the TV news all night -- mainly waiting to see who was going to get blamed for an outrage so awful and massive as to snap the mind of Richard Nixon… “

Hunter S. Thompson, Songs of the Doomed

Long days, strange nights, Covid here but not there, Covid rampaging through the White House, rumored to be a ghost town with only a few lights burning. House of shadows and gloom. Trump lumbers through the hallways, sweaty, breathless, confused and angry, like when your grandpa goes off his meds for a week. Where’s Jared? Has Melania left? Is Barr sick? Trump sucks attention like a Dyson vacuum run at full, screaming volume. His stunts become more pathetic and empty, a fat white man on a balcony above a courtyard strewn with trash and broken folding chairs. He may still be contagious, but we don’t know. Trump doesn’t want us to know. Donald is starting to spin toward the drain. This river of shame and failure narrows ahead and the canyon walls rise high and sheer, and with every passing day it feels like the end is nearing. There are no escape routes from this canyon, no gaps in the sheer stone walls. The only way out is through, to where the river widens. The king has the plague, half his court is in hiding, his coffers are depleted, the jesters run through their usual tricks but find them stale and dry. Dip too many times in the Well of Absurdities and this is what happens. 

But, good people, don’t think for a minute that the Orange Menace is done, he’s not. The polls tell a story, and we can take some hope from the fact that this is not 2016, but we cannot let up. Turnout is the key. Trump’s defeat must be overwhelming so it can survive the BS legal challenges Billy “Evil Doughboy” Barr will attempt as all the votes are being tallied. 

Thankfully, it’s not 2016. Hillary Clinton isn’t on the ballot, and Donald J. Trump is no longer an outsider; he’s the Man, with the weight of abject failure and humiliation hanging from his neck. He knew Covid was going to hit hard and he lied, again and again and again. He waited too long to act, and when he did act his effort was feeble and bungled, a disgrace to his office. More than 210,000 Americans have died. More dead than on 9/11. More dead than in all our recent undeclared wars, invasions, and occupations.  

Democrats, people of goodwill who hate politics, Republicans who voted for Trump in 2016, back when it was easier for some people to believe in Trump’s myth of winning, but can no longer avoid the hard truth, is an odd coalition, but I’ll take it. Folks who rolled the dice on Trump in 2016 will not make the same mistake in 2020. They’ve seen enough. Trump’s on TV, on radio, jabbering and frothing to keep his hardcore base from collapsing, but that’s all he can do, keep his base. He isn’t expanding it. Voting is already underway in many states. The number of undecided voters is far less than it was four years ago. That bodes ill for Trump. 

Voters, it’s time for us to kill the game, as soccer commentators like to say. Just because the polls look favorable, we cannot take our foot off the gas. It’s no different from a great football club like Liverpool or Bayern Munich, elite teams who are never satisfied with a 1-nil victory. Liverpool and Bayern are ruthless and unrelenting; when they score one goal they immediately want another, then another. They don’t back off and defend, they press high up the pitch and swarm their opponents to force mistakes. We have to be as hungry to send Trump and his entourage packing as Liverpool and Bayern are to score goals and win titles. That means we play hard and smart until the final whistle shrieks. Vote. Encourage people you know to vote. If you can, donate a few bucks to candidates in close races for senate. America needs a reset, and that cannot happen while Donald Trump and the GOP is in charge. 

Another Night in Trumpcraft Country

 “Persuading people to vote against their own best interests has been the awesome genius of the American political elite from the beginning.” Gore Vidal

Trump checked himself out of Walter Reed hospital. There’s no way his team of doctors would recommend it, but it comes down to what the patient wants, and Trump wanted images of a triumphant, choreographed return to the White House, like a Roman general returning from the wars. He wanted that moment on the Truman Balcony, all eyes on him as he wheezed and struggled to button his coat, as he defiantly removed his mask, as he puffed out his flabby chest and saluted his chariot corps. Trump was desperate to show what a brave and heroic and virile hunk of man he is, a superhero without weakness or vulnerability. “I’m too strong for Covid-19! My magnificent genes. I’m one tough hombre. I dominated Covid the same way I dominate Nancy Pelosi!”

Trump still has the nuclear codes, right?

A side effect of one of the drugs (Dexamethasone) being pumped into his bloated body messes with cognition and judgment in some people...How do we tell the difference between normal Trump and Trump on drugs? 

Why isn’t Trump popping hydroxychloroquine, the miracle cure he hyped for months? Remember when he said, “What have you got to lose?” 

The winter of our discontent looms. At the beginning of the pandemic, in a time that seems long ago, I wondered how bad it would get. That was almost 210,000 deaths ago. I heard an academic on a podcast say that the Trump gang’s response to the pandemic has been “spectacularly inept.” In the daily media blizzard of outrages, lies, disinformation, and nonsense it’s too easy to forget that Trump knew how Covid-19 was transmitted and how deadly it could be. It’s on tape, his own words, as are his lies to the American people. Months and months of denial. Months and months of blaming others. Months and months of phony and misleading information.“I take no responsibility,” Trump said. And he doesn’t. He still believes Covid will magically disappear. 

The worst economic suffering is yet to come. The chairman of the Federal Reserve warned yesterday that more stimulus is needed to keep the economy from careening off the rails. Trump greeted this news by shutting down negotiations between the House and Senate over another round of relief until after the election. Petty, childish, stupid, a middle finger to all the commoners struggling to hold their lives together. Let the people scramble for crusts of bread. If he can’t win or steal the election Trump will burn the country down. MAGA.

Covid strikes the vampire...chief White House bigot Stephen Miller tests positive. 

Don’t worry about Covid, Trump said. You can beat it, like I did. There are almost no words to describe this degree of callousness and ignorance. Maybe Trump doesn’t understand that the overwhelming majority of Americans do not have immediate access to a private hospital suite, a team of medical professionals, the best diagnostic equipment, experimental drugs, and round the clock monitoring. Maybe Trump imagines that all of us travel in armor-reinforced SUV’s and helicopters, with drivers, pilots, and Secret Service guards. The man is incapable of putting himself in another’s shoes. 

I don’t know. Like millions of Americans I’m fucking exhausted -- by Trump, Covid, the perfidy of the GOP, and the awfulness of this chapter of the American tale. Government by stunt, politics as performance. Trump’s terrible reality show has divided the nation and contributed to the deaths of thousands of Americans. And the final episodes remain to be written and acted out. 

We’re stuck in a protracted episode of Trumpcraft Country.  

As the Worm Turns

 “These are Shiite Republicans -- they don’t compromise, they don’t deal, they don’t look for the middle way. Because they believe they’re right. They think it’s them against evil. And everybody who ain’t them is evil. I’m just warning you: This is about to happen everywhere. The whole country is being turned into the state whose proudest boast is that sometimes we’re ahead of Mississippi.” Molly Ivins in 2003.

I’ll be honest: when I heard the news that Donald J. Trump, Melania Trump, and Hope Hicks had tested positive for Covid-19, my first thoughts were uncharitable. I stopped myself from thinking, “die motherfucker” but did briefly relish the irony of the leading pandemic denier contracting the virus that he repeatedly told the American people would go away like a miracle. For more than six months, Trump downplayed the seriousness of Covid-19, pushed bogus cures, ridiculed Americans who wear masks and practice social distancing and worry about sending their children to school. Trump thought his superior genes would protect him. 

Off to Walter Reed Hospital went Trump, a precautionary measure according to the reports I read. The problem with everything to do with Donald J. Trump is that the public doesn’t know what to believe, what’s true and what’s fiction. I think it’s fair to say that Trump had one of the shittiest weeks of his presidency. His shaky financial situation is back in the news, with the real possibility of more unflattering details to come; his unhinged, racist, rude and widely ridiculed debate performance on Tuesday night; and now, hospitalized with Covid. Trump’s on a losing streak and part of me says, long may it last. What goes around, comes around, sooner or later -- even for Trump. 

Every dog has his day, though it be nasty, brutish and short.

As Oliver Stone wrote in his memoir, Chasing the Light, “When you find yourself in a maze woven by a con man, there’s no exit.”

I also wondered if Trump’s diagnosis was a stunt, and I spent some time looking for an angle. Is Trump hiding behind the diagnosis to avoid a second debate and another shocking performance? Is he looking for a pretext to explain his likely defeat on November 3? Will he blame Covid for denying  him the opportunity to campaign? Plausible. “The Chinese virus ruined my chances of reelection. I couldn’t campaign. It was very unfair, Biden should have stopped campaigning while I was hospitalized. And by the way, Sleepy Joe never came to visit me. Before Covid attacked me very strongly, our campaign had tremendous enthusiasm and was way ahead of Biden in the polls. I would have won by the greatest margin in history, believe me.”

Trump’s fragile ego cannot handle a public defeat any more than it can handle being exposed as a business failure and tax evader. I even entertained the notion that Trump might drop out of the race, citing health reasons, roll the smoking Trump Dumpster into Pence’s front yard and let Christian Mike take the loss. Trump could then boast and brag that he is still undefeated, the greatest of all time. The problem in Trump World is that crazy shit seems possible. This is what happens when a leader lies non-stop for five years. As Oliver Stone wrote in his memoir, Chasing the Light, “When you find yourself in a maze woven by a con man, there’s no exit.”

Meanwhile, the GOP Dark Arts Agency is hard at its despicable work of ratfucking the vote. The Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, may be confined to a wheelchair but the man still deserves an ass-kicking. Along with all the tried & true voter suppression tactics that Republicans have refined, Abbott ordered the elimination of ballot collection points in counties with concentrations of Democratic voters. If you can’t stop people from voting, then stop their votes from being tallied. I don’t know what Trump’s favorite henchman, Attorney General William Barr, is up to, but it’s not likely to be legal, moral, fair, or right. 

I keep hearing these imaginary dialogues between Vladimir Putin and Trump. 

The first thing, Donald -- you don’t mind if I call you Donald? Good. The leaders of two great countries, two great powers, should be on a first-name basis. Please call me Vladimir or Vlad, if you want. In a way, we’re brothers in arms, comrades. We share many interests, both as nations and as men. I’d offer you vodka but the KGB informs me that you are a teetotaller. Diet Coke is your beverage of choice. Mine is vodka. To me, vodka is Russia, its heart and history, its misunderstood nobility and spirit. Cheers! 

May I speak frankly, Donald? Will you allow me to be so bold as to offer some friendly advice? You see, I really believe we share some basic beliefs about how the world works. I believe in power, obtaining it through guts and cunning, then using it to reward allies and punish critics. Wielding power isn’t for the faint of heart. Most people are weak, they believe in institutions like the church and the courts, and they’re happy to wait for these institutions to deliver what they need. Men like you and me, Donald, don’t wait for others. We act. While others talk and muse and dream, we act. We take what we want. This is what sets us apart. There have always been men like us, and there always will be. Men with the nerve and the will to wield power. Sometimes you use a scalpel, other times a sledgehammer. Take control of your party first. Make it clear that you value loyalty -- to the party and its ideals, of course -- but also to you. Make the party your messenger. Teach the party that no middle ground exists. Party members must choose, in or out. 

Then get your arms around law enforcement and the spy agencies -- in your case, all 17 of them. I sometimes joke that this is an example of American excess. 17 spy agencies! Appointing people to key posts whose loyalty is unquestioned is more important than qualifications. Then bend the courts to your will. Appoint judges who see the world as you do. In your country judges are useful for silencing the opposition. Would you like another Diet Coke, Donald? I will have another vodka. May I ask you a personal question, Donald? What is so enjoyable about golf? 

The fat’s in the fire. The plot is confused and convoluted, a maze of dead ends. Dear Leader is running out of time and tricks. The virus he claimed was harmless has breached the walls of his house.