“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.
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