Bowling
So I’m not a bowler; I play about once a decade. I have some fun, drink a beer or two, and hope to have one game approaching 200, and no games under 100. I haven’t tried to play since getting the “$6 million shoulder” (you need to be of a “certain age” to understand that reference). My whole left arm might now detach and fly down the alley, or I might be a candidate for the senior Professional Bowlers Association. I haven’t had the chance to try.
If you aren’t a bowler (or played one on TV), you may not know the ultimate humiliation of bowling. That’s when your ball falls off the side of the alley and into the gutter. The gutter leads it to pass harmlessly by the pins. That is the base minimum standard of bowling. If you can’t keep the ball in the alley, then you can’t score.
But for beginners and little kids, some alleys have “gutter bumpers”; big blow up cushions that inflate in the gutter and keeps the ball from falling in. With bumpers, you are almost guaranteed to knock some pins down, no matter how badly you bowl. That is, unless your ball doesn’t have enough impetus, and stops halfway up the alley. Or, you are so out of control you throw into the next lane! With those guards in place, it’s called “bumper bowling”.
Norms
American politics and government normally has bumpers, guards that protect the political process from going completely in the gutter. Historically, we depended on those bumpers to knock the “American ball” back into the alley of “normal” government. Some of those bumpers are actual laws. But most of the “guard rails” in American government are “norms”; accepted and historic practices and traditions, but not necessarily in “Black Letter Law”.
I was listening to the wonderful funeral ceremony for Jimmy Carter yesterday. Two of the eulogizers were “proxies”; sons of fathers who promised Carter to speak, but didn’t live long enough to do so. It was comforting to hear the words of Gerald Ford and Walter Mondale, praising the 39th President. In one of those speeches, it was mentioned how Carter shepherded laws through to protect Americans from the extreme abuses of the Watergate era. They erected “bumpers”, to keep the Presidency, no matter who was elected, in the alley and out of the gutters.
The first Trump Administration ignored the norms, and violated the laws. But for their own ineptness in governing (and in fomenting insurrection), they might have ended the American experiment in democracy right there. But enough of the “bumpers” held, particularly in the Courts. And when, on January 6th 2021, Trump tried to throw his ball over the bumpers and into the next alley, the determination of the Congress to stay “in the lane” narrowly prevented what would have been a coup d’état.
Too Soon for Normal
When Joe Biden became President, it was clear that one of his major goals was to return the Nation to “Normalcy”. He wanted an American government that respected the laws and norms that kept it “in the alley”. He appointed a “neutral arbiter” as the Attorney General, Judge Merrick Garland, a man who, by definition, was straight down the middle. Garland’s absolute adherence to the norms and laws would have been laudable, had it worked. But instead, it allowed the MAGA adherents to “work the courts”. They delayed and denied justice, and convinced the American people that they were the “victims” rather than the perpetrators. Biden did fix the laws he could, but was blocked from erecting bigger bumpers. And so, here we are, ten days before a second Trump Administration takes over.
One of the biggest failures of the Biden/Garland Justice Department was failing to hold the leaders of the Insurrection accountable. Justice was delayed (and as the saying goes, denied), both by the investigators themselves, and by the Federal Courts. The biggest MAGA co-conspirators were the three Trump appointees on the Supreme Court, in conjunction with two (and sometimes three) other Justices. They created a whole new American “norm”, a citizen who by elected office, is literally above the law: the President of the United States. With his absolute immunity for “official acts”, the bumpers are completely gone. Under their standard, Richard Nixon leading a felony coverup would be “OK”. It was shocking.
Accountable
If the Courts are no longer bumpers, than what is left to protect America? The answer is, not much.
So here we are, ten days before the second Trump ascendancy, with no bumpers in place. Where’s the hope? Well, there is a glimmer, a faint possibility of “bumpers” being placed once again. It’s not a sure thing by any means, but here it is.
Today, the President-Elect will be sentenced for committing thirty-four felonies in the State of New York. There will be no prison sentence, no “perp-walk”, no handcuffs or orange jump suits. But, for one shining moment, the American justice system will hold Donald Trump accountable. For a hazy instant, all Americans will be equal in the eyes of the law.
But the biggest surprise is that the US Supreme Court is allowed it. After declaring the President immune from prosecution, after doing all that was possible to delay and deny Federal justice, after allowing one of their judges in Florida to put more than a thumb on the scale for Trump, five Justices said that Trump must answer in Manhattan Court today. We are all anxiously awaiting his appearance, and for Judge Marchan to declare his guilt.
Bowl a Strike
Perhaps it’s simply a mirage of the past, the last gasp of the American “bumpers”. Or maybe it’s a harbinger of the role American Courts will play in the future, even if they failed so desperately in the past four years. The glass may be three-quarters empty, or one-quarter full.
Or maybe the Courts are sending us a message: it’s up to Americans, not the Congress or the Courts or history teachers with their precedents and stories. As Ben Franklin said: “It’s a republic, if you can keep it”. That will certainly be put to the test in the next four years. The American people will need to bowl a strike, without help of bumpers in the gutter.
