The 1983 movie “War Games” (Matthew Broderick, Ally Sheedy, Dabney Coleman) was about a high school student who hacked into the National missile defense computer. He started a “War Game” that almost resulted in a real nuclear war. The only way to stop the “game” was to convince the computer of the absolute futility of nuclear attacks. In the end, the computer grasped the idea, and said: “Strange game. The only winning move is not to play.” – War Games, 1983
Jack Smith’s Filing
Yesterday, the redacted transcript of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s evidence against Donald Trump was released. It’s 152 pages packed with Grand Jury testimony about Trump’s conduct around the 2020 election, particularly in the time between the election in early November, and the Insurrection on January 6th, 2021. While I have the entire transcript, I’m still working my way through that mountain of evidence. But, even with a cursory reading, the message is clear. President Trump knew he lost the 2020 election. He knew that there wasn’t voter fraud, that the election wasn’t “stolen” from him.
But he continued to maintain that it was “stolen”. He marshalled his forces both inside and outside the White House to block the lawful transition of power: first in the Courts, then in the states, then at the Congressional level. He sent a mob to the Congress with the express intent to disrupt the official certification of the electoral votes. And he tried to force his Vice President, Mike Pence, into leading the effort.
It’s more than unusual for all of the evidence to be put on public display prior to trial. But this revelation is a product of Trump’s own legal actions. In appealing Counsel Smith’s charges, Trump won a huge victory in the Supreme Court. The Nation’s highest judicial body ruled that actions within the President’s “official duties” are immune from prosecution. He can only be held legally accountable for actions in a “private” capacity. And since the trial court, the Federal District Court in Washington, DC, is required to determine the differences between official and private, Smith presented all the information he deemed as “private” for the Court’s perusal.
October Surprise
To be clear, there’s nothing shockingly new in the Smith document. It simply provides detailed explanations to fill in much of what we learned through the January 6th hearings, and from the volumes of reporting and “inside” books about the time. The biggest revelation was from Mike Pence’s Grand Jury testimony. He refused to cooperate in the Congressional hearings, so it’s the first time we know what he said and thought. Not surprising; Pence painted a scene of growing personal pressure from Trump to interfere with the electoral certification. This was even after Pence made it clear he didn’t have the Constitutional power to do so.
The Smith transcript is “just another nail in the coffin” for the Trump campaign. Of all the issues confronted in the 2024 Presidential election, the most significant one is what Democrats call Trump’s “existential threat” to our Constitutional Democracy. The transcript is even more evidence that Donald Trump was willing to use the powers of the Presidency to remain in office, regardless of the outcome of the electoral and popular votes. But this is not an “October Surprise”, along the lines of the Access Hollywood tape or the Weiner Laptop investigations of 2016. There are few calls for Trump to drop out of the race. He and his running mate JD Vance continue to campaign.
Status-Quo
It seems there is no event, (barring assassination) that will alter the status-quo of the 2024 election. All of the information is out, all of the debates are over. And while the world roils from Ukraine to the Middle East, neither candidate is able to take advantage of the turmoil. Most Democrats are set; most MAGA-Republicans are too.
If the past is prologue, then 2024 will be decided by a small sliver of voters in a few pivotal states. The campaigns are both looking to influence that sliver, before they turn to the final, get out the vote efforts. The apparent strategies in the Vice Presidential debates, where the two combative candidates appeared to be almost collegial, were aimed at those small sub-groups.
Among those groups are the identified Republicans who are not willing to vote for Trump. They are “Never-Trumpers”. And the question the campaigns ask is: are they going to vote for Harris? Or, as the 1983 movie “War Games” made famous, decide “…that the only winning move is not to play”? Will they leave the Presidential election box empty? Or, as Utah Senator and former Presidential candidate Mitt Romney did, vote for someone else. Romney wrote-in his wife Ann Romney in 2016.
Narrow Margin
Hillary Clinton won the 2016 popular vote by over three million votes, but still lost the Presidency in the Electoral College. Joe Biden won by over seven million, and just eked out a narrow Electoral victory. From the Harris side it’s not about not voting for Trump, it’s about voting for Harris/Walz. Any other choice works to Trump’s advantage.
Unlike “War Games”, the only winning move in this election is to play. Regardless of tax policy, abortion laws, immigration controls or inflation; the existential threat of Trump to the American Constitutional system is clear. Jack Smith’s indictment makes it even more apparent to what lengths Trump was willing to go to remain in power, regardless of the law, regardless of tradition, regardless of the Constitution. That MUST be enough. The only winning move in this situation is to vote for Harris. Any other choice puts our Democracy (or for my indoctrinated friends, our Constitutional Republic) in jeopardy.
We all must “play”.
