Recent History

The events of the past few weeks were predictable, but never the less near catastrophic.  We entered the New Year with millions of Americans questioning the results of the November election.  The oddity of that is they only seemed to question the outcome of the Presidential vote.  The rest of the results, which favored Republicans in most cases, were just fine.  And few of the sceptics seemed to notice that contradiction.

Then, only five days into the year, we had the stunning results of the Georgia Senate runoff.  By slim margins, the Democratic candidates managed to win the twin elections, and change the power structure of the Federal Government.  That January 5^th election put the Democratic Party in control of the Senate, by the new Vice President’s tie-breaking vote.  With Democrats already controlling the House and the Presidency, it was a full change in power.  But in all three institutions it was by such narrow margins – a galactic shift by the smallest of forces.

Insurrection

On January 6^th we paid the price for the lies, and the false expectations.  President Trump called “his people” to protest in Washington, then sent them to Congress to stop the Electoral certification.  There is a legal expression, “knew or should have known”.  Donald Trump knew, or should have known, the fuse he was lighting on the National Mall that day.  He acted, at best, in “reckless disregard” for what might happen from the crowd he was stoking.  He lit the fire, and it exploded into the flames that nearly consumed the Congress.

Two weeks later, we know how close we came to the mob dragging our leaders out of the Capitol and into the streets.  What might have happened then is too terrible to contemplate.  And what Donald Trump would have done, what advantage he might have taken, we don’t know.  And, in all likelihood, neither does he.  While some in the crowd had “missions” planned in advance, I don’t really think the former President had a grand strategy.  He was “pissed” because he lost, and he was taking it out on everyone.

Napoleon with a Long Tie

Now Donald Trump is exiled, like Napoleon, to his “Elba Island” at Mara Lago.  But like Napoleon’s first exile, he really isn’t “gone”.  He’s brooding, a still powerful force in American politics.  Look at his muted supporters still on Facebook.  Less than twenty-four hours after Joe Biden’s inauguration, they already are looking back at the “good old days” when Trump was in charge.  He’s not been sent to Napoleon’s final exile, St. Helena, a speck in the middle of the South Atlantic.  Trump is still right here.   

And the leaders of the Republican Party get to make choices.  They could choose to further disarm the “Trumpian Wing” of their Party, by taking away an opportunity for Trump to run again.  They could complete his impeachment by convicting him, removing the perks of his “retirement”, and banning him from further political participation.  

But that risks the enmity of the Trumpian voter.  In our gerrymandered democracy, the influence of Trump on Republican primary voters remains enormous.  So Republican leadership must do more than just take away Trump’s political rights. They must find a way to reach his voters, outside of his powerful communication structures of right-wing and social media.  If they don’t then a whole new generation of cynical Josh Hawley’s will find themselves empowered.

Secession

Some Trump supporters suggest that they will split off from the Republican Party.  They will secede to a new political vehicle, the party of Trump, the “Liberty” Party.  Our two-party system is embedded deeply into our political structures.  Ask the Green or Libertarian parties, or any of the other “alternative” choices.  But the “Liberty Party” wants to subsume the Republican Party, much as the Republican Party subsumed the Whig Party in the 1850’s.  Their goal:  to take over those embedded structures so that the Republican Party becomes the “alternative” and the “Liberty” becomes the second of our two-party system.

As a Democrat, it would be easy to cheer for a split in the Republican Party.  In the short term, it would improve Democratic chances, a three-way split of the votes with the Democrats at a huge advantage.  But in the long run a “Liberty” Party represents a threat to democracy, the same threat that the mob represented on January 6^th.  A “Liberty” Party empowers the racism and authoritarianism that we pretended didn’t exist in the American political system, but made itself very clear in the past few months.  

So I hope the Republican leadership chooses wisely in the next few weeks.  They have an opportunity to further exile Trumpism.  They have a chance to cooperate with the new leadership in the nation, to advance all of our causes.  And they can do it all under the cover of: “those ‘damn’ Democrats are in charge”.  The Republican leaders would risk losing the short-term gains of appealing to the Trumpists.  But the more they pander to them, the greater the long-term risks of becoming an Orwellian “Liberty” Party.   

And we all know where that leads.

High School Lessons

I was a high school coach for forty years:  cross country, wrestling, and track and field.  All of my teams worked hard; the early middle school wrestlers, the state contending cross country teams, and those amazing last track teams.  We always wanted to succeed, to win, to achieve our goals.  

As “the coach”, it was my job to teach more than just athletic techniques.  The idea of school sports is to teach “life lessons”:   hard work leads to success, helping others achieve makes everyone better, and how to sacrifice for a greater goal.  It often worked.  My teams were successful, and more importantly, as the “old retired guy” I now get to see those same team members have success in life.  They are working hard, having families, achieving life goals, and making the world a better place. They learned the lessons beyond how to pass the baton, run the hill, or “snake” the bar.  Success in life: that, more than the wins and losses, is what it’s all about.  

Final Lesson

One of the hardest lessons was to convince them to be willing to risk failure.  Big goals, big achievements always involve big risks.  Whether it was winning the Conference by one point or plotting to win the state in a cabin on a hilltop, getting high school kids to “take the chance” and risk disappointment was hard.  No one wants to be disappointed; it would have been easier to make “safer” goals.  

At the end of each season there was always “the final” lesson.  More often than not, it was how to deal with failing to achieve that last, ultimate goal.  I put it to them this way – have class in defeat.  Whatever the outcome, it doesn’t change who you are, and the work you have done.  Have pride in the journey, of being willing to take the risks, success or failure.  And sometimes it all worked, and the lesson was to show class in victory, in ultimate success.  I had to teach that one too.  Sports is about winning and losing, so when you win, remember what it was like on the losing side.  Show grace in victory, because we have all had to show grace in defeat.  And sometimes, it was by just one point.

Sun Rise

Those same lessons apply to politics.  In fact, that’s where I learned them in the first place.  In political campaigns you put your heart and soul into trying to succeed.  If you have the right candidate and the right ideas, you know that success will be more than just “winning”.  It will be about making your world a better place, improving life for more than just yourself.  So defeat is so much harder. It’s crushing.  You lose not just for yourself, but for all of those that would benefit from your ideas.

Defeat, failure to achieve that ultimate goal: it was so bad that the world seemed to stop.  The sun clearly could not come up – this bad day would last forever.  But that was a lesson to be learned too.  The next morning, no matter how bad the loss, the sun still rose. And with that, the journey began again.  The sun came up, and it was time for new goals, time to plan a new journey.  

Many of us re-learned that lesson in the early morning hours of  November 9^th of 2016.  Unimaginably, all of our collective ideas and goals were tossed away.  To paraphrase President Gerald Ford, for the majority of us, a “long national nightmare” began – the Trump Administration.  And as we know now, it turned out to be far worse than any of us even imagined on that long dark night that seemed to last for years.  From the Muslim Ban to Child Separation, Russia to Ukraine, “fine people on both sides” to “I’ll march with you to the Capitol”:  it’s been a long, long four years.  It ended just as badly as it began.

Our Team

Somehow the win of Biden/Harris this past November feels more like winning the Conference by one point than some overwhelming victory.  While more than 81 million Americans voted for Biden and Harris, 74 million voted for Trump and Pence.  Almost half of our nation now has that same long night we had in 2016. 

I feel good about the win.  Today, Joe Biden will become the President of the United States.  In the next few days, the United States will rejoin the Paris Accord, remove the Muslim Ban, and make it a government priority to reunite the remaining separated children with their families.  The XL pipeline will be canceled once again, and the Federal Government will finally “take charge” of the COVID vaccination program.  And that’s just the beginning.

The sun rose this morning on a new America.  But it’s an America that is still divided, still shocked by the Insurrection, and a long way from Reagan’s “city on a hill”.  So, my Resistance, my Democratic friends, savor “the win” today.  But learn this lesson from an old Coach: show class in our victory.  We need our fellow Americans, even those that voted for Donald Trump.  We need them to be a part of our team effort.  

I saved my Biden signs from the election, and I thought about putting them back out last night, just for today.  Instead, I’m making sure the US Flag is waving high in front of our house.  It’s the “class” thing to do.

Post Script

I watched President-Elect Biden speak to the nation twice yesterday. The first time, as he left his home in Delaware, he was willing to show his emotion, his attachment to his home state, and his pride in the son he lost.

Then he took that same emotion and strength and led the nation in the FIRST national mourning for the 400,000 lost to COVID. He gave us a moment to mourn, to finally recognize our loss.

It was good to have a President for our whole nation.

It’s Monday, January 18^th, 2021, three days before the Inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as President and Vice President of the United States.  The question of this day:  what is left for Donald Trump to do as President?  How will this “episode” of the “Apprentice” finally end?

Family and Friends

We know he’s going to issue another round of pardons.  Rumors are that there is a list, over one hundred, that President Trump is ready to announce. That’s traditional for any outgoing President. But Trump’s pardons are likely to include those close to him. The man has to take care of his family.  Donald Junior, Ivanka, Eric and their assorted partners all have some level of risk for Federal indictment.  It’s unimaginable that President Trump wouldn’t grant them all blanket pardons for anything they might have done since he came down the Golden Escalator. 

And then there’s the “friends”.  Start with Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani, already under Federal investigation by the Southern District of New York.  There’s a whole lot you can say about Rudy:  he’s been the prime driver of the “stolen election” campaign.  And before that, he was the central figure in the Ukraine scandal. (Hey, that’s both of the impeachments!!)  Last week Trump begrudged the $20000/day fee that Rudy was charging, but now the former Mayor of New York has agreed to represent the President in his latest impeachment trial in front of the Senate.  

It’s hard to know what’s a “great Trump deal” and what’s a “quid pro quo”, but either way it’s very likely that the President will be presenting a “golden ticket” to “the Mayor”.

Stephen Miller, the architect of the Muslim Ban and child separation might also qualify for a “get out of jail free” card, along with a slew of administrators in the Department of Homeland Security.  In 2009 when President Obama took office, there were lots of questions about whether his administration would pursue the Bush Administration creators of the “torture memo” and those that implemented it around the world.  Obama made the decision to stop the policies but not prosecute.  While Biden is definitely forward looking, there’s no guarantee that he will make the same choice.

Get the News Cycle

By the way, all those Federal Pardons are exactly that, pardons for federal crimes.  They sideline the Biden Justice Department, but do nothing to stop the state prosecutors from bringing charges.  That puts Eric and Don Jr back in the target zone, as the New York Attorney General and the Manhattan’s District Attorney Cyrus Vance aim at the Trump family and organization’s tax irregularities.

This is really nothing new.  Since before election day, all of these pardons were anticipated.

But there are two pardons that would definitely create “a stir”.  And if either of these are issued, don’t be surprised if they show up Tuesday night, or maybe even Wednesday morning as Trump walks out the door of the White House for his farewell flight to Mara Lago on Air Force One.  He’ll try to upstage the Biden news cycle, one more time. 

Pardon Yourself

The first is Constitutionally questionable:  can Donald Trump issue a pardon to himself?  The Presidential Pardon power is virtually unlimited in the Constitution. Article 2, § 2 states: “… he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States”. There are no “buts or ifs” in the wording.  However, it is a reasonable argument that the Founding Fathers thought that a “self-pardon” was clearly out-of-bounds, an extension of sovereign power that crosses the line into royalty.  

Why would he pardon himself?  We already know that Donald Trump was “individual one”, an unindicted co-conspirator with Michael Cohen in the Stormy Daniels case.  We also know that he could well be named in the Trump tax cases in New York, which could also have Federal ramifications. 

And President Donald Trump could face a Federal charge of inciting insurrection for his actions on January 6^th.  Those charges carry a penalty of ten years in Federal prison, fines, and bar holding Federal office in the future.  It’s a “Resisters” dream:  Donald Trump going to Federal prison.

And there is another, more current political ramification of a Trump “self-pardon”.  From a legal standpoint, it might be worth a shot.  What’s there to lose?  If there were a Federal indictment against him, a self-pardon would be the first line of defense, a line that wouldn’t be available if Trump didn’t pardon himself.  Maybe the Supreme Court would ultimately allow it, but if not, Trump’s case is no worse.

Count the Votes

But there is a second consideration.  Trump is already impeached, and facing Trial in the Senate.  There are likely fifty Senators aligned with the Democrats who will vote for removal.  There are currently only a few Republicans who might join them, not enough to reach the sixty-seven votes need for a two-thirds majority and conviction.  But if the President acts in such an imperious manner, pardoning himself as he walks out the door, that might be enough to change the count.

What’s at stake here?  An impeached and convicted President is stripped of his pension, $200,000 a year.  He’s also stripped of his travel and office allowances, and could be left without Secret Service protection as well.  Trump’s financial woes are well known.  He owes Deutsche Bank $400 million coming due in the next year, and the Bank has already said they are ending their relationship with him.  So there’s no extending that loan.  

But the real issue: a simple majority vote after the two-thirds conviction, would bar the convicted President from any future “position of trust” in the government.  In short – Donald Trump can never run for President again.  And that’s a financial matter.  Trump is depending on his fundraising ability to maintain the “station to which he is accustomed”.  The Trump “campaign” raised $270 million AFTER they lost the election in November.  If he can never run again, how will he continue to raise money?

Payback for Trumpers

And there is one more Pardon that could alter the vote count in the Senate.  The FBI has already filed charges against hundreds who participated in the Insurrection of January 6th.  If Donald Trump really wants the Inauguration Day news cycle, here’s the ticket. Issue a blanket pardon for anyone who participated in the Insurrection.   After all, they did it to “Stop the Steal” and they did it for Trump.  There is no question.  He has the power to pardon them all, and there is no Federal justice “work around”.  The local jurisdiction, the District of Columbia, is a Federal district and unlike the states, must honor Federal pardons.  

But if that action doesn’t seal conviction in the Senate, then Donald Trump really does have blackmail, “Kompromat,” on far too many Republican Senators besides just Lindsey Graham.

And the best part of all these “plot lines” – the end of the season is almost here. We’ll find out “before we know it” – all by Wednesday at noon.

Coolidge

It was 2:30 am on August 3^rd, 1923. Vice President Calvin Coolidge was vacationing at his family home in Plymouth Notch, Vermont.  There was no electricity or phone to the site, no way for instant communication. Vermont State Representative Porter Dale had to personally deliver the news to the Vice President.  The President of the United States, Warren Harding, died of sudden cardiac arrest in San Francisco at 10:30 pm (EST) the night before.  

Coolidge got up, got dressed and said a prayer. He asked the closest Justice of the Peace, his father John Calvin Coolidge Sr, to administer the Presidential Oath. The thirtieth President of the United States was sworn into office by kerosene lamp light at 2:47 am in the family parlor.  After the Presidential succession was assured, Coolidge went back to bed.

Joseph Robinette Biden Jr will become President of the United States at noon (EST) on Wednesday, January 20^th.  The formal “oath taking” is necessary but not required. Biden assumes the duties, and Donald Trump no longer is President when the clock strikes noon. Whether Biden is sworn on the Capitol West Front Portico on in Statuary Hall; the Oval Office of the White House, or the back of a limousine or in the aisle of a plane, he will become President at noon.  Whatever disruption occurs in Washington Biden’s ascension to office is assured. Though, over 20,000 National Guard troops make disruption less likely.

Insurrection

As the days passed since the insurrection of January 6^th, we’ve learned so much about what we watched in horror.  What looked like a mob gone far wrong turned out to include multiple groups with specific “missions” in mind.  Some were looking for the Vice President or Speaker Pelosi, and some for targeted members of Congress.  

Under cover of the overall mob violence, we now know those “teams” came perilously close to their objectives.  Vice President Pence was evacuated from the Senate chamber just sixty seconds ahead of the mob.  But they were right behind him.  Only the quick-thinking actions of one Capitol Police officer, Eugene Goodman, redirected the mob from the office where Pence and his family were sheltering.  They were within 100 feet of the Vice President, the man that they promised to hang. The gallows were already erected outside.

In the Crowd

So who were these insurrectionists? They were willing to break into the Capitol, battle the police (some using “Blue Line” flags as weapons) and threaten the legislative branch of government.  From watching the scene on television, they seemed like supporters of Donald Trump, “MAGA” folk, the same folks we have seen at the rallies and truck parades.  And those were a lot of the people pushing into the Capitol, breaking the glass and pursuing the guards.  But among them were white supremacists, neo-Nazis, anti-Semites, and even a scattering of people drawn to the flames of destruction despite their views. They included one Black Lives Matters activist from Utah.  

District of Columbia Metro Police officers who arrived late on the scene, reveal that they were not only out-manned by the number of rioters, but out-gunned as well.  One officer, dragged into the crowd and in fear for his life, reached for his pistol. But he realized that if he shot, a hail of bullets would be returned killing him and his fellow officers.  Surrounded by the crowd, he instead appealed to their humanity, yelling that he had kids.  He was encircled by a few protectors, that led him to get back to his fellow officers.  To those protectors, the officer said, “Thanks for the help, and F**k you for being there”.

Crazies

So what was this mix that used Donald Trump’s words and the ensuing violence to follow their own agenda?  One now under arrest, Jake Angeli, is a QAnon advocate who stood out in buckskin pants, a fur cape and horns.  His lawyer claims that Angeli was only following the “orders” of the President, and should receive a full Presidential pardon.

QAnon believers are awaiting “The Storm”, when President Trump will order martial law and take over the government.  They are convinced that the President’s opponents, and particularly the Democratic leadership, are pedophiles who actually eat children.  Their “godhead” includes a living John Kennedy Jr, who will reappear to ally with Trump and take over.  They are probably excited that troops line the streets of Washington DC today – they surely see this as proof of their prophecy.

If it sounds crazy, a result of too much time in quarantine and on the internet, you’re probably right. But they are true faithful – look back at the front of the Capitol in January 6^th and see the number of “Q” flags and symbols.

Supremacists

Then there are the more typical white supremacists; the ones we got to know so well in Charlottesville.  “Jews will not replace us” was their battle cry then, and I’m sure there was a search for Schumer and Schiff and other Jewish legislators in the melee.  Probably they aren’t aware of the religious preference of Congressman Lee Zeldin, a staunch Trump supporter, though it’s hard to imagine they don’t know Jared Kushner’s background.  

And, of course, they searched for “the Squad”; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib.  These Members of Congress, women of color, felt so threatened by their fellow Congressmen that they didn’t stay in “the extraction site” where Members were taken for protection.  They believed that some of the others Members might communicate their location to the “mob” outside.  AOC isn’t telling the entire story yet, but at least she had a close encounter with a dangerous situation that day.

Who To Sleep With

White Supremacists, QAnon supporters, Boogaloo Bois, Proud Boys:  there were “fine people” on all sides of this riot.  And then there were the “regular” Trump supporters, egged on by Giuliani and Congressman Mo Brooks and Don Junior, as well as the President himself, to “march on the Capitol” and “fight, fight, fight”.  They should have looked around to see who they were marching with.

The media and law enforcement now call this a “white supremacist” riot.  At first, I was confused:  I just thought this was Trump supporters having Trump’s promised “wild time”.  But as we look back at January 6^th, we see the emergence of a threat even greater than Donald Trump himself.  This is a threat not of the normal “conservative right”. It is extremists who threaten to take our world back to the “good old days”, the time of Calvin Coolidge.  That was when the Ku Klux Klan marched fully robed and hooded down the streets of Washington, DC, twenty-five thousand strong. It was the height of their political and social power.  

Trump supporters: look around.  Is this who you want to “sleep” with?  Because these are the groups that chose Donald Trump.  And he is happy to “bed” with them.

Inaugural Memories

“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

It could be the final paragraph of Joe Biden’s inaugural address this coming Wednesday, January 20^th.  America, strained in passion has found its “bond of affection” stretched to the breaking point.  The “mystic chords” of our shared memory and history, of battlefields and patriots, our flag and anthem, seem not to be enough to hold us together.  Our “better angels” seem absent.

I haven’t received an advance copy of the Biden Inaugural Address.  This quote is not from Joe Biden’s text (at least as far as I know).  It’s the closing paragraph of Abraham Lincoln’s first Inaugural, done from the same front portico of the Capitol building.  And like Biden, Lincoln was surrounded by troops. The newly seceded Confederacy loomed close.  Virginia, a bridge away across the Potomac, while still in question at the moment of Lincoln’s speech, but would soon leave the Union.

Militarization

And there’s more in common between Lincoln’s and Biden’s Presidential beginnings.  Lincoln arrived in Washington aboard a special train from Baltimore, whisked through that city in the middle of the night.  A plot to kidnap him was about in the secessionist city, and Lincoln was secreted through.  Biden has travelled from his home in Delaware to Washington DC by train for his entire career.  He planned on doing it again, one more triumphal ride from Wilmington’s Biden Station (yep, he’s been doing it that long) to Union Station by the US Capitol on Monday.  But, like Lincoln, concerns for his security cancelled that journey.  Biden will arrive in Washington on a Marine Helicopter (not Marine One – only the serving President gets that designation).

Protection

Security in Washington DC is as high as any time since Lincoln was sworn in.  Seven thousand National Guardsmen line the streets and protect the buildings.  Another fourteen thousand will arrive before Inauguration Day, to supplement the Federal police forces and the DC Metro police.  Threats abound on the internet, despite the closing of social media to the insurrectionist mobs.  They are still communicating, plotting, and preparing for their “day” of the QAnon “Storm”.  The National Mall, where thousands always gather to watch the spectacle, is closed.  There will be no argument over whose crowd was bigger, Obama’s, Trump’s or now Biden’s.  Biden loses: the crowd is not allowed to enter.

Mayor Muriel Bowser of Washington has asked folks not to come to DC at all.  There is an evening curfew.  Roads in and around the Capitol building are closed.  Air B&B’s are cancelling their Washington reservations for the inauguration period.  Hotels are cancelling suspicious bookings.  There are no Inaugural Balls, though there will be some “virtual” concerts.  For those with my musical bent:  Carole King and James Taylor are among the performers.  The other benefit – it will reduce the spread of COVID.

The Biden Agenda

The task ahead for the Biden Administration is as daunting as any President has faced since Lincoln.  The economy is slowing crumbling under the weight of the pandemic.  Unemployment numbers are growing, and the temporary reprieve of the last COVID relief package will run out soon.  The “Build Back Better” infrastructure program might fix that, but there’s COVID to end first. The pandemic itself is growing.  By the time Biden takes the oath of office on Wednesday, more than 400,000 Americans will be dead from the disease.   The Civil War death total of 600,000 is not far in the future.

The vaccine distribution is far behind the “Operation Warp Speed” goals.  But more insidiously, the entire process of combatting COVID is mired in political tension.  Wear a mask, get the vaccine; support Biden. Don’t wear a mask, refuse the vaccine, support Trump.  With millions of Americans conflating politics and medical science, Biden must find a way to depoliticize the path to recovery, or the pandemic will be prolonged for months, even years.

As if not enough, there are the heavy expectations of Democrats: reforming policing, health care, student loans, diversity in government.  And, by the way, don’t forget climate change, and the America’s role in the world.

Reunification

Beyond all of that, our nation is so divided that thousands thought it was “OK” to invade the Capitol building to stop Congress last week.  It takes a paradigm shift:  IF you believe that the Presidential election was stolen, as the President, his minions, and right-wing media claim, then it’s not too far a leap to determine that Congress was the final “rigging” of the election.  Sure there were the “crazies,” from Proud Boys to QAnon to Boogaloo, but there were a lot of folks that honestly thought they needed to “stop the steal”.  The fact that they are misinformed insurrectionists doesn’t change their personal certainty.  Biden needs to combine determined accountability for the acts of insurrection, with the need to bring as much of the nation together as possible.  As Lincoln said, in his second inaugural:  

“With malice toward none, with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”

Lincoln never got the chance.  God Speed, Joe Biden.

Outside Trump Tower

Donald Trump, in one of his famous rallies before the election of 2016, was overwhelmed by the love of his “MAGA” crowd.  How much “love” did he feel?  “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and not lose any voters. It’s like, incredible.”

Taking the President at his word, what would Congress do if the President actually did just that.  Say he took an ivory handled pistol, and stepped outside of his former home in Trump Tower. He walked into the middle of Fifth Avenue, raised his pistol and without aiming, fired it down the street. And, what if the bullet struck a spectator walking into the nearby St. Patrick’s Cathedral? 

What would be the result?  He didn’t aim.  There was no proof of his intent to hit the 87-year-old grandmother, coming to light a candle for her late husband. No evidence that he meant to insight panic among those waiting in line to enter the Harry Winston Jewelry store, where one was trampled to death.  He was “just” firing the gun in the middle of Fifth Avenue.

Immunity

The President is immune from criminal prosecution according to the Department of Justice.  So immune, in fact, that Robert Mueller declined to even posit an opinion as the whether Trump obstructed justice, despite over one hundred pages of evidence to that effect.  The only option the Constitution (and the Justice Department) allows is the Constitutional process of removal – impeachment and conviction.  

Would the House of Representatives hold long-winded hearings to determine whether the President actually intended those folks to die?  Would they “study” the science of bullet trajectory and crowd panic?  Or would they just do the right thing. Would they impeach him immediately and bring him to trial in front of the Senate, a trial just like anyone else so irresponsible as to commit such an act.  And would the Senate wait a week for a “convenient time” to remove the gun from the President’s hand?  Or would remove they him from office, now, so that he can’t do it again.

A Bigger Weapon

On Wednesday, January 6^th, 2021, the President of the United States did much more than just “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody”.  

• First, he gathered a crowd of supporters for a “wild time” (his words) in Washington DC. He brought them to protest the Congressional counting of the Electoral votes.
• Second, he tried to persuade the Vice President of the United States to shirk his Constitutional duty. He demanded that Pence change the elected will of the American people.
• Third, when that didn’t work, he stepped out in front of the crowd, and fired them up to “fight, fight, fight” for him. He sent them down the National Mall to disrupt the Congress: : “March down Pennsylvania Avenue and take back our country”.
• Fourth, as the mob attacked the Capitol building, he sat in his office, watching on TV and refused to intervene.

He stepped out of the White House onto the National Mall, intentionally “aimed” the mob at the Capitol, and set them off against the Congress. He did it as surely as if he had stepped out of Trump Tower onto Fifth Avenue and fired that gun.  Six people are dead, tremendous physical damage done, and psychologically America is shaken to the core.

Remove the President

Sure there are multiple reasons to impeach and remove Donald Trump.  But there are two most important points that need to be made.  First, the sooner that Donald Trump is out of the Presidency, then the sooner the “gun” is out of his hands.  No one; not the Democrats, not the Republicans, not the Vice President, not the White House Chief of Staff, can pretend to know that Donald Trump won’t call forth the mob once again.  But we do know that he still has the “Bully Pulpit” of the Presidency in his hands.  

And second:  the precedent must be established.  The head of the executive branch has set “the mob” against the legislative branch.  It’s the first time in all of the acrimonious periods in United States history that has happened.  Jackson didn’t send the mob against Congress when they censured him in 1834.  Nixon didn’t try to rouse a mob in 1974.  Even Trump himself didn’t try that tactic just a year ago when he was impeached the first time.

It cannot be allowed to stand, not for a moment.  The voice of the Legislative Branch must make it clear to the Executive, to the Nation and to the World, that mob rule will not be the “American Way”.  

The Senate should take The House impeachment up – today.  If they don’t it is a failure in Democracy.  Should they refuse to do so (and Mitch McConnell has) it is just another black mark against the the Trump apologists of this era. They have enabled the “fake news” of this rogue Presidency to triumph once again.

House Republicans

Liz Cheney, the only Congressman from Wyoming, entered the US Capitol only five years ago.  She is now the Chairman of the Republican Caucus, the third highest job in the House Republicans.  Meteoric rise doesn’t quite describe Cheney’s ascension to power in a body where longevity is the path to influence.  But Liz Cheney doesn’t just represent Wyoming.  She represents President Ford’s Chief of Staff, the first President Bush’s Secretary of Defense, and the second President Bush’s Vice President. She is the daughter of Dick Cheney. The full weight of his career and power in the “old” Republican Party is fueling her rise.

Dick Cheney is best remembered for his “cold, hard” visage in the immediate days after 9-11.  Speaking from his “undisclosed location”, Cheney was the sharp-edged blade behind the Bush response to the attacks.  And while his attitude may be to blame for the excesses of the US Government response, particularly the CIA dark sites where prisoners were tortured and killed, it solidified his position as the leader of the “neo-cons” in the Party.

And his daughter, either through genetics or example, has inherited his gravitas.   

Cheney’s Statement

On Tuesday Liz Cheney, Republican Congressman from Wyoming, Chairman of the Caucus, and daughter of Dick Cheney said this about Republican President Donald Trump:

“Much more will become clear in coming days and weeks, but what we know now is enough. The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack. Everything that followed was his doing. None of this would have happened without the President. The President could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not. There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.  I will vote to impeach the President.”(CNN)

Senate Republicans

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is called “the turtle”.  Like a turtle, McConnell is often quiet, hiding his intentions beneath his “shell” of silence.  And like a turtle, he moves inexorably in a single direction, with no obstacle enough to deter his motion.  McConnell has taken some pride in another nickname, “the Grim Reaper”.  Dozens of bills, passed by the Democratic House of Representatives, have “died” on McConnell’s desk.  He refuses to bring them to the floor for debate, or a vote, or even to refer them to committees.  He has stood as a single roadblock to progressive legislation.

McConnell doesn’t send signals very often.  His tactic is more one of quiet surprise.  But when the New York Times and CNN report what McConnell is “thinking”, it’s likely not a mistake.  It is Mitch McConnell’s way of communicating to someone, in this case, the President of the United States.

 “Senator Mitch McConnell has concluded that President Trump committed impeachable offenses and believes that Democrats’ move to impeach him will make it easier to purge Mr. Trump from the party, according to people familiar with Mr. McConnell’s thinking.” (NYT)

Nixon

I was just graduated from high school in the summer of 1974, painting houses to earn some money as I waited to begin my freshman year at Denison University.  July of that summer was one of political tumult.  The Supreme Court ordered the “White House tapes” be revealed, and America heard the voice of the President of the United States, Richard Nixon, obstruct justice, plan bribes, and prove all of the worst charges of the Watergate conspiracy.

After the tapes came out, Nixon was still the President.  The House of Representatives began the process of impeachment, with the House Judiciary Committee under Congressman Peter Rodino holding hearings on the impeachment proposals.  Meanwhile, rumors emerged from the White House of a President, deep in his “cups”, speaking to the Presidential portraits on the walls.  America was vulnerable and the nuclear codes were still within Nixon’s reach.

After the committee confirmed the resolution, sending it to the floor of the House for debate and vote, a few Republican leaders went to see Nixon in the White House.  Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott, House Minority Leader John Rhodes, and Senator and former Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater didn’t tell the President to resign.  What they did make clear was that Nixon’s support against impeachment was gone (ARZ).  No one would stand up for him. Nixon was a lawyer, and well aware of the consequences of impeachment and conviction, particularly the financial impact of losing his Presidential pension and perks.  The next day, Nixon resigned from office.

Entrenched in his Defiance 

Thanks Hallie Jackson of NBC News – that’s the perfect phrase!

Mitch McConnell sent his quiet signal.  Liz Cheney painted hers in giant letters on the wall.  Even Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House Minority Leader, is said to be polling his friends as to whether he should vote for impeachment or not.  While no one feels welcome to walk over to the White House for a conversation with Donald Trump, they cannot signal him more clearly.  His support still exists, but the number of his supporters are dwindling.  And Trump’s powerful tool used to bludgeon Congressmen and Senators into line, the “Tweet”, is no longer available. 

Donald Trump has only a few days left as President.  As Nixon once said, “every fiber of his being” is telling Trump to stay and fight.  Trump, like Nixon, not only faces impeachment and possible (and with McConnell maybe probable) conviction.  It’s not just finances, though Trump definitely could use the money now, with even Deutsche Bank cutting ties.  It’s also the legal consequences, with Trump facing Federal charges for insurrection with a ten-year possible prison term.  And while Trump has fallen out with his Vice President, Mike Pence, there still is a “deal” to be made:  a resignation for a pardon.  

Don’t hold your breath.  “Entrenched in his defiance” is an apt description of the President, who is listening to no one but his own “gut”.  And the “gut” is saying: “ I can’t be a loser”.

Law School

I spent a semester at the University of Cincinnati Law School.  It was one of those things I had to know.  After graduating from college and three years of high school teaching, I still had to find out if Law School was for me.  I don’t regret a second of that semester.  I worked hard in school and also managed a political campaign in Cincinnati.  But in the end, buried away in the Law Library, I figured out that while the law fascinated me, teaching was my calling.  It didn’t help that the UC track was right down the street from the Law Building.

So when my old boss, superintendent Pete Nix, interrupted studying for my final Torts exam and asked if I wanted to be an eighth-grade history teacher and the high school boys track coach, I didn’t hesitate.  I said yes.  The hesitation came when I had to call Dad and tell him what I was going to do.  It took several months to win him over, though once he came around, he supported me throughout my career.

I don’t claim expertise in the Law.  What I have is twenty-eight years of explaining the Constitution to eighth graders through seniors.  They asked all of the easy questions and most of the hard ones, and fact-checked my answers year in and year out.  So while my advanced degree is a Masters in Education, not a Juris Doctor, I do have some understanding of the United States Constitution.

A Clock and A Calendar

Today’s essay isn’t really about politics.  It’s about the United States Constitution, and the how it applies to the Congress and the President of the United States today.  Time is running out for the Trump Administration, with only eight days to go before the clock runs out at noon on Wednesday, January 20^th.  That, by the way, is a Constitutional mandate, specified in the 20^th Amendment, the one that moved the Inauguration from March 4^th to the January date.  Think about how much happened from November of 1860, until March of 1861.   Multiple states seceded, Ft. Sumter was under threat, and the incoming President Abraham Lincoln could do nothing about it for four months.  And it took more than seventy years, until Franklin Roosevelt’s second term, for the date to be changed.

Impeachment

Yesterday a resolution to impeach Donald Trump was introduced in the House of Representatives.  The House has the sole power to impeach a President, that is, to bring charges against him.  It takes a simple majority vote.  And this time, unlike a year ago (seems like a lifetime), there won’t be long involved hearings and legal testimonies.  

The House will bring the Impeachment Resolution directly to the whole body for a vote, probably tomorrow, bypassing the usual Committee process.  Their argument:  the actions of the President are so apparent, inciting the “sacking” of the US Capitol to stop the Electoral ballot count, that the committee hearing process isn’t necessary.  As Donald Trump would say, he literally stood in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shot someone.  There isn’t really a whole lot to argue about those facts.

Why Impeach

The question is, with only a few days to go, why Impeach the President at all?    First, if the Senate was willing to act with the same alacrity, Donald Trump could be removed from office within the week.  He wouldn’t be able to use the Presidency to further damage the nation.  But we all know, the Senate, controlled by Mitch McConnell and the Republicans, won’t do that.  

Second, impeaching the President will give Donald Trump an American “first”.  He’ll be the only President to be impeached twice, a dubious honor.  And the word “impeach” has greater historic weight than the other House option, a “censure”.  Several Presidents have been censured, but even I had to go back to the “books” to remember who they are.  But Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump are the only Presidents to be impeached.  (No, Nixon resigned before the impeachment resolution was passed by the House).

It would tell future President’s that Donald Trump’s actions were unacceptable.

Conviction

For the Senate to convict on the impeachment, it requires a two-thirds majority vote (sixty-seven Senators). There are two Constitutional penalties that can be applied.  The best known, is that the President is immediately removed from office.  But with the this timetable, Donald Trump will already be gone before an impeachment trial starts.  In fact, Leader McConnell’s plan would have the entire trial occurring in the new Democratic controlled Senate, after the Inauguration of Joe Biden.  

It is the second lesser-known penalty that would be applied.  The Democrats will control the Senate, but only by the tie-breaking vote of the new Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.  Conviction of impeachment would require all of the Democrats and seventeen Republican Senators to agree.  But if they did, the second penalty can be imposed by simple majority vote.  And that penalty is disqualification from ever running for Federal office again.

That’s what the true penalty would be.  Donald Trump could never run for President again. 

Insurrection

And there is another, lesser thought-of Constitutional process that could be applied.  A strong case can be made that Donald Trump incited insurrection. The law, 18 US Code §2383 defines insurrection as:

Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

That’s the legal definition, to be applied by a Court if somehow Donald Trump is charged with the crime of incited insurrection.  And if that happens, and Trump is convicted, he is barred from running for office.

The Congress has another way to approach the insurrection question.  It all goes back to the end of the Civil War and the series of Amendments called the “Reconstruction Amendments”; the 13th, 14th, and 15th.   The major reason for the 14^th Amendment was the Southern invention called the Black Codes, laws that treated the newly freed slaves as a second and lesser form of citizen, with fewer rights and more legal restrictions.  The 14^th defined and required a single class of citizenship for all those in the United States.

The 14^th

That was in the first clause of the Amendment.  But in the second and third clauses, the Amendment dealt with the issue of the citizenship rights of the defeated Confederates.  The critical phrase that applies today is in the third clause:

“No person shall…hold any office, civil or military, under the United States…who, having previously taken an oath… to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same.”

On January 20^th, 2017, Donald J. Trump made the following oath:

“I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

So if he incited insurrection on January 6^th, 2021, then he technically violated the 14^th Amendment, Clause 3.

And Clause 5 of the Amendment states who decides whether insurrection was committed:

“The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article”.

So the House and the Senate could, by majority vote, determine that Donald Trump committed incitement to insurrection, and bar Donald Trump from running from office.  It circumvents the need for conviction on impeachment, and it also would bypass immunity from Court action as a result of Presidential pardon.  

If the Congress did this , it certainly would result in an appeal to the Courts, as some legal scholars claim that would be a “bill of attainder”, banned by the Constitution. It would end in the Supreme Court, with an uncertain outcome.  But it’s the third option.

Open Discussion

If you were ever in “Dahlman’s Class” maybe the best part was “open discussion” days.  And this would have been the perfect topic for an open discussion, though it might have gotten too deep for some.  But it has it all:  current events, Civil War history, intricate Congressional maneuvering, and, of course, that favorite history phrase, “what if”?  So, I hope you enjoyed our open discussion today. My best advice: avoid the Mexican pizza in the cafeteria, it smells like my running shoes. Stick to the peanut butter and jelly “Lunchables”.

How bad is the division of America?  Is our nation destined to fail because of a divide in “facts” and minds?  What direction need we go to find unity once again?

The Civil War

It was the last Presidential Election before the Civil War. America was so divided that there were four candidates and four political parties.  We know the “main” candidates, Abraham Lincoln representing the Northern (and western) Republican Party, and his Illinois arch-rival Stephen Douglas representing the Northern (and western) Democratic Party.  But the Democratic Party split at their convention in Baltimore.  The Southern Democrats walked out when the Party refused to recognize their right to absolute slavery. There was a “rump” Southern Democratic Party, led by Kentucky’s John Breckenrige, the serving Vice President of the United States.

And then there was a fourth Party, the Constitutional Union Party.  Their nominee was John Bell, the Senator from Tennessee.  They tried to create a “middle ground”, squarely straddling the issue of slavery by ignoring it. They campaigned on the slogan that they: “…recognize no political principle other than Constitution of the country, the Union of the states, and the Enforcement of the Laws”.  While they knew that Bell had no chance of electoral victory, they hoped to deny Lincoln a majority of the Electoral votes, and throw the election to the House of Representatives.

Death of Compromise

They failed.  Lincoln won the Electoral College, and in the months before he took office (at that time the new President was sworn in on March 4^th – think about that) the Southern states began to secede. In the Senate debate of the time, compromise after compromise was offered to avoid splitting of the nation.  But Charles Sumner, Senator for Massachusetts, summed it up best.  He believed there was no legislative answer to secession and that those looking to compromise misjudged the secessionist movement. “Deeming it merely political & governed by the laws of such movements, to be met by reason, by concession, & by compromise; whereas it is a revolution.”

A Revolution

The first question in our current crisis then is this:  is there still a Republican Party, or is there a former Republican Party and a “Trump Party”?  The answer to that question will determine our next step.  Our nation can still find “common ground” with the “old” Republican Party.  But the “Trump Party” has clearly stated its goal with the insurrection of January 6^th.  To paraphrase Senator Sumner, they cannot be met by reason, concession or compromise:  they are a revolution.   And unlike the secessionist movement of the 1860’s, the “Trump Party” not only has its own ideology, but it also has a whole separate world of “facts”.   There is no reasoning when there is no common ground, no common basis of knowledge.  No compromise can work when the parties cannot even agree on the hand counting of the votes.

Joe Biden desperately wants to be the President of unity.  And our Nation faces a crisis that requires unity:  COVID has already killed more Americans in less than a year than died in World War II.  That “butcher’s bill” is likely to get even worse in the next few months, the “dark hours” before the vaccine can kick-in.  There is a solution to avoid those unnecessary deaths.  It is in unity:  unity in wearing masks, social distancing, and getting the “shot”.  

But Joe Biden will not reach those willing to storm the Capitol and literally hang the Vice President and the Speaker.  There are not “…to be met by reason,” they are a revolution.  They don’t believe that distance, masks and shots will prevent death.   And millions of Americans agree with them – so how will Biden end a pandemic when they refuse to participate?

The Future

Biden is a “man of the Senate”, steeped in its culture of fierce debate followed by compromise and geniality.  And perhaps Biden can reach out to the “old Republican Party” of McConnell, Grassley and Portman.  But there is also the “Trump Party” of Cruz and Hawley in the Senate, and Gaetz and Brooks in the House.  They have sold their souls to the Trump Revolution and there can be no turning back from that choice.  How can there be compromise with such cynical and self-serving demagogues?

The future of the American experiment in Democracy will depend on the majority being willing to work together.  For the near future there will still be “the Revolution”.  They will be “true believers” who cannot negotiate, cannot compromise, and will not concede.  It will be up to “the rest”; the “Old Republicans” and the “Biden Democrats” to find enough common ground to make America work.  It will be through their success that the “Trump Revolution” will fade away.  Or, if that compromise fails, our Republic will find ourselves like the Constitutional Union Party:  the answer to a trivia question.

Insurrection

The more we learn about Wednesday’s assault on the Capitol, the more at risk we should feel.  What looked on the screen like a high school prank gone far wrong turned out to be so much more serious.  Five people died in the attack, including a Capitol Police Officer who was doing his job, denying entry to the masses invading the building he was sworn to protect.  It was no accident; he was hit in the head with a fire extinguisher.  

And one woman was killed.  She was part of the mob, smashing through the doors to the House of Representatives.  The police officers were barring them, buying time for Members of the House to evacuate the chamber.  The rioters looked through the glass windows and saw guns pointed at them.  They continued to batter the glass until it shattered.  The woman jumped up to go through the window, and was shot.

And we now know that some of the rioters had plastic handcuffs.  They were looking for the Leadership, and particularly Vice President Pence.  They were told by President Trump that Pence “refused” to give Trump the election.  Protestors were shouting “Hang Pence”, and gallows was actually erected on the Capitol grounds.  While many of the rioters might have been “swept along” into the Building, for some, it was an assault, with a mission, and a goal.  Bombs were present, as well as Molotov Cocktails.  

This wasn’t a greased pig let loose in the halls, nor alarm clock set in the lockers.  This was an attack, and while many of those participating surely didn’t know it, those masses were providing cover for a real threat to our nation’s leadership.

Proximate Cause

There is a legal term called “proximate cause”.  It describes the “first domino” knocked over, the beginning event that if absent, the whole rest of the chain of actions fails to occur.  If the drunk driver doesn’t get behind the wheel, the car doesn’t swerve, the accident doesn’t happen, and the child doesn’t get killed.  The direct cause is the car swerving, the proximate cause is the impaired driver.

What is the proximate cause of the attack on the Capitol?  Certainly, there were many who arrived in Washington with some assault in mind.  The bombs weren’t made on the spur of the moment, the plastic handcuffs weren’t stolen from the Capitol Police (they didn’t have them – and were strangely unprepared for the attack).  

Not everyone who listened to the President and the other speakers at the rally near the White House marched to the Capitol.  Many, including folks that I know, listened to the orations, cheered the speakers, then stayed in the National Mall.  Others did march to the Capitol as the speakers told them to do, but stayed outside.  We see them crowded around the building in the media.  

But for many, they followed the directions given to them by the President and his representatives.  They were told to fight for their cause, that the election was rigged, and that the Congress was about to confirm a corrupt candidate.  Donald Trump and his subordinates did not lead the march to the Capitol.  They did not batter the doors down, nor desecrate the floors with feces.  But as surely as if they were in the front, they “lit the fuse”.  They literally gave the marching orders and told the crowd to go to the Capitol and stop the vote.  They were the proximate cause. 

Attack on the Legislature

So, Congress is faced with a choice.  The sitting President of the United States literally launched a physical attack on the legislative branch.  The lives of the Congressmen and Senators were at risk.  If a few staffers hadn’t had the presence of mind to grab the boxes of Electoral certifications, the actual process of determining the vote would have been even more delayed.  While there are copies, if would have been another day at least, before the Congress could have ratified the Electoral vote.  What might have happened in that day?  And if the Vice President, or the Speaker, or others had fallen captive to the mob, what might have occurred?

Congress was attacked.  The President of the United States remains in office, for now ten days.  What steps should the Congress take to protect itself from an Executive who isn’t just making threats, but actually carrying them out?

Remove the President

There is an easy choice.  The Vice President and the Cabinet can remove the President, and make Vice President Pence the Acting President.  There’s a twenty-one-day window for the President to appeal to Congress, but of course, the new President will be inaugurated by then.  But the Vice President shows no stomach for that.  It’s a political choice more than a Constitutional one.  Pence plans to run for President himself in 2024.  He’s already “in trouble” with the “Trump base”. After four years of subservient fealty to Donald Trump, Pence failed to do what Trump wanted.  Pence did not subvert the law, ignore the election results, and try to proclaim Trump the next President.  

Mike Pence is making a political decision.  He doesn’t want to be the “final nail” in the Trump coffin, because he perceives it will cost him the primary votes he needs in 2024.  So, all the Vice President will do is “hold his breath” and hope that Trump will stew and simmer in silence for ten days.

Trump could resign.  And even though it might make legal sense (assuming Pence would offer him a pardon as quid pro quo for the resignation) no one expects “the Donald” to so acknowledge failure.  So that’s off the table.

McConnell’s Move

Then there is impeachment, the process already underway in the House of Representatives.  Tomorrow a resolution will be placed for debate on the Floor of the House.  Many Republicans will likely demand investigations and hearings, and decry the Democratic “railroading” of their beloved President.  But all of those members were impacted by the attack, the know what happened and why.  Again, they will measure the politics before all else.  Those Republicans too will face primaries in 2022, and they need the Trump voters.

But the majority Democrats and a few Republicans will pass a bill of impeachment, again.  Donald Trump will be the only President impeached twice.  He will finally gain his singular place in history.

And this gives Mitch McConnell his final political moves as Majority Leader of the Senate.  McConnell controls the Senate until January 20^th, Inauguration Day. On that day the now 50-50 body will lose Pence as the tie-breaking vote, and gain the new Vice President, Democrat Kamala Harris.  McConnell refuses to bring his Senate, now in recess, back to Washington before January 19^th.  And by refusing, he allows his Republican members to avoid taking a stand either for or against the President.  At least until Trump is gone.

Responsibility

And he also throws the whole “responsibility” for the results of the impeachment on the new Democratic Senate.  It’s unknown if enough Republicans will join to reach the two-thirds threshold to convict Trump.  If that occurs, it’s likely that the then more important simple majority to disqualify him from further office will be reached. But then it’s the Democrats fault, not Republicans.   Don’t be surprised to hear that echo into the campaigns of 2022 and 2024, whether Donald Trump himself can run or not.

The President of the United States sent a mob to the Capitol to stop them from acting.  That much is clear, and should be punished.  And that same President remains in office, a threat to the Constitution for the next ten days.  But what should be a simple decision based on fact will be decided by politics and by the continuing power of Donald Trump over the minds of many Republican voters. 

Hugh Hewitt

Man, I despise Hugh Hewitt.  Hewitt is a conservative radio talk show host out of Wisconsin.  His show is on the Salem Radio Network, and can be found on most “mainstream” conservative stations. When you’re falling asleep at the wheel, he’s a great choice.  Whatever they’re talking about, it’s bound to raise your blood pressure.  By the end of the show, you’re mad, frustrated, and wide-awake.  There’s your highway safety tip for the day.

I don’t despise Hewitt for his views.  Lots of folks, many of whom I call friends, share his positions.  Hewitt was a conservative before Donald Trump, working in various Republican Administrations and the Justice Department.  In fact, I respected Hewitt in the months leading up to the 2016 election.  He stuck to his conservative “guns”, in spite of Donald Trump.  He called Trump “as he saw him”, a charlatan and a fool.

No my big problem with Hewitt was his conversion to Trumpism.  In a few short weeks in January of 2017, Hewitt went from a conservative critic to a Trump mouthpiece.  Every Trump talking point became a Hewitt battle cry.  I’m sure it didn’t hurt that Hewitt’s son was working in the Administration.  And it that’s convenient change of heart that frustrated me.  I knew Hewitt before, and I knew him after, and I don’t like what I know now.

Derangement

So it isn’t a surprise that Hewitt wrote a long editorial for the Washington Post calling on Americans to let Trump finish out the eleven days of his term.  Hewitt does not want Trump impeached; he sees that as a form of revenge and retribution, not justice.  He even pulls out the term “Trump Derangement Syndrome” claiming that those who wish to remove Trump before January 20^th are simply suffering from some mental disorder.

Just an aside – I hate the term “Trump Derangement Syndrome”.  It is the way that pro-Trump folks use to denigrate those who oppose Trump.  It’s all about “well the stock market set records,” “our taxes went down,” and “he built the Wall”.  It says that because of the “mental disorder”, hatred for Trump, those suffering from the “syndrome” are ignoring all the “good” that Trump achieved.  I’ve got to tell you – it’s hard to find much good achieved in the past four years.  And the bad so outweighs the good:  ask 375,000 Americans dead in the last ten months.

Donald Trump fomented an insurrection.  He did it by promulgating false information about the American election, claiming that there was massive fraud that took “a beautiful landslide victory” away from him.  Trump convinced millions of Americans that their storied Republic was being subverted.  He called them to Washington DC, on the day that the Electoral ballots were counted.  And he sent many thousands of them to the Capitol, primed to “defend their President”. 

Trump didn’t have the “balls” to lead them into the Capitol building.  He was the ugliest kind of leader:  an arsonist who lit a match then went back into the White House and laughed as the mob smashed into the seat of our Democracy.  

Wink and a Nod

And then the President issued a staged video, telling his loyal followers that it was now time “to accept the results”. I didn’t see “the wink and the nod”, but the entire nation is still waiting for it. We all know how this works; we saw it after Charlottesville. “There were good people, on both sides; I know it and you know it too”. Trump is incapable of accepting the loss; he will call on his “people” again. Maybe we should call that “Trump’s Derangement Syndrome”.

So I’m all in favor of getting Trump out of office as soon as possible.  Vice President Pence and the remaining Cabinet members could do it.  This is one of the scenarios the 25^th Amendment was written for.  Unfortunately, Pence and Pompeo have made the political calculation that they will need Trump’s “people” to fulfill their own ambitions.  Pence should get a couple of “Atta-boys” for doing his job and counting the votes, but I’m sure that’s as far as he goes.  And Pompeo (rhymes with pompous) is hiding from the world, probably in an “undisclosed location” in the State Department. 

Or Pence could cut a deal with Trump:  a resignation for a pardon.  I can hear President Pence’s speech to the nation now, subverting Gerald Ford’s “now our long national nightmare is over” speech after the Nixon pardon.  But I’m not holding my breath for that either.

Insurrection

And I don’t blame Speaker Pelosi and the Democrats for seeking any means to remove this President before he can do more damage to our Constitution.  He literally tried to overthrow the government.  Men were walking through the Capitol Building with handcuffs.  A gallows was erected on the Capitol lawn.  Sure they looked like fools at a drunken college riot after losing the football game, but America was close to seeing some South American style power grab.  As long as Donald Trump is in the White House, the risk is still there.

But damn, Hewitt’s right.  Impeachment won’t get us there.  Mitch McConnell’s final act as the Majority Leader of the Senate will be to shelter Trump one more time.  He’ll do what he does best – delay.  Like Pence and Pompeo, it’s not about protecting Trump, it’s about protecting Republican Senators from taking a vote on Trump’s removal:  politics.

 Impeachment won’t get Trump out of office any sooner.  What it does do is exactly what Hewitt claims:  revenge and retribution.  And while there is no one more deserving of both than Trump, we have better processes for that than impeaching and removing a man who will no longer be in office when we get there.

We have the Courts for that.  And if Trump pardons himself and his family, we have the Courts for that as well.   If the Courts fail, we can always resort to the ballot box.  Meanwhile we need to hang onto our Republic tight for the next eleven days.  It is at risk.

Dallas

It was 1964, the year after the Kennedy assassination in Dallas.  The Warren Commission was doing the grim work of determining how an American President was shot down.  Lyndon Johnson, sworn in as President on the tarmac of Dallas’s Love Field with a bloodstained Jackie at his side, governed without a Vice President.  John McCormack of Massachusetts, the seventy-one year old Speaker of the House, was next in line for the Presidency. But there was no provision for replacing a Vice President

It was a year of the Presidential election and the passage of the Civil Rights Act. And it was the year when the critical early decisions were made that mired the United States in the Vietnam War.  But a few members of the Senate, led by Democrat Birch Bayh of Indiana, were looking at how our Constitution could be improved.  They were studying the Presidency, and more specifically, how our nation could replace the President.

Replacing the Vice President

The first question was easy:  how to replace a Vice President.  In the original Constitutional times it didn’t seem so important (Hamilton – “John Adams doesn’t have a real job anyway”). But in modern times holding a dual role, a job like the Speakership and being next in line, was complicating.  It was essential to be able to replace a Vice President, whether that person resigned or died, or was elevated to the Presidency.  So they took the standard Constitutional language for executive appointments, cabinet members and the like, and expanded it.  The President could nominate a candidate for Vice President, and with two-thirds approval of both the House and the Senate, a new one could be appointed.

Presidential Disability

Then there was the second grim possibility.  What if Kennedy had somehow survived the Dallas attack but was incapable of serving as President.  There was no mechanism for removing a President, temporarily or permanently, short of a resignation or impeachment and conviction.  There were the historic examples.  Woodrow Wilson’s stroke left him disabled for the last months of his Presidency and his wife, Edith, the actual Chief Executive. And more recently, Dwight Eisenhower was disabled for months after a massive heart attack.

This was the nuclear age, just two years after the Cuban missile crisis when the world stood at the brink of destruction. The President was the critical decision maker.  There was no time for long-term rehabilitation like Wilson or Eisenhower.  It was the age of a thirty-minute window from launch detection to nuclear holocaust.

So they established a provision that allowed the President to temporarily step aside from the office.  With a simple signed statement, the President could transfer the powers of his office to an Acting President, the Vice President.  With that same simple statement, the President could resume the powers of office.  And if the President was incapable of signing such a statement, then the Vice President and the cabinet could, by majority vote, replace him with the Vice President.

Who are the “Cabinet” for the purpose of determining this decision?  They are the “principal heads of the executive departments”, the Vice President and the “Secretaries”.  While many Presidents “elevate” other offices to Cabinet status, only those who are in the actual line of succession to the Presidency are part of the process of replacing the President. 

Nuclear Dilemma

Then there were the deep, dark fears of the 1960’s at the advent of the nuclear age, the era of Mutual Assured Destruction.  What if a single person, a B-52 Bomber pilot, or the General in charge of the Missile Battalions, or the President, cracked under the pressure of controlling the “nuclear button”?  They are all human, what if they somehow lost their minds, and determined to start a nuclear war?

For the pilots and missile launchers, the military developed the Fail Safe system.  It took more than one person, on the bomber, or the submarine, or in the missile silo, to launch an attack.  For most there were also secondary controls from central command that could prevent the launch even if both the “key-holders” tried.  And for the Generals and Admirals in charge, there were layers of command, with no one person in total control.

Except, of course, the President of the United States, the Commander-in-Chief.

The authors of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the Constitution absolutely contemplated a President who cracked under the pressure.  The process of temporary removal was quite specifically designed to provide an alternative to a President who lost his mind.

Coup d’état

But it also created a quick path to a “coup d’état”; an overthrow of the duly elected leader of the nation.  So they put a process in place, where the real President could appeal to the Congress to get the job back.  If the President was replaced, he could petition Congress. They are required to begin deliberations within forty-eight hours, and make a determination within twenty-one days.  To keep the elected President from regaining office, it would take two-thirds agreement of both the House and the Senate.

All of the contingencies were studied.  They thought about a President who simply had to have a medical procedure requiring anesthesia (George W. Bush), or one needing emergency surgery (Ronald Reagan).  They contemplated a Vice President who resigned (Agnew), or through death, removal or resignation, was elevated to the Presidency (Ford).  And they also thought of a President who was no longer capable of serving in office.

The Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the Constitution passed Congress by two-thirds vote in the summer of 1965, and gained the necessary three-fourths approval of the states in early 1967.  

Affirmative Duty

The Twenty-Fifth Amendment created a duty for the Vice President and the Cabinet.  If the President of the United States was unfit for office, it wasn’t enough for them to simply to look away, or even resign.  The Amendment created an affirmative duty for them to contemplate replacing the President, if, in their judgment, he no longer had the capacity to govern.  The powers of the Presidency are now too awesome to allow even a few days grace for someone unfit for office.

There are twelve days left to the inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.  We can only hope the Vice President Pence and the remaining Cabinet members (two have resigned) are aware of their duties.

The Capitol

In the winter of 1977 I worked in Congress.  I was just twenty years old, attending American University on their Washington Semester Program.   But I was also a paid intern with Congressman Tom Luken of Cincinnati.  I spent that winter and spring learning the “inside jobs” of a Congressional office:  answering phones and mail, researching legislation and doing the most important work, constituent service. It was heady stuff, with the words “this is Congressman Luken’s office” opening doors that were slammed closed on “regular folks”. 

It also gave me some license to roam the Capitol Building.  The Capitol is much like a giant hospital.  Sure there’s the main building, the actual Capitol with the iconic dome.  But there are buildings spread all around “the Hill”, mostly office buildings for the 535 Congressmen and Senators and their staff as well as all of the Committee staffs, research support staffs, and the people who actually made the building run.   Tunnels and subways connect the main building to all of the others.  It’s a huge web that you can get lost in just as easily as finding your destination. 

Snow Blind 

In that February I took a weekend to visit some friends in Pennsylvania.  They lived in a town called Mahoopany, just up river from Tunkhannock and Scranton in the Northeast corner of the state.  It was normally a four-hour drive, and I jumped into my 1967 Volkswagen Squareback and headed out of town into Washington’s Friday afternoon traffic.  The route worked its way north, into Pennsylvania, and into the mountains above Harrisburg.  And I drove right into a mid-winter blizzard.

I was twenty, invincible in my rear-engine and rear-wheel drive Volkswagen; Crosby, Stills and Nash blasting from the speakers.  I soon found myself far ahead of the trucks, driving through deep unplowed snow.  It became difficult to find the road.  I picked my way up the mountainside carefully, going until I felt the road go soft under my hands, then dragging the “Squareback” back to the center in an “anti-submarine” maneuver.  There were no guardrails, no visual cues as to where the road edge ended, and the mountainside began.

Looking back on those hours in the mountains, it wasn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever done.  My white Squareback would have blended away into the snow-covered mountainside if I careened off the edge.  They wouldn’t have found it, or me, until the next thaw.  But I managed to avoid the fall, and arrived at my friends in Mahoopany full of pride deep in the middle of the night.

Precedent

From the beginning of the American experiment in government, we depended on “guardrails” to maintain our Democracy.  President Washington realized that the Founding Fathers couldn’t write a “law” for every possible contingency.  So he was acutely aware that each of his actions as President established the precedent for the future.  

The most obvious example of that was choosing to serve only eight years as President.  Washington could have stayed for life and few would have complained.  But as Lin-Manuel Miranda so eloquently recognized in Hamilton, Washington realized that he needed to establish the final precedent of voluntarily leaving, of making Presidential power only temporarily linked to a person, rather than the office.  He needed to “Teach Them How to Say Goodbye”.  It wasn’t a “rule”, but it was the norm, the guardrail of American government:  until it wasn’t.

That lasted for one hundred and forty-two years, until Franklin Roosevelt chose to drive through that guardrail and run for a third term in office.  After he died in office in his fourth term, that guardrail was erected in law, the 22^nd Amendment to the Constitution.

And we have depended on other unwritten guardrails to maintain our Democracy.  As hard as it was to accept it, our Presidents honored the will of the people and transferred the power of their office when their time came, even when they suffered electoral defeat.  The modern “one termers”, from Herbert Hoover to Jimmy Carter to George HW Bush, made sure that the next President had every opportunity to succeed, even though they were electoral rivals.  They followed Washington’s precedent, and put the nation before their own ambitions.  That worked:  until it didn’t.

No Guardrails

There are no guardrails for a President who refuses to accept electoral defeat.  We have no precedent for a leader who calls on the people to come to Washington and  “…be there, it will be wild”.  And when he vented to them for seventy minutes on the Mall yesterday, they followed his suggestion to “…go down to the Capitol and cheer on our brave Congressmen and women”.  They knew why they were there:  because “…we will fight…we will never give up, never concede (to the) Democratic explosions of bullshit…” (US News).

Reverend Al Sharpton, a civil rights leader who has organized many marches on Washington, DC, recognizes the power of his words on the National Mall.  He knows that if he incites his crowd to commit crimes, he would be held responsible for their actions.  But he also knows how to maintain control of the ten of thousands who came to support his cause.  He wants them to be a symbol of support for change, not for destruction.

And so does Donald Trump.  He knows exactly what he was inciting his followers to do.  It shouldn’t be a surprise that thousands followed his command:  they marched down to the Capitol and they didn’t give up until they got inside and stopped the,  “Democratic bullshit”.

There are thousands who didn’t defile the Capitol, and who peacefully protested for “their” President.  But anyone who watched what went on yesterday recognizes that it wasn’t just an “aberrant few” who smashed their way into the sacred halls of Congress, and stopped the Constitutional process of certifying the Presidential election.  It was “the mob”, incited by the President and by months of “fake news” designed to convince them that their “will” was being thwarted by political “elites”. 

Off the Road

Yesterday afternoon our government felt like it was off the road in the blizzard, teetering on the edge of crashing down the mountain.  It would only take a few of the pipe bombs and Molotov Cocktails that were hidden away in a nearby car (WUSA) to make yesterday’s invasion so much more than just “touristing” in the legislative chambers.  Our Democracy was at the edge.  And there were no guardrails.

What can we do?  There are some physical guardrails now:  literal barriers of National Guardsmen and Police to stop the next mob heading down the Mall.  But the answer isn’t more police.  The man responsible for “lighting the fuse” should be held to account for his actions.  President Trump has twelve days remaining in office.  That’s twelve days for the Republic to “survive” without guardrails. 

Or it’s twelve days to send our Nation into chaos.

Happy New Year

I know; I’m late.  It’s January 6^th, and I’m wishing folks a “Happy New Year”.  But from a political standpoint, the unfinished business of the dreaded year 2020 still hung in the air on New Year’s Day.  It took until this week for that business to be resolved.  And, as a Democrat looking forward to the new day of the Biden Presidential Administration, the Tuesday was good:  so Happy New Year!!!

Deliverance

As a long time Democrat it still amazes me that Democratic “deliverance” was delivered by the state of Georgia.  Not California, not New York, not even Virginia or Michigan – it’s Georgia that’s “on my mind” and delivered Senate control to Chuck Schumer and the Democratic Party.  It was only two years ago that voter suppression in that state prevented Stacy Abrams from gaining the Governorship.  Her opponent, current Governor Brian Kemp used all the procedural powers of his previous job, Secretary of State, to make sure black people found it hard to vote.  

Mr. Kemp woke a sleeping giant.  Abrams and others have worked incessantly to make Georgia a state where everyone votes.  And “everyone” voting, including people of color, isn’t good news for a Republican Party that lashed itself to an aging white voting population.  The results of Abrams’ efforts are clear:  a Democrat, Joe Biden, narrowly won Georgia for the Presidency, the first time since 1992.

Georgia was important in Biden’s victory, but the “stars aligned” to make Georgia even more significant to Biden’s actual Presidency.  Through happenstance, Georgia had both Senate seats open for election in November.  And that was because of Georgia’s 50% rule.

Historic Racism

In 1962 Georgia instituted a law requiring officeholders to win 50% of the popular vote.  If they failed in the “general election” to get a majority, then the top two candidates would compete in a “runoff” election several weeks later.  While this “runoff” system may seem harmless, it actually was designed to reduce the power of minority voting blocks in the electoral process.  In plain terms – it was about keeping black votes from counting.  And make no mistake; it was segregationist Democrats that wrote Georgia law.

But Republicans co-opted the segregationist Democrats in the late 1960’s, and have benefitted from that racist position for decades.  Meanwhile Democrats became the Party of minority participation and advancement.

If Georgia didn’t have the runoff system – then in November incumbent Republican David Perdue would have won a six year term, and Democratic challenger Raphael Warnock would have defeated Kelly Loffler, and served the remaining two years of that term. 

But neither Perdue nor Warnock received 50% of the vote.  So both competed in a runoff election, Perdue against Democrat Jon Ossoff, and Warnock against serving Senator Loffler.  And as a result of November’s election in the rest of the nation, those two Senate seats determine which political party will control the US Senate.  If Republicans won one of those seats, then they would have a 51-49 majority in the Senate.  If Democrats won both, then it would be a 50-50 tie, with the new Vice President, Democrat Kamala Harris, breaking ties in the Democrats’ favor.

What Goes Around

In Tuesday’s runoff, Democrat Warnock gained 50.6% of the vote over Loffler’s 49.4%, defeating her by over 55,000 votes.  The runoff between Ossoff and Perdue was closer.  As of writing this essay, Democrat Ossoff has 50.2% of the vote to Perdue’s 49.8%, and a lead of over 17,000 votes.  While those results aren’t finalized – it is clear that two Democrats will represent Georgia for the next two years.  And that will give the Democrats control of the United States Senate.

It’s not just Biden’s cabinet selections or judicial picks that can now be approved.  Democratic control guarantees a hearing for the Democratic agenda.  Any single Democratic Senator will have control over those decisions (Joe Manchin).  But what it does mean is that the death lock that Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has kept on legislation just even being discussed is now over.  Proposals will go “to the floor”.  They will be debated, compromised, voted up or down. But the business of the Congress will now move forward, and not be left in a heap on the Majority Leader’s desk. 

The 1962 runoff law designed to disenfranchise minorities, elected the first Black Senator from the State of Georgia.  And the Party of disenfranchisement and voter suppression, the Republican Party, lost control of the Senate. 

Comes Around

And meanwhile the President of the United States invited a mob to Washington to defend him.  He is encouraging that mob to storm the Capitol Building, where the Congress is going through the process of certifying the election.  I am watching the crowd storm the Capitol steps, the Vice President evacuating the Senate Chamber, and the protestors enter the Capitol Building.  

And it strikes me:  if this were a Black Lives Matters protest instead of a Trump protest, would a protestor with a gas mask be gaily wandering through Statuary Hall?  Or would the tear gas and pepper spray and more have been deployed long before they entered the building?  Need a definition of white privilege – here it is.

We still have a long way to go.

Junkie

I guess I really am a political “junkie”.  I read the Mueller report, cover to cover, and I watched almost every minute of Mueller’s testimony (poor man).  And I read the “whistleblower’s report” and sat through every step of the impeachment process.  I can’t say I started as an “unbiased” juror of the Trump Presidency, but I can definitely say that I found him guilty on every count.

So it was with some reluctance and fatigue that I faced losing thirty minutes of my life, reading another transcript.  This time it was of another “perfect call”, made to the Georgia Secretary of State.  I would have just listened to it, but I knew that way led to somnambulism.  So I sat and read through every “um” and misquoted figure.

My first impression is the same that one that I got from the President’s conversation with Zelensky of Ukraine:  how can this be the PRESIDENT of the United States, the “leader” of the free world?  The dialog wasn’t diplomatic; it wasn’t even professional. Mario Puzo should have written it for The Godfather movie.  There clearly was the gangster, “…I’m making an offer you can’t refuse,” tone throughout.

Intent 

Did President Trump commit a crime in this conversation?  The answer is a firm “maybe”.  As Michael Cohen testified so long ago, Donald Trump never actually says what he’ll do: he just implies it.  So when he told the Georgia Secretary of State that he could “be in big trouble” it implied a threat but didn’t technically make one.

At best, the conversation was that of a whiny loser begging for the counters to change the count.  At worst, it was the President of the United States threatening a state official to get him to “rig” an election.  But after wading through the entire conversation, I’d think there’s a third conclusion that gets Trump “off the criminal hook”.

I think Donald Trump believes everything that his sycophants are telling him.  He believes that the Democrats pulled off the greatest election fraud in American history.  And he also believes those Democrats were stupid enough to rig the election for Biden, but failed to bring the rest of the Democratic ticket along. 

Feeding a Delusion

We always knew that the Trump staff scheduled rallies to make the President “feel better”.  We know he needed the adoration of the crowd, the MAGA hats and “lock her up” chants.  So it isn’t a stretch to believe that Trump thinks that since thousands came to his rallies, he should have won the election.  His thought process:  it was true in 2016, why wouldn’t it be true today. (That wasn’t true then either).

And that’s scary in so many ways.  It means that Trump’s thinking completely discounts the pandemic’s impact on the election.  He compared his rallies to Biden’s, when Biden specifically determined NOT to do rallies in order to control the spread of COVID.  Sure the President ridiculed the “drive-in” rallies of the Democrats, but that should have been just rhetoric.  But it wasn’t:  Trump really didn’t get it.  He thought that Biden made a political decision that he couldn’t compete in drawing the crowds, and so didn’t try.  

Worse than Criminal

Donald Trump is the President of a United States that is losing over 3000 citizens a day to COVID.  That’s more than a Pearl Harbor or a 9-11, every day.  But when it came to the campaign, Trump operated like it wasn’t even happening.  And now we can see that wasn’t just a tactical decision, it was a denial of reality.  And (sorry Trump haters) it wasn’t a cold blooded “I don’t give a damn”: it was a real belief that those deaths weren’t important, and maybe not even happening.

In the last days of Watergate back in the summer of 1974, Richard Nixon was drinking heavily.  He wandered the halls of the White House, talking to the portraits of deceased Presidents.  He told them how unfair the nation was, and how all “the good” he could do was now gone.  His Secretary of Defense, James Schlesinger, made sure that any military orders from the White House came through his office first.  The executive staff made sure that a deluded or drunk President couldn’t start a war.

Donald Trump believes:  he believes that he won the election, he believes that the Republicans in Georgia and Arizona and the other states are cheating for Biden, he believes that COVID should be ignored.  The most powerful man in the United States, the Commander-in-Chief, the leader of the free world isn’t a criminal:  he’s delusional.  And his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, is right there along with him, encouraging the delusion.  Absolute Trump loyalists recently replaced the civilian leadership of the Defense Department.

That shouldn’t make anyone feel better.

Just the Facts

I am not a Republican, so I don’t “ have a dog” in this fight.  In previous essays, I told Republicans to stay out of internal Democratic fights, so I shouldn’t be “kibitzing” into this one.  But as an historian and an observer of current affairs, the question is fascinating.  Are we seeing the schism of the Republican Party?

The fault lines are clear.   There are Republicans who are in favor of contesting the Presidential Election of 2020 in the Congress, and there are Republicans who are not.  On the “Trump” side, Republicans claim that the 2020 election was “rigged” and that the Democrats cheated to win.  They make this claim regardless of the facts – there is NO evidence that the Democrats really cheated.

Ron Johnson, Senator from Wisconsin, made the issue clear on Meet the Press yesterday.  “Millions of Americans have questions about the election results, and we need to stop the process and examine what really happened”. His logic is that the questions alone are enough to create the need to stop the election, even though he could not produce any evidence that fraud occurred. 

 NBC’s Chuck Todd called him out. Todd stated that the millions were only questioning because Johnson and his compatriots told them to question.  Johnson’s response was to deflect and accuse the Mainstream Media, “like you,” of covering up fraud.  But he couldn’t answer the question – because there is no evidence to back up the charges.

Started the Fire

Missouri Senator Josh Hawley claims that he only is exercising his Constitutional duty to investigate and represent the 72 million Americans who voted for Trump.  First, he overstates the numbers.  Polling shows that as many as 68% of those Trump voters think the election was rigged.  That’s 49 million.  But Senator Hawley, like Johnson, has been a leader in raising questions about the election, again, without evidence.  He is putting out a fire that he helped to start (WAPO).

Currently twelve Republican Senators will object to the results in the Congress on Wednesday.  Nineteen have stated that they accept the election outcome, and twenty have not made it clear where they stand.   And there will be as many as one hundred and forty Republican House of Representative members who will object to the count.  

Process and Procedure

But to stop the election of Joe Biden as President, it requires a majority of both the House and the Senate.  Democrats control the House, who of course will support Biden.  Republicans control the Senate by the narrowest of margins, 51 to 48, at least through Wednesday.  But unless all of those Republicans, including Sasse, Romney, Murkowski, and Toomey agree to vote against him, Biden will be President.  And those four Senators, and several more, have made it clear they will not vote against Biden.

Joe Biden will be inaugurated as President on January 20^th.  So what is this all about?

Fault Lines

For five years, there has been a segment of the Republican Party who stood against Donald Trump.  Former Ohio Governor John Kasich was an early critic, refusing to withdraw from the 2016 Republican primaries.  But there were many others, including John McCain, former Republican Presidential nominee. And over Trump’s term others have emerged. Mitt Romney actually voted to remove Trump from office in the impeachment trial.  

A segment of the “political operatives” of the Party broke officially away from Trump.  Former RNC Chairman Michael Steele spoke out against him.  McCain Campaign Manager Steve Schmidt helped organize “The Lincoln Project” that was instrumental in campaigning against both Trump and his supporters in the 2020 election. 

And now the Electoral Vote certification process is forcing others to take a stand.  Former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and seven former Republican Secretaries of Defense, including Vice President Dick Cheney, have come out against interfering with Biden’s election.  

Super Power

Donald Trump dominates the Republican Party through the power of his influence.  It is the “Sanford Effect”.  With a single tweet, Donald Trump caused the defeat of South Carolina Congressman Mark Sanford in the Republican primary.  Trump voters dominate Republican primaries, and as South Carolina showed, Trump can alter the results with a “word”.  

This “super power” has led former Trump opponents like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio to become sycophants.  But no one has reversed course harder than Lindsey Graham, who now hugs Trump as tightly as he can.  And the “Sanford Effect” has reached even farther, silencing Republicans like Nikki Haley, Rob Portman, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

For many of the non-Trump Republicans, this fight is about what the Republican Party stands for.  They are “traditional” Republicans like Nebraska’s Ben Sasse, worrying about Constitutionalism and deficit spending.  But for others, this crisis is about raw politics.

2024 Begins

The Presidential election of 2024 is already on.  Here’s the scenario:  Joe Biden will be eighty-two, and may chose not to run for a second term. Vice President Kamala Harris will be his “heir apparent”.  Unlike Biden, it will be easy to paint Harris as a “radical liberal” (to use Kelly Loeffler’s phrase).  So potential Republican candidates are maneuvering for position.  Some see themselves as the inheritor of the “Trump core”.  Others think the Party will revert back to the Romney-McConnell-Ryan Party of 2012. 

But what if the GOP becomes both?  The “Lincoln Project” Republicans are never coming back to a Trump-like Party.  Will they continue to lead the “schism” into two political forces, Trumpism and old-school Republicanism?  And if that happens, how will that impact the electoral future of America?  Will the division of the Republican Party push the “moderate Republicans” (think Kasich, or Governors Hogan of Maryland and Baker of Massachusetts) into a physical split with the Trumpers? 

Democratic Choices 

Democrats are left with a couple of choices as well.  A split Republican Party could encourage a split in the Democratic Party.  The “Sanders” progressive wing of the Party could decide to branch out on their own, leaving the more moderate Biden wing behind.  The moderates might be tempted to move even more to the middle, to “poach” the “middling Republicans”, as they tried to do in the 2020 election.

Or the Democrats could unite to take advantage of a divided GOP.  But don’t bet on that. After all, we are Democrats, and that would be far too easy.

Budding Politician

I spent much of my late adolescence and earlier twenties around politicians.  I was one myself, stepping onto the first rungs of the ladder that led to a political career.  At fourteen I was helping to strategize a local judge election.  By eighteen I worked to orchestrate a Congressional “Get Out the Vote” operation.  At twenty, the Carter/Mondale Campaign “handed me the keys” to six counties in Southwestern Ohio, and gave me major responsibilities in Cincinnati as well.  I went from there to work “on the Hill” for a Congressman in Washington and then again back at home in Cincinnati.  Four years later I was managing a Cincinnati City Council Campaign.

So I was around politicians a lot.  And while all of them did what they had to do to win the next election, many were looking forward to “making things better” when they got the opportunity to govern.  Even the folks “on the other side” seemed to be serious about improving the lives for their constituents, though they might have very different ideas about how to do it.

Divisiveness

Politics could still be divisive.  I “cut my teeth” at the end of the Vietnam War era.  One mentor campaigned for Ed Muskie in New Hampshire of 1972, and another learned his job from the Humphrey general election campaign in 1968.  There was nothing so divisive as Vietnam and Civil Rights, and both of those issues were still part of the environment when I started.  

Surrounded by politics and those that practiced the art from both sides, I grew to believe that most (not all) were indeed patriots. Sure they wanted to win and would do almost anything to succeed.  But they also wanted to help “their people”.   That included the folks that voted for and against them.  They cared about our history and traditions, and knew which lines to cross and which ones to respect.  And they ultimately saw themselves in the tradition of the Founding Fathers:  trying to continue and improve the American Experiment.  

In today’s polarized world, that view sounds antiquated and naïve.  But I still cling desperately to it.

Denial

But the current actions of many of our Congressmen and Senators are challenging my view.  They are purposely furthering a world where facts are no longer important, only fanciful stories of their leader.  It’s been going on for five years.  Before we ever got to the 2020 election, we ignored Robert Mueller.  His report was convoluted and afraid to reach conclusions.  But a plain reading of the four hundred some pages lead to two undeniable conclusions:  the Russians were involved in the 2016 Trump campaign, and the President and his men engaged in a two year campaign to obstruct that fact.

Whether it was enough to “convict” or “impeach” might be arguable – but the facts Mueller presented were clear to read.

That those same “respected” and “old school” Republican politicians would echo the Trump theme of “Russian Hoax” was saddening.   And the same was true with the Impeachment.  Again, the facts were clear, we all knew exactly what the President wanted Ukraine to do, and how he was going to get them to do it.  Some of the Republican Senators at least acknowledged the plain truth of that and then simply said it wasn’t enough to remove the President.  But others fell in line with the Trump “perfect call” defense.

It’s Over

And now there’s the election of 2020.  In the United States, we measure our winners and losers in terms of Electoral votes.  We were reminded of that again in 2016.   Who wins the majority of popular votes really doesn’t matter:  ask Hillary Clinton or Al Gore.  But “them’s the rules that we play by”:  that’s what we were told in 2016 and 2000.  And Gore and Clinton swallowed hard and did the “American thing”.  They stood in front of the nation and acknowledged their loss.  Bothdid what the folks I grew up with would do.  They were “pros”; good politicians, even though it was the hardest thing they would ever do.

That Donald Trump refused to do so isn’t a surprise to anyone.  And that he would create a false narrative of widespread fraud isn’t surprising either.  He set that fake scenario up from the beginnings of the 2020 campaign.  Americans, and politicians, should look at him and see him for what he is:  an amateur. 

Not Just Politics

What is incredibly concerning is that so many other Republican politicians have made the decision to go along with this rank amateur for one more time.  It’s not about being “true believers”. They aren’t all stupid (though Congressman Gohmert might be the exception).  Those Congressmen and Senators understand the facts, but they reached a political conclusion making their career more important than the course of the nation.  They are more afraid of losing their “seat”, than the fate of the American experiment. 

These “politicians” are the antithesis of patriots.  Their self-interest is more important than their country.  Instead of “leading” their followers, they are following them.  They have more in common with Benedict Arnold than George Washington (and yes, I just called them traitors).

And it’s not just in statement and tweets.  On Wednesday they will actually stand for something that they must know is false.  They will question the results of the American election – the core basis of our Constitutional system.   And they will do it in the full knowledge that they are lying.  

It won’t change the outcome – Joe Biden will be the next President.  But it will damage the fabric of our nation once again.  What else is a better definition of treason?

Star Trek

I was a Star Trek guy, a Trekkie, from the very beginning.  I watched the first airing of Star Trek as a ten year old in September 1966.  The memory is distinct, not so much for the show, but because a car hit our dog Louie in front of the house just as the credits were rolling.  Louie didn’t make it, but I still watched more Trek, all of the originals, most of the Next Generation, some of Deep Space Nine, a few Voyagers, and on and on.  

What I missed the first time around I caught on re-runs, from Captain Kirk’s first interracial kiss with Lieutenant Uhura (a bad Olympian God made him do it) to giving up the woman he loved for the universe in The City on the Edge of Forever.  I am a Trekkie – I’ve watched the movies, and I watched the new series, Star Trek Discovery, yesterday afternoon. 

The Original

But it was the original Trek that gave us most of the famous lines.  “More Power Mr. Scott”, “I’m a Doctor, not a bricklayer”, “Captain, the engines can’t take it any longer”, “Live Long and Prosper”, and the ubiquitous “Beam me up Scottie”.  It was the original authors who came up with the “magic” engine drive that pushed Starships across the Universe. Zefram Cochrane developed the “Warp Engine” out of the ashes of World War III. Cochrane was born in the not so distant future, sometime in the 2030’s.  His “Warp Drive” that could bend space, allowed vehicles to shortcut through “subspace” to a far location.  

How did Cochrane do it?  He discovered that some left over nuclear weapons could be used to make plasma to inject into a “Warp Drive Core”.  Later, they found that dilithium crystals could do the job more efficiently.  And one of the great dangers on the original Enterprise was degradation of the dilithium crystals:  no crystals, no Warp drive.

Appropriation

OK, enough about Star Trek.  But it’s not my fault.  I blame it on President Trump.

After all, he named the mission to create a vaccine for COVID-19 “Operation Warp Speed”.  There is no other “Warp Speed” but from Star Trek, so when Trump starting using Trekkie language, it’s “open season” on using Trek analogies.

And, credit where credit is due, the first half of “Operation Warp Speed” worked.  The historic long-term five to ten year process of vaccine development was condensed to less than ten months.  (It should be noted that scientists did get a “head start”, working with corona viruses, though not COVID-19, for years).  The Pfizer Company chose not to participate in the development phase of “Operation Warp Speed” and developed the vaccine themselves.  But others:  Moderna, Johnson and Johnson, Astra-Zeneca all did get funding and help from “Warp Speed”.   Two vaccines are up and running, two others are just weeks from approval. 

But having a vaccine doesn’t mean a thing if it doesn’t get in people’s arms.  There is a famous story about the early days of penicillin.  As World War II began, if both Churchill and Roosevelt needed the drug, there wasn’t enough available to save them both.  Making the drug is one thing, getting it out to the public is quite another.

Herd Immunity

And what does that mean?  In the United States there are near 330 million people. “Herd immunity” from COVID-19 is the point when most Americans won’t be at risk from the disease. It requires around eighty percent, or 264 million Americans to either be vaccinated, or have immunity because they contracted COVID.  Right now, more than 20 million Americans have been diagnosed with COVID, so we need 220 million Americans to get the vaccine.

“Operation Warp Speed” – the Trump plan, set a target of 20 million Americans vaccinated by January 1^st.   Here on December 31^st, about 2.5 million have actually received the first shot (of two).  We aren’t at “Warp Speed”; in Trekkie terms we are operating on “impulse power” only, or maybe just on “maneuvering thrusters”.  At the rate were going, we won’t get to “herd immunity” until 2030, about the time Zefram Cochrane is supposed to be born.

The Process

What is the problem?  The “model” that President Trump used to disseminate the vaccine, is the same one used throughout the COVID crisis.  His idea is that the Federal Government may supply the materials:  the tests, the protective gear, and suggestions on how to stop the spread.  But it’s up to the state and local governments to put all of those into effect.   

There are two reasons for this.  First, it places the responsibility for the hard decisions, like closing businesses and schools and locking down residents, on local authorities. And that works for the President politically.  He’s the big supplier without being the “bad guy”.  When it’s to his advantage, he attacked the state and local leaders required to make tough choices.  And second, it pushed a lot of the costs from the Federal Government onto the State and Local governments.  Trump didn’t get stuck with the bill.

So “Operation Warp Speed” is producing a lot of vaccine.  Those vials are getting on trucks, and headed out to the states. And that’s where they stop.  State and Local Departments of Health are already incredibly overburdened with testing and tracing. And those same agencies are being attacked both by politicians and civilians because of the health restrictions they recommend.  

Now add to that the need to prioritize, organize, and optimize vaccinations.  It’s no surprise that they are failing, like a dilithium crystal left in the warp core chamber far too long.   It’s like the Starship Enterprise with a cadet crew (isn’t that the theme of the movie, The Wrath of Khan?).  

Where No Vaccine Has Gone Before

What needs to happen?  We need the organizational structure of James T. Kirk, Captain, or maybe even the more sophisticated command of The Next Generation’s Jean Luc Picard.  We need the whole Federation, the Federal government of the United States, to step in and get the vaccine to the people.  We can’t depend on the Licking County Heath Department to take charge of this; they’re stretched beyond belief already.  We need the United Federation of Planets (or the United States of America) to take charge.  They’ve got the resources, the personnel, and the mandate to “go where no vaccine has gone before”.  Then we really can get to “warp speed”.   

“More power, Mr. Scott!!”

Tuesday’s Workout

Somewhere in the middle of Tuesday’s workout, I changed channels.  My standard MSNBC Morning Joe was doing a review of the year; and 2020 was bad enough the first time.  So I made a foray into the alternate universe of Fox and Friends. I used that to distract me from the “special high intensity training” of a stiff resistance elliptical machine setting. And Fox often gets me fired up to work even harder.  Yesterday was no exception:  former Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich, was propounding on the state of politics today.

It didn’t hurt my motivation that one of Gingrich’s first statements was that there was no need for Congress to increase the $600 stimulus.  Millions of Americans “made money” on the pandemic he said, in fact, “…millions of government workers, particularly teachers, sat on their butts doing nothing and collecting their paychecks,” during the crisis.

I retired from public school teaching in 2014, but I did take a full-time substitute-teaching job on March 9^th of 2020. A week later the pandemic closed the school, and I was one of those teachers who went home to prepare to teach “online”.  For the next two months, I learned all about developing video lectures and Zoom classes, Google classroom communication and online testing.  I am, in the teaching world, an “old dog” but I had to learn a whole lot of new tricks. It was the hardest teaching I did in a thirty-six year career.  Yes, I was at home, and yes, I was sitting on my “butt” in front of a computer.  But, like most teachers then and now, I was working that “butt” off to try to teach my kids.

So that got my through a mile of Tuesday’s workout.

A Revolution?

Watching Newt reminded me of the “Revolution of ‘94” he led.  This was before Trump and the Tea Party, but Gingrich was able to gain control of the House of Representatives in 1994 with his “Contract with America” program. It promised less government and more “freedom”.  The overall theme of Newt’s program:  

• Congress is full of fraud, waste and abuse
• Government must balance the national budget
• Legislators should be termed limited
• Social Security should be privatized 
• Stricter punishments for criminals
• Cut welfare programs
• Reduce legal liability protection (tort reform)
• Reduce government regulation of business.

Now that Joe Biden is going to be the Forty-Sixth President of the United States, we are going to hear many of those same themes once again.  The “Contract with America” was a “repackaging” of the standard Republican line when they aren’t in power.  It’s already happening.  Republicans in the Senate are now worrying that the Government is spending too much money to combat the pandemic economic collapse.  This is after they have voted to give more than a trillion dollars in tax cuts in the past three years, mostly to those Americans with the top one percent of income. And this week they are ready to override a Presidential veto and spend $738 billion for the National Defense Authorization Act.  

Priorities

The difference between Republicans and Democrats really isn’t about how much money they are willing to spend.  It’s what they want to spend the money on.   Spend money on incredibly expensive aircraft that are ready to fight the Cold War of the 1960’s:  most Republican legislators think that’s great.  General Dynamics and Boeing and Raytheon all need the contracts.  Spend money to allow Americans to stay at home and stop the spread of COVID, like most other modern industrial nations – well, workers need to get off their “butts” and get to work.  Let’s call them “essential” so they feel important, but not provide the funds to safely get their jobs done.

I look at Newt Gingrich, now an author of historical novels and a paid commentator for Fox, and I see the beginnings of the ugly “alternative news” world we live in today.  He promised a “freedom” that benefited the wealthy, and that “freedom” made life even harder for everyone else.  It “remade” the Republican Party into one with a “populist” agenda, but that agenda still aimed to “free” the wealthy to keep gaining wealth.  

Sounds a lot like Mitch McConnell or Donald Trump today, doesn’t it?

Three miles done, uphill, both ways:  time to climb down from the elliptical and get on with the day.  

Thanks Newt!

Precedent

“He who doesn’t know history is doomed to repeat it”.   That’s the quote we heard, particularly from our high school history teachers during some slow and arcane chapter in the study of the past.  But, like a lot of history, that’s not quite how the quote goes.  Philosopher George Santayana gets “the credit” for the idea.  He said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”.  

In our legal processes “the past” is critical to what occurs today.  In the American process, we depend on written legislation, codified or statutory law, to determine what the “law” is.  But the basis of American law is English Common Law, developed from Law Courts of the medieval times.  And English Common Law is based wholly on precedent, on what judges determined in similar cases in the past.  Our current legal system is a hybrid:  statutory law is important, but how judges interpreted that statutory law is just as important in determining outcomes.  

Courts aren’t the only parts of our Government bound by precedent.  The United States Congress is highly cognizant of their two hundred and thirty two year history.  It should be little surprise that the second Vice President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson originally developed the Rules governing the House and Senate in 1801.  Those rules are still part of what governs their actions today. So when they look to procedure in the Congress, their first look is to the past.  

Alexander Hamilton 

Current Congressman Louie Gohmert is attempting to overturn the Presidential election of 2020.  The Texan is calling for a “revolution”; he’s trying to claim a Parliamentary power for the Vice President of the United States, acting as the Presiding Officer (the President) of the Senate.  And that is how we head down the “rabbit hole” of precedent.

Here’s where Thomas Jefferson, and Aaron Burr, come in.  The United States Constitution (Article II, § 1) established the method of using the Electoral College for choosing the President and Vice President.  The states chose Electors, and each Elector cast two votes for President.  The winner of the majority of votes became President and second place was Vice President.  That worked for George Washington who won and John Adams who got a few votes and became the first Vice President.  And it worked for Adams in 1796.  He defeated Jefferson and became the second President.  But four years later, when Jefferson ran against Adams, things hit a snag.

Jefferson’s Party, the Democratic-Republicans (now Democratic) ran Jefferson for President, and New Yorker Aaron Burr for Vice President.  Each elector cast their two votes for President, and Jefferson and Burr tied, with Adams taking third.  Since there was a tie, even though it was clear that Jefferson was the “head” of the Democratic-Republican ticket, the choice for President was thrown to the House of Representatives to decide.

The House voted by state to break a tie for President (still does).  In the House of 1801, by State the Federalist Party controlled.  That meant that the Federalists had to decide which Democratic-Republican candidate they wanted for President.  While Adams was the “head” of the Federalist Party, the real power still resided in the Party founder, Alexander Hamilton, Burr’s New York rival.  Hamilton threw his support to Jefferson, and Jefferson won.  We know how the rest of the Burr-Hamilton story goes.

12^th Amendment

Recognizing the flaw in the system, the Congress and states passed the 12^th Amendment to the Constitution in 1804.  That altered the process so that the Electors cast one vote for President, and one vote for Vice President.  There could still be a tie for President or Vice President, but it wouldn’t happen the same way as it did in 1800.  And that process worked, even when no candidate won a majority of the Electoral votes for President in 1824.  The House acted as the “tiebreaker”, choosing John Quincy Adams from the field of three.

So the process went along its merry way, through the four-way contested election of 1860, and even during the Civil War.  It wasn’t until 1876 that the system hit another “snag”.  In that election, the Republican Party nominated Ohio Governor Rutherford B. Hayes to run against Democrat New York Governor Samuel Tilden.  It was the first election after the Civil War when all of the former Confederate states were allowed to vote again, and, not surprisingly, there was controversy in some of them.  In South Carolina two sets of Electors were sent to Congress for President, a set for Tilden, and a set for Hayes.  Whichever set was allowed to “count” would determine who would become President.

It all turned into a political mess, tied to the removal of the Union Reconstruction troops from the South.  Ultimately, the Democrats gave up the Tilden Presidency in order to get the troops out, and Hayes was declared the winner.  But it was a near thing. The deal wasn’t made until March 2^nd, only two days before the inauguration.  

US Code Title 3

After that close call of “who gets to be President”, Congress passed a law called “The Electoral Count Act of 1887”.  In 1948 that law was “codified” into the United States Code, Title 3, the law that governs how Congress determines the President and Vice President today.

US Code Title 3 established an elaborate calendar for the determination of “legal” electors.  It places the responsibility of determining electors on the states, and sets a “date certain” when the states decisions are considered final.  That date certain was December 14^th of 2020 for this election, and every state met that standard.  Those Electors were then certified by the Governor of each state, and those certified “Electoral Votes” were transmitted to the “Archivist of the United States”, a guy named David Ferriero at the National Archives, in the proper time.  He’s got the votes, and they are all “legal”.

US Code Title 3 then establishes the date when the Congress will meet in joint session (House and Senate together in the House chamber) to actually count the votes.  Under the 12^th Amendment and the Code, the Vice President of the United States presides over the joint session.  He will open and present the certificates of electoral votes to be counted, by state in alphabetical order.

As each certificate is read by the Vice President, “…he shall call for objections, if any”.  Under US Code 3 §15, for an objection to be made, it must be made “…clearly and concisely in writing,” and be signed by a least one member of the House and the Senate.  If an objection is submitted, the Senate withdraws back to their chamber, and both Houses have two hours to debate the issue.  After the debate, each House must by majority agree to the objection for it to be sustained.

Louie’s Folly

So let’s get down to it.  Congressman Gohmert can object to the Electoral votes certificate of any state.  And, if he can get a Senator to go along with him, the House and Senate can debate for two hours for each objection.  But in the end, the Democratic controlled House, and likely even the Republican controlled Senate, won’t agree.  So Donald Trump will not be President on January 20^th, and Joe Biden will.

And if the Texas Congressman can get a Federal judge in Texas to order Vice President Pence to violate US Code 3 and recognize the non-certified “electors” from Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin and the other “contested” states, reversing the election, it doesn’t mean Pence will do it.  Even if he does, then 222 Democratic Congressmen and 48 Senators will rise up to object.  And while the Senate will still be Republican controlled at the time, it is more than unlikely that all 51 Republican Senators will vote to overturn the election results.  It would only take two “defections” for Biden to win. (Note: on January 6^th the Georgia Senate runoff won’t be “certified”, and Kelly Loeffler will be the only Senator from Georgia).  

It would require Vice President Pence to break US Code 3 and read “non-certified” results.  And it would make for more “Congressional drama”, as if we haven’t had enough in the past four years.  We would get to find out once and for all if the power of the “Trump Tweet” is able to overcome 232 years of precedent.   But it would be the fitting place for “Trump’s Last Stand”.