ROLLERCOASTER

We are now only three weeks away from election day and the topic of this election has been the near exclusive subject of this CASTNET COMMENTARY blog for years, in fact from almost the day that Donald Trump came down the Trump Tower escalator to announce his candidacy for President in the 2016 election cycle. It has been exhausting and I wish nothing more than to get the “all clear” signal for changing the subject. That can only happen if America unambiguously defeats the MAGA prophet and his apostles in the upcoming election. That is a big “if”!

A question that should never have to be asked in a civilized, educated, and prosperous society will have to be answered in this election: “Is America ready to elect a woman President and is America ready to elect a woman of color President?” When the result is in, we will have to sort out if the winner was elected on the basis of policy or on the basis of sex and/or skin color. We may never know.

What started with an escalator ride has turned into an interminable roller coaster ride that may, or may not, come to a final stop sometime after November 5. The most remarkable and distressing aspect of this roller coaster ride has been that time and again the American voting public has kept a man in the race who is so patently undeserving of the high office in the land. While he has done almost anything imaginable to disqualify himself, including committing crimes, the Republican Party has allowed him to be the top of their ticket for eight years. It defies belief that an openly populist, authoritarian, xenophobic, and barely disguised racist movement like MAGA has managed to replace conservatism as the opponent of liberalism. Fringe movements in American society are nothing new but they never lasted and hardly ever captured more than 20% popular support. At that level they never posed a serious threat to the constitutional democracy, but that has changed by the Trump takeover of the Republican Party. The reason why the upcoming election is of such epic importance is because it has morphed from a battle between conservative and progressive ideology to a battle between democracy and authoritarianism. Never before has America faced this fateful choice.

It has all appearance that the race between Trump and Harris is a toss-up at this point. We have witnessed mood swings that have shifted momentum in either direction from a strong Trump bias immediately after the Republican National Convention and the Biden/Trump debate in June to a move in the other direction after Biden backed out of the race and Harris/Walz were coronated at the Democratic National Convention. A momentum that got confirmed with a clear Harris win in the Trump/Harris debate on ABC in September.

But, unless all the polling amounts to nothing, the net result is that this race is too close to call and up for grabs. So, the roller coaster ride continues. It is so distressing that apparently character does not account for anything anymore when it comes to electing the next President of the United States of America. If it were different, this race would already be decided by now.

With the peculiarity of the role of the Electoral College in the process of electing the President of the United States, all eyes will be on the battleground States of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada. Any of these States can be won by only a handful of votes which in turn can decide the election one way or the other. It will not matter who wins the national popular vote as Hillary Clinton only knows too well (she won the popular vote by almost 3 million votes in 2016 and still lost the Presidency to Donald Trump).

The inescapable tightness of the race this year raises the specter of a very long period in which the outcome will remain uncertain. We better brace ourselves for repeated calls for recounts, audits, and litigations creating a breeding ground for protests, demonstrations, and violence reminiscent of January 6, 2021. Trump has already made it clear that only election fraud can keep him from coming away victorious from this election and no doubt he will declare himself the winner long before we will have the result. He and his running mate J.D.Vance have yet to admit that he lost the 2020 election. The only saving grace is that this time he does not reside in the White House and has no power to invoke the insurrection act or try to engage the military in any subversive action aimed at restoring him to power. The integrity and the loyalty to the Constitution of the top State election officials, the State legislatures, the Electors, the judiciary, and ultimately the Supreme Court will surely be tested before we can inaugurate the 47^th President of the USA, that is unless Trump would somehow pull off a decisive, incontestable win.

I have long believed that the American voters, when it would come to standing in the voting booth and having to pull the lever, would in large majority refuse to abandon the safety of the constitutional democracy and defeat Trump based on character. But I was wrong in 2016 and today I am not so sure. From all appearances the race, three weeks out from D-Day, is uncomfortably close. I sure pray that the voters will recognize what is at stake and come out in force to do the right thing. As Winston Churchill famously said: “Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted.”

HERE'S WHY

Growing up, we have all driven our parents to desperation by constantly asking them why things were the way they told us. And, if we were lucky enough to become parents ourselves, we have paid the price by being confronted with the same barrage of questions. The kids had it right all along, they had a right to understand, be told, why things are the way they are.

Similarly, we have a right to be told why Donald Trump, nominated by the party he hijacked, should be denied a second term in the White House when America heads to the voting booth on November 5.

Here is why:

Character matters. The highest office in the land should be occupied by a person with an impeccable track record of moral rectitude. The President of the United States will inevitably be confronted with the need to make decisions with global implications that cannot be based on ideological or political grounds and in those instances the moral compass of the President will be called upon. It becomes a matter of right or wrong. Donald Trump has demonstrated time and again, in his personal life, his business life, and in office that he is lacking the moral compass required to discern between right and wrong, good and evil.

Democracy matters. There is no doubt that when the Founders created a new system of governance called a Republic, they chose a democratic, not autocratic, form of government. That system has, over time, been perfected and repeatedly validated. Arguably it is due for another round of improvements, but there is zero justification for moving the governance model into the autocratic direction that has Donald Trump so enamored when he speaks of authoritarian leaders like Vladimir Putin, Xi Jingpin, Kim Jong Un, and Victor Orban. His expressed desire to be a dictator, if only for a day, alone disqualifies him from ever again holding the constitutionally created highest office of the land.

Accountability matters. If the voters restore Donald Trump to office, he will never be held accountable for the crimes he has been convicted of nor be judged by a jury of his pears on the crimes he has been indicted for but has yet to stand trial for. And he has vouched to whitewash by way of pardoning the actions of the main participants in the January 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol even though they have been sentenced to jailtime for their treasonous actions.

Alliances matter. Strong as America is, militarily, economically, and geographically, it cannot stand alone against the forces that threaten its national security and the stability of the world order. While America may have been the deciding force in victory over evil in two world wars and in the Cold War, it must realize that the outcome could have been very different if it were not for the contributions of its allies. There is no stronger deterrent to mischief by our adversaries than the awareness of a resolute and unconditional bond between America and its allies in defense of their sovereignty, their territorial integrity, and their economic prosperity. In his term in office, Donald Trump has only shown contempt for and disregard of America’s participation in international cooperation in about every field of human endeavor.

Checks and Balances matter. At a day and age when in America the legislative branch breaks down in two factions that are often about equal in size and the executive branch regularly alternates between Democratic and Republican control, the judicial branch of government tends to fill the vacuum and becomes more and more determinant in deciding major social issues. By selecting his three Supreme Court picks and other federal judges from only one ideological source, The Heritage Foundation, Donald Trump has skewed the judicial branch to the far right of the political spectrum and away from where the public opinion rests. Because of the lifetime tenure of so-called Article III judges, this has for effect that the courts distance themselves for long periods of time from where the public finds itself in social and political terms. A second term for Donald Trump in the White House would further widen this divergence.

Immigration matters. Donald Trump torpedoed singlehandedly a bi-partisan deal to put some order into the admission and processing of undocumented immigrants crossing the southern border of the United States and deliberately let the border chaos persist. He apparently counts on an electoral victory in November and has promised to immediately deport millions of undocumented immigrants when he comes back into office. No matter the inhumanity of his proposed deportation policy and no matter the economic damage it will do to sectors of the American economy that are highly dependent on availability of immigrant labor, his political goals justify the means in his eyes. His political self-interest trumps the national interest and disqualifies him from serving as President.

Fiscal Responsibility and Equity matter. In his term in office, Donald Trump has displayed a complete lack of fiscal responsibility. Despite a strong economy (in his own words the strongest ever) he managed to add eight trillion dollars to the national debt. In large part by giving huge tax reductions to highest income earners and to corporations. These actions have contributed to a steep increase in income-inequality in addition to placing an ever-larger debt burden on our children and future generations. In his current campaign he promises further tax breaks without ever addressing how to pay for them. Unless, of course, we can believe that the high new taxes he proposes on imported goods will grow the economy and fill our coffers rather than increase the cost of goods for the American consumers, bring economic growth to a halt, and add to the deficit.

The Senate lacked the super majority required to bar him from ever getting back to the White House, the Supreme Court he stacked with disciples from the Heritage Foundation refused to disqualify him as a candidate for the Presidency, it is now up to the voters to protect the nation, the republic, and democracy from putting a man in office who is so manifestly disqualified for the job, an insult to human decency, and a threat to the Constitution.

BEGINNING TO SEE THE LIGHT

At least it is no longer a contest between two elderly white men, one greatly diminished in his campaign readiness by the ravages of time, the demands of the job, and a lifetime of personal tragedies and one angry old man who, by personal disposition and track record, should have been disqualified from ever holding the highest office in the land.

Biden’s acceptance of the inevitable has immediately altered the race for the White House. For a long time it looked like the Democrats were inexorably heading into defeat and like lemmings following each other over the cliff. There was a widespread belief that Vice President Kamala Harris was not what the voters wanted (the jury is still out on that until November 5), but her immediate ascendancy following Biden’s withdrawal seems to belie that notion.

One of the most remarkable things that has happened after Biden dropped out of the race is that as soon as he had taken himself out of the picture, an impressive number of potential candidates for the Democratic ticket came out of the shadows. It was smart for the Democrats to quickly close ranks behind Kamala Harris and avoid a divisive contest going into the Democratic Convention, but it became clear that if Biden had acted timely his party could have come up with a stronger contender than the current Vice President. Nevertheless, the die has been cast and the scenario has changed dramatically.

The old worn shoe is now on the other foot. The Republicans will have to make the best with what they have in hand: a tired old, mumbling and stumbling, bitter and revengeful man who keeps spinning and getting entangled in a web of lies. A man who is so clearly over the hill and has overstayed his welcome. The British journalist Nate White brilliantly characterizes this flawed human specimen: “No class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no humor, and no grace.” Nate White also opens our eyes to the fact that the man never laughs and never says anything faintly witty or amusing: “His idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a blatant lie, or a casual act of cruelty.”

If Kamala Harris ends up winning this election, the Republicans have only themselves to blame. By slavishly throwing their support behind a man who is so clearly unfit for the office he so badly wants to return to they are, probably fatally, torpedoing their chance to regain the White House and in the process are jeopardizing their shot at controlling both houses of Congress. Can you imagine what a challenge Kamala Harris would have if she had to square off against a Larry Hogan, a Glenn Youngkin, a Nikki Haley, or even a Ron DeSantis?

With Donald Trump at the top of the Republican ticket, the election will inevitably revolve around the preservation of the American republican democracy, around the need to see the judicial process in which the former President is involved play itself out, around denial of the right of the President to pardon himself and the convicted felons of the January 6 intrusion of the Capitol, and around the safeguarding of our alliances with the Western world. Without Trump, the Republicans could have avoided all of these un-American challenges and concentrated on their policy strongholds of immigration and border security, on the economy and fiscal responsibility, and on truly conservative principles in general.

It is way too early to consider this race decided, but it is undeniable that the tide has turned. There are still more than 80 days of campaigning ahead, the Democratic National Convention has yet to take place in Chicago next week, and the first televised debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump is still weeks away: September 10. Most importantly, we will have to deal again with the imponderabilia of the role of the Electoral College. Today, it looks fairly easy to predict a win for Kamala Harris in the national popular vote, but in America that vote does not decide the Presidential election. And a win in votes of the Electoral College is much harder to reach, as Al Gore and Hillary Clinton can attest. In addition, there is uncertainty about the role of State Legislatures in certifying their slate of Electors. Will all Republican State Legislatures be willing to certify a slate of Electors that is based on the outcome of the popular vote in their State?

On top of these cautionary considerations, we should be looking ahead at the time between November 5, 2024, and Inauguration Day of January 20, 2025. Trump has already announced that only voting fraud can keep him from winning the election and, just like he did in 2020, he will fight a negative result for him with all means, legitimate or not. And undoubtedly, he will find allies for his resistance with MAGA fanatics in Congress and in State Capitols. The only difference between 2020 and 2024 is that not Trump but Biden controls the powers of the Federal government to maintain law and order. Either way, we are daydreaming if we think that the battle will be won or lost on November 5.

As much as, with the Biden withdrawal, we are beginning to see the light, the fight is far from over. As before, much will depend on the turnout of the vote. We will not know how much the American people care about the rules of democracy and human decency and integrity until we see them come out in droves to unambiguously reject the cult around a despicable man, his nefarious intentions, and his accomplices in crime.

NOVEMBER 5

There are dates that are indelibly etched into our collective memory: December 7, the day that lives in infamy, June 6 D-Day, November 22 JFK assassination, September 11, January 6, and most recently October 7. They are all dates that profoundly changed the trajectory of history. Most, but not all of these dates come unpredictably, like black swans. Some, like D-Day, are carefully planned. The next such date is November 5, 2024, when Americans will go to the polls to elect their 47^th President, a new House of Representatives, one-third of the Senate, and numerous State governorships.

What for the longest time threatened to be a contest between two elderly white men, one greatly diminished in his campaign readiness by the ravages of time, the demands of the job, and a lifetime of personal tragedies and one who, by personal disposition and track record, should be disqualified from ever holding the highest office in the land, has suddenly morphed into a very different scenario when Joe Biden dropped out of the race. For 24 days after his stunningly sub par performance in the first presidential debate with Donald Trump, Joe Biden held out, defiantly, even though he kept stumbling in every public appearance orchestrated to show his command. It had the distinct feeling that the next Presidential election would not be a political contest, but a clash between two cults. For all those 24 days, it looked like Joe Biden had chosen a page out of the Trump book of self-aggrandizement: “Only I can save you.” That was very much the tenor of his interview with George Stephanopoulos on July 5 when he said: “Look, I’m running again because I think I understand best what has to be done to take this nation to a completely new level.” For all those agonizing 24 days, where everything went against him, he seemed to put his personal ambition above the interest of the country and make it a contest between the Trump cult and the Biden cult. Thankfully, with his withdrawal from the race yesterday, that debacle has been avoided.

When Biden beat Trump in the 2020 election, he presented himself as a ‘transitional’ President. The impression he gave was that he would serve for one term, lead the nation out of the quagmire created by four years of Trump disfunction, and hand over the torch to a representative of a new generation. We can only guess at what kept him from executing that plan, but he apparently changed his mind and, until yesterday, was adamant that he would run for a second term and beat Trump one more time. Was it because he surprised the nation and himself by being one of the most consequential Presidents of our lifetime despite having to work with a hostile Senate for the first two years of his tenure and a very hostile House of Representatives for the second two years? Was it because he truly believed that there was nobody inside the Democratic Party that could do the job as well as he could? Or was it that he feared, probably justifiably so, that being clear about being a one-term President would relegate him from day one to the status of a lame duck who could not accomplish anything domestically and on the world stage? We can only guess his motivation, but the bottom line is that with only 106 days left until November 5 the campaign now must be completely realigned.

The outcome of the Democratic primaries that put Joe Biden on track for the nomination must be disregarded and the Democratic National Convention in Chicago August 19-22 must anoint someone else than the incumbent President. At the close of that Convention, only 77 days remain for the final campaign towards the most consequential election of our lifetime.

The good news is that we can now look forward to a contest not between two overaged self-indulgent personalities but between a champion of authoritarianism and a yet to be named champion of improved democracy. At this time, it very much looks like a contest between a prosecutor and a convicted felon (which should never be a real contest). But the selection of the Democratic candidate has yet to play itself out in accordance with the rules established by the Democratic National Committee and remains open until the Democratic National Convention, still almost a month away.

In the process of nominating the Democratic candidates for President and Vice President the delegates to the DNC will have to keep in mind the Democratic chances in the Congressional races in November. Holding on to the White House but losing the Senate and staying in the minority in the House of Representatives would not be enough to defeat the authoritarian streak in the Republican Party of today. The Democratic Party has several highly qualified members for high office, but some of them, like Mark Kelly, Jamie Raskin, and Sherrod Brown are running for re-election in Congress where they will be needed to protect the Democratic representation. Andy Beshear, the Democratic governor of the very red State of Kentucky would be surrendering the Lexington Capitol to his Republican Lieutenant Governor if he were to step up to national office.

Another question to be decided is if Joe Biden should complete his term in office or resign and hand over the reins to Kamala Harris before his term expires. Ultimately, that should be decided by the President’s capacity to competently execute his presidential duties. At this point it is not abundantly clear what his fitness for office is. That is a medical not a political determination. For national security reasons the determination has to be made quickly and behind closed doors. Of course, a Biden resignation followed by the swearing in of Kamala Harris as the 47^th President, would almost certainly settle her candidature for the next Presidential term. But it would require the selection of a new Vice-President by Kamala Harris and that selection would have to be approved by both houses of Congress. Good luck with that in a Mike Johnson led House of Representatives. Mike Johnson and his cohorts would be keenly aware that he would be next in line for the Presidency if something were to happen to Kamala Harris before a new VP could be confirmed. What a scary thought! That threat would not go away until January 20, 2025.

It is abundantly clear that November 5, 2024, is shaping up as another one of those fateful days that, for better or for worse, will be etched forever in our collective memory.

THE BIG PICTURE

 As of the time of this writing, America is anticipating several events that could determine the outcome of the November Presidential election. The first televised debate between the contenders, the current President and his predecessor, is scheduled for Thursday, June 27 and the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is expected to rule on Trump’s claim of absolute presidential immunity and the question if the insurrectionists who breached the Capitol on January 6, 2021 (and possibly the former President) can be held criminally culpable for obstruction of Congress. It is possible that all three events come off in the span of 12 hours on June 27 and produce an earthshaking shock effect that breaks the stalemate in which the presidential contest appears to have settled. An erratic, unhinged, debate performance by Trump, combined with adverse rulings by SCOTUS could seriously jeopardize his chances for a win in November and, conversely, a stumbling, fragile, showing by Biden in the debate, combined with SCOTUS rulings in favor of Trump and other insurrectionists could deliver the Biden campaign a fatal blow. A mixed outcome, with some points going to Trump and others going to Biden can keep us in suspense a little longer, or maybe even all the way to November.

We are often advised to live in the here and now, as opposed to dwelling in the past or dreaming of a better future. But that is why we get so focused on breaking news and the story of the day that we are at risk of missing the big picture. And the big picture, right now, is not very pretty.

While there is a tremendous build-up of nervousness and emotion in anticipation of the November election, it is easy to overlook the near certainty that the election will not settle the way forward with American politics. In the first place, Trump has made it abundantly clear that he will not accept the outcome of the election, unless he is declared the winner. And this time around, he will have support for his position, justifiable or not, from many Republican representatives in Congress, in State legislatures, in State Capitols with Republican governors, secretaries of State, and Election officials, and even on the bench of State and Federal courts. That is significantly different from 2020 into 2021 when Trump had little organized support for his contention that the election had been stolen from him. The saving grace  is that this time he will not have the power of the White House on his side. But that may be easily offset by his capacity to whip the MAGA crowd into a frenzy that may have the January 6, 2021, storming of the Capital look like a walk in the park.

If, God forbid, Trump legitimately wins the election we will have a whole different set of challenges to deal with. This scenario will play itself out if a large percentage of eligible voters decide that this choice between a deranged and a feeble geriatric is not for them and stay home on November 5 or if many of them, put off by the choice they have been given, vote for third party or write-in candidates.             

A trump victory will not alter the basic parity between the representation of the Republican and Democratic parties in Congress and thus perpetuate the paralysis in Congressional law-making. It will defer the reshaping of the political map of the United States to the elections of 2026, 2028, and beyond. What it will do in the interim is set up an unending tug of war between executive decision making by the White House and the contesting thereof, if not in Congress, by citizens and interest groups in the courts and maybe in the streets. What we can glean from the many loud statements made by Trump and his campaign and from the much publicized ‘Project 2025’ is so extreme populist and anti-democratic that it cannot fail but trigger a determined and passionate response and rebuttal from that part of the electorate that loses with a Trump win in November. Project 2025 is a collection of ultra-right policy proposals from the Heritage Foundation to reshape the United States’ federal government in the event of a Republican Party victory in the 2024 presidential election.

It is all too awful to contemplate and therein hopefully lies the key to avoiding this outcome of the 2024 election. It is hard to believe that when it really matters and when it is time to turn in the ballot for this election a majority of the American voters would disregard the awfulness of the Trump view of the world, his entourage, and his character. After all, we are dealing with a contender who no responsible board of directors would ever allow to be chief executive of their company and who 40 out of 44 former members of his cabinet, including his own Vice President, refused to endorse.

The big picture is that:

·        In America today you have to be in the 90^th percentile of family wealth to afford child care and education, eldercare, and adequate healthcare if, at the same time you want to preserve your funding for retirement.

·        The national debt has more than doubled from $17 Trillion in 2014 to $35 Trillion in 2024.

·        The world has lost faith in our leadership capacity and willingness.

·        Maybe for the first time since the Civil War, the Union is under serious threat of sedition and anti-democratic tendencies.

That is the big picture and there is nothing in the Trump plans for a second term to change any of that. On the contrary. He and his sycophants are showing their hand when they now state that America is a Republic but not a Democracy, as if democratic principles are incompatible with the constitutional republic that America is. Let’s hope that the voters in November keep their eyes on the big picture and vote for a chance to improve that picture. The big question is if the system of our elections can withstand the relentless attacks with lies, conspiracies, and ai originated or altered disinformation from foreign and domestic interest groups and still offer the voting public a clear field of vision from which to make their choice.

FROM A DISTANCE

The observant readers of this blog will have noticed that CASTNET COMMENTARY has been quieted for awhile with the last new column published on March 26. The reason for this is that the columnist has made a five-week pilgrimage of sorts back to his homeland the Netherlands. While the trip was made for family reasons it was useful to step away from the scene of the crime and take some distance from it, both in physical distance and time. Now that we are back home, the inevitable question was not long in coming: “What do the people in Europe think of what’s happening in the USA?”

In Europe, no more than here at home, there is no uniform answer to this question. The people we spoke with are no different from the people here at home in that they represent a wide scale of opinion and with almost no exception they are aware that political malaise is not a uniquely American phenomenon, nor is Europe spared of the anti-democratic tendencies surfacing in the USA. But, for all the diversity of opinion, there are still two major streams of thought that we encountered just about everywhere:

1.       We may not like Donald Trump and disagree with his personal and political conduct in general, but he did us a tremendous favor by opening our eyes to the responsibility we have here in Europe to organize and fund our own defense and not merely rely on American participation in and leadership of NATO to protect our freedom and democracy.

2.       We are flabbergasted beyond belief that America cannot do better than present the People with a choice between two geriatric candidates for the Presidency.

With the war in Ukraine on everybody’s mind and the war scenes in Ukraine and Gaza endlessly displayed on TV, there seems to be little room for doubt that Europe will keep NATO together, regardless of American participation. The addition of Sweden and Finland to the NATO membership has strengthened the European profile of the alliance and created an unbroken frontline of defense against Putinism from the Arctic Sea to the Black Sea. After two bruising world wars, which were largely fought on European soil, the West-European nations decided that the age of everyone for himself and against the other, which had been the rule for centuries of inter-European strive, had come and gone and they chose for economic cooperation and mutual defense, in which they were supported by America, the force that had won both wars for them. When, during his presidency, Trump started to question the European preparedness to keep NATO viable and funded and openly suggested that NATO might have outlived its purpose, the political leaders in Europe had to decide if they, by themselves, would keep the alliance, with or without the USA, intact and the answer was a resounding yes. That determination was only reinforced when in 2022 Putin moved against Ukraine.

Europe will accept the outcome of the November elections in the USA, whatever it will be. It has no choice; it has no say in the matter and there is no reason to believe that it will in any way interfere in the election process. There is no doubt that Europe can militarily stand on its own two feet if it keeps NATO intact. So, in a way, Europe can be relaxed about the outcome of the November election. Most people in each of the NATO countries, even Hungary and Slovakia, will prefer to see America rid itself of Trump and his acolytes, but if that does not happen in November, they will take the long-term view that ultimately reason and normalcy will return to the Republican side of America as the generation of Biden and Trump passes on.

America itself cannot be so relaxed. The November election is not merely a choice between two people, or between the Republican or Democratic Party; it has become a referendum on the way we want to be governed, in an authoritarian way by a privileged, mostly white Christian, minority or truly democratically by the will of the People, all the People. Time did not stay still while we were away in Europe and the “hush money” trial displayed for us in gory detail what a sordid behavior triggered this trial and what unsavory entourage surrounds the Republican candidate for the Presidency. The lawyers for Donald J. Trump had little difficulty outlining what a bad character Michael Cohen has been through the years, but in the process, exposed the fact that for the longest time he was the “consigliere”, the “fixer” and the major confidant for DJT. He was DJT’s best friend until he turned against him. One cannot help but ask: “Is this philandering buffoon really the man we want to lead us for the next four years?”

The sycophancy of almost all Republican politicians is sickening. One after another they are kissing the ring of the least deserving presidential candidate in American history, with even Nikki Haley finally genuflecting in submission. The question is: “Will the American voting public, will the Republican voters, drink the Kool-Aid when it is offered to them in November?” That’s all that matters, because, at this crucial juncture we cannot at all be sure that ultimately the judicial branch will protect the constitutional democracy. The fact that three and a half years after being forced out of the White House, only one out of four criminal trials against Trump has progressed and that it is unlikely that any of the other three will come to trial before the November election, casts a shade of suspicion on the impartiality and efficiency of the judicial process. And the Supreme Court, with three Trump appointed justices and two justices whose spouses have openly supported Trump through all the upheaval of the January 6 storming of the Capitol, cannot be relied upon to affirm that nobody, not even a former President of the USA, is above the law and that our Constitution stands for a fully democratic form of government.

From a distance America doesn’t look too bad, but if we zoom in, we see a lot of ugly infection festering.

MARCH MADNESS

This is the time of the annual ritual of the college level basketball championship, the NCAA basketball tournament, better known as ‘the big dance’. A big deal it is indeed with large swaths of the American population filling out their brackets in the hope that this time their favorite college basketball team comes out on top, filling the heart with pride and putting some reward money in the pocket of the ones who picked the correct winner. With legalized on-line betting a lot of money will be won or lost before it is all over with the Final Four getting played on April 6 and the Final on April 8. Most Americans hate paying taxes and for politicians lowering taxes is the favorite path to electoral success, but the same people don’t think twice about spending hard earned money on betting, gambling, and the lottery all enabled by the same politicians looking for sources of income to offset their tax reductions. But I digress. Most of the tournament is played during the month of March, which is why the tournament named ‘the big dance’ is also known as March Madness because it gets people riled up and is always full of surprises. After a long season that started in November, the field has finally dwindled down to 64 at the start of the tournament and with two rounds played over four days, there are now only 16 surviving teams, affectionally known as the Sweet Sixteen. This year all eight of the #1 and #2 ranked teams made it into the Sweet Sixteen, which mitigates the madness for this year, but two blue ribbon teams, Kentucky and Kansas, made an early exit and thus spoiled the hopes and the brackets of a lot of betters. It is a time of ups and downs, highs and lows, as 64 teams are elated to make it to the big dance, while in the end all but one are hit by elimination. It is one of the iconic sporting events in America and one that dominates for many days the TV screens and leaves few sports fans untouched. For the weeks between the start of the tournament on March 21 and the final on April 8, it provides a welcome distraction from the other madness that plays itself out in American life.

At the time of this writing both the political campaign and the legal battles the former President is involved in are in full swing. It is clear by now that Trump’s campaign will be fought primarily at the steps in front of the various court houses where his cases are getting heard. The guy has an uncanny capacity to turn a negative into a positive, at least in the eyes of the public. Yes, he is getting litigated in civil and criminal courts, but chances are slim that he will get verdicts against him that can be executed before the November elections and, if he wins, all the charges against him will evaporate, or, if not, he will pardon himself and go after all judges and attorneys general that have dared to challenge him. In the meantime, his campaign doesn’t have to pay for expensive rally venues or the expense of flying around the country, because he gets free national coverage in the media while entering and exiting the several court venues and by playing the card of the unjustly persecuted political adversary, he avails himself of excellent fund-raising opportunities.

In the light of all this, it is becoming increasingly clear that in contemporary America there is no equal justice under the law. If you are rich enough to hire every willing lawyer available and keep paying them (with money you collect from your political sympathizers) and influential enough to drive politics, you’re treated with velvet gloves and given all the breaks. No regular guy in America could afford to keep appealing every ruling issued against him and keep coming up with one motion after another for case dismissal, case delays, and other legal maneuvers, frivolous or not, and get away with that. And no other litigant than the former President could get away with baseless attacks on and ridicule of judges, prosecutors, witnesses, and jurors, without getting slammed for contempt of court, witness tampering, or getting penalized for defamation.

We are now years away from the times that the alleged misdeeds of the former President were perpetrated, and he has not been held accountable for any of it, causing the current scenario where the court appearances coincide with the Presidential election campaign. In no small part is this due to the DOJ being very late getting out of the starting box in its zeal to avoid any appearance of politicizing the judicial process. Whatever one may think of the merits of the cases against the former President, it is hard to see how any of them can be resolved in only weeks or days from the November 5 election, without having an undue and undesirable impact of the outcome of the election.

It is hard to determine if the velvet glove treatment of the former President by the courts to date is the result of the ideological bent of the judges making the decisions, out of deference of one branch of government for another, or out of fear for the public outcry that is sure to follow any ruling for or against the former President.

We are reminded every day of the huge impact that bench appointments pushed by the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation and executed at times of Republican control of the White House and the Senate have on the delivery of justice, not just at the level of the Supreme Court but also at the federal district courts and the appellate courts. No better proof of this than in the Supreme Court reversal of the ruling by the Supreme Court of Colorado that the former President is disqualified from being on the ballot under section 3 of the 14^th Amendment of the US Constitution. A decision that in effect renders section 3 of the 14^th Amendment null and void for (former) Presidents of the United States. With Biden in the White House and Democratic control of the Senate, a more diverse selection has replenished the bench, but it is unnerving that the staffing of the judicial branch has so much become a political matter.

If the former President manages to get re-elected to the White House, in spite of the fact that he was impeached and indicted for fomenting an insurrection against the Constitution, and in spite of all of his character flaws and civil misconduct, it will only be because of imperfections in our democratic system, including the insertion of the Electoral College in the process of electing our top executive. It is scary to think that a Presidency can be decided by only a few thousand votes in a handful of battlefield States, even if the overwhelming popular vote favors the losing candidate. If that happens March Madness will pale in comparison with what follows then.

COLLATERAL DAMAGE

I can no longer hide it. It’s been getting personal. I’m in my rapidly passing ‘golden years’ and yet I’m finding myself utterly incapable of living in the moment, just enjoying the many blessings bestowed on me and my family. And the reason is Donald Trump and what he has done to the Republican Party and the American political system. It has inflicted colossal collateral damage. My days are being spent fretting over the question if and when he will be held to account for the damage he has wrecked on the functioning of the American republican democracy and if and when the members of what once was the Grand Old Party will confess to the errors of their ways and revert back to their traditional conservative beliefs.

In my 2014 book “Neither Here nor There, a First Generation Immigrant in Search of American Exceptionalism” (available on Amazon.com) I wrote about my coming to America that ‘given my experience with socialism in Europe and my evaluation of the origins of American democracy, I found myself more at home with the basic credo of the Republican Party than the platform of the Democratic Party.’ How the world has changed! And, at the risk of sounding cliché, I proclaim that I did not change so much as the party has changed.

Nowadays, from the time I wake up in the morning until I retire for the night, I keep my I-phone within reach and check on every ping to see if any court has ruled in any way on one of the many court battles involving Trump or his co-conspirators, to read everything written about section 3 of the 14^th Amendment, and follow every election that reflects on the balance of power between a degenerate Republican Party and the Democrats and Independents who form the bulwark against a slide of our democratic governance system into authoritarianism. It is not that I want it to be so, but I just can’t shake the sense that the fate of the great American experiment will be decided by what happens now, in the run-up to the November elections, by how the voters will judge the culpability of Trump, and ultimately by how the losing side will respond to the verdict of the final arbiter, the American electorate. And I don’t want to be caught unawares.

Admittedly, in retirement I may have too much time on my hand to fret about these things, but clearly, I’m not the only one affected. Trump has managed to alter the social landscape in that people have given up on normal political discourse and have entrenched in their camps, informed only by Fox News and Newsmax on one side and CNN and MSNBC on the other. I blame Trump, and the blind and dumb masses that follow this pied piper, for the fact that I have become a single-issue socialite. It is collateral damage from a criminally corrupt assault on Republican democracy by a thug who should have been cast out of the running before he even started but wasn’t.     

I find myself in the despicable position that in every conversation, live, by phone, or other media, with family, friends, and chance connections alike, my mind keeps wandering off to the only topic that matters to me now: ‘How do we get out of this mess and block the populist autocrats from ruling the roost.’ It is that important, and alarming, to me. Even though I would probably not have to live long with the consequences, I shudder to think what the world would look like after a win for Trump in November. Others have already been painting that scenario in vivid colors. It is not that we have not been forewarned. Thankfully, Trump’s campaign message is so outrageous, incoherent, and false that I have to think that he has been digging his own grave, in fact a mass-grave for him and all his lackeys in the MAGA realm, and that the rational voters in November will unambiguously reject him. But even in that case the threat will not be entirely averted. It will be near impossible for the Democrats to hold on to their majority in the Senate in November and the Trump faction will remain amply represented there. And we can rule out that Trump and his voters will concede defeat, even if the numbers will show him losing the electoral college vote and the popular vote. The question then becomes (again) if the institutions protecting democracy will hold against all the shenanigans we can expect from legislators, in Congress and the State legislatures, who have pledged fealty to the pied piper. One thing will be in democracy’s favor this time: the pied piper will not have the power of the White House behind him, and the Vice President will not be on his side. For protection of our democracy, it will be extraordinarily important that the Democrats regain control of the House of Representatives to assure that, at a minimum, one half of the three branches of government will be protected from a slide into authoritarianism.

In the meantime, it would be helpful if the Supreme Court, in its upcoming rulings about Trump’s disqualification under section 3 of the 14^th Amendment and the immunity claim, makes it abundantly clear that America is a nation of laws and that nobody, not even a (former) President is above the law. In the process, the Supreme Court should allow the court system to bring the major Trump litigations to a verdict prior to November 5, so that the voters have indisputable guidance on the (lack of) qualification of the Presidential candidates for office.

With so much to be decided in the coming months, and so much riding on the outcomes, I’m afraid that my single focus obsession with what happens next will not be interrupted anytime soon. Call it collateral damage, caused by misguided missiles or, rather, a malicious misfit.

NOT SO FAST (CORRECTED)

The first two primary elections of the year are behind us, the Republican caucus in Iowa, and the primary election in New Hampshire and both have resulted in large, double digit, victories for Donald Trump. The next primary will be held in South Carolina on February 3, where polls indicate that Trump has a 63% lead, with Nevada, where Trump will run virtually uncontested, following on February 6. If not before, the Republican primary contest is likely to be decided on March 5, Super Tuesday, when 17 State primaries will be held, including the major ones in California, Colorado, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Texas, and Virginia. With the Republican primary reduced to a two-candidate race, Donald Trump versus Nikki Haley, Trump has a 45-point advantage over his remaining opponent in the remaining State primaries and, at this time, it appears that all Trump must do to secure the Republican nomination is staying alive and out of jail.

Counterintuitively, the overwhelming appearance of dominance and inevitability of a Trump victory in the primaries does not translate in a repeat pattern for the general election in November. A look into the numbers behind Trump’s big wins in Iowa and New Hampshire provides the first reason why the predictive value of these wins for the Presidential election in November is minimal, if not zero.

If we look at the Iowa caucus first, we see that Trump only collected 56,260 votes from 752,200 registered Republican voters in the State. The vast majority of Republicans stayed home (the weather was nasty) and of the 110,298 voters who came out, Trump collected only 51% of their votes. In other words, 49% of the Republican voters in the Iowa caucus preferred someone else than Trump as their nominee for the presidency.

In New Hampshire the results for Trump were not much better. While among registered Republicans Trump trounced Nikki Haley by 74% versus 25%, with registered Independents the roles were reversed with Haley collecting 64% of the votes against Trump with 35%. As much as Trump ended up winning the New Hampshire Republican primary by 54% of the vote, the numbers show that 25% of Republican voters refused to vote for him and that among registered Independents he was trounced by Nikki Haley. Independents represented 44% of the votes cast in the New Hampshire primary. According to the exit polls, 6% of the voters were self-declared Democrats and 95% of them voted for Haley. 35% of the Haley voters said that they would not vote for Trump in the general election.

We need to keep in mind that we were witnessing Republican pre-elections here and that Trumps opponents in these contests were other Republican candidates. Democrats are essentially out of the picture, other than that in a number of States they are allowed to vote in Republican primaries. But there are no Democrats to vote for in these elections.

The way to look at the results in Iowa and New Hampshire is that ten months ahead of the general election Trump has the uncontested support of only 50-75% of Republican voters and no more than 35% of Independent voters.

Donald Trump collected roughly 74 million votes in his 2020 race against Joe Biden, who collected roughly 81 million votes. In the likely repeat contest for 2024 he cannot afford to lose any part of the electorate that came out for him in 2020. In that election only 6% of Registered Republicans voted against him. Even though many Republican voters who voted against him in the primaries may vote for him when their choice is between Trump or Biden, he really cannot afford to lose any of them (by staying home or voting for someone else) if he wants to do better against Biden in 2024 than he did in 2020. Similarly, he cannot afford to lose the support of any of the 41% of Independents who voted for him in 2020.

That’s why I’m saying: Not So Fast! Trump has surely conquered any Republican opposition. He has consolidated his base and his vise grip on the Republican party. But, to what avail?

If you, like I do, believe that a resounding Trump defeat in the 2024 Presidential election is required to preserve the constitutional republican democracy in America, you can find solace in the numbers beneath the primary results and in the following facts and likelihoods:

·      Trump on top of the Republican ticket has yet to prove a winning proposition. He would most likely not have made it to the White House in 2016 if Hillary Clinton had seriously campaigned in Michigan and Wisconsin, Jim Comey had not made a last-minute about face and Russia had not interfered in our elections.

·        He has centered his campaign on revenge and retribution, ingratiating his MAGA base but alienating about everybody else. He does not seem to realize that he starts off with a 7 million vote deficit and would need to expand his support base.

·        His legal challenges, including one or more possible criminal convictions ahead of Election Day, will impact his chances negatively.

·        His record and campaign rhetoric will cast the upcoming election as a contest between constitutional republican democracy and populist authoritarianism and only fools bet against deep seated democratic values instilled in the American voting public.

·        Wild cards are the age, health, and cognitive capacities of the contenders who are both well over the age of prime performance and, relatedly, the turnout of the young vote.