Well, we are still stuck in the longest Election Period Day ever. That’s right, over a month has passed since the official day, and Donald Trump is still insisting that he won while flailing in every legal direction possible to validate his wacky claims. I myself am bored to tears listening to his puling on Twitter. It won’t be much longer until he exits the national stage for good, thankfully. However, it’s unfortunate that while we will be done with him as President, the toxic effect he has had on our country’s national discourse could linger for years, perhaps decades. All the blather about Democrats causing divisiveness sounds awfully quaint after one term of Trump.
We just got done watching the Supreme Court swat down a multi-state complaint started by Texas about supposed voting irregularities in the swing states that Trump was unable to hold onto in 2020. I’m sure Trump thought that he fashioned the SCOTUS in his image with his three justices, but he was wrong. The trouble he’s having is that he doesn’t really understand conservatism. At bottom, conservatives revere above all the ideal of decentralized control, making a fetish of radical self-governance. And it follows that “state’s rights” (notwithstanding how racist the concept is) is an important doctrine to advance these ideas. Small wonder then that this kind of push for some states to meddle in the affairs of others would be found repugnant to their bedrock conservative principles, regardless of who was bringing a suit of this nature.
For once, federalism has saved the day.
It’s hard to say where Trump’s going to go next to get relief. In his head, this Texas suit was “the big one”, because it was a super fast avenue to getting his complaints to the supremes as quickly as possible. We still have to grit our teeth and hope the Electoral College will do its duty and sit the president who officially got the most EVs. What a system it is where we have these unelected people in control of so much, huh? As I understand it, an upset of this nature is as unlikely as this giant suit had in helping Trump stay in office, especially since it’s going to be hard to come by 38 faithless electors selecting the guy who lost the popular vote by nearly 8 million. This gambit’s never worked before, but it’s an ineluctable fact that Trumpism has poisoned this election process at every critical juncture. Every process is a nail-shredding experience as we have to watch the steps be stress-tested in real time.
I’ve tried to sit back and relax with the proverbial popcorn but we’re all fooling ourselves a little if we aren’t internally fretting to some degree about what could happen from now until January 20th. We’ve shook through some intense moments and survived, and we’re past the safe harbor point so there will be no more attempts at recounting or any decertifying actions spurred on by his wildly incompetent legal team. Trump’s options lessen and lessen as time grinds by. The best days of an attempt at a coup are behind him. I’m confident but cautious that the trend will continue to favor American democracy over the conceits of a petty, tiny-minded, power-drunk rich fool.
UPDATE: The estimable Steve at No More Mister Nice Blog outlines the next challenge to the will of the people. It doesn’t involve Trump, but it’s no less than a congressional rebellion if it comes to pass.