Now that the Supreme Court has rejected the lawsuit brought by the Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton, to essentially overturn the election results, and the Electoral College is set to vote on Monday, Trump is rapidly running out of options. That’s both good and bad. It’s good in that if the country can get through another 40 days or so with minimal damage, Trump will no longer be able to pull the levers of government for his selfish and vindicate purposes. The bad thing is that he is probably beyond desperate and that is scary. It’s like cornering a wild, crazed animal. You just have no idea what he’s going to do.
There are some who think he might declare martial law. I found a recent article about this very issue and the link is below.1 I take some solace in the concluding sentences of this article, “A really important limitation in the event that there is martial law is that it’s highly unlikely to be tolerated in a situation where our civilian institutions are working,” Banks noted. “Martial law requires a complete meltdown. It requires the inability of our civilian institutions to manage government. It’s hard to imagine that.” Nonetheless, you can’t put anything past Trump.
It is a well-reported fact that he and members of his family are facing some legal exposure at the state level after he leaves office so he has nothing to lose by trying every possible thing he can to remain in office. That said, I sincerely doubt that Trump has sufficient support from the military and the intelligence agencies to become a one-man coup, even if he continues to have the unquestioning support of some sycophants in Congress
I think Trump knows that he lost and the game is pretty much up. There will be a lot of bluster, lies and unfounded allegations thrown around and, no doubt, his toadies in Congress will try to throw every monkey wrench they can into the process when Congress meets to count the Electoral College votes January 6th. However, I think deep down, he and his family are starting to think about how they are going to protect themselves once the ‘Presidential shields’ come down.
It will be interesting to see how long Trump and his kids can keep hold of their rabid base of supporters once they are out of office. The American electorate is pretty fickle and demographics continue to change so without their daily free news coverage, they may have trouble staying relevant. Or perhaps they will be so consumed with trying to defend themselves from civil and criminal prosecutions that they won’t have time to ‘play politics’ very much.
This loss is particularly hard for Trump to swallow because he ran up against something that he doesn’t understand – integrity. He has moved through life and certainly much of the last four years believing that if he could just get Trump loyalists in all the right places, he could do pretty much as he pleased. He just assumed that all of those hand-picked Trump people would be willing to lie, cheat and bend the rules to service Trump’s desires. And then the election happened.
The Republican and Democratic election officials in all of those battleground states exercised integrity in refusing to bend to Trump to toss out legitimately cast ballots so that Trump would emerge victorious in their respective states. They did their jobs with integrity. Trump called the Republican governor of Georgia to ask him to personally intervene, call a special session of the state legislature and elect a complete slate of rogue electors who would vote for Trump. Brian Kemp, the governor, refused. He acted with integrity – and now he is on Trump’s ‘hit list’ because he is up for reelection in 2022.
Trump signed on to the lawsuit filed by the Texas attorney general asking the Supreme Court to essentially overturn the results of the election. No doubt Trump figured that since he had appointed three of the justices now on the court that they would side with the other three conservative justices and do his bidding. All nine of the Supreme Court justices did what they are supposed to do – they acted with integrity and tossed the lawsuit out of court.
Since Trump has never, in his entire life, acted with integrity, he has a difficult time understanding those people who do. He does not understand the concept that there are times when there are principles larger than yourself. Trump doesn’t understand that it sometimes takes real courage for people to act with integrity. And, in spite of all of the bullying, threats, baseless conspiracy theories, and deluge of misinformation by elected officials that should know better, the election officials and the Supreme Court stood their ground and acted with integrity – and American democracy will survive a bit longer because of it.
“The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the light of day. The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you choose, what you think, and what you do is who you become. Your integrity is your destiny … it is the light that guides your way.” [Heraclitus]
The Republicans violated the 14th Amendment.
Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution, which gives each chamber of Congress final authority over membership, as well as Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which says:
No person shall be a senator or representative in Congress, or elector of president and vice president, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.