Tag: #trumpism

Lies or Policy?

Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, speaking last night at the Reagan Library on the future of the Republican Party, said that the GOP should denounce conspiracy theorists, “the ones who know better and the ones who are just plain nuts.” The party needs to embrace the truth: “Pretending we won when we lost is a waste of time [and] credibility.”

This in itself is not newsworthy. But a statement quoted in The Hill gives the game away: The GOP, Christie says, “needs to be the party that’s perceived to be telling the American people the truth.” Excuse me? This is a bit rich:

  1. We don’t need to tell the truth as long as we’re perceived as being truthful.
  2. Calling ourselves THE truth-tellers brands everyone else a liar.
  3. Divert public attention from policy differences by engaging in a food fight.
  4. Force opponents to defend against the name-calling.
  5. Above all, avoid an actual debate about policies that might help actual people.

When “public debate” is instead a shouting match, it’s the loudest voice — not the soberest reasoning — that wins the day. Screaming, “They are lying to you!” without evidence isn’t a factual statement, let alone a clear statement of policy goals. But it’s enough to distract from the real issues. Engaging baser emotions rather than logic and reason is both the tactic and the goal.

Such is the modern Republican Party: with no popular support for its few retrograde policies, it has become single-minded about clinging to power by any means necessary: Jim Crow registration policies, shorter early voting periods, constraints on voting by mail, removal of polling places. Ensure that the people who weren’t going to vote for you don’t have the opportunity.

Does Governor Christie include the hysterical allegations about non-existent voter fraud among the conspiracy theories his party should denounce? Or is that limited only to acknowledging that “Trump lost” and “vaccines work”? Someone should ask him that. Someone should ask him whether he thinks honest debate about actual policy proposals — rather than name-calling — wouldn’t be a better use of everyone’s time.

Enough, Already

Seriously, enough. Enough of the frivolous lawsuits, the fraudulent claims of fraud, the fact-free fits of faux outrage. In the five weeks since Election Day, we have seen the same play fifty times: the Trump campaign screams about nonexistent fraud and sues to have election results reversed; absent any actual facts and any plausible legal theory which would allow the disenfranchisement of millions — for no reason other than the litigant doesn’t like the election result — the court summarily dismisses the case. Trial courts will have none of it; appellate courts won’t allow it; and the United States Supreme Court refuses to hear the case.

In the latest episode of this outlandish opera buffa is brought to us by the state of Texas, which wants to sue the states of Wisconsin, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Michigan in the US Supreme Court. What possible cause of action might Texas have? Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, has concocted the notion that these four states somehow damaged the Lone Star state when they changed their election rules to allow universal mail-in ballots — something which Texas surely could have done, as well, but chose not to.

Per The New York Times:

The lawsuit, filed by the Republican attorney general of Texas and backed by his G.O.P. colleagues in 17 other states and 106 Republican members of Congress, represents the most coordinated, politicized attempt to overturn the will of the voters in recent American history. President Trump has asked to intervene in the lawsuit as well in hopes that the Supreme Court will hand him a second term he decisively lost.

The suit is the latest in a spectacularly unsuccessful legal effort by Mr. Trump and his allies to overturn the results, with cases so lacking in evidence that judges at all levels have mocked or condemned them as without merit. Legal experts have derided this latest suit as well, which makes the audacious claim, at odds with ordinary principles of federalism, that the Supreme Court should investigate and override the election systems of four states at the behest of a fifth.

Of course, there will be no end to this farce: it has proved far too profitable for Trump, for whom a debt load of about $420 million comes due in the next year. Since Trump almost certainly hasn’t the cash, isn’t capable of writing a book worth a nine-figure advance, and has spent his 74 years avoiding spending his own money when grift and suckers are available, he has turned his electoral loss into a fundraising opportunity: donations to his “stop the steal!” fund are directed, in essence, into his own pocket. His credulous supporters don’t read the fine print and won’t believe anyone who has.

That the demands to invalidate the electoral results require a feat of dizzying mental gymnastics, cognitive dissonance on a scale rarely if ever seen, doesn’t seem to bother these self-styled defenders of democracy one whit. Consider: the election was rife with fraud on a massive scale, but only on the top line of the ballot. All the down-ballot races — races which the 126 members of Congress now clamoring for SCOTUS intervention won — were magically legitimate. It defies law, it defies logic, and it defies any real sense of patriotism, which would put country over party and long-term civic goals above short-term self-interest.

That this suit is without merit (and beyond redemption) hasn’t stopped Republican attorneys general of seventeen other states from seeking to join the fun — despite the irrevocable certification of election results in all fifty states. This is an unabashed attack on the core and fabric of democracy; it is, in a word, seditious: We don’t like the result so we must find a way, any way, to undo and overturn it. And if we can’t do that, can we at least undermine public confidence in all electoral outcomes? (We don’t care if it undermines our own victories as long as we can seize power and maintain control of the levers of government.)

This is not representative self-government. It is reprehensible self-serving. Enough, already. Republicans, you lost. Sit down, shut up, and muzzle your Dear Leader. He is doing the Republic great harm — and you, too, if you gave a care to history.

Cognitive Dissonance (GOP Edition)

Donald Trump refuses to concede defeat and continues to contest the election results. Apparently the same ballots that kept his Republican enablers in control of the Senate — for now — and gained them (so far) six seats in the House — these same ballots were somehow fraudulent, but only on the top line, for the Presidential race. As Scooby Doo would say: Huh? If you are alleging ballot irregularities, fine. But a few things you should keep in mind:

  1. The burden of proof (and the bill for any recount) is on you.
  2. “Upon information and belief” in your complaint won’t cut it: you need actual evidence.
  3. Invalidating any individual vote means invalidating the entire ballot, including down-ballot races (yours).
  4. Hundreds of thousands of spoiled ballots, across multiple states, just aren’t there.  Ever.

The idea of “stealing” or “rigging” an election in this way is beyond risible. It defies both common sense and the entirety of human experience. Trump and his allies are pinning their hopes on proving a conspiracy — a concerted, coordinated effort — among many thousands of people. As this On the Media segment demonstrates, it’s an impossibility.

It all would be the basis for a good laugh if it weren’t so serious. Ballot fraud is extremely rare, impossible to carry off successfully (see above), and almost always detected. Nearly every such failed attempt has been the work of Republicans, most notoriously in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District. (One wonders if they allege fraud because that’s what they’d do?) The accusations in this cycle are particularly galling when senior Republicans at every level speak piously of Trump’s precious rights to contest an election and demand a recount without a peep about the malign intent to undermine faith in the very system that sent them to office. If the integrity of our elections is in question, doesn’t that also undermine the legitimacy of every elected GOP official? In the latest twist, a postal worker in Pennsylvania has recanted his claim that ballots were backdated, a claim that has been relied upon by Lindsay Graham and the Trump campaign as evidence of fraud. Republican donors have raised over $130,000 on behalf of the USPS employee — $130,000 being, apparently, the going rate (see: Daniels, Stormy). According to the Erie postmaster this is not this postman’s first job-related offense.

Small-d democrats ignore this doublespeak at their peril. Sure, any candidate has a legal right to challenge election results; but that right — like all rights — also carries certain obligations: challenges are to be made in good faith and must be supported by actual facts. The claims here have been dismissed by every court that has heard them, because no actual facts are even alleged. Per The Washington Post:

By now, it’s well-established that most of the arguments put forward by President Trump’s reelection campaign in its challenge of the results of the 2020 election are baseless and highly speculative. Even Trump allies, as The Washington Post reported late Tuesday, acknowledge the apparent futility of the effort. Others have reasoned that there’s no harm in going through the motions, with one anonymous GOP official asking, “What’s the downside for humoring him” for a little while?

But as scenes in courtrooms nationwide in recent days have shown, there is indeed a downside for those tasked with pursuing these claims. Repeatedly now, they have been rebuked by judges for how thin their arguments have been.

The most famous scene came in Pennsylvania, where a Trump lawyer strained to avoid acknowledging that their people were, in fact, allowed to observe the vote-counting process in Philadelphia:

At the city’s federal courthouse on Thursday evening, attorneys for Trump asked a judge to issue an emergency order to stop the count, alleging that all Republican observers had been barred.

Under sharp questioning from Judge Paul S. Diamond, however, they conceded that Trump in fact had “a nonzero number of people in the room,” leaving Diamond audibly exasperated.

“I’m sorry, then what’s your problem?” asked Diamond, who was appointed to the federal bench by President George W. Bush.

The downside of humoring him should be self-evident: further public humiliation of the United States, if the last four years were not enough. It even more nakedly exposes Trump for what he is, a spoiled and unpredictable man-baby with his hands on the nuclear codes. Moreover it exposes the gaping flaws in our vaunted system of checks and balances, which are more fragile than anyone supposed. It turns out they are utterly dependent on all actors behaving in good faith.

Attorneys have an obligation to serve the law and the court, not just their clients. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11(b) states:

By presenting to the court a pleading, written motion, or other paper—whether by signing, filing, submitting, or later advocating it—an attorney or unrepresented party certifies that to the best of the person’s knowledge, information, and belief, formed after an inquiry reasonable under the circumstances:

(1) it is not being presented for any improper purpose, such as to harass, cause unnecessary delay, or needlessly increase the cost of litigation;

(2) the claims, defenses, and other legal contentions are warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous argument for extending, modifying, or reversing existing law or for establishing new law;

(3) the factual contentions have evidentiary support or, if specifically so identified, will likely have evidentiary support after a reasonable opportunity for further investigation or discovery; and

(4) the denials of factual contentions are warranted on the evidence or, if specifically so identified, are reasonably based on belief or a lack of information.

Trump and GOP attorneys find safe harbor in subsection (4) — “information and belief” — and ignore the more pertinent subsections (1) and (2). These cases are warrantless and frivolous, in violation of (2); and they are being brought — or so it appears — merely to delay the timely certification of votes and undermine public confidence in the electoral process. By any fair reading such motivation violates (1).

Under Rule 11(c) a court may sanction the attorney. law firm, or party that violates Rule 11(b). Perhaps it’s time more attorneys defending these frivolous and capricious suits filed more Rule 11(c) motions. It wouldn’t be pretty; but it might put a stop to the wasteful abuse of process. Republicans are forever running on platforms to reel in what they see as abuses of the courts; but when elections don’t go their way they are the snowflakes at the courthouse door. Another term for cognitive dissonance might be rank hypocrisy.