Stopping the Steal
I woke up this morning to noisy gusting winds. It woke up Betty and probably scared her, so I brought her up onto the bed and she did what she never does, promptly curled up to sleep some more rather than go out and brave the wind. I too would have preferred to stay in bed, which is equally unusual, but I got up because I have a doctors appointment for a regular checkup. I imagine my doctor, a Vietnamese woman who seems very serious and dedicated, will be focused on my blood pressure, weight and perhaps my glucose levels. She has done a good job of getting my blood pressure in line and my weight is generally trending lower. As for my glucose, I’ve never had a blood sugar issue, but she seems intent on watching it, given my size. My biggest concern is like everyone’s these days, avoiding the COVID virus. Yesterday I finally got an appointment for a vaccination on Wednesday. It was my daughter Carolyn who found the San Diego County website that had a few spare appointments available at one of the new pop-up vaccination facilities around the county. I snatched one up and called to thank her for the heads-up. Within the hour I got an email on the Next Door app where someone mentioned the opening in appointments available on that website. Carolyn had gotten out ahead of that information, which is impressive. I’m sure there are few, if any, appointments still available. I guess you can say that with Carolyn’s help I have been able to steal an early vaccination. I had better not jinx it and stay quiet until the needle is in my arm.
Gary and Oswaldo, our house guests for the past few weeks have gone up to their apartment in LA to try to get Gary vaccinated later today. They expect to be back tonight, presumably a bit less vulnerable in the process. So, they have stolen away for a day to take care of business. While a quiet night by ourselves on the hilltop is no hardship for us, we do enjoy having G&O as houseguests. In the era of COVID we feel like we are cheating a little by having others around, but that is silly. People are a gregarious species and there is nothing wrong with having pleasant and like-minded friends to pass the time with. We almost hope that their visit to LA does not convince them prematurely that its safe to be back in LA and thereby end their extended stay with us. We do not want LA to seal them back just yet.
The talk this morning on MSNBC is focused on the never-ending COVID pandemic, which has now passed 25 million in infected Americans (with 420,000 or so in their graves, including now, Larry King), and the pending impeachment trial of Donald Trump, the articles of which are headed today from Nancy Pelosi’s desk to the Senate. The debate amongst Republicans rages about whether its better to maintain solidarity in the GOP and stand behind Trump against the Democratic horde, or if it is better to rid the Party of the vexing and volatile man of the moment from Mar-A-Lago. Over the weekend, Trump helped the latter group’s cause by suggesting that maybe he should just form the MAGA Party and move off on his own, taking his base of rabid followers with him. Republicans should all remember that Trump initially suggested that if the Republican Party did not nominate him in 2016, he would just run as an independent. The man used to be a registered Democrat. His loyalty to Party, to others, to anyone other than himself is legendary by now. For a man who values loyalty above all else, his ability to give loyalty is non-existent. This is not news to any of us, but it doesn’t seem to deter his followers, who seem prepared to accept that frailty with a shrug.
I find it fascinating that the war cry of the MAGA crowd is “Stop the Steal!” The blind and unproven belief that somehow Democrats have orchestrated a theft of the election and thereby illegitimately installed Joe Bien into the White House. This is about as ridiculous a claim as one could make. There are countless court cases which have been adjudicated by a wide array of judges (many of whom were empaneled by Trump himself), that all said that there was scant or no evidence of voter fraud as was being claimed. My Republican friend that went to Georgia to monitor the election there earlier this month said he could give no evidence of fraud, but that he is “certain” it occurred. The fact that the electoral and governance process in Georgia is under the control of honest Republicans who were strong Trump supporters, but who had the backbone to state the truth that the election did not go Trump’s way, did not deter this “Stop the Steal” zeal. That is good precursor to the overall absurdity of claims of voter fraud. Trump had four years to stuff the ranks of the federal government with as many of his blind acolytes as he possibly could. He embedded people all over the various agencies including those which conducted the census, administered and monitored the election, ran (or more accurately, tried not to run) the U.S. Postal Service and all sort and manner of electoral and government functions. This is text book for how authoritarians retain power. And yet it failed. The real steal got stopped, not by Democrats, who were nowhere near the levers of power, but by honest men and women of Republican leaning who could not bring themselves to subvert democracy to the point necessary to award the election to Trump.
It is all totally logical. The polls never showed Trump with anything close to a majority of support from the American people. He managed to miss hitting positive reinforcement more so than any other less than fully popular President had ever done. Despite all his best efforts, Trump missed the popular vote by 4.5% or over 7 million votes, as we all know. That is the widest margin of win for any President other than Obama’s 7% win in 2008 of the last six presidents. Were it not for the heavy-handed push by Trump from within the electoral machinery, that margin might have been much larger in fact. When someone of red leaning told me they couldn’t imagine how BIden got 81 million votes, I realized something important about Republican voters. They are intentionally insulated from reality. Whether it is about only watching Fox News or about living in rural areas where only red can be seen, they have kept themselves from seeing what Mitch and other intelligent Republicans have seen for years…that the browning of America is leading to an inexorable demographic shift away from the conservative white voter base that makes up the MAGA Party.
The real steal that has occurred and that these people will eventually realize, is that Trump has stolen their voice and stolen their sense of reality. My fondest hope is that the Biden Administration can work its agenda around to eventually focusing on stopping the steal of the lives of these otherwise worthy people who have had their souls stolen by Trump and the power brokers of the worst parts of the Republican Party.
While the election was clearly not “stolen” by anyone, there are still problems that need clarification–a complete and public investigation would go a long way to deflating the stop the steal crowd. Pennsylvania clearly violated their own state constitution, and several other states may have violated the U.S. Constitution in that election procedures were changed by their Executive Branch, not Legislative Branch as specified. There are reasons that Texas, after prolonged investigation, decided not to use Dominion Voting services, and these should be evaluated. Questions about Georgia’s “under the table” ballots being counted after declaring the count closed for the night can be easily answered by placing all the individuals there that night under oath and asking questions–including the Fox News team that was there until the officials declared they could go home. Republicans running election centers are no guarantee of errorless counting–remember Broward County Florida in 2000?
Finally, the myriad of court denials regarding possible irregularities were based on procedural issues; evidence was mostly never allowed to be presented. These issues can be easily clarified by a thorough public investigation.
The Federal Govt HR 1 bill seeks to replace Constitutional state power/authority with Federal rules defining how elections will be run. This may be needed but only as a Constitutional Amendment.