On Mr. Trump’s Trials and Evasions

As New York City’s Manhattan Borough District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s “hush money” case against former President Donald Trump begins this week — alleging state felony crimes for falsification of business records to shield undercover (seemingly a particularly apt adjective here) payments made by Mr. Trump through his attorney, Michael Cohen, to Adult Film Actress Stephanie Clifford (a/k/a Stormy Daniels) to secure Ms. Clifford’s silence about their sexual liaison in aid of Mr. Trump’s 2016 electoral prospects – the former President and I both wish it wasn’t going forward.  Our rationales are, however, quite different.  He is terrified that he will be convicted.  I dread that he won’t be.

Those of us who believe, “No person is above the law,” and “Justice delayed is justice denied,” have been justifiably dismayed with the glacial progress of the various criminal proceedings now pending against Mr. Trump, which include not only the New York matter but the Washington, D.C. insurrection case being prosecuted by Special Counsel Jack Smith, the Georgia election interference case being prosecuted by Fulton District Attorney Fani Willis, and the allegedly felonious mishandling of classified documents charges being prosecuted in South Florida by Mr. Smith.  That said, much of the delay could have been anticipated; any prosecutor would want to be completely prepared before going to trial against the highest-profile defendant in our country’s history, and Mr. Trump has predictably effectively availed himself of every available legal maneuver to prolong each proceeding.

Although I am no longer as incensed at the delays, for the reason stated below, a preliminary vent: 

The U.S. Supreme Court’s election to consider Mr. Trump’s Presidential immunity defense in the insurrection case – after the defense was pretty summarily rejected by the D.C. trial court and the U.S. Court of Appeals – has provided unconscionable support to Mr. Trump’s efforts to evade the charges that, of all those confronting him, should be adjudicated before the election:  whether he, a current candidate for President of the United States, sought to defraud the United States in the last election.

Whether or not the substantive Georgia proceedings have been delayed by the Trump team’s claim that Ms. Willis was conflicted because she engaged in an amorous relationship with a lawyer she added to the prosecution team, I think it irrefutable that Ms. Willis’ behavior – although not legally relevant to the charges — was so egregiously ill-advised so as to take one’s breath away to the point of asphyxiation.

On the Florida case involving felonious mishandling of classified documents, Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, has openly abetted Mr. Trump’s efforts to delay the proceedings.  This is a matter that Mr. Trump’s last Attorney General, William Barr, has opined to be almost a sure winner for the prosecution.  Judge Cannon’s actions can no longer be put down to incompetence or insecurity; she is either toxically partisan or cowed by MAGA threats.  Either way, the former president seems on the cusp of ducking an almost-certain federal felony conviction.

But – let’s put aside the rantings of an old curmudgeon.  We are where we are.  While I would have enthusiastically welcomed having all of these cases tried a year ago, and vehemently reject the notion that our criminal justice procedures should be sublimated to our electoral processes (i.e, that, as some commentators have intoned, Mr. Trump’s fate should “be left to the voters”), there is an exception to every rule, even the most hallowed.  It is vital that the outcome of our criminal judicial processes not engender sympathy for Mr. Trump, not skew the upcoming election to his benefit.  At this point, the overarching concern is not about establishing Mr. Trump’s culpability for the last election, but that he lose the next election. 

So I’m going to enter a somewhat lonely view certainly contrary to those bemoaning the effectiveness of the former President’s and his judicial allies’ dilatory legal tactics.  I’m concerned that putting him on trial this close to the election has greater potential to aid than hinder his campaign for the presidency.  My inclination is completely colored by my belief that if we remain on our current electoral arc (admittedly, a HUGE if), President Joe Biden will achieve an Electoral College victory in November even if the criminal charges against Mr. Trump have not yet been adjudicated.  However, the election is going to be that close, so any potential boost Mr. Trump might receive from any result other than a guilty verdict is best avoided if possible.  

I see three outcomes from any criminal trial commenced against Mr. Trump in what is now indisputably “Campaign Season” (including the New York prosecution starting today):

  1. The very fact of the trial:  Initial advantage, Mr. Trump.  It makes him look to some swing voters like he’s being politically persecuted, and will do more to galvanize his supporters than cause swing voters to sour on him.
  • Acquittal:  Could hand Mr. Trump the presidency by seemingly validating his claims of innocence and political persecution.  Even a mistrial will, as was the case with his impeachment acquittals, be wildly touted by him and his acolytes as exoneration and vindication, and boost his campaign.
  • Conviction:  There are polls indicating that some Republicans claim they won’t vote for Mr. Trump if he is convicted, but if these voters are still even considering voting for him, by Election Day a conviction in the New York case will be both old news and entirely discredited by the right-wing media outlets they follow.  I agree that any convictions obtained by Mr. Smith or Ms. Willis between now and the election would seemingly doom Mr. Trump’s candidacy, but getting a conviction of any high-profile defendant is no easy task (recall O. J. Simpson, now deceased).  The risks of an acquittal or a mistrial so close to the election arguably outweigh the benefits of a trial if one believes, as I do, that electoral trends currently favor President Joe Biden.

I may be a solitary voice expressing these reservations – What other than Noise would one expect here? 😉 — but I would submit that Mr. Biden’s electoral prospects with the swing state swing voters who know – who know – that Mr. Trump is guilty of the crimes of which he’s been charged, will be enhanced if he simply argues:  “Trump’s delayed all the trials.  If he is elected, he’s going to get away with it.  Don’t let him get away with it.”  Mr. Biden’s prospects are obviously dimmer if the former president can claim legal exoneration. 

So as Mr. Bragg’s efforts commence today, let us hope he secures a conviction – and if he doesn’t, let us hope that the verdict will be rendered soon enough that it will no longer be top of mind by voters by Election Day.

I still owe these pages the post describing the grounds for my optimism about President Biden’s electoral prospects.

Notes of Realism … and Optimism: Part I

[Note:  I, and probably you, have seen others make the observations set forth below.  I take leave to enter them here because they have occurred to me apart from having seen them voiced elsewhere  🙂 .]

On March 21st, Republican Strategist Karl Rove – whose political acumen one must respect, since he engineered two electoral victories for former President George W. Bush (the second being particularly impressive, since by the time of the 2004 presidential election even Mr. Bush’s own Administration conceded that the purported bases of his order to invade Iraq – weapons of mass destruction – weren’t there) – wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal entitled, “2024 Comes Down to Only Seven States,” in which he asserted that only the Electoral College votes of Arizona (11), Georgia (16), Michigan (15), Nevada (6), North Carolina (16), Pennsylvania (19), and Wisconsin (10) are truly at issue this November and that the presidency will be decided by how these states’ respective EC votes are allocated between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.

In a post about six months ago, projecting Mr. Biden’s path to victory, I declared that Mr. Biden should “stick to the knitting. … Mr. Biden and his team need to focus their efforts on the swing states they are most likely to win ….”

I consider North Carolina Fool’s Gold for Mr. Biden (remember, as usual, that all spouted here is Noise; I considered Georgia Fool’s Gold for Mr. Biden in 2020 😉 ) because Mr. Trump won the state by 75,000 votes in 2020 despite an attractive Democratic Senatorial candidate (who imploded late in the campaign due to a sexual peccadillo).  Although the state has the fastest-growing population in the nation (400,000 new residents since 2020), a significant segment these new residents reportedly come from Red States, and another significant segment is undoubtedly comprised of children.  Mr. Biden trails Mr. Trump in all recorded state polls. 

Although a recent Wall Street Journal poll recently found Mr. Biden trailing Mr. Trump by only one point in Georgia, and despite my unwarranted 2020 pessimism about the state, I remain leery of it.  Former Gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams’ grassroots movement has seemingly lost some of its zeal; Fulton District Attorney Fani Willis’ prosecution of Mr. Trump for election interference, while obviously well-warranted (although her own sexual peccadillo in that matter warrants comment in another post), has undoubtedly enflamed the ire of Mr. Trump’s supporters; despite the fact that state Republicans like GA Gov. Brian Kemp detest Mr. Trump for roiling their state’s affairs, their organization will undoubtedly support him; and in 2020 the state’s Republican hierarchy was perhaps surprised that the presidential race was close.  It won’t be taken by surprise again.

I am intrigued by Arizona, although the same Journal poll found Mr. Biden currently trailing Mr. Trump by 5 points – outside the margin of error — presumably due to its citizens’ displeasure with the still-unsettled situation at the southern border.  The state’s Republican Party is at war with itself.  There is still a significant segment of what might be considered “[John] McCain Republicans” who detest MAGAs.  Despite the fact that former SC Gov. and U.S. U.N. Amb. Nikki Haley had ended her candidacy for the Republican Presidential nomination weeks before the state’s closed Republican primary (i.e., only Republicans could vote in it), she still won 20% of the vote from Mr. Trump.  Very divisive MAGA Keri Lake will be the Republican Senatorial Candidate.  Perhaps most crucially, abortion activists are trying to put a state constitutional amendment securing the right to abortion on the 2024 ballot, which would certainly drive up Democratic turnout.  [In support of women’s abortion rights, Democratic Arizona State Senator Eva Burch recently announced on the floor of the Arizona legislature that she had had to undergo an abortion – for a child she and her husband wanted – because her pregnancy was no longer viable.  (I heard her speech; Mr. Biden’s team should take it and run it nationwide.)]  For Mr. Biden, Arizona’s 11 EC votes could provide insurance to offset any loss of Wisconsin’s 10 EC votes.

As to Nevada, which Mr. Biden won in 2020, it looks to me (conceding my math skills never exceeded the first grade) that its 6 EC votes will primarily be relevant to winning Mr. Biden the presidency if he needs them to pair with Arizona’s 11 EC votes to offset any loss of Michigan’s 15 EC votes (while he wins Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) or with Georgia’s or North Carolina’s 16 EC votes to offset any loss of Pennsylvania’s 19 EC votes (while he wins Michigan and Arizona or Wisconsin) … but we’ve now moved into what I obviously consider perilously-uncertain electoral territory for the President.

All that said:  Mr. Biden needs to maintain focus.  I will always consider a large factor in 2016 Democratic Candidate Hillary Clinton’s defeat to be that she and her team took too much for granted, misallocated resources, took their eyes off the ball.  She courted votes in states like Utah and Georgia – states in which the odds were, put charitably, long that she would carry — while she failed to visit Wisconsin even once.  The President, unlike Ms. Clinton, needs to scan the electoral battlefield to be sure that he doesn’t sustain any losses among what are now considered safe “Blue States.”  Assuming all such “Blue States” are secure, two final points:

  1. The President’s overwhelming electoral focus needs to be on winning Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin (the Journal poll shows him trailing in the first two, but within the margin of error for each state).   It is by far his most straightforward path to victory.  If Mr. Biden wins the combined 44 EC votes of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, he gets the 270 Electoral College votes needed to claim the presidency regardless of what happens in other swing states.  Once he has to move beyond the “Blue Wall,” any other electoral scenario is a crapshoot; his course seems particularly precarious if he does not win Pennsylvania.
  • Anticipating a point very likely to be elaborated upon in a future post:  Rather than seeking to expand his Electoral College margin by winning more states, Mr. Biden should focus on expanding his margin of victory in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.   

That’s the Realism.  Where’s the Optimism?  Part II.  Enjoy the weekend.

On the Republican Vice Presidential Nomination

Now that President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have secured, de facto if not de jure, their respective parties’ presidential nominations, there is only one more spot to be filled on the lineup card.  Mr. Trump’s most important tactical decision is now squarely presented:  whom to select as his Vice Presidential running mate to influence the uncommitted voters who currently are, upon reflection, arguably more likely to lean against him and toward Mr. Biden.

In a note last September, speaking of Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, I observed, “Recently, MSNBC’s Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough dismissed concerns that Ms. Harris might be a drag on Mr. Biden’s re-election prospects by declaring to the effect, ‘No one votes in a presidential election based upon the vice presidential candidates.’  Perhaps true (there have been a few presidential races in this century that might make one wonder); but nobody’s ever been asked to vote for an 82-year-old presidential candidate before, either.”

I can think of four presidential elections in my lifetime in which the presidential nominee’s pick did perhaps swing the election:  John Kennedy’s 1960 selection of Lyndon Johnson won Mr. Kennedy Texas, and helped him claim the electoral votes of southern states already trending away from predominant Democratic Party positions (five southern-tier states won by Mr. Kennedy in 1960 were won by Richard Nixon or George Wallace in 1968); George W. Bush’s 2000 selection of Richard Cheney perhaps reassured a decisive number of undecided swing state voters that although Mr. Bush clearly had less national experience than Vice President Al Gore, Mr. Bush would have a seasoned hand at his side (a notion that in retrospect, was more than a bit ironic 😉 ); Mr. Trump’s 2016 selection of Mike Pence very likely reassured a decisive segment of traditional Republicans in swing states’ major cities’ suburbs that Mr. Pence would stop Mr. Trump from doing anything too crazy (arguably, Mr. Pence did ultimately fulfill those expectations, although it took him until the last out in the bottom of the ninth inning to do so); and Mr. Biden’s 2020 selection of Ms. Harris in the wake of George Floyd’s murder may have cemented his support among women and people of color sufficiently for him to squeak out a narrow victory in the key swing states.

Since the presidential candidates’ age and mental acuity is clearly going to be a key factor in the 2024 campaign, who holds the second spot on the parties’ respective tickets could be decisive.  Elections are about matchups.  I expect that any Vice Presidential debate this fall will garner ratings almost on a par with the presidential debates.

On the Democrats’ side, Ms. Harris is now clearly baked in.  My misgivings about Ms. Harris don’t need to be repeated here.  We are where we are.

As for Mr. Trump:  While he demands absolute supplication from his acolytes, I am confident that he is also acutely aware that he’s going to need a difference-maker as his running mate – someone who will have appeal beyond his base.  Let’s consider three potential choices here.

First:  U.S. AL Sen. Katie Britt.  Mr. Trump may be fascist and delusional — I have seen reports that he spent part of the Easter Holiday reposting others’ comparisons of him to the Lord — but he’s not stupid.  Ms. Britt’s response to President Biden’s State of the Union Address was so awful that it left even alt-right media hawkers gasping for air.  Scarlett Johansson’s subsequent skit on NBC’s Saturday Night Live, spoofing Ms. Britt, was the most devastating political caricature since Tina Fey’s 2008 impersonation of former Republican Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin.  Mr. Trump is not going to pick a running who will be a running SNL punch line and not match Ms. Harris in either maturity or experience in any Vice Presidential debate.  Ms. Britt would turn Ms. Harris from a Biden vulnerability into a Biden asset.   

Second:  U.S. NY Rep. Elise Stefanik, about 40.  Ms. Stefanik was elected to the House in 2014.  Initially elected as a moderate conservative, over her time in the House Ms. Stefanik has morphed into full frontal MAGA, is now fourth in House Republican leadership, and is a rabid defender of Mr. Trump.  I think it can fairly be said that she is blatantly campaigning for a spot on Mr. Trump’s ticket.  They are frequently photographed together.

Mr. Trump is fond of Ms. Stefanik, but she would seemingly bring little to the ticket. She will appeal to the MAGA base, but he already has the MAGA base.  She’s young, but might appear to be too young.  She might appeal to some women, but we already have a female Vice President.  She’s from New York State, which he’s going to lose whether he picks her or not.  She’s a U.S. Representative, and I thought I saw a poll recently indicating that U.S. House representatives are even less popular than either Mr. Biden or Mr. Trump.  I suspect that Mr. Trump will conclude that, like Ms. Britt, Ms. Stefanik will appear the neophyte in any debate with Ms. Harris.

Third:  U.S. SC Sen. Tim Scott, 58.  As all who care are aware, Mr. Scott is African American, comes from very humble beginnings, and preaches a version of individualism that appeals across the Republican spectrum.  Although his 2024 Republican presidential candidacy went nowhere, he got some recognition on the national stage.  His views generally dovetail with Mr. Trump’s.  He favors cutting taxes.  He opposes the Paris Climate Change Accords.  He opposes same-sex marriage.  He unequivocally opposes women’s abortion rights.  (I was surprised by his ringing denunciation of abortion rights during the Republican candidate debates; even Mr. Trump is trying to backtrack a bit here.)  His support of Ukraine is, at best, tempered.  Most vitally:  he has enthusiastically endorsed Mr. Trump for President.  [During Mr. Trump’s victory speech following the Republican New Hampshire primary, the Senator stood immediately behind Mr. Trump, mugging for the camera (which could not have occurred without Mr. Trump’s approval) and actually declared that he “loved” Mr. Trump during the event.] 

It’s hard not to see Mr. Trump going with Mr. Scott.  Mr. Scott, as a South Carolinian, would provide an electoral boost to Mr. Trump in the purportedly swing states of Georgia and North Carolina.  While in choosing Mr. Scott, Mr. Trump would face some risk of alienating his racist followers, their support of the former president has been so steadfast for so long that there is arguably greater potential that Mr. Scott’s selection will dent Mr. Biden’s support among African American males – who may be disgruntled by what they perceive as shortcomings in the President’s performance, and who polls consistently show are culturally conservative on most issues except race — in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.  Mr. Scott presents as strong and competent.  Except for his political vulnerability on abortion, I think Mr. Scott would be a strong matchup against Ms. Harris in the Vice Presidential debate.

In the coming months, the names of Mr. Scott and Ms. Stefanik, along with a number of others (but probably no longer Ms. Britt  😉 ), will be bandied about as Mr. Trump’s potential choices for running mate.  Reverting to the only pet saying of Mr. Trump’s of which I’m fond:  We’ll see what happens.

The Most Wondrous of Seasons

“The Great Spirit is an omnipresent supreme life force generally conceptualized as a Supreme Being or god. The Great Spirit is a central component in many … indigenous cultures in Canada and the United States.”

  • Wikipedia

Perhaps nature’s greatest affirmation of the Great Spirit is the coming of spring.

“Ramadan is a month in the Islamic calendar – Islam’s holy month, because during it Muhammad received his initial revelation and (ten years later) made his historic Hijrah (Migration) from Mecca to Medina.”

  • The World’s Religions; Huston Smith

“Passover, [in Judaism, commemorates] the Hebrews’ liberation from slavery in Egypt and the ‘passing over’ of the forces of destruction, or the sparing of the firstborn of the Israelites, when the Lord ‘smote the land of Egypt’ on the eve of the Exodus.”

  • Britannica

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that those who believe in Him may not perish, but may have life everlasting.”

  • John 3:16

Whether one sees this season of the year as one to mark the time at which the Almighty established a pact with His people, or liberated His people, or redeemed His people, or simply as one of renewal, it is the most wondrous of our seasons:  the time to appreciate and – if you believe in a loving and merciful God – to give thanks for the Blessing of Life.  

Republicans and the Lesson of Ernst and Leon

“The thing that makes me sad [is] … a once-great party, a party that stood for something, stood for principles whether you agree with those principles or not, is now a party that stands for loyalty to one man. … Let’s look at where we are.  A civil war [in our current time] isn’t what it was in the 19th century – it’s not state against state, blue against gray.  It’s going to be armed groups against armed groups.  Targeted assassinations, violence …”

  • Then-U.S. IL Rep Adam Kinzinger on The View, February 22, 2022 

Over the last several years, former President Donald Trump has made a number of incendiary comments inciting violence against those who oppose him, including his August, 2023, social media post “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!” with regard to witnesses who might testify against him in his Washington, D.C., trial on charges that he sought to overturn the 2020 election, and his pronouncement this past weekend, “Now if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole — that’s gonna [sic] be the least of it.  It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country. That will be the least of it.”  (I know; this latter comment could be argued to be no more than a poor choice of words uttered in the context of addressing auto industry competition with China.  At the same time, given Mr. Trump’s behavior over the last eight years, it can just as credibly be construed as confirmation of the fears Mr. Kinzinger expressed over two years ago.)  That said, what has most particularly drawn my attention is the venom Mr. Trump has displayed toward those still considering themselves Republicans but not whole-hearted MAGAs.

After winning the New Hampshire Republican primary, in reference to those who supported his opponent, former SC Gov. and U.S. U.N. Amb. Nikki Haley, Mr. Trump declared, “I don’t get too angry.  I get even.”  He supplemented those remarks on his social media site the next day:  “Anybody that makes a ‘Contribution’ to [Ms. Haley], from this moment forth, will be permanently barred from the MAGA camp.  We don’t want them, and will not accept them.”

Mr. Trump’s exclusionary sentiments, although directed at Ms. Haley’s campaign supporters, clearly encompass Ms. Haley herself and Republicans such as former Vice President Mike Pence, U.S. UT Sen. Mitt Romney, former U.S. WY Rep. Liz Cheney, former NJ Gov. Chris Christie, and Mr. Kinzinger, who have indicated that they will not support Mr. Trump’s 2024 presidential bid; but I would submit that they have broader implications.  Note Mr. Trump’s reference to “MAGA” in his January post.  He does not consider himself a Republican; he considers himself a MAGA.  The distinction is crucial.  Those who have shown evident distaste for Mr. Trump but have nonetheless pledged to support him out of Republican loyalty — Senate Minority Leader U.S. KY Sen. Mitch McConnell being the most prominent — are fools.  They are ignoring the Lesson of Ernst and Leon.

“[Adolf Hitler and Ernst Roehm were] two veterans of the Nazi movement who were also close friends (Ernst Roehm was the only man whom Hitler addressed by the familiar personal pronoun du). … [On July 1, 1934,] Hitler, in a final act of what he apparently thought was grace, gave orders that a pistol be left on the table of his old comrade.  Roehm refused to make use of it.  ‘If I am to be killed, let Adolf do it himself,’ he is reported to have said.  Thereupon, two S.A. officers … entered his cell and fired their revolvers at Roehm point-blank.”

  • William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

“[Vladimir] Lenin and [Leon] Trotsky were close both ideologically and personally during the Russian Revolution and its aftermath … Assessing Trotsky, Lenin wrote: “… from that time on there has been no better Bolshevik.” … On 20 August 1940, Trotsky was attacked [by order of Joseph Stalin] in Mexico City by … a … NKVD agent, and died the next day in a hospital. His murder is considered a political assassination.”

  • DBpedia

By citing the fates of Messrs. Roehm and Trotsky, I am not suggesting that those Republicans now pledging transparently lukewarm support for Mr. Trump need to fear for any physical retribution from any direct order of Mr. Trump if he is re-elected — although in their places, I would fear his political vengeance and danger from the impulse to violence among MAGAs that the former president has unleashed.  Those supporting Mr. Trump purely out of Republican Party loyalty are choosing to ignore the glaringly obvious fact that Mr. Trump, despite donning the Republican mantle, accords no value to anyone being a loyal Republican; he’s dedicated only to himself.  These traditional Republicans apparently believe that because they share MAGAs’ intense distaste for Democrats’ cultural philosophies and public policy positions, Mr. Trump is better than the Democrats.  What they don’t see is that Mr. Trump and his MAGAs don’t think that they are any better than the Democrats; these traditional Republicans still fail to grasp that they will better protect genuine conservative principles by influencing conservative independents and moderate Republicans to vote for President Joe Biden this November.   

In The Righteous Mind, Dr. Jonathan Haidt writes of what he calls, the “Loyalty Foundation,” that he contends we all have but is relatively stronger in those tending to vote Republican:  “The love of loyal teammates is matched by a corresponding hatred of traitors, who are usually considered to be far worse than enemies.  [In] [t]he [Islamic] Koran, for example … [f]ar worse than a Jew is an apostate – a Muslim who has betrayed or simply abandoned the faith.  The Koran commands Muslims to kill apostates …”

I suspect that if they were able, Messrs. Roehm and Trotsky might advise those Republicans who support Mr. Trump out of fealty to their party but whom Mr. Trump and his followers may well hereafter nonetheless deem to be insufficiently slavishly loyal:  Beware.

Pretty dark?  Absolutely.  Paranoid?  Hopefully.  Still, the most grievous error made by those opposing Mr. Trump ever since he came down the escalator in 2015 has been a lack of imagination. 

“Grow an alligator at home in the bathtub, eventually he will outgrow it, escape, and eat your face.”

  • @SykesCharlie

On Freedom and MAGA Anger

In a note recently entered in these pages, I referred to former President Donald Trump’s defeat of former SC Gov. and U.S. U.N. Amb. Nikki Haley in Ms. Haley’s home state of South Carolina, and indicated that I was struck by two findings in CNN’s South Carolina exit polling, the first being that the vast majority of South Carolina Trump voters believe, despite all objective evidence to the contrary, that Mr. Trump won the 2020 presidential election.

The second finding seems of equal concern.  CNN found that 59% of Mr. Trump’s South Carolina voters characterized their mood as, “Angry.”  I’ve pondered:  What makes them so angry?  What gives them leave to be angry?

Are they moved by religious fervor – is it that they consider the liberal and progressive agenda (which advocates for abortion rights, transgender rights, same sex marriage, and the like) a cause for righteous anger, justifying a hellfire response?  Call me a cynic, but the majority of the MAGAs coming out of Trump rallies, bedecked in red MAGA hats with Mr. Trump’s picture on their chests and American flag pants covering their bottoms, don’t look like their next stop is a Christian prayer service.  And for those who are sincerely inflamed by religious zeal:  I would suggest, as a trying but frequently failing Christian  – and here, genuinely respectfully — that no human can truly discern what God wants – save, perhaps, that He (please excuse the use of the male pronoun to refer to a genderless being) doesn’t want His children judging each other in His name.  (“Do not judge, that you may not be judged.” Matthew 7:1.)  I would have the temerity to suggest that those of faith should readily recognize that He can take care of Himself.  He will render His Just Judgement on each of us in His own time, without our help.

Are they driven by cultural antipathy – that their mores, even if not religiously based, can’t abide the urban, multi-ethnic, multi-gender, untraditional, frankly alien and frequently humorless ways and attitudes (and the arrogance and condescension that frequently attends them) that form the center of gravity of the progressive movement and have unquestionably attained ascendance in mainstream American culture?  If so, I would venture here:  MAGAs need to move on.  Their vehemence bespeaks insecurity.  All who know me are aware that I am a curmudgeon, getting worse by the day.  I believe in honorifics.  I liked my phone on the desk or wall, not in my pocket.  I liked the days of limited TV stations (or cable, if one wanted to live extravagantly 😉 ).  I like books in my hand, newspapers delivered to my door.  While long retired, to this day I believe that business people should be wearing business attire every day.  I cringe every time an NFL player carries on after making a great play.  [I fondly recall the great Barry Sanders calmly giving the football to officials after he scored touchdowns.  (“Act like you’ve been there before, and that you’ll be there again.”)]  I find a number of progressive shibboleths irritating overreaction.  It doesn’t matter what I prefer.  Our culture moves on.  One adapts to the extent one must (I do carry a cell phone 🙂 ), while otherwise maintaining the manner of life with which one is most comfortable.  It is, as MAGAs love to proclaim, a free country; if they are secure in their ways, they should simply get on with their lives.

Or is the anger primarily economically based?  If it is, I would submit that such attitude is in diametrical contrast to the spirit of initiative, independence and accountability that has made America, America.  Although I have genuine reservations about whether race-based affirmative action programs, however well-intended, have in sum benefited the African American community over the last 50 years, I don’t think it can credibly be denied that if you’re born black and poor in this country, you have the right to be angry (for purposes of simplicity, I’m ignoring other barriers such as gender, physical handicap and age).  I am less sure that anyone born white and healthy anywhere in this country (save perhaps for the extremely impoverished) is nearly as entitled to be aggrieved.  Not all of us are going to be superstars – recalling a secret agent series from my youth, fictional CIA assassin Matt Helm once observed in Donald Hamilton’s The Betrayers, “[A]nybody who tries to tell me that some people aren’t brighter than others, or better shots, or faster drivers, is wasting his time” – but for the most part, a healthy white American has choices to go to (at least community) college or receive technical training, and to utilize the skills s/he has been given where the opportunities are. 

John Mellencamp has written and sung in “Small Town” that he “was born in a small town” and “can breathe in a small town,” but conceded, “my job is so small town; provides little opportunity.”  Many of Mr. Trump’s supporters who are angered at being economically left behind – the vast majority seemingly white and healthy – appear to be from and consider themselves better able to breathe in a small town like Mr. Mellencamp’s.  That said, between 1940 and 1970, the number of American farms declined by over two thirds (from six to two million); the majority of the profitable farms that remain aren’t family farms, but rather large corporate concerns.  The manufacturing plants affording wages upon which workers could comfortably raise a family that proliferated in our nation’s small towns from the 1940s into the 1970s declined sharply thereafter as American manufacturing businesses turned to outsourcing.  Today, most of our economic opportunity exists amid the congestion and denser air of our more populated areas.    

I suspect that any MAGAs who became acquainted with the biographies of all of our presidents over the last 150 years would find Theodore Roosevelt the most appealing.  A scion of a well-to-do New York City family, the tragic losses of his first wife and mother to illness on the same day caused TR to escape New York in 1884 and spend until 1887 as a cattle rancher in the Badlands, now part of North Dakota.  His account of his years as a rancher, Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail, was published in 1901.  All are aware that throughout his adulthood Mr. Roosevelt was an avid hunter, for scientific research and for sport, but during his years in the Badlands, his and his team’s hunting was more often about survival; he frequently refers to their need for “fresh meat.”  The superabundance of bison and other game in the northwest in the early 1800s had already been severely depleted by the time he reached the Badlands.  The game rarely came to them; although the opportunity to kill game was still there, they couldn’t stand in place and wait for it; to survive they had to seize opportunity, had to seek out the game where it was.      

Some Americans may prefer to pursue occupations for which the psychic awards can be great but the recompense can be small (farming being a prime example).  So be it; but there are countless occupations in our urban areas that would afford many of these Americans a larger and steadier source of remuneration.  Many of Mr. Trump’s supporters clearly prefer to live in small communities; fair enough, but these citizens are choosing not to do what Mr. Roosevelt and his contemporaries did – leave the areas in which they are comfortable and go to where the game is.  [There is obviously also a segment that – as is true of all people of every cultural, ethnic and economic stripe – fails to thrive economically because they choose pursuits for which they’re poorly suited.  (Toiling in the minor leagues, you may be mad that you’re not in The Show, but if you can’t hit the curve ball, it is what it is.)]

Probably every one of us has made choices, either knowingly or unwittingly, that in retrospect weren’t the wisest.  I would submit that the “freedom” that MAGAs loudly proclaim they seek – as recently as this past weekend, I saw a gentleman wearing a sweatshirt bearing an American flag on the sleeve with “FREEDOM” emblazoned on his chest — is not a birthright, but an opportunity, to be seized or squandered. 

From someone scolding those who judge, fairly judgmental?  (At least give me credit for being self-aware  😉 ).  Unduly harsh?  I’m not so sure.  Do I think that if I had been born on a farm in Iowa, or on the Northern Great Plains of Montana, I would have had the foresight and gumption to have seen that I might best make use of the talents that the Almighty gave me by moving to one of our urban centers?  Maybe; maybe not.  Would I, at my now-advanced age, recognize that any choices that I had made that I now rued were, indeed, my responsibility?  I hope I would.  (There’s a good chance I would, since we Irish Catholics revel in guilt. 🙂 )

I am confident that the Godfather of modern conservativism, the late U.S. AZ Sen. Barry Goldwater, would agree that the price of freedom is the commensurate duty to take responsibility for the consequences of your choices.  Blaming others for one’s misfortune is the least American of all attributes, a desecration of the memory of our forebears who came from all over the world, embracing the right to speak and to practice their religions as they chose, to seize the opportunity of America.

On Nikki Haley:  A Final Postscript: An Addendum

A longtime friend and distinguished psychologist commented on the last post:

“[R]egarding the alarming percentage of people who lack critical thinking, it’s possible that it might be as many as 30 to 40 percent of the population (based on research concerning Jean Piaget’s last stage of cognitive development, aka the stage of formal operational thought). Truly discouraging.”

Her note caused me to consider the relationship of intelligence to the capacity for critical thought.  Intelligence Quotient (IQ) tests are reportedly designed to discern the composite of the test taker’s language, mathematical, spatial, memory, reasoning and problem solving capabilities and score the subject’s raw intellectual horsepower relative to the same capabilities in others. Until receiving our friend’s comment, my impression had been that one’s capacity for critical thought roughly aligned with one’s IQ.  Apparently, it does not, at least in many cases. In what was obviously not a scientifically-schooled search, I found a few references making the point set forth by Dr. Heather A. Brown, an Associate Professor of Psychology at California State University, in the article to which a link is provided below.  Dr. Brown writes in part: 

“Though often confused with intelligence, critical thinking is not intelligence. Critical thinking is a collection of cognitive skills that allow us to think rationally in a goal-orientated fashion and a disposition to use those skills when appropriate. Critical thinkers are amiable skeptics. They are flexible thinkers who require evidence to support their beliefs and recognize fallacious attempts to persuade them. Critical thinking means overcoming all kinds of cognitive biases (for instance, hindsight bias or confirmation bias).”

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-do-smart-people-do-foolish-things

Assuming Dr. Piaget’s estimates are a fair reference point for the mental aptitudes of the American citizenry, it would appear tenable that a larger percentage of our citizens than I have earlier suggested lack, rather than refuse to employ, the capacity for critical thought – which presumably makes them ready targets for effective propaganda.  Such is, as our friend indicated, truly discouraging.  That said, we can perhaps hope that a significant-enough segment of our people who either cannot or do not employ the capacity for critical thought are hard-wired to vote for President Joe Biden.   🙂  

On Nikki Haley:  A Final Postscript

As all who remember are aware, on February 24th former President Donald Trump defeated former SC Gov. and U.S. U.N. Amb. Nikki Haley in the Republican Presidential primary in Ms. Haley’s home state of South Carolina by a margin of roughly 60%-40%.  It was a prelude to a series of even more impressive (from a percentage standpoint) victories by Mr. Trump over Ms. Haley in the March 5th Super Tuesday Republican primaries, and last week Ms. Haley suspended her campaign.  Still, a couple of findings I heard relating to the now-seemingly-long-ago South Carolina primary results continue to resonate with me.  Although I originally constructed a note that would have covered both – with my comments about Ms. Haley more the afterthought than the focus — I have divided them in attempt to avoid testing your patience and eyesight.  The second impression from the South Carolina primary will be addressed in a subsequent post.

CNN’s South Carolina exit polling found that the vast majority of Palmetto State Trump voters continue to believe, despite all objective evidence to the contrary, that Mr. Trump won the 2020 presidential election.  One is reinforced by one’s understanding and surroundings; clearly, if you and everybody you know believes that Mr. Trump won in 2020, it is difficult for you to grasp that he could lose in 2024.  While in retrospect this belief completely defused what I considered Ms. Haley’s strongest campaign asset against Mr. Trump – the “electability” argument – it also indicated that a notable segment of our voters either lack or continue to be unwilling to use their capacity for critical thought.  Since overall the Republican primary vote count has been down, it’s hard to determine exactly how many voters traditionally considering themselves Republican (as contrasted with rank-and-file MAGAs) actually believe that Mr. Trump won in 2020, but it’s of deep concern for the future of our republic that in the country affording the widest access to accurate information in the world, a quarter to a third of our electorate seemingly remains unable or unwilling to assess and accurately perceive reality.

A final word on Ms. Haley, as she departs the public eye (at least for now).  All reading these pages are aware that I admire her political athleticism.  Some argue that her 2024 campaign might have fared better if she had started attacking Mr. Trump more forcefully earlier; I disagree.  She needed to first navigate through a huge field of challengers; if she had attacked Mr. Trump aggressively at an earlier stage than she did – i.e., before the race became “one on one” — she would have been dismissed as a traitor.  That said, I would submit that she has been a formidable warrior in the defense of our democracy.  Her attacks on Mr. Trump with regard to NATO and Ukraine, his obsequiousness to Russian President Vladimir Putin, his responsibility for scuttling the bipartisan border deal, his disregard for military sacrifice, Republicans’ losing track record in general elections during his political preeminence, and the distractions caused by his court challenges, taken together with her declared “faith in juries” (the reference to the civil jury finding that Mr. Trump sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll), were respectfully accepted as credible positions in rightwing media outlets while she was perceived to be seeking the Republican presidential nomination in good faith; similar future claims by President Joe Biden and his surrogates will neither be aired nor heeded by such outlets.  In an election where every vote will count, Ms. Haley weakened Mr. Trump during the last couple of months. 

Will Ms. Haley be a viable presidential candidate in four years if President Joe Biden wins reelection?  (Put aside the fact that if Mr. Trump wins, there won’t be an election – at least a genuine election — in four years.)  In normal times, a charismatic Republican candidate would be favored to win the White House after eight years of a Democratic administration, and in normal times a party seeks to correct the strategies which caused its defeat in the preceding election.  I fear that Mr. Trump has so contaminated the Republican Party apparatus and its adherents that these are not normal times.  Ms. Haley may be caught politically between a rock and a hard place; it’s hard to see her winning the presidential nomination of such a tribalistic organization in four years if she doesn’t endorse Mr. Trump, but even if she does endorse Mr. Trump, she is now considered a pariah by a wide swath of the Republican base.  Even so, if counseling her, I would advise that she not endorse Mr. Trump – that she should perhaps spend much of the coming months traveling internationally away from the American media, burnishing her foreign policy credentials (I suspect that she would be received warmly in a number of NATO nations).  If in the wake of a Trump defeat she runs in 2028 as a traditional Republican and is successful in corralling all of the non-MAGA vote in the early primaries against a field of Trump Wannabes (none of whom yet on the scene possessing the former President’s animal charisma) who split the MAGA vote, she might be able to build momentum in a narrow lane in the same manner as Candidates Jimmy Carter did against more liberal Democratic presidential candidates in 1976 and Donald Trump did against the traditional Republican presidential candidates in 2016.  An extreme long shot, almost akin to a hole in one?  Clearly.  Still, it’s too early to tell.

Right now, we have to win this presidential election.  Let us hope – indeed, let those of us who believe in the power of prayer, pray – that the segment of Americans unable or unwilling to assess and accept reality is closer to a quarter than a third of our citizenry.

On Alexei Navalny

Alexei Navalny has died in a Russian prison. 

As all who care are aware, Mr. Navalny was perhaps the most prominent Russian critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin during Putin’s dictatorship, arguably the most effective voice in rallying a significant segment of the Russian people against the Putin regime during its tenure.  For his efforts Mr. Navalny was imprisoned on a number of occasions, and survived multiple attempts by the Russian government to maim or kill him.  After being poisoned in August, 2020, he was allowed to leave Russia for Germany in order to receive treatment; I assume that Putin expected that Mr. Navalny would die outside Russia, or that if Mr. Navalny did manage to survive, he would remain in exile.  Instead, when Mr. Navalny did survive and was well enough to travel, he returned to Russia, knowing he would immediately be arrested and imprisoned, and undoubtedly anticipating that he would ultimately perish.

Mr. Navalny’s was the ultimate sacrifice for freedom.  May his martyrdom be a stark reminder (although none should be needed) of the brutality of the Putin regime for those being lulled into complaisance about or denial of it.

While I have used this phrase a number of times in these pages to mark the passing of individuals who have made notable contributions to our world, I think if those individuals were alive today (the late U.S. AZ Sen. John McCain particularly comes to mind), they would agree that it has never been nor will it ever be more warranted than it is for Mr. Navalny.

Requiescat in pace.