Smart and Evil

Former President Donald Trump has been sharply criticized – for once, by Republicans as well as by Democrats – for declaring last week that Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Lebanese militant group designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organization, is “very smart.” The New York Times quoted a Biden Administration spokesman in response: “Statements like this are dangerous and unhinged. It’s completely lost on us why any American would ever praise an Iran-backed terrorist organization as ‘smart.’” The Times quoted former Vice President Mike Pence as saying, “Look, Hezbollah are not smart. They’re evil, OK.”

I located the video clip; I wanted to hear Mr. Trump’s tone. I frankly couldn’t tell from his delivery whether he was actually praising Hezbollah – which, if he was, is as repulsive as any of the literally thousand other abhorrent statements he has made since he injected his brand of poison into our political fabric in 2015 – or simply making what he considered an objective observation as a launching point for his attack on Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu, who has seemingly invoked Mr. Trump’s wrath by praising President Joe Biden for his support of Israel since the Hamas attacked from the Gaza Strip on October 7.

I don’t know if Hezbollah is smart. I would, however, respectfully disagree with Mr. Pence’s seeming implication that there is a dichotomy between “smart” and “evil.” A person or organization can be both smart and evil. One need look no further than Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf; the volume bulges with racism, malignance and hate, while it also contains Hitler’s brilliant – there is no other word for it — description of how best to create and wield propaganda to influence the masses. (I have frequently wondered whether certain elements of alt-right media haven’t used the book as a text.)

No matter how depraved an enemy might be, it is a dangerous indulgence to deny or underestimate its intelligence.

As President Biden has noted, Hamas is evil; no organization with a shred of good could have carried out the horrific attack on Israeli civilians it executed on October 7. I don’t know whether its leaders are smart; I do have trouble believing that it could have conducted its operation without the active participation, at least in the planning, by Iranian authorities, who are smart as well as evil. I would submit that the very ferocity and brutality of the attack was intended to leave Mr. Netanyahu and his cabinet no practical political choice but to invade Gaza. It took no prescience to anticipate that innocent Palestinian casualties would inevitably result in an Israeli invasion, which would in turn inflame the other Arab states. Cui bono? Who benefits? It appears that Israel’s offensive against Hamas, precipitated by Hamas’ attack, will derail any prospective accord between Israel and Saudi Arabia – an accord that would have significantly weakened Iran’s strategic posture in the Middle East.

At the same time, I would suggest that Hamas, Hezbollah, and other forces with similar aims were unwilling to wait for the inevitable Palestinian civilian casualties. I will venture that an entity aligned with them, rather than Israel, is responsible for the hospital explosion that that killed hundreds of innocents on October 17. I make this suggestion not based upon Israeli or U.S. denials, but upon what has happened since: Cui bono? The timing of the blast, from the standpoint of Iran and its satellites, was impeccable. The explosion has predictably outraged the entire Middle East. At the time it occurred, Mr. Biden was already committed to a trip intended to quiet tensions through meetings with Mr. Netanyahu, President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi of Egypt, King Abdullah II of Jordan and President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority; after the explosion, the King and Messrs. El-Sisi and Abbas cancelled, leaving Mr. Biden seemingly one-sidedly embracing Mr. Netanyahu – obviously no choir boy from a foreign or Israeli domestic perspective. I fear that this well-intentioned trip has now become, due to a circumstance that I would submit was not reasonably foreseeable by Mr. Biden or his advisors (assuming that the blast wasn’t caused by Israel), a strategic backfire, likely damaging U.S. credibility in the region.

Again, as to Hamas’ initial terrorist attack: Cui bono? How much have you heard in the news about Ukraine since the Hamas attack? Despite all the Administration and Congressional vows to get aid to Israel, I strongly suspect that Israel, now aroused, is militarily more than a match for Hamas whether it gets American aid or not. Such is obviously not the case regarding Ukraine’s struggle against Russia. As America’s attention has been diverted to the Middle East by the Hamas attack, Ukraine’s resources to resist Russia – Iran’s ally — are dwindling, and the House of Representatives – the majority of whom, if reports are accurate, wish to provide Ukraine further aid — are prevented from doing so by House Republican caucus dysfunction and MAGA U.S. OH Rep. Jim Jordan’s quest for the Speakership.

And again, as to Hamas’ attack: Cui bono? President Xi Jinping of China must be pondering whether this is the right time to make a move on Taiwan. Given Mr. Biden’s resolve and the West’s collaborative response in responding to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, until recent days Mr. Xi might well have logically concluded that it was wiser to delay any overt action against Taiwan until it could be determined whether the American democratic fabric would further unravel during the upcoming U.S. presidential cycle. Now, it would seemingly be impossible in his place not to consider whether America and its people, even if they have the Pacific military might to repel any attempted Mainland invasion of Taiwan, have the will to confront such an invasion, given all the demands upon them in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Does the octogenarian Mr. Biden have the stamina?

Although it serves little purpose to note these glaringly ironic facts, I can’t resist: Hamas members are Sunni Muslims, and they – as well as their Iranian Shia Muslim collaborators – claim to be dedicated to the precepts of Allah communicated to them through Muhammad – the “Seal of the Prophets” — completely ignoring the fact that Muhammad peacefully allowed Jews to live within his kingdom; or that Jewish Israelis, who rue but accept that their Gaza offensive will inevitably cause injury and death to many innocent Palestinian civilians, subscribe to the Book of Genesis, which describes the Lord God’s efforts to protect innocents as he destroyed the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

I have indicated in these pages that I consider Mr. Biden the most consequential American president since Franklin Roosevelt. Mr. Biden faces not only the foreign policy challenges described here but also the rise of formidable illiberal forces within our own borders. During the next year, he has to persuade a majority of Americans in key swing states that the course he has and is pursuing is the wisest course for our nation and our citizens. While I would not go so far as to say that the severity of the challenges Mr. Biden is addressing is yet as acute as those confronted by his predecessors Abraham Lincoln and Mr. Roosevelt, I can think of no president in our history that has had to simultaneously confront such a wide array of truly critical crises as Mr. Biden does today.

Likely nothing here you haven’t already thought of. Sometimes, one just has to get it out. May Mr. Biden and his team persevere against both the evil … and the smart and evil.

On the Passing of Dick Butkus

I am an oddity (obviously in more ways than just this 😉 ) in that, being raised in the Chicago area, I was a Bear fan from the early ‘60’s until the late ‘70’s or early ‘80’s before becoming a Packer fan. (Perhaps being a glutton for punishment — I was also then a Cub fan — I transferred my allegiance to the Green and Gold as the Bears of Jim McMahon, Walter Payton, and Mike Singletary were ascending and Green Bay, floundering after the departure of Head Coach Vince Lombardi, had become the backest of NFL backwaters.)

This is to note the passing of Dick Butkus, the most feared defensive player of his era and arguably any era. Since more Packer than Bear fans read these notes, here’s a fact of which some may not be aware: in the 1965 NFL draft — not the ballyhooed affair that exists today — the Bears had the third and fourth picks in the first round, and chose Mr. Butkus with the third pick, and Kansas halfback Gayle Sayers with the fourth. Although my knowledge of baseball has become dated, I obviously remain conversant with the NFL, and in my view Mr. Sayers (before he was injured in 1968), who passed away in 2020, still remains, after all these years, the best pure running back I have ever seen (with honorable mention to Barry Sanders 🙂 ). I am sure that there are all sorts of pundits who rate which NFL teams have had the best drafts over these many decades; I am pretty confident that no team has ever had a better draft than the Bears in 1965.

In 1965 season, the Bears – as they did every year for decades while they shared Wrigley Field with the Cubs – played their first three games on the road, and started 0-3, including a loss to Mr. Lombardi’s Packers. As I recall, at that point Bears Owner and Head Coach George Halas began to rely more heavily on Mr. Sayers. Riding Mr. Butkus’ leadership on defense and Mr. Sayers’ skills as halfback and return man, the team went 9-2 the rest of the way (9-5 overall, including a 21-point victory over the Packers.) Although Green Bay, by virtue of its 10 wins, proceeded on to the NFL title, by the end of that regular season it was Chicago, not Green Bay, that was the proverbial team “nobody wants to play.”

I recall an anecdote to the effect that legendary Green Bay linebacker Ray Nitschke was once asked by a teammate, “Have you ever seen anyone who hit as hard as you?” Mr. Nitschke reportedly immediately replied, “Butkus. Butkus hit harder.”

The news of Mr. Butkus’ passing has made me a Bear fan again, if only for a moment.

Requiescat in pace, No. 51.

On Kevin McCarthy’s Speakership Ouster

“The House of Representatives shall chuse [sic] their Speaker …”

Article I, Section 2; the Constitution of the United States of America

I had something ready to post yesterday morning, written on Tuesday after former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy was removed as Speaker and before I had heard much commentary from media talking heads, in which I queried whether the House Democratic caucus might not have missed an historic opportunity by failing to provide Mr. McCarthy the votes he needed to retain his office.

I am no fan of Mr. McCarthy. I find him gutless and more interested in title and the trappings of power than in real power. I consider him to have abided if not abetted in former President Donald Trump’s seditious attempt to thwart the results of the 2020 presidential election. I have found it unnerving to have him, as Speaker, second in succession to the presidency.

That said, I suggested in the unpublished post that the weak can serve a purpose; that Democrats might have been able to extract concessions from Mr. McCarthy that could have assured the quick passage of a clean aid bill for Ukraine, perhaps led to bipartisan collaboration on other initiatives between the less partisan members of both parties, and would at a minimum have eliminated the possibility that a MAGA would succeed Mr. McCarthy.

Even so, I pulled the post back because of a factor I heard frequently emphasized in media commentary about Mr. McCarthy after I had scheduled it: Democrats didn’t believe that he could be trusted to keep his word.

One can’t do business with somebody who can’t be trusted. If that was indeed the ground upon which Democrats decided to allow Mr. McCarthy’s ouster – rather than pique at Mr. McCarthy’s authorization of an impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden, or his potshots at them to appease his base, or some other similar grandstanding gesture – I understand why they did what they did.

That said, Pandora’s Box has clearly now been opened. At the time this is typed, U.S. LA Rep. Steve Scalise and U.S. OH Rep. Jim Jordan have announced their candidacies for the Speakership. In a January note in these pages on Mr. McCarthy’s quest for the Speakership, I indicated:

“If … I was a member of the House Republican Caucus, I’d be a hard No on Mr. McCarthy [due to his lack of fortitude] (unless the only alternative was U.S. OH Rep. Jim Jordan, whom I consider at this point to arguably present a greater danger to American democracy than former President Donald Trump). [Emphasis Added]”

I feel no differently about Mr. Jordan’s illiberal inclinations now than I did then [although I concede that given Mr. Trump’s statements and actions over the last nine months and given their respective positions in the MAGA universe, Mr. Jordan may not now present quite as great a danger to American democracy as Mr. Trump (but I am confident that he’ll make up the gap if given the opportunity)].

I fear that we may be descending into a political maelstrom. We’ll soon know whether Democrats’ refusal to prop up Mr. McCarthy was a wise maneuver or regrettable blunder.

On 2024 Presidential Campaign Strategies: Part II

[Caution: this Part II has become interminably long, such that it might — like liver, lutefisk, or lima beans — be best digested in small servings 😉 ]

Mr. Biden. In the first part of this note, I suggested the strategies that former President Donald Trump might execute to (legally and validly) recapture the presidency; those that seem to me most suitable for Mr. Biden are many and more varied. What is of great concern to me is that although the President and his team may recognize all of the eight steps set forth below, they don’t appear to be applying what I consider to be the appropriate respective emphasis on each. From least important to most important:

Eighth — solicit the highly confidential agreement of specific prominent Republican surrogates to publicly support Mr. Biden (or, at a minimum, disown Mr. Trump) when the time is right. It would be understood that any such understandings would only apply if Mr. Trump wins the Republican nomination. As in 2020, the presidential election will be won or lost in the Republican suburbs of the major urban centers in the swing states. The most important Republican surrogates to be solicited would be former President George W. Bush and former U.S. WY Rep. Liz Cheney. These two arguably retain credibility with conservative independents and moderate Republicans. (If Mr. Bush is as patriotic as he’s always claimed to be, it’s time for him to come out of his corner.) The message these surrogates might express to this pivotal suburban segment would be simple: “I don’t agree with President Biden on most domestic issues, but Trump is a danger to our republic. I will not vote for Trump. Given our choice in 2024, I’m going to vote for Mr. Biden, and I encourage you to follow me. Now is the time to save our democratic way of life. After this election, we can rebuild the Republican Party and start countering Democratic excesses with the right presidential candidate in 2028.”

Seventh — trumpet the Administration’s accomplishments. They are many, and impressive. It doesn’t matter. Mr. Biden should expend relatively lesser effort in this regard. Those that appreciate what he’s achieved are already going to vote for him. He will never convince brainwashed consumers of alt-right media that he’s done a good job. [An August CBS/YouGov poll indicated that Mr. Trump’s supporters believe Mr. Trump more than their own family members (although, hopefully, not more than their mothers 🙂 )]. This is where the President’s good nature and his faith in the good sense of the vast majority of American electorate is dangerous. I find it disconcerting that this seems to be the strategy that he and his team wish to emphasize.

Sixth – pray that the economy continues on a glide path to a “soft landing” without recession – i.e., that America’s unemployment rate remains low while inflation and interest rates decline. From a political perspective, perception of the economy trumps statistics. (Recall that former President Bill Clinton bested former President George H. W. Bush in 1992 in large part by arguing that he would be better than Mr. Bush at bringing America out of its recession; economists later determined that the recession Mr. Clinton decried concluded before Election Day in 1992.) I’m not sure that a good economy helps Mr. Biden, but a bad economy certainly hurts him. Right now, voters are understandably focusing on inflation, particularly gas and food prices, and interest rates. Mr. Biden might be able to make a wedge issue out of high gas prices if the Saudis and the Russians attempt to jack oil prices in too obvious a bid to help Mr. Trump’s re-election, but speaking for those of us of different faiths who believe in the power of prayer, there may be relatively little Mr. Biden can do with regard to the economy except pray.

Fifth — make Vice President Kamala Harris the on-site leader of FEMA’s effort to rebuild Maui and Puerto Rico (still struggling after Hurricanes Irma and Maria) – and then cut all communications from those islands back to the mainland. This is, of course, facetious, and not intended in any way to make light of the catastrophic loss that our people in these areas are suffering; it is to make the point that the relatively unfavorable public perception of Ms. Harris’ abilities hasn’t improved during the Biden Years (from which one might infer that the President doesn’t think any more highly of her qualifications than the general public; although in fairness, if he does believe she is of presidential timber, he’s given her no real opportunity to prove it). 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. Speaking in rankest political terms, the Vice President was an asset in 2020 in the wake of George Floyd’s murder but is now, fairly or unfairly, a political millstone for an aged President that he cannot jettison for fear of offending his constituency of color. He must keep her out of sight except for safe stops in heavily progressive areas.

Fourth – To the extent he can – recognizing that there are significant limits to what he can do in this regard in this media age — Mr. Biden needs to restrict his movement in front of video cameras as zealously and as effectively as he compensates for his stutter. Four score and seven years ago (yes, really; you can do the math 😉 ), Americans first re-elected a president they were completely unaware couldn’t walk; today — in perhaps the most patently obvious statement ever entered in these pages — visuals count. Although one of my dictionaries defines “doddering” as “feeble-minded from age,” the majority define the word entirely in terms of movement, such as: “Moving in a feeble or unsteady way, especially because of old age.” It is obvious that Mr. Biden “dodders” in the physical sense. Recently, he hosted a Camp David summit with the leaders of Japan and South Korea – nations with traditionally deep acrimony toward each other, but brought together by the President’s cajoling about their overriding concerns about China. It was a foreign policy tour de force by Mr. Biden. But what we saw as the President greeted his allies was a man clearly unsteady on his feet between two younger, more physically assured men. That was the visceral impression even I was left with, although because of my interest in foreign policy I probably appreciated more than the average voter the mental dexterity it had required to bring the summit about. I would supplement the conscious effort to limit Mr. Biden’s movement in front of cameras with ads containing video depicting him moving with assurance (he does at times) and flashing still pictures of him doing his job at a pace that leaves the viewer with the impression of movement.

Third – stick to the knitting. Winning the presidency is about winning 270 Electoral College (“EC”) votes. You don’t get to stay if you get less; they don’t let you stay longer if you get more. Recall that Mr. Biden entered the 2020 race with the avowed strategy of retaining all of the EC votes that former U.S. Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic Presidential Nominee Hillary Clinton had won in 2016, and adding the EC votes of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin – states Ms. Clinton had been expected to win, but had lost. He succeeded in that endeavor, while surprisingly (at least to me) winning Arizona and Georgia as well. These latter two states gave Mr. Biden some breathing room against Mr. Trump’s subsequent seditious lies about election integrity, but weren’t numerically necessary to win the White House. Mr. Biden and his team need to focus their efforts on the swing states they are most likely to win, and on the electoral segments within those states from which they need significant margins. Mr. Biden is perhaps our last American politician whom most voters find generally likeable even if they question his vitality, but he doesn’t inspire excitement. I was more than a little unnerved to recently hear a young black woman express disappointment with Mr. Biden’s performance in the PBS NewsHour series, “America at a Crossroads.” If the African American community doesn’t enthusiastically support Mr. Biden in 2024, he will lose. The Biden Campaign needs to employ effective surrogates among its core constituencies to get out the vote. Former President Barack Obama will help with the African American community (although query whether he has as much credibility with younger as he does with older blacks) and U.S. VT Sen. Bernie Sanders will help with progressives, but the Biden team must find surrogates to effectively stoke enthusiasm among pro-choice, various Latino communities (Latinos are not a monolithic whole), Jewish groups, etc., etc.

Second – Let MAGAs be MAGAs. Wisconsin state Republican MAGAs could well seek to impeach a state supreme court justice who was elected by a margin of over 10% to do what they wish to thwart. In Tennessee, MAGAs seemingly continue to try to freeze out certain black legislators for no reason other than that they’re black and they have the temerity to “talk back.” U.S. AL Sen. Tommy Tuberville will seemingly continue in his quest to block military promotions over cultural issues. As this is posted, it appears that Congressional MAGAs will force a government shutdown over the budget. Inevitably, Congressional MAGAs will seek to limit funding to Ukraine. Congressional MAGAs are starting an impeachment inquiry into Mr. Biden seemingly without appreciable evidence although he will never be convicted in the Senate and despite the fact that both Mr. Clinton’s and Mr. Trump’s approval ratings went up after they were impeached. (They say that no president wants to be impeached; while I can see where Mr. Biden would prefer to avoid the distraction such a proceeding would entail, if he indeed did not use his Vice Presidential office to favor his son, he should welcome an impeachment effort from a political standpoint.) I can’t even imagine all the bizarre ways that MAGAs will act over the next 14 months to pander to their base while alienating all rational voters, so the best thing that Mr. Biden and his team can do in this regard is … get out of their way 🙂 .

First and Foremost – Start pounding Mr. Trump with negative ads now, and keep it up until Election Day. Those of us with legal backgrounds are well aware of court decisions in which the judge would comment about a legal point: “It is so well settled that it needs no citation [of supporting authority].” What is so well settled in the political sphere that it needs no explanation: Negative Ads Work. The Biden Campaign should stay away from Mr. Trump’s criminal indictments – such emphasis will backfire if he’s acquitted – because they don’t need them. Show Mr. Trump urging his supporters to go to the Capitol on January 6, 2021, with footage of the ensuing riot. Show Mr. Trump’s Truth Social post in which he called for the termination of the Constitution with regard to the 2020 presidential election. Show his comments about pardoning some of the rioters who have been convicted. Show that he continues to claim that he won in 2020. Show Mr. Trump’s kind words about Russian President Vladimir Putin, accompanied by footage of the destruction Mr. Putin has wreaked upon Ukraine. Show his 2016 campaign pledge to appoint judges that would overturn Roe v. Wade – and what his appointments have brought about. These are simply the first to mind; there is so much material. Mr. Biden and his team seem focused on reminding voters about what they’ve done; they need to place their overwhelming emphasis on reminding voters what Mr. Trump has done.

One might argue that it would be wise for the Biden Campaign to wait until Mr. Trump secures, in fact if not formally, the Republican nomination before it begins such attacks; what if another Republican wins the nomination? While such is an understandable concern, I’d take the risk. The Republican field is too wide, and Mr. Trump’s core support is too strong. It hasn’t withered – has, indeed, strengthened – in the wake of his many indictments. The race is about persuading hesitant Democrats, conservative independents and moderate Republicans that Mr. Trump cannot be allowed back in the White House. Start pounding him now.

Not long ago, I wrote a post in which I stated my strong belief that we need to be alert to and guard against MAGA illiberal machinations related to the 2024 presidential election. I believe just as strongly that if we exert as much effort to protect our democracy as MAGAs will do to destroy it, we will preserve our way of life; that enough of our conservative independents and moderate Republican citizens will place greater store on safeguarding our republic than on their unease about progressive excesses. It’s our game to win – but every bit as crucially, it is Mr. Trump’s and MAGAs’ game to lose. Let them lose it. Hopefully, Mr. Biden and his team will execute the appropriate strategies to both win the necessary votes and safeguard the integrity of our electoral processes.

To conclude with the only pet saying of Mr. Trump that I genuinely appreciate: We’ll see what happens.

On 2024 Presidential Campaign Strategies: Part I

[I write more about politics and less about what I consider traditional substantive policy issues than I ever imagined when I began entering these posts. The obviously illiberal aims of former President Donald Trump and MAGAism have made our politics the battleground upon which the life of American democracy – which I would submit surpasses even climate change, artificial intelligence, and Chinese and Russian aggression as the most vital substantive policy challenge of our time – will be won or lost.]

I concluded my 2022 entries in these pages by declaring that I considered President Joe Biden, at the midpoint of his term, the most consequential American president we have had since Franklin Roosevelt. At the same time, I noted the significant unease about his age, even among our friends who were certain to vote for the President if he ran again, and queried how Mr. Biden would electorally fare if he was running against a younger Republican opponent not so overtly autocratically toxic as former President Donald Trump.

I concluded by submitting that the best way for Mr. Biden to secure what he had achieved was by stepping aside for another Democrat better positioned to defend his advances.

Over a year ago, I declared in a different post that the Democrats’ primary challenge to retaining the White House in 2024 was Vice President Kamala Harris; that particularly because of the President’s advanced years, the widespread doubts – even among some progressives – about Ms. Harris’ readiness for the presidency made her “a political liability that could sink Mr. Biden even against Mr. Trump, and an albatross that he cannot afford against any other Republican presidential nominee.”

I concluded that entry by submitting that if the President was serious about running for re-election, I hoped that his closest aide would then soon be advising Ms. Harris that for personal reasons and with great regret, she would be advising Mr. Biden to name someone else to run with him in 2024.

Although I am confident that the President and his team are loyal followers of these pages 😉 , they somehow missed those posts. At present, progressive pundits are wringing their hands about voters’ evident concerns about Mr. Biden’s age, and some clips I’ve seen make it seem as though former SC Gov. Nikki Haley spends more time talking about Ms. Harris than she does Mr. Biden. A recent Wall Street Journal poll has Messrs. Biden and Trump tied at 46%, with 8% remaining undecided.

One can bemoan the fact that 46% of our citizens are open to voting for a man who, although he remains entitled to the presumption of innocence with regard to the 91 felony counts he now faces, has manifested undoubted authoritarian tendencies. One can perhaps rue the fact that Mr. Biden did not choose to step aside when he could have. (Last week a close friend sent me a recent article in which a pundit was still calling for Mr. Biden to step aside. My reaction: while U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren might be able to rapidly pull together enough of their 2020 campaign organizations to make 2024 runs, from a practical standpoint, they’re already far behind where they’d need to be, and the bad feelings that would inevitably erupt during the ensuing internecine free-for-all would probably hand Mr. Trump the White House; it’s too late.) We are where we are. We have no choice but to continue to win presidential elections against the autocratic forces we face until hopefully, at some point, the anarchic spell gripping so many of our citizens breaks.

I would submit that Messrs. Biden’s and Trump’s respective campaign strategies for victory are fairly clear. Mr. Trump is executing upon his; hopefully, Mr. Biden, despite what I consider some early missteps, will do the same. Here we go.

Mr. Trump. In some respects, the former president has the easier go of it. He has to draw to an inside straight as he did in 2016. Putting aside the illiberal machinations that MAGA forces will undoubtedly attempt to execute on his behalf in 2024, to actually legally win he needs but three strategies:

First, Mr. Trump’s trials are his campaign. Immediately below, you find a link to an August 28, 2023, article by New Republic Editor Michael Tomasky, entitled, “Trump’s Trials Don’t Interrupt His Campaign – They Are His Campaign” – one of the hundreds of pieces I’ve read over the years that have made me wish I was bright enough to have written. In it, Mr. Tomasky writes in part:

“Conventional wisdom, again, has held that once Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and others in his crime family have to abandon the theater of the media for the sober confines of the courtroom, they will have to stop spouting these lies, and the facts will swallow them. Again, this is true to some extent … [b]ut it also fails to understand how the fascist bond between leader and people works. … [Mr. Trump’s] campaign will be largely about himself and his martyrdom for his people. … [I]t will be what he and his followers want. Biden and his supporters want an election about empirical facts. Trump and his loyalists want an election about fascist truth.” Mr. Trump has been – there is no other word for it – a genius at making his supporters viscerally feel that an attack on him is an attack on them.

https://newrepublic.com/article/175212/trumps-trials-campaign-2024-maga

Second, Mr. Trump needs to continue to look vital. No matter how much antipathy his opponents may have for him, his animal charisma is undeniable. At 77, he is probably completely drained after a rally, but while he’s on stage, he’s generally energized, and moves much younger and lighter than he is. We all know his hair is sparser than it appears and that the blond hair color and orange skin tone come out of bottles, but the fact remains that these are what we see – not an old man’s thinning white hair and drawn skin. His impeccable tailoring hides the 50+ pounds he has in excess of the 215 reported at his Fulton County booking. He appears robust – and thus, draws a sharp visual contrast to Mr. Biden.

Finally, Mr. Trump still probably loses to Mr. Biden unless he draws the right card to win over the majority of the Wall Street Journal’s poll’s 8% undecided, who are otherwise presumably more likely to break for Mr. Biden. I can think of several: a third party candidacy that draws from Mr. Biden voters who are leery about the President but cannot countenance voting for Mr. Trump; an obvious physical reversal for Mr. Biden – such as a “freeze” like those unfortunately now afflicting Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell; actual evidence that Mr. Biden used his Vice Presidential position to benefit his son, Hunter; or Mr. Trump’s acquittal(s) in whatever criminal trials he faces before Election Day – which Mr. Trump will proclaim as exoneration and proof of Democratic political persecutions.

The strategies that I would suggest that Mr. Biden needs to employ to retain the White House are varied and greater in number; rather than further test your perseverance, these are best left to Part II.

On Mitt Romney

Yesterday, U.S. UT Sen. Mitt Romney announced that he would not seek reelection in 2024, noting in a deft and apt slap at both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, “Frankly, it’s time for a new generation of leaders.” As all who care are aware, Sen. Romney has consistently stood, at times virtually alone in his party, against the malign behavior wrought upon our nation by Mr. Trump and his sect. Throughout his life, Mr. Romney has been an active member of his church; however, unlike large segments of Christian Evangelicals, he has not found his opposition to abortion incompatible with a repugnance at Mr. Trump’s abhorrent behavior. As long ago as a March, 2016, speech, Mr. Romney called Mr. Trump “a phony, a fraud … He’s playing members of the American public for suckers.” Mr. Romney was the only Republican Senator to vote to remove Mr. Trump following the former president’s first impeachment in the House of Representatives for seeking to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to assist him politically against Mr. Biden, and the Senator voted to remove Mr. Trump following the former president’s second House impeachment for inciting the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

The Republican Party’s 2012 presidential nominee, Mr. Romney was handily defeated by then-President Barack Obama. I think highly of Mr. Obama personally; I voted for him in 2008 and 2012. I think he did a good job in his first term. That said, a case can certainly be made that Mr. Romney would have been the better choice in 2012. In a March, 2012, CNN interview, Mr. Romney called Russia, “Our number one geopolitical foe,” and was widely derided by Mr. Obama and his surrogates for his “dated” views. At the time, I agreed with Mr. Obama and his team. We were wrong. Mr. Obama was, in my view, a poor foreign policy president in his second term. The strong impression remains that Mr. Romney would have done better.

In the 1970s Mr. Romney joined Bain & Company, ultimately became its Chief Executive Officer, and helped lead the company through a financial crisis. In 1984, he led a spin-off, Bain Capital, which became a highly successful private equity investment firm. He later successfully led the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics.

The Senator’s announcement made me reflect upon his impressive career in both the public and private sectors and to contrast it with the behavior of so many of our officeholders of both parties; Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy, currently groveling before the House MAGA Freedom Caucus by instituting an impeachment inquiry against Mr. Biden despite a seeming lack of evidence of wrongdoing on Mr. Biden’s part, comes most immediately to mind. It reminded me of comments by another storied Republican:

“Almost immediately after leaving Harvard in 1880 I began to take an interest in politics. I did not then believe, and I do not now believe, that any man should ever attempt to make politics his only career. It is a dreadful misfortune for a man to grow to feel that his whole livelihood and his whole happiness depend upon his staying in office. Such a feeling prevents him from being of real service to the people while in office, and always puts him under the heaviest strain of pressure to barter his convictions for the sake of holding office. A man should have some other occupation – I had several other occupations – to which he can resort if at any time he is thrown out of office, or if at any time he finds it necessary to choose a course which will probably result in his being thrown out, unless he is willing to stay in at cost to his conscience.”

The Autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt; Theodore Roosevelt, Sagamore Hill, October 1, 1913

Whether or not one agrees with Mr. Romney on every substantive issue, he has repeatedly shown himself a man of honor and conscience, unwilling, in Mr. Roosevelt’s words, “to barter his convictions” to appease his party’s prevailing sentiment. He will remain as estimable upon leaving office as he was in office. His departure will not be his loss; it will be ours.

On the Presidential Pardon Power

[Note: we’ll leave to a later – and hopefully mercifully shorter 😉 – post commenting on the recently-published 100+ page legal article asserting that former President Donald Trump is barred from running for the presidency under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment.]

“The President … shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.”

Article II, Section 2; The Constitution of the United States of America

University of California, Los Angeles law professor Richard L. Hasen, a leading expert on election law, has reportedly opined that the Constitution does not bar anyone indicted, or convicted, or even serving jail time, from running for president and winning the presidency. I’ve recently had a couple of close friends ask me if I thought that former President Donald Trump could pardon himself if he is inaugurated president in January, 2025, after having been convicted on any of the multiple federal charges he now faces. I’ve heard a number of media talking heads pointedly note that because the most recent indictment against Mr. Trump in Fulton County, Georgia, involves violation of Georgia state law, he couldn’t pardon himself if convicted in that proceeding – from which I infer that these commentators believe that that Mr. Trump might well have the power to pardon himself of federal convictions if he reassumes the presidency.

While the Constitution’s vesting in the President of a seemingly unqualified pardon power for “Offenses against the United States” arguably provides a prima facie argument that if re-inaugurated president, Mr. Trump will have the power to pardon himself of any federal convictions, I will submit [of course, subject to my customary (and glaringly obvious 🙂 ) disclaimers (1) that I never dealt with Constitutional Law in my legal career and (2) that one of the pairs of sharp legal eyes that sometimes scan these pages with more experience on these issues may completely disagree]:

A president does not have the power to pardon him/herself of federal crimes. If called upon to rule, a significant majority of the Supreme Court will so hold.

Although there are undoubtedly other authorities that have opined on this issue, the opinion rendered by U.S. Acting Assistant Attorney General Mary Lawton on August 5, 1974 – three days before then-President Richard Nixon announced his resignation of the presidency – seems the most pertinent. Ms. Lawton wrote: “[Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution] raises the question whether the President can pardon himself. Under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case, it would seem that the question should be answered in the negative.” Ms. Lawton died at age 58 in 1993 after a distinguished career of public service. A link to her memorandum is immediately below.

Click to access op-olc-supp-v001-p0370_0.pdf

Ms. Lawton’s reaction is of course the one we all had before we (cue the voice over of the late Rod Serling) … crossed over into the Trump Zone. That said, no Supreme Court, let alone this one, would be willing to base such a momentous decision upon a half-century old opinion written by an Acting Assistant Attorney General. This is where this note turns particularly geeky 😉 .

A number of the Court’s current conservative Justices are legal disciples of the late Associate Justice Anton Scalia, an adherent of “Originalism,” which Justice Scalia is reported to have described as, “The Constitution … means today not what current society, much less the court, thinks it ought to mean, but what it meant when it was adopted.”

I would submit that the best authority for what the Constitution meant when it was adopted is The Federalist, a series of eighty-five articles written in support of the adoption of the Constitution by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay under the pen name, “Publius.” Thomas Jefferson, no friend of Mr. Hamilton’s, described The Federalist as “the best commentary on the principles of government which ever was written.”

Links to Federalist Nos. 69 and 74 are provided below; both were written by Mr. Hamilton on the proposed President’s Constitutional powers. Although Mr. Hamilton was a proponent of a strong federal government and an empowered President, he was at pains to reassure Americans – since the United States had only secured its independence from England and King George III a few years before — that the new Constitution would not anoint a new de facto King, but rather that the President’s powers would be more akin to those then possessed by the Governor of the State of New York. In No. 69, he wrote in pertinent part:

“The President of the United States would be liable to be impeached, tried, and, upon conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors, removed from office; and would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law. The person of the king of Great Britain is sacred and inviolable; there is … no punishment to which he can be subjected without involving the crisis of a national revolution. …

The power of the President, in respect to pardons, would extend to all cases, EXCEPT THOSE OF IMPEACHMENT. The governor of New York may pardon in all cases, even in those of impeachment, except for treason and murder. Is not the power of the governor, in this article, on a calculation of political consequences, greater than that of the President? All conspiracies and plots against the government, which have not been matured into actual treason, may be screened from punishment of every kind, by the interposition of the prerogative of pardoning. If a governor of New York, therefore, should be at the head of any such conspiracy, until the design had been ripened into actual hostility he could insure his accomplices and adherents an entire impunity. A President of the Union, on the other hand, though he may even pardon treason, when prosecuted in the ordinary course of law, could shelter no offender, in any degree, from the effects of impeachment and conviction. Would not the prospect of a total indemnity for all the preliminary steps be a greater temptation to undertake and persevere in an enterprise against the public liberty, than the mere prospect of an exemption from death and confiscation, if the final execution of the design, upon an actual appeal to arms, should miscarry? Would this last expectation have any influence at all, when the probability was computed, that the person who was to afford that exemption might himself be involved in the consequences of the measure, and might be incapacitated by his agency in it from affording the desired impunity? [Emphasis Added].”

Language of a quarter of a millennium ago is obviously challenging to parse. Mr. Hamilton was clearly stressing that a President, unlike the King of England, was not “sacred and inviolable,” and that, unlike a king, he could be “subjected” to “punishment” without a national crisis. In Mr. Hamilton’s comparison of the presidency to the New York governorship, he argued that from a practical political standpoint, the Governor had greater power than the President and noted that the Governor, if leading an aborted conspiracy against the government, might pardon his “accomplices and adherents”; there was no indication that the Governor could pardon himself. Furthermore, Mr. Hamilton noted that a conspiratorial President himself might be “incapacitated by his agency” (i.e., impeached and convicted in the Senate for his role in the treasonous plot). Presumably, if a President could pardon himself, he would do so before he was “incapacitated by his agency,” and avoid the “prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law” that Mr. Hamilton alluded to earlier in his essay. Mr. Hamilton never indicated such could occur.

In Federalist No. 74, Mr. Hamilton returned to the presidential pardon power, declaring:

“As the sense of responsibility is always strongest, in proportion as it is undivided, it may be inferred that a single man would be most ready to attend to the force of those motives which might plead for a mitigation of the rigor of the law,and least apt to yield to considerations which were calculated to shelter a fit object of its vengeance. The reflection that the fate of a fellow-creature depended on his sole fiat, would naturally inspire scrupulousness and caution; the dread of being accused of weakness or connivance, would beget equal circumspection, though of a different kind. [Emphasis Added]”

Addressing the issue whether the pardon power should only be vested in the Congress in cases of treason, Mr. Hamilton wrote:

“As treason is a crime levelled at the immediate being of the society, when the laws have once ascertained the guilt of the offender, there seems a fitness in referring the expediency of an act of mercy towards him to the judgment of the legislature. And this ought the rather to be the case, as the supposition of the connivance of the Chief Magistrate [i.e., the President] ought not to be entirely excluded. But there are also strong objections to such a plan. It is not to be doubted, that a single man of prudence and good sense is better fitted, in delicate conjunctures, to balance the motives which may plead for and against the remission of the punishment, than any numerous body whatever. … [T]he secret sympathy of the friends and favorers of the condemned person, availing itself of the good-nature and weakness of others, might frequently bestow impunity where the terror of an example was necessary. [Emphasis Added].”

The basis of Mr. Hamilton’s argument in favor of the President’s pardon power is that a single individual “of prudence and good sense” – as contrasted with a legislature, easily moved by the passions of the day — would be able to impartially determine whether a given individual deserved a pardon. (Mr. Hamilton’s position here was arguably colored by his obvious visceral belief that the President would always be of sterling character; he commented in Federalist No. 68, “It will not be too strong to say that there will be a constant probability of seeing the [presidency] filled by characters preeminent for ability and virtue.”) Even so, since no person can be expected to be prudent or sensible with regard to his/her own guilt and punishment, it is not a long conceptual step to infer that Mr. Hamilton never envisioned that a President could pardon him/herself. Although Mr. Hamilton specifically contemplated that a President could be involved in treasonous activity, he provided no mention that the treasonous President could pardon him/herself.

https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed69.asp

https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed74.asp

Finally, let’s go to the most compelling authority one can find this side of The Godfather:

“PARDON. An act of grace, proceeding from the power intrusted with the execution of the laws, which exempts the individual on whom it is bestowed from the punishment the law inflicts for a crime he has committed [Citations omitted].

EXECUTIVE PARDON is an executive act of grace exempting an individual from punishment for a crime he has committed [Citations omitted]. [Emphasis Added]”

Black’s Law Dictionary; Revised Fourth Edition

A pardon is an act of grace, which by its very nature must be bestowed by one with power on another deemed worthy of clemency. One cannot bestow an act of grace on oneself.

As Ms. Lawton noted long ago, no one can be a judge in his/her own case. Mr. Hamilton spared no effort to convince skeptical Americans that the President would not have the powers of a King. (What is more Sovereign-like than the power to forgive oneself of one’s own misdeeds?) Finally, no one can perform an act of grace for him/herself.

Are these arguments irrefutable? Of course not. Mr. Hamilton never specifically declared, “The President described in our contemplated Constitution can’t pardon himself.” Justice Scalia was also an adherent of textualism, which interprets the meaning of a legal document by its text, and there’s nothing in Article II, Section 2 that says a President can’t pardon him/herself. That said, it is hard not to anticipate that Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, appointed by Mr. Trump, will look for a justification to enable them to assert their independence from the former president by joining Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson in rejecting such a broad claim of the presidential pardon power. As U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, the judge now presiding over Mr. Trump’s Washington, D.C. insurrection trial, noted in In November 2021, when rejecting Mr. Trump’s motion to block a congressional committee’s access to his presidential records:

“Presidents are not kings.”

On a final, unfortunately more somber note: if Mr. Trump is elected in 2024, I’m wondering whether he might not be able to achieve a de facto Get Out of Jail Free Card regarding any federal convictions then lodged against him even if he can’t pardon himself. He will certainly appeal any conviction and sentence. Unless his appeal is heard and denied before he is inaugurated, query whether upon taking office he won’t instruct the Justice Department to enter pleadings conceding the merits of any appeal he has pending, perhaps thereby obtaining the reversal of his conviction or remand of his case to the trial court – where it would be suspended during the term of his presidency. Having even less criminal and appellate law background than I have constitutional law knowledge, I leave this concern to those who do possess such expertise to correct me if I’m missing the boat here. I sincerely hope that in this last respect, I am.

A Belated Word on the First Republican Presidential Debate

Although we don’t have Fox News, I was ultimately able to watch most of the debate on tape delay. By this time, you have either watched the debate and formed your own reactions, or heard others’ assessments, so we’ll just hit a few highlights.

It was a bit strange to see the seven male candidates – as well as the Fox moderator, Bret Baier — all in blue suits, white shirts, and red ties. Presumably, some clothing consultant has told the candidates that Republican voters like candidates that project red, white and blue. Being conditioned to Ronald Reagan’s presidential sartorial style – despite his undisputed patriotism, he managed without flag lapels and wore suits and ties in varying hues — I thought the male candidates looked like Mini-Mes of former President Donald Trump.

I indicated in a pre-debate post that a candidate I wanted to see was Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy. I wouldn’t have thought it possible for any bona fide presidential candidate sharing a stage with seven others to trigger such a strong negative reaction in me within 15 minutes, but Mr. Ramaswamy achieved it. He is an irritating, naïve, superficial, supercilious grandstander. He has learned one valuable lesson about Mr. Trump from Russian President Vladimir Putin, however; by saying nice things about Mr. Trump, it makes it significantly less likely that Mr. Trump will criticize him much (at least as long as Mr. Trump’s lead over him remains significant). One pronouncement, however: Mr. Trump will never pick Mr. Ramawamy for a running mate. Mr. Ramaswamy is too good a showman; Mr. Trump would never risk the possibility that he could be upstaged.

Six of the eight on stage – excluding former NJ Gov. Chris Christie and former AR Gov. Asa Hutchinson – agreed that they’d support former President Donald Trump if he is the Republican presidential nominee, although I believe that most indicated (I’m not sure about Mr. Ramaswamy) that they believe that President Joe Biden defeated Mr. Trump in 2020 and that Mr. Biden is, accordingly, the legal president of this country. Hearkening back to a point I posted recently, this means that those who have declared that they will support Mr. Trump – who continues to maintain that he won in 2020 – if he wins the nomination will do so although, given their conclusion about Mr. Biden’s legitimacy, they must necessarily consider the former president a traitor, a liar, or a lunatic.

Let me join the chorus: I thought former SC Gov. Nikki Haley had the best night. I thought former Vice President Mike Pence had a good night. She was strong on issue specifics; he was strong on duty (although he dated himself at times by parroting Mr. Reagan’s sayings). Putting aside wide differences I have with them on domestic policy, each looked like s/he was actually qualified to be president of the United States.

From a political handicapping standpoint, I thought the panel as a whole dug Republicans deep general election holes on abortion and spending. On the former, only Ms. Haley seemed to give herself some wiggle room to reassure moderate conservatives alarmed by the Republicans’ generally draconian position; on the latter, their mantra about cutting spending will ultimately run into Democrats’ claims that any cuts will impact Social Security and Medicare, programs hugely popular with the Trump populist wing of the party. Less apparent but every bit as irrational as some candidates’ acknowledgement of Mr. Biden’s legitimacy coupled with their pledge to support Mr. Trump if he is the Republican nominee was some candidates’ harrumphing about cutting taxes while simultaneously bemoaning our increasing deficit; anybody with a history book (admittedly, this may put FL Gov. Ron DeSantis at a disadvantage; such a potentially Woke reference may already be banned in Florida 😉 ) is aware that none of the tax cuts respectively wrought over the last 40 years by Mr. Reagan, President George W. Bush, and Mr. Trump “paid for themselves”; each increased our deficit. Finally, although I have seen some commentators disagree on this point since the debate, the strong support of Ukraine voiced by Ms. Haley, Mr. Pence and former NJ Gov. Chris Christie seemed to me to carry significantly more weight than Mr. DeSantis’ waffling or Mr. Ramaswamy’s naïvete.

A few quick snapshots. ND Gov. Doug Burgum didn’t seem to recognize that he’s not in North Dakota any more. Mr. Hutchinson seemed less grandfatherly and more conservative and strident than he’s appeared in some profiles I’ve seen, but his primary challenge seems to be Mr. Pence, arguably a better choice for Republicans seeking an ethical, grandfatherly figure. Mr. Christie pounded Mr. Trump effectively, but seems highly unlikely to win the nomination even if Mr. Trump falters – although if he finishes second to Mr. Trump in the New Hampshire primary, that will indicate notable general election weakness for Mr. Trump and I suspect cause significant pangs of regret for NH Gov. Chris Sununu, who six months ago I felt had the best shot of any potential primary challenger to Mr. Trump.

Again, conceding I’m joining the chorus: U.S. SC Sen. Tim Scott was less impressive than I expected. For a man who’s supposed to have a different and upbeat tone, to me he came across as programmed and grumpy. Watch for him to attack his fellow South Carolinian, Ms. Haley, pretty aggressively in the next debate, because she clearly stole the show from him and at most only one of them will emerge from the South Carolina primary. If she outscores him in Iowa and New Hampshire and rides momentum to beat him in their native Palmetto State, he’s done.

I’ve left the tallest sapling in the room for last. It took me a while, but I was finally able to conceptualize my impression of Mr. DeSantis in the context of the candidates’ discussion as to whether Mr. Pence did the right thing on January 6, 2021. They all, more or less – either definitively or hesitatingly – indicated that they felt that Mr. Pence had done his duty to protect our republic in the face of Mr. Trump’s unremitting hounding. The question I’d pose – not to them, but to you, is this:

If any of the other seven candidates on that stage had been subjected to the extreme pressure Mr. Pence endured, which do you feel would have performed to protect our republic as he did?

My gut says:

Mr. Burgum, Mr. Christie, Ms. Haley, Mr. Hutchinson, and Mr. Scott all would have done their duty.

I’m leaving Mr. Ramaswamy out of it; I’m not sure he’d know what his duty was.

Mr. DeSantis would have known the right path – but he would have caved under the pressure. Once I realized that was my visceral impression of him, I didn’t need to consider him any further.

Have a great Labor Day Weekend.

We Need to Get in the Game

Much of my career involved negotiation. There was one negotiating principle that I found by far the most valuable in representing our organization (please excuse the male gender reference):

Assume that the other guy is brighter than you are, and knows at least as much as you do. He knows his weaknesses that you intend to take advantage of. How will he try to counter and overcome them?

On MSNBC’s Morning Joe of August 25, amid coverage focusing on former President Donald Trump’s August 24^th booking in the Fulton County Jail (complete with mug shot) for the charges that he conspired in violation of Georgia state law to unlawfully overturn his Georgia 2020 presidential election loss, former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele cogently (and chillingly) articulated my deepest fear for our republic since it became clear, despite Mr. Trump’s obvious incitement of the January 6^th insurrection and President Joe Biden’s inauguration, that Mr. Trump wasn’t going to fade away and that the spell he has cast over a large segment of our electorate wasn’t going to dissipate:

“[With the Georgia booking now completed] [w]e are where we knew we’d be. … I think we need to contextualize all of this. … We already know what the politics is. We’re seeing it play out. [U.S. OH Rep.] Jim Jordan and his ilk are all on defense, to block and tackle for Donald Trump to slow this process because in their warped mind, Donald Trump wins next year, come hell or high water. The fix is in in Election Boards and in processes around the country. They’re already setting it up, so let’s not act surprised and act like, ‘Oh my God – we didn’t see this coming!’ They’ve been telegraphing and preparing for it for over two years now. So we know what they’re doing on the ground in a lot of states, particularly key states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania – shall I go on? We’ve heard these places before, right? So let us stop being surprised by stuff, and get in the game. And understand exactly what Jim Jordan and all the others are doing to set up 2024. And when that happens, we’ll know how to deal with it because we will have dealt with it before that moment. … So let’s understand the moment beyond the shock and awe of [Mr. Trump’s indictments and the mug shot] and recognize that the politics is in play, the legal system is doing what it should do, and the American people now need to decide whether they want to put [Donald Trump] back in the White House.”

Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough actually seemed a bit nonplussed by Mr. Steele’s comments, and immediately pivoted to the safer (and for the show’s panel) happier reveling in Mr. Trump’s legal misfortunes. Mr. Scarborough didn’t want to go into the dark; he preferred to stay with the theme that the law was going to do its job with the attendant implication that Mr. Trump would consequently be disqualified from regaining the presidency.

I mentally stuck with Mr. Steele. His comments have prompted me to pester you with this note.

MAGAs around the country are – to use Mr. Steele’s word – warped, but it is an extremely dangerous misconception – and perhaps fatal for our democracy – to underestimate them, to think they are stupid. Assume that they have decided what many, including me, calculate: Mr. Trump has too much baggage to defeat Mr. Biden in an above-board, fairly determined election; that he is too distasteful to too large a segment of our electorate and that even on substantive policy, the Republican position on the emotive issue of abortion – a challenge for any Republican — will be an additional millstone around his neck. If Mr. Trump is the Republican presidential nominee, their only real hope to win by the rules is if a third party candidate draws support from Mr. Biden, or if the President suffers a serious health incident between now and Election Day, 2024, leaving voters with a choice between Mr. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris (I haven’t heard even one of our progressive friends in very progressive Madison, WI, suggest that Ms. Harris could beat Mr. Trump in Wisconsin.)

So if you’re MAGA, what do you do? As Mr. Steele pointed out, you do your best to rig state election boards and election processes. You continue to sow distrust in the willingly gullible about the integrity of our election processes. You fund allegedly “centrist” third party candidacies. Perhaps you realize that President Biden’s ability to use the U.S. Armed Forces to quell localized armed rebellions against his declared re-election will be hampered if the authority of the military’s chain of command is subject to question. (At this time, responsibilities of three members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are being performed by acting commanders, and hundreds of military promotions and reassignments are on hold, due to a Senatorial stop by U.S. AL Sen. Tommy Tuberville; the disruption Mr. Tuberville has caused will reportedly take months to unravel).

In the entire saga around Mr. Trump’s various indictments, the only time I’ve felt the “shock and awe” to which Mr. Steele referred was not with regard to the Georgia mug shot, or with regard to the various revelations regarding Mr. Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents; it was reading the indictment brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith describing the conception, the planning, the audacity, and the malign disregard for liberal democracy that was involved in the execution of the Fake Electors scheme. I assume most of us – certainly including me – thought that the 2020 election was effectively over in December, 2020, when the states certified their respective slates of electors.

We didn’t think big enough. We had too much trust and too little imagination.

2024 will be a two-front struggle. First, Mr. Trump or any other Republican candidate exhibiting MAGA tendencies needs to be actually fairly outvoted in enough states to give Mr. Biden a valid Electoral College victory. There is a second front, every bit as important: safeguarding the victory through legal processes, keeping in mind that MAGAs – to be sharply and completely differentiated from moderate conservatives, rank and file traditional Republicans, and those prominent GOP members such as former Vice President Mike Pence, U.S. UT Sen. Mitt Romney, and former U.S. WY Rep. Liz Cheney, all of whom respect our democratic processes – won’t stop if they lose on the merits, and that there is nothing they won’t dare. They seek an American Apartheid.

But for Mr. Pence, our lack of imagination might have been fatal to our republic in 2020. We can’t risk another such lapse. If we don’t think in these terms, we will deserve the autocracy that will descend upon us.

These pages will almost certainly spout a lot of Noise in the coming months about the innards of our electoral contests, assessments of the political strength of different candidates and the sentiments of various segments of our electorate. These aspects of our electoral process remain, of course, vital; if Mr. Biden doesn’t win fairly and justly in 2024, there will be no need for MAGA machinations. That said, we need to think like MAGAs, and then figure how to counter the illiberal measures they have proven themselves willing to undertake if Mr. Biden wins.

Too Armageddon, too apocalyptic for you? I hope you’re right; but after what we’ve seen over the last six years, are you sure?

In Mr. Steele’s words: We need to get in the game.

On Mr. Prigozhin’s “Crash”

Russian news sources have reported that a plane carrying Wagner Group Leader Yevgeny Prigozhin “crashed” yesterday about 30 minutes after taking off from Moscow. As all who care are aware, this summer Mr. Prigozhin led his forces – which by all accounts have been the most effective in furthering Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – in a quickly-extinguished mini-revolt against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s conduct of the conflict. Mr. Prigozhin’s Wagner Group has reportedly also been Russia’s most effective force furthering Russia’s efforts in Africa.

I have heard it speculated that the plane was shot down or that an explosion occurred on board. The cause may never be officially confirmed, since the crash occurred over Russian territory. Given Putin’s track record with those disputing his leadership, I suspect that nobody who thought about it for over, say, a second, thought Mr. Prigozhin had very long to live after his attempted coup was aborted. Most will assume that Putin was behind Mr. Prigozhin’s demise. I have seen former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, obviously an extremely knowledgeable authority, indicate that it was too soon to tell whether Putin was responsible; Mr. McFaul offered that it might have been Putin, or it might have been forces aligned with Mr. Prigozhin’s attempted revolt who were outraged when he backed down to Putin.

A Latin phrase that those of us who are mystery story readers have seen countless times: Cui bono? – Colloquially, Who benefits? With all due and deserved regard for Mr. McFaul’s reservations, my money would be on Putin. I’m confident that Putin believes that rebels can’t run a revolt against an established dictator such as himself without a credible revolutionary leader.

Former Russian World Chess Champion and well-known dissident Garry Kasparov – one of the very few people I follow on Twitter; his rants against Putin and in support of Ukraine are worthy of note – has tweeted that he thinks Putin’s assassination of Mr. Prigozhin is an indication of Putin’s fragility, not strength. Since I’ve had the temerity to disagree with Mr. McFaul, I’ll also take the liberty of respectfully disagreeing with Mr. Kasparov. I consider the main consequence of Mr. Prigozhin’s death to seemingly be the solidification of Putin’s domination over Russia even as the Russian president’s Ukrainian incursion appears an ever-deepening strategic debacle.