Trump’s election claims meant to undermine Biden, lay basis for 2024 run

 

Gordon L. Weil

A conservative federal judge, a lifelong Republican, gets to decide on the Trump campaign’s effort to throw out all the votes in Pennsylvania, a state critical to Joe Biden’s election.  

If you are Republican, you might hope that the judge will help his party’s candidate.  But you might be surprised to learn that the president who appointed him was Democrat Barack Obama.

If you are a Democrat, you might be outraged that Obama’s Republican judge was confirmed while his Supreme Court nominee, a Democrat, was blocked by the GOP Senate.

If you prefer the rule of law over the law of the political jungle, here’s a good judge on a bad case.

Facing the Covid-19 crisis, many states allowed for a major increase in mailed-in ballots.  Reluctant to visit polling places, voters gained lower risk access by the expanded use of absentee voting.  In some states, mailed-in ballots exceeded in-person voting.

Trump claimed that mail ballots invite vote tampering and fictitious voters.  The opportunities for cheating were so obvious to him that no evidence was needed.

He also charged that vote counters themselves cheated and election officials of both parties favored Biden.  He cast himself as the victim of a national conspiracy.  Enough votes should be thrown out to make him the election winner.

As in any human activity, some cheating must exist in the conduct of elections. Historically, it has never affected more than a few ballots, not enough to change the result.  Every case must be spotted almost immediately with hard supporting evidence.

Trump’s advocates acted like his political toadies, not trained legal experts. Despite making big promises, Rudy Giuliani ranted about conspiracy theories but offered no evidence. 

After making baseless charges, they dropped their fraud claims and admitted that both parties had been treated the same.  They still insisted the election should be overturned.

The Pennsylvania case boiled down to two voters whose ballots were rejected, because they ignored voting rules. If successful, they wanted the election nullified, leaving Pennsylvania with no electoral votes.  The judge rejected the demand that an election could be erased, because of a complaint by two voters.

While the focus has been on his futile attempt to retain office after having lost an election, Trump may be laying the foundation for his political future.  His fundraising has surely been designed to help his financial future.  Trump’s plan could be that claiming an unjust defeat now helps him build and retain a disgruntled political base for 2024. 

Just as he dismissed the Obama presidency, Trump may use his fraud claims as the basis for trying to undermine Biden.  He could lead a potentially large, dissident minority that seeks Biden’s failure. Not only would that strategy aid his next campaign, but it could weaken Biden’s moves to undo his policies.

There has been furious talk about the damage caused by Trump’s efforts to claim victory and block the transition.  Some of that talk may be written off to politics.  But the assertion that Trump threatens democracy is real.

The American system of government begins with votes by “We, the People.”  Everything else is built on that foundation.  If basic decisions, like who should hold public office, are made by anybody other than the people, that’s not democracy.

For a quarter century, partisanship has increased.  In particular, Trump and his supporters believe that more than merely disagreeing with the Democrats, they face an opposing party threatening their freedom.  If so, any action to block its access to power is acceptable.

In the extreme, this amounts to saying that to save America, you may have to throttle democracy. 

That approach can be seen in Trump’s way of governing.  His executive orders amount to authoritarian rule, not decision-making by the people’s elected representatives.

This aggressive form of government operates because congressional Republicans fear running afoul of the millions of people who support Trump.  They remain quiet, refrain from showing leadership, and allow him wide discretion.

Republican senators say Trump has the right to go to court if he believes the elections were not fair.  He relied on their forbearance.  But, without evidence, going to court is not a right.  If merely asserting a right would assure courtroom success, judges would be kings.

But many judges take their independence seriously, as did Judge Matthew Brann in Pennsylvania.  The Constitution held firm at the federal court in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

“This Court has been presented with strained legal arguments,” Brann wrote, “... unsupported by evidence. In the United States of America, this cannot justify the disenfranchisement of a single voter, let alone all the voters of its sixth most populated state.”

In short, you can’t have America without democracy, and democracy means voters – all of them.

 

National Popular Vote for president would stop election games

 

Gordon L. Weil

The 2020 election and its huge turnout are historic. President Trump gets the credit for bringing out more voters than any other American president.  

They defied Trump’s efforts to undermine confidence in voting. Determined to vote, the people also would not let Covid-19 cut off the breath of democracy.

Despite a well-run election, with special care taken because of his attacks on mail-in ballots, Trump has done his best to undermine confidence in the outcome.  There’s no doubt he has caused lasting damage and deepened the split between his supporters and the majority of voters.

The election revealed three serious weaknesses in how the U.S. deals with its most important election – too much influence by the polls and by pundits and too little respect for the will of the people.

Polls no longer work.  In the world of “fake news” and the social media that spreads it instantly, polls do not measure public sentiment well.  The mismatch between the forecasts and the results helped feed Trump’s attempt to undermine the election.

Polls are dangerously misleading and influence voters. The pollsters know polls have failed, but they keep feeding the addiction they promote for profit.  There’s a real desire to know what people think, but polls are obviously not the way to find out; elections are.

Pundits rely on polls. They speculate continuously on each day’s polling data. They offer what is supposed to be instant analyses, but are usually thinly disguised expressions of their own hopes for the result.   

The message is that we shouldn’t trust polls or pundits.  And we should eliminate the system that allows the kind of post-election crisis created by Trump. Elect the president by national popular vote. Knowing who won would be quicker and easier, reducing the chance for protests and the influence of polls.

Choosing presidential electors by states was a compromise among the 39 men who signed the draft Constitution in Philadelphia in 1787.  They wanted to entice the states to ratify it, and they didn’t fully trust a vote of the people.

This system gives voters in small states outsized influence on the choice of president. A single Wyoming voter counts the same as 3.8 California voters or 1.8 Mainers.  That’s not fair, because presidents can be elected by a majority of electoral votes while losing the popular vote.

That happened in 2000, thanks to a partisan Supreme Court, and 2016.  In the four cases since the Civil War, the beneficiary has been the Republican Party.  If Trump’s goal were reached this year, it would be the third time in the last six elections over a period of just 20 years.

Despite President-Elect Biden’s optimism, the partisan division among Americans runs deep with almost no room for compromise.  The right believes it is the victim of the political system. The left believes Trumpers would trash democracy for authoritarian rule.

It makes it worthwhile for the Republicans to “game the system” by trying to suppress or disqualify voters in states with close results. Partisanship has overwhelmed patriotism.

Times have changed. The Constitution itself has been amended five times to extend the franchise. States play a smaller role than in the 18^th Century. The U.S. has become one media market.

“Originalists” want the country to stick to the Constitution. But it has been badly bent out of shape, especially by Trump.

For example, the Framers of the Constitution believed that federal judges should serve for life, their terms insulating them from shifting, short-term political currents. 

But if presidents and compliant Senates pack the courts with political judges, the party in power can use them to protect and extend its control even if it lost an election. Trump was stunningly clear that getting help in any electoral dispute was why he rushed his Supreme Court appointment of Amy Coney Barrett.

Of course, we will always have the opinions of pundits. But they should be taken as just opinion not expertise.  We may also always have polls, but they should continue to fade.

A national popular election would reduce the influence of polls and pundits and make gaming the system almost impossible. If not, democracy could be killed by misuse of an outdated political deal. 

The problems are all about polls, pundits and people.  The country needs less influence from the first two and more by the people. The system can be simplified.

The National Popular Vote Compact does the job without amending the Constitution. States can agree to require their electoral votes go to the national winner.  The NPV is growing closer to being adopted, having been approved by both GOP and Democratic legislatures across the country. 

Only a few more states are needed. Maine should be one of them.

 

Biden’s bipartisan dreams may turn into partisan nightmare; Maine’s role

 

Gordon L. Weil

As news reports named Joe Biden as president-elect, Donald Trump denied his defeat and launched unsupported claims of fraud. 

Only a few Senate Republicans congratulated Biden, including an equivocal Susan Collins.  Most backed his pursuing unfounded complaints, preventing or delaying a smooth transition. 

Trump, the personal president, may be nothing more than a sore loser.  But the GOP signals that it will fight Biden, not cooperate. Voters who liked the idea of divided government were fooling themselves, because the election yielded more divisive government.

The result could look like this. When his term ended in 2017, Barack Obama left over 100 vacancies among the federal judges, more than 10 percent of the seats, including one on the Supreme Court.  GOP Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked his nominations.

After Trump became president, McConnell whipped through hundreds of his nominees, many without careful review by the Senate.

The confirmation of federal judges is just one example of the kind of control that McConnell, with the support of a bare majority of senators, would have over President Biden.

The only way McConnell could lose his grip would be the unlikely victory of both Democrats in the Georgia Senate run-offs in January.  Should that happen, the Democrats could control the Senate.  In effect, the presidential election ends in Georgia. Watch the campaign money flow.

The Supreme Court sits quietly with a majority of justices who have expressed their hostility to the positions favored by Biden. They are said to be conservatives, but they risk being partisan.  Or they can stay out of the fray.

Faced with a hostile Senate majority, Biden’s bipartisan dreams will die an early death.  That seems already to have happened.

Of course, as Trump is fond of saying, elections have consequences. That means that if you win, you gain the right to have things your way. No compromise; it’s “my way or the highway.”

Biden favors bipartisan cooperation to adopt national policy through compromise. Unreal. Maybe he just wants a basis for later blaming the Republicans for the failures of government. Or maybe he’s fooling himself.

If he is planning a national counterattack when McConnell does his thing, he may be unduly optimistic.  People may say they want compromise, but there are few moderates who can swing behind him.  The country is deeply divided; it’s not simply a matter of disagreeing on issues.

There is no reason for McConnell to compromise. Almost as good as being able to set policy and pick the judges is his ability to stop the other side from doing it.

Maine had a major role to play in this outcome through the Senate election.  The essential issue was either taking McConnell’s power away by electing a Democrat to tip the Senate balance or backing him by reelecting Susan Collins, who has been loyal to him on most key issues.

Many Maine voters were distracted by less important issues.  That was the Republican playbook.  The Democrats came up short in trying to make McConnell the issue. Joe Biden, confident he would carry the state, never came to Maine to say he needed a Democrat in the Senate.  He will pay the price.

Maine Democrats missed George Mitchell, a former Senate Majority Leader. Now ill, he might have taught voters the central importance of the Senate election in national affairs.

To govern, Biden will inevitably have to follow the rules of the presidency laid down by one of his predecessors – Donald Trump.  He must push executive power as far as he can to work around Congress.

He can restore America’s place in the world, although the absence of foreign policy in the campaign showed that voters hardly cared. If there is any aspects of the U.S. world role people care about, it is that this country should not pay other nations’ bills or buy their cheap products.

He can stop using the presidency to give aid and comfort to racists in return for their votes. In the end, it can prove better to be politically correct – avoiding giving offense to others – than to be politically expedient – using hatred to win elections.

Executive orders, the substitute for lawmaking by Congress, will flow like a great river just as they did under Trump.  Biden will reverse its direction, the feat of political engineering for which he was elected.  The environment, civil rights, immigration could all be affected.

The branches of government in open warfare with one another, the excessive use of executive power and turning neutral courts into partisan legislatures are not trivial political issues, easily compromised. Central to the American political system, they demand attention now.

A lot more is stake than who sits in the White House for the next four years.

 

Covid-19 was also on the ballot

 

Gordon L. Weil

The 2020 elections have taken place on two levels.  One can prove to be deadly.

Voters have been choosing the president, the Senate and the House.  The results of the voting also show that tens of millions place selfish interest above community welfare in dealing with Covid-19.

In selecting the nation’s leaders, voters have undoubtedly disappointed the Democrats and rewarded the Trump Republicans for their stance on the coronavirus.

There was no Democratic landslide. Whatever ultimately happens after all the votes are counted, the outcome reveals a deep split about the role of government established under President Franklin D. Roosevelt but also the health of the people.

President Trump saw his path to reelection based mainly on the strong economy in which unemployment was historically low and people had money in their pockets.  Surveys showed a majority feel better off under his presidency, but believe that the country is worse off.

Farmers provide a good example of his brand of politics. Though his trade policy cost them major markets, it brought in new import tariff revenues, collected from consumers through higher prices. Those funds were used to compensate the farmers.  Trump protected their incomes using funds raised from other Americans.

The farmers stuck with the president. Perhaps unwittingly, many of the contributing consumers paid the price of cutting cheap imports from China.  American agriculture suffered and retail prices rose a bit, both not good for the country. 

But the farmers’ incomes were protected.  They voted overwhelmingly for Trump and his party. His policy was good for them, if not for everybody else. 

This kind of trade-off is also happening on a far more important issue.

Covid-19 presented Trump with a problem he could not manage as easily. Instead, he would first try to convince people that it was far less harmful than it turned out to be. For him, minimizing its effects and dismissing strong health measures would allow the economy to resume its growth on which his reelection depended.

But the illness is real.  Trump failed to deal with its harmful effects.  According to polls, most Americans thought he had not handled the threat competently.  Joe Biden and the Democrats believed his failure would cost Trump Republicans the election, and they tried to make it the chief issue.

By minimizing the impact of the coronavirus, Trump created a new political reality that will survive the direct results of the election.  This column is written before the final outcome is settled, though Joe Biden looks like he will struggle to be a uniting president leading a divided nation.  That division will extend to public health.

In voting for Trump and his party, a huge segment of the electorate sent a message about the country.  In agreement with Trump, many believed that even if the price of economic growth were added illness and deaths, the price was worth paying.

Dr. Scott Atlas, Trump’s quack medical advisor, was selected because he provided the advice the president wanted. Let the economy reopen normally, he says, but offer special protection to the most vulnerable.  That way the human herd could protect itself, though inevitably there will be some deaths.

Doctors who had made their careers understanding viruses knew that without stopping the spread of the virus, you cannot protect the vulnerable. Many older Americans would die.  Under Trump’s growth-at-all-costs policy, they are expendable, sacrifices on the altar of prosperity.

A supporting message came from Trump’s backers: fighting the virus by trying to stop its spread by requiring masks and separation violates individual rights under the Constitution. 

The basic purpose of democratic government is to protect public health and safety. That duty exists with or without a formal constitution.  People create a government for their common protection.  A constitution determines the rules of government but not human rights.

Yet some have chosen to elevate the American Constitution to the level of the Ten Commandments. A document written in a few weeks by 39 men some 233 years ago merits respect equal to the tablets handed down to Moses.

Trump’s political allies elevated the right not to wear a mask, on the grounds that it violated personal freedom, into a wedge issue.  In return for his protecting this single “right,” they would allow him broad power to set all other national policies.

Protecting the right to dismiss health guidance became the ultimate political value. True believers selfishly choose to ignore the threat they pose to others by not wearing a mask.

Maine was fortunate in having elected a Legislature likely to support Gov. Mills, whose tough stance on Covid-19 has yielded more favorable results than in almost any other state. Maybe that’s a sign of the oldest state population protecting itself.

Ultimately what may matter most is the second election – the choice of self over community, made by tens of millions of Americans.  Perhaps that vote will one day be reversed, but at what price?