President Who?

Now that Joe Biden has been elected president, it is important to begin planning for the post-presidency of Donald J. Trump. Trump has been such a toxic force in our national politics for the past five years, and is continuing to do so much damage to our social fabric, that a strategy will be necessary for navigating his continued presence on the cultural scene. Speculation is of course inevitable. Will Trump continue to loom as large in our media ecosphere as he does now? Will he continue to dominate Republican electoral politics? Will he mobilize his followers to wreak havoc on the Biden presidency?

I, for one, believe that the most dire predictions of future danger from Trump will not bear out. Trump is neither stupid nor crazy. He has a real talent for self-promotion and an uncanny grasp of the dynamics of reality television. But he has committed the one irredeemable sin in those domains: he has over-exposed himself. The Trump show is exciting to watch because the authority and power he wields as president make his obscenities titillatingly shocking and dangerous. Once he is stripped of the office, his repetitive, simplistic, and unimaginative vulgarities will grow dull much faster than he or his supporters anticipate.

My purpose here is not to foretell outcomes, however, but to examine tactics. Events may prove me wrong. In any case, it is certainly true that to whatever degree the damage Trump inflicts may be variable, much will depend on how his opponents respond to his provocations and attacks and those who would follow in his footsteps. What then, is the best posture to embrace in this regard?

I would argue that, to best shield ourselves from the residual influence of Donald Trump, we will need an even stricter and more comprehensive version of "Godwin's Law." Where Godwin's Law dictates that Hitler and the Nazis should not be invoked unless the issue under discussion rises to the level of genocide or totalitarian oppression, in the future we should refrain from mentioning Donald Trump at all. 

Why would that be the case? The temptation to evoke Trump rhetorically will be very strong when he is finally ejected from the Oval Office. Whenever a Republican electoral candidate begins to speak in racist dog whistles or deploys nativist rhetoric, there will be a strong impulse to label him or her "the next Donald Trump." There may, indeed be much justification in such messaging. But it will ultimately be counterproductive. 

Again, why? The answer lies in the nature of the particular con game that Trump has pulled during his tenure in office. He has kept himself afloat by politicizing everything. Russian interference? A hoax. Likewise Covid-19. The wall is rising. China is paying tariffs. New auto plants are opening in Detroit. Anyone who disagrees with these manifestly ludicrous propositions is purveying "fake news." How do we know? Because anyone who gets these "facts" wrong is operating from bias. They don't like Donald Trump (forget the idea that Trump is, in fact loathsome- that is the fakest of fake news)!

It is a clever circular logic trap, and has proven tenaciously effective. Thus as tempting as it will be to compress exposition by pointing to his toadies and imitators and yelling "Trump!", we should not. To be sure, we should not ignore Trumpism. It is bound to rear its ugly head repeatedly in coming years, and must be vigorously rooted out. But we can talk about Trumpism without mentioning Trump himself. 

"We all know what happens when you pretend a public health crisis isn't happening." "We had a leader who set one half of the country against the other, and that ended up being torture for both sides." We can talk about Trumpism while talking around Trump. Trump has treated his entire presidency as a branding exercise, he has made himself into the key symbolic asset of his particular strain of white nationalism. The more thoroughly we can ignore him, the more effectively we can defuse the toxic forces that he has galvanized so malignantly.

Trump Voters, This Was Not A Close Election

 It has been almost 48 hours since all of the major news organizations called the presidential election in favor of Joseph R. Biden, Jr., yet President Donald J. Trump has refused to concede the election to his opponent, the President-elect. Some Republican leaders, such as former President George W. Bush and Senator Mitt Romney, have broken with Mr. Trump and offered their congratulations to Mr. Biden. But a shocking number of Republicans have supported the President in his absurd refusal to concede. 

     Two basic forms of myth are circulating among Trump voters by way of "rationalizing" the President's behavior. The first is an appeal to conspiracy theory. By this understanding, the Democrats nefariously engineered a fraud in the vote count to induce a Biden victory. Purveyors of this idea point to the fact that Trump was "winning" on election night, and only began to slip in the polls as new Biden votes were "found." 

     This, of course, is a fallacy. No votes were found. Rather, due to fears of the still-raging Covid-19 pandemic, millions of votes had been legally mailed in prior to election day, and had been left uncounted, in many states because Republican legislatures had explicitly forbidden the processing of mail-in ballots before election day itself. This last maneuver was itself a desperate and transparently malicious gambit to produce an appearance of impropriety. If the Pennsylvania legislature, for example, had made contingency plans for the pre-processing of an unprecedented flood of mail-in ballots, we would have known on the night of Tuesday November 3 that Biden had won the presidency.

     But conspiracy theories are made even more ludicrous by any cursory glance at the facts. If Democrats were capable of such skullduggery, why would they have failed to engineer a Trump defeat in 2016, when they controlled the presidency? Why would they have lost so many House seats in this election, and stand so little chance of taking control of the Senate? It just does not make sense.

      The other form of myth circulating about Donald Trump's behavior is that, because this was such a "close" election, we should wait patiently for the President to work through his pantomime of court challenges and recounts, and "let the process play out." This is a transparent sham. There is no process, and there is no need for patience. It is Donald Trump's patriotic duty to concede the election now.

      Again, this is made clear by any honest assessment of the facts. In 2016, Donald Trump won the presidency by a margin of 77,000 thousand votes distributed across three states (Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania- at the national level he lost the popular vote by 2.9 million ballots). Because the race was so close, Hillary Clinton waited until the morning after Election Day, Wednesday November 9, to make a formal concession speech. At the point that she conceded, none of the states had officially certified the results of the election. She conceded because it was her duty as an American to concede as soon as the outcome of the race was clear.  

       Why is this so? It is for two reasons: one of principle, the other of pragmatism. In principle, it is vitally important that all participants in our democratic politics foster trust and confidence in our electoral system. Without that faith, democracy will collapse. In practical terms, the constitutionally mandated interval of the presidential transition is brutally short. An incoming administration has just over ten weeks to build an entire branch of government from the ground up, and requires the assistance of the outgoing administration to do so. It is thus vital that that process begin as soon as possible. 

        Thus it was absolutely right for Hillary Clinton to concede in 2016, and anyone who acknowledges that fact must admit that it is even more right for Donald Trump to concede right now. Joseph R. Biden's defeat of Donald Trump in 2020 was much more decisive than Trump's defeat of Clinton in 2016. In the three states that gave Trump the victory in 2016 (Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania), Biden currently leads by 200,000 votes (more than twice Trump's 77,00-vote margin of victory in 2016), and that lead will continue to widen as vote counting goes on. Beyond that, Biden currently leads by about 60,000 votes distributed across the states of Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada. There can be no doubt that the people have spoken and that Biden won this election handily in both the popular vote (by a margin of more than 5,000,000 votes, when all is said and done) and the Electoral College (where news organizations currently give Biden between 279 and 290 electoral votes, where a winning majority is 270, and where Biden may ultimately garner as many as 306 votes if he wins in both Georgia and Arizona). 

         No combination of court cases and recounts will change the outcome of the presidential election. The election of 2020 as it stands right now is much more of a fait acommpli than the 2016 race was at the point that Hillary Clinton graciously and courageously conceded in that election. Donald Trump's refusal to concede is manifestly petulant, venal, and childish, but it is something even worse. It is unpatriotic. He must concede the election now, and anyone who truly loves this country should join in the call for him to do so.

An Open Letter to My Fellow Americans

Dear Friends, Neighbors, and Compatriots,

 

       Congratulations! You have brought our Republic back from the brink of self-destruction. The re-election of Donald J. Trump after four years of blatant and corrosive malfeasance would have put an end to the American experiment in democracy. His removal from the office that he has so egregiously abused will preserve our institutions from inevitable disintegration. 

       To all of those who voted for, donated to, or volunteered on behalf of the campaign of Joseph R. Biden and Kamala Harris I say: thank you! Your efforts embody the best tradition of our national political life. Now that the result of the presidential election in both the popular vote and the electoral college has been revealed, we may all indulge in well-earned celebration! This election is over. The result is clear. 

       Given the depraved character of Donald J. Trump (I say this without malice or prejudice, but as a clear expression of fact), there is likely to be attempts to reverse the results of the election, using the arcane mechanisms of the Electoral College. We should resolutely defy any and all such machinations, but we should not fear them. Any attempt to undermine the manifest will of the electorate will constitute an illegal and illegitimate coup d'etat. We need not entertain any debate or discussion on this score. It is our duty as citizens to reject and oppose any attempt to undercut the presidency of Joseph R. Biden by any and all means short of violence.

    But that, for the moment, is an abstract concern. Trump will rant and rave. Let him. We may yet be surprised at just how quickly his voice diminishes to irrelevance. In the meantime, we can express our collective relief and joy!

     I will not insult the intelligence of those of you who voted and campaigned for Donald Trump by offering you insincere condolences or regrets. I am happy you lost, and I have little sympathy for what you may be feeling right now.  The entire presidency of Donald Trump was an assault against me and millions of other Americans. For four years he has attacked our dignity, encouraged those who hate us to acts of vandalism and violence, and encroached upon our rights and powers as citizens. I cannot feign any sorrow that your attempts to abet a continuation of that assault have failed.

     But I can say this: I love this country very deeply, and I know that to truly love America is to accept that you are all as much a part of it as I am. I am committed to living in peace, if not in harmony, with you. I will not tolerate assaults on your dignity, incitement to hatred of you, or encroachments on your rights by Joe Biden or anyone else in government. That is what Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have promised, and I and the  vast majority of those who voted like me will do everything in our power to keep them to that promise. You may not believe that, and that is your prerogative. But that is why the outcome of this election has saved our Republic from collapse.

       Donald Trump is going to rant and rage against the outcome of this election. He is going to try to stoke fear in his supporters and incite them to acts of violence, by way of terrorizing us as a nation into setting aside the lawful outcome of the election. I plead with all of my fellow Americans to ignore him. We are a nation of laws, and the law demands a peaceful transition of power whether Donald Trump assents to it or not. 

       To those of you contemplating violence, I say: think again. Violence will not be met with violence, but with resolution and justice. Violence will sway no one. Violence is impotent and pathetic.

       Be happy! Rejoice! The page has turned. The die is cast. A new day is upon us. We may not yet be ready to begin building together, but we can at least stop tearing one-another apart, and that is reason to celebrate!

                    Sincerely,

                    Andrew Meyer