So What Does Choose Democracy Recommend?

 

What If Trump Wins? is a book with an agenda.  It does not just oppose Trump, it has clear ideas what we should and should not do to oppose him.  I think their overall approach is good, even if I may not agree on all particulars. Obviously the actions of any one person will not change the outcome, but accept the usual fiction that what you do will scale up.  Their recommendations do not differ much regardless of what Trump does.  

Don'ts:

Don't resort to violence.  It simply discredits your movement and gives the authorities an excuse to move against you.  It also scales up more than anything else, in the sense that it doesn't take all that much violence to give any movement a bad name.  Agree.  Despite a few acts of vandalism at Tesla dealerships, we have generally avoided violence.  

Don't give up, despair, or flee to Canada.  This is what is known as "submission in advance."  Remember, hope gives no guarantee of success, but despair guarantees failure.  Again, agreed.

Don't limit yourself to street protests.  Street protests are all fine and good, but they are just the beginning.  By themselves, street protests are not sustainable and will fizzle out.  They have to be followed by organizing.  Again, agreed.  That is the lesson of the Tea Party's success and Occupy Wall Street's failure.

Don't let t come to this

I will add that people I know who cut their political teeth in the 1960's have a mixture of enthusiasm and anxiety about protests that I am not quite old enough to understand.  The Kent State shootings are a major traumatic memory for them, and the general, widespread use of violence against protestors in the 1960's.  This may be why so many of them feared the National Guard firing on peaceful protestors and I was more willing to give the Trump Administration the benefit of the doubt on that score.  We have been having protests and getting safety instructions that always strike me as a little overwrought.  Counter demonstrators have shown up and tried to provoke us, so far without much success.  Maybe our peace keeping team makes a difference and things would have gotten ugly without them.  But really, the counter protestors have been vastly outnumbered. 

Or it just might come to this

Of course, you don't have to go back to the 1960's to know about the danger of protests and violence.  As recently as 2020, protests all to frequently degenerated into riots, and the police responded with violence.  I think it is a mistake to underestimate just how traumatizing the 2020 riots were to a lot of right wingers, how much it cemented in their minds that violence was the exclusive province of the left, and that they were the party of law and order.  Trump turned this to good effect by taking a strong stance against riots.  

Observers of the April 19 protests commented that the protestors were significantly older and whiter that the ones during the 2020 protests.  I feel mixed about that.  On the one hand, it confirms the view that we are out of touch elitists.  We will not have the really broad-based movement we need until crowds start looking younger and darker.  On the other hand, an older, whiter crowd is also less likely to riot, which is all to the good.  

In general, I think our side need to refrain from violence, but also not be too fearful of a violent response, either from the state or from the militias.  If Trump had 10 million Proud Boys, things would no doubt be quite different.  But he doesn't have them.  While the authors underestimate the ease with which Trump would close the border and just how aggressively his government layoffs and cutoffs of funding would be, they overestimate the threat from rightwing militias.  Let's not give them any excuses.  And the warning about the need to move beyond street protests is sound. 

Do's

The authors recommend four courses of action as useful:

• Protect people being targeted;
• Defend existing institutions;
• Strategize acts of disobedience; and
• Plan for what comes after Trump.

This is not to say that everyone should devote themselves to all four activities. Specialization and division of labor are essential to any really effective activity -- but with coordination as well.  The authors offer some procedural advice here that strikes me as sound.  People who want to protect individuals and institutions are generally people who dislike conflict.  And protecting work is certainly useful -- up to a point.  But the time may well come when they need to get out of their comfort zones and confront the regime.  

To people strategizing acts of disobedience, the advice is the opposite.  Calling for civil disobedience too soon will receive a feeble response and weaken the movement.  You have to wait until the time is ripe.  The time frame is not clearly  laid out, but most scenarios talk in terms of seeing small political changes "over the next year."  Whether that means the first year Trump is in power or the first year after the first 100 days.  One scenario refers to events that happen by the semiquincentenial (July 4, 2026).  That is purely speculative, of course, but it gives some idea when the authors think the time my be ripe.  We are not there yet.

Finally, it is important not just to be against Trump, but to offer a positive alternative.  Defending existing institutions is all very well, but the reason people voted for a man proposing to burn it all down is that they thought our institutions were not working for them. We need to offer something better.

All of this seems like sound advice.  In gaming out what might happen, the authors introduce their own agenda.

Protect people being targeted

The authors have three suggestions here -- a mutual aid society, joint emergency funding, and an underground railroad.  Many of these are alternatives to government funding, which has been pulled (true).  The authors clearly like the non-hierarchical nature of mutual aid societies -- no division between givers and recipients, but everyone gives when they can and accepts when they need.  But fundraising for existing organizations that lost their federal funding also works.  Neither activity is overtly political, and the authors imagine that they may lose supporters if they come out as openly anti-Trump, but in the end they must.  An underground railroad -- primarily for immigrants, but occasionally for a federal whistle blower -- is a riskier option.  The authors also seem to think that staying small and nimble, staying local but expanding offerings, and forming a national network are all reasonable options.  

Defendant existing institutions

The authors here offer three options that presumably are just intended as a sampling of what is possible.  One is to reach out to veterans and their families and urge them to use their ties to the active duty military to remind them that the military must stay out of domestic politics.  One is for fired federal scientists (and presumably other skilled workers) to do their work outside the federal government and possibly use information they have gathered to help regulatory agencies get by on a smaller staff.  One is to work with election workers to keep elections safe, educate voters, and the like.  Once again, the authors consider either staying small and nimble or building a broader network as reasonable options.  They do see these things as being more confrontational and posing more danger than mutual aid or charitable fundraising.  If you want to scale up, better adopt strong cyber security to avoid being doxed.  And they differ from helping people being targeted by involving local government.  The role of local government in elections is obvious.  And the authors suggest local regulations when the feds are unwilling to act.  Obvious question -- why can't state or local government also be part of funding nonprofits?

Envision what comes after Trump

Here is where the authors reveal their ideological agenda most of all.  They favor a constitutional convention, or rather, a series of local conventions to recommend changes to the Constitution.  They recommend that these conventions follow a certain format -- a three day convention, with the first day devoted to learning, the second to making proposals and discussing them, and the third to voting on them.  The authors consider this a good general format for participatory decision-making.  I suppose it works if you have three days to spare.  Not everyone does. The convention adopts the proposals that have widespread support and leave the more controversial ones for a later day.  This seems like a sound approach.   

The measures that are widely supported, presumably including by the authors are term limits for judges and senators, ending the influence of money in politics, ending secret holds and the filibuster, "breaking apart" the two party system, and a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.  More controversial are guns, crime, and other aspects of immigration.  Funny, but I don't think these procedural issues are what most people are most likely to care about.  They seem too abstract to excite most people.  The part about imposing term limits on judges was presumably born of frustration at the Supreme Court's overall direction, particularly in repealing protection for abortion and creating the doctrine of presidential immunity.  I am guessing that a lot of people may feel differently seeing how firmly judges have held the line against Trump, largely thanks to lifetime tenure that protects them from political pressure.  

I must admit to mixed feelings about the filibuster as well.  I do think the general principle of voting by simple majority is a sound one.  But the filibuster may also turn out to be essential to blocking many aspects of Trump's agenda.  And the authors do not make clear how the convention proposes to "break apart" the two party system.  Two party systems seem to be inherent in a first-past-the-post electoral system.  Do the authors propose ending the first-past-the-post system and, if so, how?  Especially, how can that be done for the President. And it does seem strange that they don't propose ending the Electoral College (not that it would have made a difference this time around, but the authors didn't know that).

Strategize acts of disobedience

The authors offer three alternatives, presumably not intended to be exhaustive.  One is simply to adopt a symbol (they propose a paperclip) to represent refusal to obey an unconstitutional order.  One is to strike -- starting with a one-minute strike that will scarcely be notice, and then to escalate to a 15 minutes strike.  Another is an organized movement to refuse paying taxes, in whole or in part.  

While the other approaches largely continue on their own, with no response by the Trump Administration, the more confrontational movements do receive a response.  The book games out possible responses by Trump -- none, denunciation by tweet, arresting leaders, or having the IRS seize the movement's assets.  

At the risk of stating the obvious, these three approaches are not equivalent.  Wearing a paperclip or other symbol of resistance is completely legal.  The narrative also talks about the movements leaders, assets, website, etc.  What leaders, assets, website, etc?  While there are laws governing when strikes are and are not allowed, does anyone truly think anyone will care about a one minute work stoppage?  Or even 15 minutes?  Refusing to pay taxes, by contrast, is clearly illegal.  The authors appear to recognize this, by having the IRS crack down much harder on the tax protesters than the others.  While the author treat staying local and nimble or connecting on a nationwide scale both as reasonable alternatives for the other movement, it makes clear that anyone seeking confrontation must reach out to others before it initiates a showdown.  A showdown will fail without a sufficient number of supporters.  This will happen if the resistance movement does not reach out to a wider population, or if it strikes before the time is ripe.

How will be know when the time is ripe?  In the meantime, the adventures imagine serious crackdowns on immigrants (true), subversion of the federal bureaucracy (to some degree), packing the bench with MAGA judges (may happen, but hasn't yet but presumably will) and violence by rightwing militias (probably an exaggerated fear).  (The book also mentions a shaky economy resulting from Trump's erratic polices, but does not emphasize it).  The back of the book has some shocking potential headlines -- Liz Cheney is arrested, HHS bans "gender affirming" care, hate crimes rise and the feds refuse to prosecute, Trump threatens to withhold funds unless Congress bans abortifact drugs, and the Texas National Guard goes to California to crack down on immigration, leading to a shootout.  Some of the groups featured in earlier pages show up in these stories.  

But still the time is not ripe for confrontation.  While these shocking stories clearly mean that groups focused on confrontation should reach out to a wider public, still they are not quite ready for the final confrontation.

How will be know when the time is ripe?  The authors have two hypotheticals -- Trump trying to stay in office in defiance of the 22nd Amendment, and Trump trying to forcibly shut down an electric vehicle plant.  No, I don't know how the authors chose the electric vehicle plant, but it strikes me as unlikely. Another obvious possibility suggests itself -- Trump openly defies a Supreme Court order, probably one involving the rights of immigrants.  

The authors are understandably vague about the time frame.  In numerous scenarios the authors say, "Over the next year, you see small political changes around you.  But it barely feels like a dent amidst the national scene."  So they envision a least a year going by before the time is ripe.  Is this a year from when Trump was first inaugurated, a year from when you, the hypothetical actor, first take action, or a year from Trump's first 100 days?  

We get a better picture of the hypothetical time frame for anyone who declines to join in the confrontation when the crisis strikes.  As you celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 2026, resistance leaders are beaten and arrested. Democracy enters an irretrievable downward spiral.  So the authors appear to believe that the decisive moment will take place in the first half of 2026.  Perhaps for this reason, the midterms play no role in their scenarios.  There is some ambiguity here.  The electric vehicle scenario has the Trump regime fatally weakened relatively early but limp out the rest of the term.  The 22nd Amendment scenario takes place in the first half of 2026 if Trump opponents fail to stop him, but skips over to 2028 if confrontation proceeds.  Make of it what you will.

Meanwhile, what is really happening?

Thus far I would say that immigration crackdown is worse than the authors anticipated, firing of federal workers and cancelling of federal funding is also worse, but private rightwing violence is not nearly as bad as they expected.  Civil society continues to function -- both in reality and in the book.  How are people responding in real life?

The authors comment that their proposed categories -- protecting people being targeted, defending existing institutions, strategizing forms of disobedience, and envisioning what comes after -- are not such separate categories as they propose.  Also, a whole lot of resistance is taking place at the elite level, out of reach of regular folks like you and me.  I suspect the authors recognized this but did not emphasize it because the book was written, after all to suggest what you, John Q. Citizen can do.

Elite litigators, including state attorney generals, the ACLU, and immigration rights advocates, have challenged many Trump policies in court.  People are quitting law firms that knuckled under to Trump.  Law students are keeping spreadsheets to show which firms have and have not submitted.  Private parties are saving data the federal government has deleted.  An immigration rights activist is tracking and compiling ICE flights and passing the information on to immigration lawyers -- and training others to do the same.*  All of this is extremely valuable.  Some of it is geared toward protecting people being targeted and some is best described as building new institutions.  It is all very valuable -- and all out of reach of most people.

In the meantime, a lot of resistance is taking place through ordinary political channels.  People aren't just showing up in the streets; they are showing up in town halls to confront members of Congress.  5 Calls is organizing calls to Congress.  Indivisibles regularly shows up at Congressional offices.  Run for Something is seeing record numbers of people seeking to run for local office.  Democrats are focusing on a positive agenda, mostly focused on building more housing.  Aside from the focus on protecting elections What If Trump Wins? does not really pay attention to any of these options.

Speaking just for myself, I must admit that I have not yet decided what I want to do to oppose Trump.  But my hypothetical goal is to do two activities -- one solely benevolent and not overtly political, and one overtly political and activist.  I just haven't decided what yet.

_______________________________________

*If there is anyone I fear should flee to Canada, this is probably who.

JD Vance's Odious Philosophy/Theology

 

The late, great Kevin Drum, in assessing Donald Trump's eight potential candidate for Vice President, rated them as follows:

Greatest willingness to kowtow: Tim Scott

Overall pure shittiness: Elise Stefanik

Nonentity award: Doug Burgum

Willingness to pretend to be an idiot: J.D. Vance

Actual idiot: Ben Carson

Most pathetically ambitious: Marco Rubio

Strong right arm of retribution: Tom Cotton

Freedom Caucus true believer: Byron Donalds

 This somewhat resembles my assessment, but also differs in other aspects, especially its evaluation of Vance.  Drum appeared to believe that Scott, Burgum, Vance, Rubio, and possibly Stefanik were pure opportunists, Carson was completely unqualified, and Cotton and Donalds were the true authoritarians.  Willingness to kowtow, willingness to pretend to be an idiot, and spineless ambition all sound very much like pure opportunism, almost to the extent that they can be hard to tell apart.  Presumably Scott was showing his opportunist through flattery, Vance through insincere agreement, and Rubio by abandoning his former principles.  Add Burgum's obscurity which spares him having any identity apart from Trump and interpret Stefanik's "overall pure shittiness" as shameless opportunism, and you have five different shades of opportunism.  Dismiss Carson as too clueless to be worth taking seriously.  That leaves Cotton and Donalds as the really dangerous ones -- Donalds as a true believer and Cotton taking Trump's desire for revenge seriously.

I shared the assessment that Burgum, Scott, Rubio, and Stefanik were opportunists telling politically expedient lies, that Carson was too clueless to matter, and that Donalds was a dangerous authoritarian.  My main difference was on Cotton and Vance.  I was ambivalent about Cotton.  On the one hand, he seemed like a real authoritarian rather than a pure opportunist.  On the other hand, he appeared to have real principles (particularly as a Russia hawk) that sometimes differed from Trump.  He was definitely the only one of the eight who I could imagine ever standing up to Trump.  As for Vance, he struck me as having all the worst traits of an opportunist and a true believer, with all the zeal of a convert.

When Trump picked Vance, Drum said, "So I guess that's what Trump values the most. He wants someone who shows his loyalty by a willingness to say anything, no matter how dumb or obviously untrue he knows it to be."  Well, I disagree.  I do not think Vance's distinguishing trait is his willingness to pretend to be an idiot.  I think his distinguishing trait is his ability to offer an intellectual defense of the most indefensible actions on Trump's part.  To the extent Vance is a pure opportunist, this is an uglier and more dangerous form of opportunism than mere flattery or abandonment of principle.  It shows a deeper level of commitment to Trump's worst actions that makes Vance unlikely to change course if Trump is ever gotten out of the way.

Did Trump lie and say the election was stolen.  Vance acknowledges it was exactly stolen, but also says, “What verifiably I know happened is that in 2020, large technology companies censored Americans from talking about things like the Hunter Biden laptop,” and that therefore “I think that Big Tech rigged the election in 2020," and that what is really important is not the election outcome, but that "censorship is bad."  Needless to say, this would allow the loser of any election to find some sort of unfair story to blame it on and demand that the outcome be overturned.

Were stories about Haitians eating people's pets false?  Vance was prepared to defend the lies, by saying, "If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that's what I'm going to do."

But above all that is Vance's defense of DOGE's destruction of USAID -- programs that ended the ravages of AIDS in Africa, feed starving children, fight Ebola, etc.

As an American leader, but also just as an American citizen, your compassion belongs first to your fellow citizens. That doesn’t mean you hate people from outside of your own borders, but there’s this old-school [concept]—and I think it’s a very Christian concept, by the way—that you love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country, and then, after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world.

Well, yes, I don't think the basic concept is very controversial.  Who would dispute that people who neglect their children to aid people halfway across the world are being irresponsible?  And who would dispute that our primary duties are to the people closest at hand.  

The flaw here is obvious.  From the completely uncontroversial proposition that we should care more about the people closest at hand,  Vance leaps to the wholly different proposition that we must value anyone who is not a fellow citizen at zero, and that the tiniest act on behalf of a non-citizen (seriously, PEPFAR is a miniscule portion of the federal budget and has saved millions) is a betrayal of one's fellow-countrymen.

I will add, just to be clear, that it was something similar that made me lose all respect for Jonathan Haidt's moral foundations theory.  Some people were calling to close to lawless terrorist prison in Guantanamo and Haidt dismissed that as "liberal moral myopia."  Liberals were so obsessed with harm avoidance, and with justice concerns that some of the prisoners did not appear to be actual terrorists that they totally ignored the larger picture -- the Guantanamo prisoners were not part of our in-group and any concern for their well-being, or even whether they were guilty or innocent, is a betrayal of our in-group.  Apparently having normal, healthy, well-balanced values means dividing everyone into an in-group of people who morally matter and an out-group of unpeople who do not morally matter.  

Certainly that appears to be Vance's philosophy as well.  Granted, Vance sees no need to hate people outside your borders.  But indifference is an absolute moral imperative. 

Vance's Vision as an Exercise in 1950's Nostalgia

 

Make America Great Again presupposes some good old days when America was great that we have declined from.  The slogan works better when you leave it somewhat unclear when America was great.  After all, different people are apt to have different ideas of exactly how far we want to turn back the clock.  And no matter when you want to return to, closer inspection will reveal the time has problems.

Donald Trump has now revealed when he thinks our golden age was -- during the Gilded Age.  William McKinley is his ideal President, mostly because he charged high protective tariffs.*  That makes sense from an economic royalist perspective, but Vance is no economic royalist.  Vance is a champion of the working class, and the Gilded Age was most definitely not a golden age for the industrial working class.

The Gilded Age was the time of The Jungle, of brutal work hours and frequent industrial accidents with no workers' compensation.  It was also a time of a chaotic business cycle, with alternating bouts of inflation and deflation, and of widespread, violent industrial strife, particularly during economic down turns, and the National Guard being called out to suppress strikes.  It should also be noted that at the time the industrial working class, far from being seen as the most quintessentially American of all Americans, were regarded as suspect -- immigrants whose first language was not English, associated with radical anarchists and socialists or, at best, corrupt political machines.  Identity politics were rampant at the time, with each ethnic group of immigrants sticking together in its own separate neighborhood, voting for its own candidates, and not trusting outsiders.

The Progressive Era brought in some workplace safety laws, limitations on hours, and Workers Compensation laws.  But it was the Great Depression, the New Deal, and mass diversion of manufacturing to military use during WWII that brought about national recognition of unions and the right to strike, the National Labor Relations Board, and good-paying manufacturing jobs.  In short, the golden age of good-paying manufacturing jobs was the 1950's.  

Many  people have pointed out that people in the 1950's were less wealthy in absolute terms than today.  One of the reasons people could afford to buy a house right out of high school was that houses were smaller then, even though families were larger.  Many appliances were bough separately instead of coming with the house.  A single car was the general rule, at least at the outset -- a two-car garage was a clear status marker.  But I don't think the MAGA working class crowd would find that concerning.  If absolute wealth has gone up, they may say, why can't we afford a larger house now on a blue collar wage.

But there were serpents in the garden even in the 1950's.  For one thing most men in the 1950's did not actually work in manufacturing.  The number runs to about 30-32% of the workforce.  Similarly, only about a third of the workforce belonged to a union even at their height.  Nor were women quite so uniformly full-time housewives as nostalgia would have it.  About a third worked outside the home, albeit at lower wages than men.  Though factory jobs paid well, they were not appealing in most other regards -- extremely regimented and prone to repetitive-stress injuries.  And then there was the matter of race.  Immigration was mostly restricted to northern and western Europe, so the ethnic strife of the past largely faded.  But there were plenty of Black people who were long-term residents of the United States and were largely excluded from the general prosperity -- not only in the segregated South, but in the North the good-paying jobs were generally White-only.  And let us not forget that the GI bill led to an ever-growing expansion in the college-educated population, turning college from the preserve of a small elite to something available to the broader public.  Presumably Vance and his cohorts would see this a a bad thing.

It should also be noted that the 1950's were the beginning of the liberal international order that Vance so despises.  The Cold War drove our foreign policy, and the US founded the NATO alliance, and well as other anti-Communist alliances.  We also worked to reduce trade barriers, believing that protectionism greatly contributed to the Great Depression and the rise of fascism.  Even much of our domestic policy -- encouraging unions and good blue collar jobs, and support for Civil Rights -- was driven by the Cold War and the perceived need to maintain our moral authority against the Communists.

And, just for what it is worth, popular culture of the day did not valorize manufacturing work the way so many people do today.  Leave it to Beaver, Ozzie and Harriet, and Father Knows Best all featured white collar families.  Art imitated life in I Love Lucy -- Ricky was a night club performer.  The Honeymooners was an exception, a show about a blue collar family, but a bus driver, not a factory worker.  Blue collar characters became more prevalent in the 1960's and 70's, but still one has Fred Flintstone (crane operator), Archie Bunker (retired dock worker and taxi driver) and a whole spate of movies with truck drivers for heroes.  The same may be said for the 1980's and 90's, featuring Dan Conner (drywall contractor) and Al Bundy (shoe salesman).  

Manufacturing jobs began taking on a certain political glamour when they started being automated away or going overseas.  But they never employed more than a minority of the workforce even at their height, and were never all that appealing, except in retrospect.

__________________________________________

*During Trump's first term his favorite President was Andrew Jackson.  Jackson is a controversial figure, seen by admirers as the first true People's President and the transition of the US from aristocratic republic to true democracy and associated by detractors with the Trail of Tears, the spoils system, and a depression caused by his veto of the national bank.  But no on  disputes that Jackson was a highly consequential figure.  McKinley is a strict mediocrity, noted mostly for being assassinated and making way for Teddy Roosevelt.

Musk and DOGE -- How Will It End?

 

Look, Elon Musk's "move fast and break things" approach can only continue so long.  It only continued so long at Twitter, and it will only continue so long in the government.  At Twitter, the whole plan was to do mass firings and then hire back anyone who turned out to be essential.  In government, that approach is turning out to have its drawbacks when the fired essential workers turn out to include, say, ones who safeguarded our nuclear arsenal.    

So eventually this will end.  How?  I have no idea.  But I can offer some suggestions.

Everything completely and irretrievably breaks down

Yes, it does look like this sometimes, but I don't think it will happen this way.  The Muskrats have backtracked at least on occasion.  And Musk is not as exempt from public pressure as it may appear.  So while there will no doubt be irreparable damage, I think it will stop short of complete and total breakdown.

The Muskrats learn some lessons in government and humility

I know this one seems decidedly unlikely.  Elon Musk is never going to admit he was wrong about anything.  But Elon Musk is not acting alone, nor can a mere six men manage so extensive a takeover.  Wikipedia has named 47 employees.  There are also collaborators inside the agencies -- not many, but at the highest levels.  It is not so far-fetched that at least some of these may learn that government is a lot more important and more difficult to  manage than they thought and act accordingly.  Or be coopted by the system, depending on how you look at it.

DOGE declares victory and pulls out

Already DOGE is set to expire on July 4, 2026.  If public outrage gets too strong, one option is certainly to declare mission accomplished and return to the private sector.  Everyone else will be left picking up the pieces -- deciding what can be salvaged, what is irretrievable, and what really wasn't worth keeping.  The Muskrats will return to the private sector with terrifying amounts of data exfiltrated from the government, and probably any number of backdoor hacks into the system and do who-knows-what with it.  This will look like defeat for DOGE (or victory for the rest of us) in the short run, but can be really scary in the long run.

DOGE declares victory and digs in

DOGE will announce that they have achieved their savings.  Each government will have a DOGE employee or a DOGE team breathing down its neck, managing its computer system, cancelling projects, and firing employees at will.  This will all be completely illegal, but maybe Congress will take actions to legalize it retroactively.  I can see at least two ways this shakes out.  One is as stated above -- DOGE learns something about government and becomes part of the "system."  The other one is truly terrifying.

DOGE learns enough about government to take it over

DOGE establishes its own dictatorship over the entire US government.  It fires any employee who displeases it and deletes their computer access.  It cuts off money to any individual or organization that displeases it.  Elections cease to matter because DOGE controls all.  Democrats could win control of Congress in 2026 and arrive, only to find that they are shut off from the actual workings of government, and DOGE completely ignores any laws they pass.  A Democrat could be elected President in 2028 and arrive at the White House, only to find that the White House has been locked out of the government computer system and DOGE is running everything, completely ignoring the White House.  The actual Deep State that right wingers so fear will have been accomplished -- and right wingers will love it because they control it.  This is REALLY scary.  I have no idea how likely it is.

Quiet Trump/Musk split

People on our side have been pushing for this, but so far it shows no sign of happening.  I suspect two factors are working against this.  One is that Trump seems to be intimidated by bigger authoritarians than he is.  He is submissive toward Putin, Xi, and Kim Jong-un.  A similar dynamic appears to be underway with Musk.  The other factor works the other way.  Musk has the money and the tech, but Trump has the law and the guns.  If push comes to shove, law guns, and public outrage will defeat Musk and his money and tech.  Presumably Musk knows this and is wary of going to far.  Nonetheless, in case of a Trump/Musk split, it seems most likely that they will attempt to conceal the split.  If Musk declares victory and goes home, it may very well not be altogether voluntary.

Open Trump/Musk split

As discussed above, the forces of mutually assured destruction make this unlikely.  However, it is not impossible that Trump will tell Musk "You're fired."  That carries all the danger of Musk taking home all the information he has gained and doing who-knows-what with it.  The only way I could see to do such a thing would be to arrest Musk and all his minions.  I am sure there is a very long list of criminal charges that can be brought.  I think we can safely rule this out.  If the Muskrats face criminal charges, they will undoubtedly view it as betrayal -- and talk.  They will reveal just how complicit Trump really is in all their crimes.  That alone would deter such a course of action.  Of course, I can still have my fantasies about this, but they lead in a disturbing direction.  A Trump-Musk split would be fun to watch, but in the long run one of them would win.  Scary thought!  And much as I can relish the thought of the Trump Administration using the Department of Justice to bring down the world's richest man, as scary thought follows.  If Trump does bring down the world's richest man, what can he do to any of us?

Loyalty > Competence

 Whenever I hear criticisms of Donald Trump -- or anybody else, for that matter -- valuing loyalty over competence I can only shake my head and say, well, duh!

Of COURSE loyalty is more important than competence.  To anyone who doubts it consider.  Suppose someone is disloyal and out to get you.  Would you rather they were supremely competent or a total idiot?  The answer is so obvious as to make the question rhetorical. When someone is disloyal, greater competence means greater danger.

So the real issue is not whether loyalty is more important than competence (it is), but whether the fear of disloyalty is rampant.  In other words, to say that someone values loyalty over competence really means that they are beset by fears of disloyalty.

These fears are usually justified.  In other words, when the fear of disloyalty is rampant, it usually means that disloyalty really IS rampant. 

There are a number of things that can make disloyalty widespread.  One is being surrounded by real enemies, offering numerous opportunities for betrayal. That is the situation, for instance, in a collection of city-states, or mafia gangs.  It could be a sleazy, underhanded leader asking people to do sleazy, underhanded things that undermine their morals, including their sense of loyalty.  That seems a fair description of Trump.  And it is also true, as some wise person remarked, that by regarding everyone around you as an enemy and treating everyone as an enemy you will, in fact, end up with a lot of enemies.  Note also that when disloyalty is rampant, it becomes self-perpetuating.  If everyone else is trying to stab each other in the back, only a fool and a sucker would refrain.*

Only a society in which loyalty is simply assumed can promotions be based on competence.  We have had that up until now.  Trump is undermining it.

So how does one guard against disloyalty?

It may seem terribly naive and utopian, but one important way to fight disloyalty is through moral authority.  That is, so far as I can tell, the real message in A Team of Rivals.  Instead of looking for loyalists, Lincoln chose the top talent in the Republican Party for is cabinet and won their loyalty.  It took no particular insight for Lincoln to recognize that his cabinet consisted of the top talent in the Republican Party.  His real genius was in persuading them to take orders from Mr. Nobody from Hicktown, Illinois.  Our whole system functions because our government has moral authority that people respect.  That is why Trump and MAGA's attacks on its moral authority are so dangerous.

Of course, this is not to suggest that moral authority alone can can prevent treachery.  Another way to prevent disloyalty is to make it difficult.  Treachery is easier in a small city-state surrounded by hostile neighbors than in a giant country with ocean to the east and west and friendly neighbors to the north and south.**  A favorite fantasy of mine is to imagine myself teaching civics in high school or political science in college and assigning my class to write a paper on what they could do to commit treason.*** The point would be that committing treason in our society today would be extremely difficult.**** It is easy to be loyal when there are almost no opportunities to be disloyal.

Another way is to lower the stakes for disloyalty.  This is the approach taken in most commercial capitalist ventures.  In a commercial/capitalist context, disloyalty is seen as a minor offense, if an offense at all.  Loyalty is valued to an extent, but too much loyalty is regarded as corrupt -- "crony capitalism."  In other words, it is not seen as dishonorably for an employee to leave a job when a better offer presents itself, or for an employer to lay off an employee it cannot afford to pay, or a customer to switch to a supplier who offers a better deal.  In another context, this would be seen a disloyal, but disloyalty of this type is tolerated because the stakes are not high -- it costs some money, that is all, and money is fungible and can be replaced.

What is valued is integrity -- honest dealings with strangers and associates alike.  This would mean not embezzling from an employer or selling trade secrets, but these things are condemned not so much as a betrayal, but as dishonest -- no worse, really than ripping off a stranger or deceit in arm's length transactions.  

Donald Trump famously commented that he valued loyalty more than integrity, but that is contrary to the ethos of a commercial/capitalist enterprise, which sees integrity as as foundational and loyalty is a mere extra -- nice to have, but not all that important.  For Trump to prize loyalty over integrity in business dealings is another way of saying he values honor among thieves.  But honor among thieves is not to be trusted.  People with no integrity can hardly be counted on to be loyal.  Another reason Trump is beset by fear of disloyalty.  

Of course, in the end moral authority, limited opportunity, and low stakes and only make disloyalty infrequent.  They cannot eliminate it altogether.  That is why we still have security clearances for people doing top secret work that really does offer opportunities for disloyalty with high stakes.

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*That is why I do not believe people who think that Machiavelli's The Prince should be understood as satire, or as a warning to the common people.  It is a realistic assessment of how to survive when treachery is rampant.
**Trump can't do anything about the oceans, but he is working hard on alienating our friendly neighbors.
***Of course I would never actually do that.  It would be way to easy to misconstrue.
****I live in New Mexico.  It has Los Alamos Labs and Sandia Labs, both of which offer access to classified information.  So the first step would be to get a job there and somehow get access to classified information.  The next step is to visit the nearest Russian consulate, which is located in Houston, Texas -- 884 miles from Albuquerque and 904 miles from Los Alamos.  Presumably the Russians have spies around both Los Alamos and Sandia Labs, so you would not have to go to Houston every time you wanted to give them information.  But the point stands.

Reflections on Jimmy Carter's "Malaise" Speech

 

Retrospectives on Jimmy Carter often say that his presidency began circling the drain when he gave the "malaise" speech.  (Some acknowledge that he did not actually use that word).

The most fascinating aspect of that speech is not so much the problems he was addressing or the solutions he proposed, but just how contemporary it sounds.

This is what Jimmy Carter said in 1979:

 

As you know, there is a growing disrespect for government and for churches and for schools, the news media, and other institutions. This is not a message of happiness or reassurance, but it is the truth and it is a warning.

These changes did not happen overnight. They've come upon us gradually over the last generation, years that were filled with shocks and tragedy.

We were sure that ours was a nation of the ballot, not the bullet, until the murders of John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. We were taught that our armies were always invincible and our causes were always just, only to suffer the agony of Vietnam. We respected the Presidency as a place of honor until the shock of Watergate.

We remember when the phrase "sound as a dollar" was an expression of absolute dependability, until 10 years of inflation began to shrink our dollar and our savings. We believed that our Nation's resources were limitless until 1973, when we had to face a growing dependence on foreign oil.

These wounds are still very deep. They have never been healed.

Looking for a way out of this crisis, our people have turned to the Federal Government and found it isolated from the mainstream of our Nation's life. Washington, D.C., has become an island. The gap between our citizens and our Government has never been so wide. The people are looking for honest answers, not easy answers; clear leadership, not false claims and evasiveness and politics as usual.

 Change a few particulars, and it might be something any politician -- or any commenter on social media -- might say.

Right now the refrain was that the COVID pandemic, the lock downs, and the 2020 riots destroyed trust in our institutions.

Before that, people lamented that George Bush lying us into the war in Iraq and the bailout of financial institutions destroyed our trust in the system.

And in 1979, Jimmy Carter was saying we lost trust in our institutions due to the 1960's assassinations, the Vietnam war, the Watergate scandal, inflation, and the oil embargo.

And lest one think that at least there was trust in our institutions before that, don't forget that an earlier generation had to deal with the corruption of the Harding Administration, the Great Depression, and World War II.

And before that someone was proposing that the nation actually lost its innocence in 1919 when the World Series was rigged.

It's almost as if there have always been problems.

I am old enough to have a teenage memory of Jimmy Carter's speech.  And, young as I was, it seemed to me even then that maybe living in an illusion -- falsely thinking that our armies were invincible, our leaders incorruptible, and our resources limitless -- was not sustainable, and that facing unwelcome realities was simply a fact of life.

An unwelcome but inevitable part of growing up for every child is learning that one's parents are not perfect.  And an unwelcome but inevitable part of reaching political adulthood is learning that our institutions are not perfect either, and that our society has problems.

But true maturity lies in understanding that no parents are perfect, that no institutions are perfect, and that every society has always had problems and always will.

How much of the true underlying cause of so many of our political problems is that all too many people have not reached that state of civic adulthood?

Donald Trump: Affect versus Effect

 

Donald Trump as admitted that when prices go up, it is just about impossible to bring them down.  Given that he campaigned on a promise to do just that, will it hurt his popularity?

My guess is no, not really.  Last time around he campaigned on bringing back all those good-paying manufacturing jobs that went overseas.  He did not, in fact, bring back all those good paying manufacturing jobs, and that didn't hurt him in the least with the party faithful

My guess is that what is happening here is that people are taking Trump "seriously, but not literally."  Or, stated otherwise, they are judging him by his affect, rather than his effect.  In other words, voters may very well understand that the good-paying manufacturing jobs are not coming back, that when prices go up they are probably not coming down and, in general, that Trump is promising a lot of things that he cannot deliver on.  His supporters do not really blame him for these things because they know that at least he shares their aspirations.  

After years and years of hearing Republicans saying that anyone who does not at least aspire to own a business is a moocher and loser, and Democrats urging everyone to get a good education so they don't get stuck in a dead-end blue collar job, it must be good to hear someone who understands that you don't want to own a business, or to have a degree and desk job, you just want a job that pays a good wage and that is perfectly fine.  Even if Trump could not realistically bring back all those good-paying blue collar jobs, it must be good to hear a politician says that there is nothing wrong with your aspirations, and that you do not need either to own a business or to have a degree to be a valuable member of society.

The same applies this time to inflation.  When you are angry about increased prices, the last thing you want is someone to explain why it really is not as bad as it seems.  You want a leader who is also angry about increased prices.  Even if there is nothing that can realistically be done to lower prices, you still want a leader who shares your anger.

So does this mean that nothing can dent Trump's popularity?  No, I don't think that at all.  I do think that it won't hurt his popularity if nothing really gets better because things are actually pretty good as they are.  What will hurt his popularity is if things get worse.  Such as if high tariffs, large-scale deportations, or budget busting tax cuts cause inflation to go back up again.

What to Make of the Latest Flap

 

So, now that we have averted a government shutdown, what are we to make of the latest flap?

I would say, first and foremost, it appears that not even Trump can control the Freedom Caucus or, as Devin Nunes once called them, the lemmings with suicide vests caucus.  Maybe they will become more compliant once he is actually sworn in, but as of right now, they remain lemmings with suicide vests.

Second and relatedly, although Donald Trump and Elon Musk are spinning this as a win, neither man actually got what he wanted.  Musk called for a government shutdown and a halt to all legislation until Trump is inaugurated.  Trump called for abolition, or at least suspension, of the debt ceiling.  Neither of these happened.  In fact, the final bill was not all that different from the one Musk scuttled, but they did scuttle the first bill, so both men are trying to spin this as a win.

Third, and intriguingly, this may be the first disagreement between Trump and Musk.  At least, Musk called for a government shutdown.  Trump did not.  Trump called for an end to the debt ceiling.  Musk did not.  Maybe nothing will come of this.  But it is interesting.

Finally, and perhaps most significantly in the long run, it confirms my suspicion about a second Trump Administration.  My guess is that there actually will be grownups in the room during this administration.  The bad news is that, instead of being mavens of the Deep State (see above) as in the first Trump Administration, this time they will be the plutocrats.  Deep State mavens were primarily interested in keeping Trump from subverting the rule of law.  The plutocrats are primarily interested in keeping Trump from blowing up the economy.

Clearly one or more of the plutocrats (we have no way of knowing which one(s)) have impressed on Trump just how disastrous a debt ceiling breach would be.  Trump is therefore heavily invested in abolishing the debt ceiling, or at least kicking the can as far down the road as possible.  And he is absolutely right about that.  Stopped clock and all. 

But this is also troubling.  Let me be clear about my order of preferences.  They are as follows:

1. Trump does not subvert the rule of law or blow up the economy.
2. Trump blows up the economy, but does not subvert the rule of law.
3. Trump both subverts the rule of law and blows up the economy.
4. Trump subverts the rule of law but does not blow up the economy.

The reason for this set of preferences is simple.  Our country can recover from economic damage.  It has done so many time.  But it cannot survive as a true democratic republic if the rule of law is subverted.  

Thus the importance of rule number one in any smart authoritarian's playbook.  Don't do anything unpopular until after you have consolidated complete power into your hands.  Taking unpopular actions before you consolidate power will generate pushback and risks thwarting the attempt.  But if you truly manage to consolidate power, then you are free to take unpopular actions if you want because it will be too late to stop you.  Hugo Chavez and Erdogan Recep and classic examples of smart authoritarians who followed this rule.  

Trump, certainly, is not smart, but the grownups in the room just might turn out to be smart authoritarians who understand this rule.  

Then again, the lemmings with suicide vests caucus just might thwart them.

Trump's Upcoming Pick for Vice President

 So, apparently Donald Trump now has a list of eight potential candidates for the Vice President slot -- Marco Rubio, JD Vance, Tom Cotton, Tim Scott, Doug Burgum, Elise Stefanik, Byron Donalds, and Ben Carson.

It could be worse.  Michael Flynn, Steve Bannon, Steve Miller, and Joe Arpaio are all mercifully absent.  Presumably Trump fears they would cost him votes.

Look, I know it is customary to analyze the potential picks from the candidate's viewpoint and list their pros and cons as potential vote getters.  But I am not going to do that.  The Vice President might have some influence on Trump and might take over if he passes his sell-by date while in office.  So, for the sake of the country, how do I evaluate them?

My somewhat unorthodox approach is that I prefer a knave to a fool. In other words, when candidates say something completely nutty, I would rather have one who knows it is a lie told to fool the gullible rubes than one who actually believes it.  Certainly, many people I respect disagree with me on this point.  And I recognize that the one who is knowingly lying is more morally culpable than the one who truly believes.  But it is also true that the deliberate liar is reality-based on the whole and can be rational when it is in his/her interest.  And the true believer will often cross lines that the liar would not.

Consider the 2022 election.  While the vast majority of Republicans who lost conceded defeat, there were two notable exceptions -- Kari Lake and Solomon Pena.  Lake knew perfectly well that she lost, but put on a show of challenging the results, made speeches denouncing the election as rigged, and sued to overturn the results.  At the same time, she knew perfectly well that the result would fail and did not make a serious attempt to overturn the results.  She was simply being performative.  Pena, by contrast, genuinely believed those stories, made complaints to a wide range of election officials and, when they did not take him seriously, started shooting at their houses.  It seems a safe assumption that Lake would never go so far.

Lou Dobbs also comes to mind.  There is a reason he was the only Fox host fired over the 2020 election.  The others knew perfectly well that they were recounting lies and could stop when the directive came down.  Dobbs believed and had to be fired.  Likewise, Newsmax hoped to outflank Fox on the right, but found it did not have deep enough pockets to withstand the sort of libel verdicts Fox could absorb.  As a result, it had to cancel Mike Lindell, Rudy Giuliani, and others who refused to shut up because they truly believed.

So, with that in mind, what would be my order of priority among the Big Eight?

Knaves but not a fools.

Doug Burgum

1.  Doug Burgum.  Two-term governor of North Dakota and businessman.  Burgum seems to be a basically, sane, normal, decent person whose politics I don't like.  He clearly knows he is lying and makes only the minimum effort necessary.  If he ever did come to power, I think he could be trusted to govern in a rational manner, even if I did not care for it.  The big question is whether the governor of a state with a population under 780,000 is qualified to be President.  To which I can only answer, that Burgum is almost certainly better qualified than Trump.

Tim Scott

2.  Tim Scott.  South Carolina Senator since 2013, formerly House of Representatives, South Carolina legislature and Charleston City Council, served on the Banking and Finance Committees, author of Trump's proposed police reform bill, voted to certify Biden as President.  He appears to be both qualified and rational, and basically normal and decent.  He is also absolutely shameless in the lies he is willing to tell to get the slot.  Like Burgum, Scott really doesn't seem to care that everyone knows he is lying. So why do I prefer Burgum?  Mostly because of his role a a governor.  A governor really has to deal in reality or he/she will not be successful.  We could use more governors running for President for that very reason.

Tom Cotton

3.  Tom Cotton.  Arkansas Senator, one of the Big Three most conservative along with Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, but he broke with them to agree to certify Biden as President, apparently after hearing the take recording of Trump's conversation with Brad Raffensperger.  Also a Russia hawk who voted for aid to Ukraine, definitely reality based, and tough enough to maybe have some sway with Trump and keep him at least somewhat grounded in reality.  So why do I prefer Burgum or Scott, neither of whom shows that kind of toughness?  Well, unlike Burgum and Scott, Cotton does not come across as basically decent.  His enthusiasm for waterboarding and eagerness to declare martial law during the 2020 riots suggest that Cotton is an authoritarian himself, albeit, a more reality-based authoritarian than Trump.  However, I am open to persuasion that Cotton might be preferable to Scott because he is tougher and better able to keep Trump grounded.

Marco Rubio

4. Marco Rubio.  Florida Senator, part of the Tea Party class, contender for President in 2016, voted to certify Biden.  It won't be Rubio for a simple reason.  The Constitution does not exactly say that the President and Vice President must be from different states, but it does require electors to vote for a ticket that includes at least one person from a different state.  This means that if Rubio joined Trump on the ticket, Florida's electors would be disqualified.  In a close election, that just might cost Trump victory, so I think we can rule out Rubio.  Nonetheless, if he were to move to another state, that would be a sort of ultimate act of self-abasement.  Rubio ran as a hawk in 2016, but voted against aid to Ukraine.  In short, he has abandoned his principles beyond what is absolutely necessary for the slot.  Somehow that just strikes me as particularly distasteful, although I am open to persuasion either way whether he might be preferable to Tom Cotton.

Elise Stefanik

5. Elise Stefanik.  House of Representatives from Upstate New York since 2014.  Originally ran as a moderate, elevated to chair of the House Republican Conference mostly so a woman could take Liz Cheney's place when Liz Cheney refused to acknowledge Trump as winner of the 2020 election.  Stefanik has since sought to advance herself by abject deference to Trump.  So what makes her any worse than Burgum, Scott,  Cotton, or Rubio?  Look, I prefer a knave to a fool, but I prefer a lesser knave.  The others at least have some sort of distinction other than shameless opportunism, but Stefanik has built her entire career on that.

Purely a fool.

Ben Carson

6. Ben Carson neurosurgeon, served as Donald Trump's Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, noted for bizarre beliefs like that the pyramids were really granaries and not tombs.  Kevin Drum described Carson's previous claim to fame as a neurosurgeon and crackpot and described him as being crazy but not scary.*  To be clear, just because Carson is a fool does not mean he is lacking in intelligence.  He is a literal brain surgeon, after all.  Nonetheless, we have had 46 Presidents of varying quality, and not one was ever qualified to perform brain surgery.  Conclusion:  Being a President and doing brain surgery are two separate and unrelated skill sets and having one by no means ensures the others.  Also, Carson is nutty enough to maybe actually believe about the stolen election.  But he seems like a decent enough guy other than that.

Knaves and fools.

Byron Donalds

7. Byron Donalds.  Elected to the House in 2020, almost certainly not qualified to be President.  But unlike Burgum, who appears to be reality based and willing to listen to sensible advice, Donalds appears to have made a career out of being as outrageous and obnoxious and possible.  This includes saying things like that Black people were better off under segregation and other such bomb throwing.  Unlike Scott, Cotton, or Rubio, Donalds voted not to certify Biden's election, which should itself be disqualifying. Does he actually believe the outrageous things he says?  I am inclined to think that Donalds resembles Trump in being a master of doublethink, about to believe or not believe whatever is most expedient at the time.  And to Donalds, expedient means outrageous.  Differs from the others in that he does not appear to have any interest whatever in governing and solely want to provoke.  Fortunately, Donalds has the same incurable defect as Rubio.  He is from Florida.

8. J.D. Vance.  Ohio Senator, elected 2022.  Combines all the worst traits of a knave and a fool.  Once harshly critical of Trump, now supports him down the line.  And it is hard to tell, but Vance appears to be a true believer who supports Trumpism with all the zeal of a convert.  He is definitely opposed to aid to Ukraine and believes that the working class is not served by the current international order.  (How does the working class benefit from more countries invading their neighbors?).  Vance knows perfectly well that the 2020 election was not stolen and does not seriously argue that it was, but does seriously argue that voters going to the polls and casting their votes for President should be a empty formality and that Congress should be allowed to throw out the election at will. In short, a Trumpist true believer who just might have the intelligence and competence to pull it off.  

And naturally, current signs point to Vance.

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*He questionably characterized Steve Bannon as scary but not crazy and gave Michael Flynn the dubious distinction of being the only member of Trump's original Cabinet to be both crazy and scary.

So, Am I Being Defeatist?

 

I can already hear a lot of people complain that I am being defeatist here, assuming that a Trump victory is all but assured and asking how to deal with it.  To which I can only answer, yes, that’s what the polls say.  And yes, I know, polls can change, but these ones have been remarkably stable.  Yes, Biden got a little bump after his State of the Union, but it proved fleeting.  Trump appears to be having a reverse bump following is conviction, but that may also be fleeting.  As of right now, a Trump victory is at a minimum at 50% chance, which makes it something we have to plan for.

But it is not just that.  Trump has all the advantage that a cheat has over an honest player.  And Trump is not just a cheat, but by now backed by a whole party of cheats who are pledged not to recognize his defeat as legitimate.  So let’s game out a Biden victory and see just what he has to get past to assume the White House.

First of all, there is a general consensus that Georgia, Arizona and Nevada are out of reach, so any win will come down to Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.  That is good in the sense that all three states have Democratic Governors and Secretaries of State, who can be counted upon to certify a Biden victory if it happens.  Better yet, Pennsylvania and Michigan have Democratic legislatures, so no risk of either state legislature choosing an alternate slate of electors.

That bad news is that Biden will need all three states to win.  The loss of even one will swing the election to Trump, and one can be sure that Republicans will pull out all the stops.  Since Pennsylvania Democrats control the executive and legislative branches in Pennsylvania and Michigan, sabotage will have to take place at the county level, but there are plenty of opportunities. 

In Michigan the matter got dramatic coverage – each county has a board of two Democrats and two Republicans who must certify results, and the state has a similar board.  In 2020, Republicans sought to refuse to certify the counties Biden won.  Can anyone doubt that they will do the same thing this time around, and probably Republicans on the state board will try to certify the result minus the Biden counties.  Naturally, Democrats on the state board will refuse to go along with that, and our media will probably treat these things as equivalent.

I am less familiar with the process in Pennsylvania, but it is easy to imagine Republican counties refusing to certify any results at all in order to prevent state-wide certification.  The remedy in both cases is presumably the same – go to court to seek a writ of mandamus ( court order to do one's duty) to order Republican officials to certify the results.  I do hope the courts do not try to enforce their order with fines or imprisonment.  Republican officials can easily wait till the safe harbor is passed, which loudly proclaiming themselves martyrs and crying political persecution.  A better option is to appoint a special master to do Republican county officials’ jobs for them.  The officials will doubtless still call that dirty pool, but there will be less opportunities to claim martyrdom.

Wisconsin is a different matter.  In Wisconsin, Republicans control both houses of a thoroughly gerrymandered legislature and can choose an alternate slate of electors.  Of course, Democrats now control the Wisconsin Supreme Court and will doubtless declare those electors invalid, but Republicans will hardly care.  Maybe fake electors will still claim to be the real electors in Michigan, although they were criminally prosecuted last time.  The Pennsylvania fake electors avoided prosecution by claiming they were only casting provisional votes if the official votes were invalidated.  But remember, the loss of even one of these states will throw the election to Trump.

But all of this will be secondary.  The real issue will be decided in Congress.  Recall that in 2020, state Republicans quite heroically resisted pressure from Trump and duly certified Biden when he won.  Republicans in Congress were a different matter.  This time, it appears to be the official position of the Republican party that the November election is an empty formality that Congressional Republicans can disregard at will.  Mitt Romney is retiring, so that leaves one Republican in either house who can be counted on to certify a Biden victory – Lisa Murkowski. 

So what if Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin all certify Biden electors?  Well, if Democrats control both houses, they will certify a Biden win.  If Republicans control both houses, they will find an excuse to throw out at least one of the states (probably Wisconsin, where the legislature will have an alternate slate of electors) and declare a Trump victory.  Sure, people can challenge the validity of the vote in the Supreme Court, but does anyone think they will actually invalidate Congress’ actions?

What will be interesting is if there is a split  If Republicans control the House and Democrats control the Senate, or if Republican have a 51-49 majority and Murkowski votes to confirm Biden.  The House has several options under the Twelfth Amendment.  One option is that if the houses cannot agree, the Speaker of the House becomes President under the Presidential Succession Act.  Mike Johnson will become President.  The good news -- under the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, his choice for Vice President would have to be approved by both houses.   That would presumably prevent him from naming Donald Trump, which is worth something, but it would still mean that Congress had defeated the will of the voters.

Alternately, the House may declare which slate of electors won in Wisconsin unknowable and say that since neither candidate can be said to have won the “majority of the votes cast” and therefore the matter is cast into the House – which votes by state.  Republicans control the majority of states and can be expected to continue to control the majority of states for the foreseeable future.  The House, voting by states, will naturally choose Trump.  So far as I can tell, there is no way for the Senate to stop them, other than a Supreme Court case that the Supreme Court would presumably refuse to decide.  There would be one drawback here.  In that case, the Senate chooses the Vice President.

If Democrats control the House and Republicans control the Senate, the incentives are reversed.  The decision whether to declare the winner unknowable and throw the matter to the House is decided by a simple majority.  House Democrats could refuse to do that, and the Senate would have no way to force them.  The Senate might declare no winner and attempt to choose a Vice President, but the Twelfth Amendment requires a two-thirds quorum, which Democrats could thwart by walking out.  Once again, presumably the Speaker would become President.  I have no doubt that, faced with the prospect of a President Hakim Jeffries, a small number of Senate Republicans would cave and agree to certify Biden.  (They would, of course, be vilified and face primary challenges). 

So it would appear from this perspective that winning the House is more important than winning the Senate because the Senate is the weaker body in terms of certifying a Presidential election.  On the other hand, the Senate confirms presidential appointments and a Republican Senate would presumably refuse to do so.  That would not be so bad in the case of executive appointments – Biden could presumably stick with the current ones or appoint “acting”  executive officials.  But we have to assume that the number one priority in a second Biden term would be to appoint as many young federal judges as possible, and a Republican Senate would block that.

Finally, needless to say, the Capitol would be under martial law while all this was going on to prevent a repeat of January 6.  It should also go without saying that Republicans would cry foul and denounce Biden as a military dictator, even if he took care to have the National Guard merely surround the Capitol and not enter it.  I am open to persuasion both ways whether martial law would be needed up to the inauguration.  In 2021 it was clearly necessary.  On the one hand, insurrections take time to plan, and would-be insurrectionists appeared to have taken their chance and lost it.  But some last, desperate action to prevent an inauguration could not be ruled out.  This time, Biden is well-entrenched in the White House.   But certainly, there would be no excuse for martial law after the inauguration.  (It was maintained well past what was necessary last time).

And this is what our country has come to!