"Get rid of the ballots and you'll have a very ... there won't be a transfer, frankly. There'll be a continuation."
- Donald J. Trump, September 23, 2020.
This was no anonymous source in a book; this was no "minor" ex-official with an ax to grind; this was not the "fake-news" media. This was the president of the United States who in a press briefing at the White House admitted two things: 1. He knows that mail-in ballots, if they're counted fully, will lead to his defeat; and 2. He plans on doing something nefarious with them.
For those of you who've been wondering when the Constitutional crisis would arrive, you can stop wondering; it's here. If you need any more convincing, read Barton Gellman's piece in The Atlantic. Just make sure you have a change of underwear when you do. Gellman paints a dystopian scenario that should send shivers down anyone's back who cares about democracy, particularly this democracy. In short, the Trump campaign is planning a coup d'état. Gellman writes,
A lot of people, including Joe Biden, the Democratic Party nominee, have misconceived the nature of the threat. They frame it as a concern, unthinkable for presidents past, that Trump might refuse to vacate the Oval Office if he loses. They generally conclude, as Biden has, that in that event the proper authorities “will escort him from the White House with great dispatch.”
The worst case, however, is not that Trump rejects the election outcome. The worst case is that he uses his power to prevent a decisive outcome against him. If Trump sheds all restraint, and if his Republican allies play the parts he assigns them, he could obstruct the emergence of a legally unambiguous victory for Biden in the Electoral College and then in Congress. He could prevent the formation of consensus about whether there is any outcome at all. He could seize on that uncertainty to hold on to power.
The most amusing thing about that second paragraph is the use of the words "if" and "could," as though there were any doubt about what Trump and his enablers are capable of doing. Hell, the man got himself impeached for attempting to extort a foreign leader to help him against his political opponent, and then was acquitted by his own party in spite of the all the evidence of his guilt. There are no ifs, ands or coulds about it. He will do anything to keep from losing because he knows the moment he becomes a private citizen his goose is cooked. His personal lawyers have told him as much.
According to Gellman, Trump's hyperbolic rantings are all part of a well-orchestrated "plan for the Interregnum" - the period between election day and inauguration day, that also includes the "safe harbor" day - December 8 - when all the electors must be appointed. By now, I'm sure William Barr has informed Trump that he likely won't prevail at the Supreme Court, even with a sixth conservative justice on the bench. That fact is the ballots are going to be cast, one way or the other. So he needs a "strategy" that has a shot at succeeding.
And what exactly is that strategy?
To declare himself the winner on election night and force Republican legislatures in swing states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin to appoint Trump electors that will override the eventual "blue shift" that will occur as mail-in ballots are counted. I know it sounds crazy, but according to Gellman discussions between Trump campaign officials and state and national Republicans are ongoing to devise a way to "set aside the popular vote count" and highjack the election.
Gellman actually got someone who was, incredibly enough, willing to go on the record:
"I’ve mentioned it to them, and I hope they’re thinking about it too,” Lawrence Tabas, the Pennsylvania Republican Party’s chairman, told me. “I just don’t think this is the right time for me to be discussing those strategies and approaches, but [direct appointment of electors] is one of the options. It is one of the available legal options set forth in the Constitution.” He added that everyone’s preference is to get a swift and accurate count. “If the process, though, is flawed, and has significant flaws, our public may lose faith and confidence” in the election’s integrity.
Translation, if it looks as though the election is slipping away from Trump, he will steal it back. It's the most brazen thing this president has ever attempted, and that's saying a lot given the last four years.
Now before you soil your second pair of briefs, I should point out that there are measures that can be taken that would thwart Trump's malfeasance. The first is to make sure that Democrats actually end up with 51 seats in the Senate. To do that, they must win five seats: Maine, North Carolina, Colorado, Arizona and either Iowa or one of the two seats up for grabs in Georgia. That's because Doug Jones will almost certainly lose his race in Alabama.
Having 51 seats avoids the dreaded 50/50 deadlock that would permit the Republican-led Senate to choose the Republican slate of electors while the Democratic House of Representatives chooses the Democratic slate of electors. Don't forget, until January 20, Mike Pence is still the vice president. That means he would be the tie breaking vote in the upper chamber. Astonishingly, the Founders did not envision a nightmare scenario like this when they wrote the Constitution. Go figure. But if Dems have 51 seats on January 6, Trump is done. Period. End of story. Nothing can save him.
Another way to avoid a catastrophe is for Biden to win a massive landslide election so that Trump won't be able to cast doubt on the results and compel Republican legislatures to ignore the will of the people. To do that, Biden must maintain a healthy lead right into the election. He will undoubtedly have a decisive margin in both the early and mail-in voting, but he must hold his own in the same-day voting. At present, he has a lead over Trump of 6.6 percent nationally and 3.6 percent in the battleground states. More importantly, the polling has tightened in Ohio, Iowa, Georgia and Texas, states Trump won going away in 2016 and where Biden has now pulled into a statistical tie. That's pretty impressive. Most "experts" believe that for Biden to win a landslide, though, he will need to be ahead of Trump by at least six points nationally in the last few days of the campaign.
Biden can help himself tremendously by having very good debate performances against Trump. I will write more about this at a later date, but suffice to say Biden needs to maintain his composure and keep the focus on Trump. The country knows who this president is; what it wants to know is how Biden plans on restoring it to its once lofty status. Yes, the election will be a referendum on Trump, but it's also a chance for Biden to unveil his vision for America. He must seize the moment.
Another thing Biden can do to increase his prospects is to concentrate heavily on winning Florida, North Carolina and Arizona. Why those states? Because all three, along with Colorado, start counting their mail-in ballots early. Florida, for instance, starts counting twenty-two days before the election. If Biden were to win all three on election night, and hold on to the states Hillary won in 2016, Trump could block the electors in the Rust-belt states all he wants, Biden would still win the electoral college.
Look, are we at Defcon one? No, not yet. But don't kid yourself. The missiles are in the silos and the launch key has been inserted. Trump has telegraphed where he's going and we would be fools not to take him seriously and, yes, literally. I have said repeatedly that he is the most transparent politician in the history of the Republic. And with a complicit and submissive GOP at his beckon call, anything is possible.
There is one last thing that can be done to stop Trump, and here Gellman challenges all of us:
If you are a voter, think about voting in person after all. More than half a million postal votes were rejected in this year’s primaries, even without Trump trying to suppress them. If you are at relatively low risk for COVID-19, volunteer to work at the polls. If you know people who are open to reason, spread word that it is normal for the results to keep changing after Election Night. If you manage news coverage, anticipate extraconstitutional measures, and position reporters and crews to respond to them. If you are an election administrator, plan for contingencies you never had to imagine before. If you are a mayor, consider how to deploy your police to ward off interlopers with bad intent. If you are a law-enforcement officer, protect the freedom to vote. If you are a legislator, choose not to participate in chicanery. If you are a judge on the bench in a battleground state, refresh your acquaintance with election case law. If you have a place in the military chain of command, remember your duty to turn aside unlawful orders. If you are a civil servant, know that your country needs you more than ever to do the right thing when you’re asked to do otherwise.
Take agency. An election cannot be stolen unless the American people, at some level, acquiesce.
This week we passed a milestone. Two hundred thousand of our fellow citizens have died from the Coronavirus, and we have a president who is now threatening to kill the longest-running experiment in representative democracy the world has ever known.
The stakes couldn't be higher.
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