ALBATROSSES, RUBBER STAMPS, DESPERATION

This week starts the new Supreme Court session and they have quite a lineup of considerations ahead of them, particularly concerning President Trump and his administration. Lisa Needham writes on Daily Kos: “Here comes the Supreme Court’s faithful conservatives, riding to President Donald Trump’s rescue. They’re eager to remind us that democracy doesn’t matter, laws don’t matter, the balance of powers doesn’t matter: Only Trump Matters.” Last week we were given yet another shadow docket decision, which allowed the six sitting court conservatives to “short-circuit the actual litigation and stomp all over the lower courts,” says Needham. The League of Women Voters suit against the Department of Homeland Security succumbed, allowing Trump to barge ahead with his mish-mosh of data to search for voter fraud where there is none, as has been proven over and over.

This case arose last year when the president and DHS schemed to use the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database, which determines benefits eligibility, to be used for voter eligibility instead. Needham says, “But wait! It gets worse.” The administration demanded that the high court countenance the ‘modified SAVE database’ which is a DHS combo of the SAVE data and Social Security data, which “somehow, in the fevered brains of the election deniers that run the country now, will magically ferret out all those noncitizen voters who keep voting for Democrats and wrecking our great land,” ostensibly removing ineligible voters. Noncitizen voting is basically non-existent, as Nevada proved for DHS, hilariously collapsing their feverish efforts — DHS howled about 15,093 ineligible voters on that state’s rolls, but weeded that number down to 185 — after which the state was able to erase the figure entirely. A goose egg on DHS’s face! Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, in her court dissent, pointed out that the data melding of the two databases is illegal according to the Privacy Act law.

Real world events resulting from the data mashup, of course, flags eligible voter citizens inadvertently, and whereas in a normal world it would be a grave concern, for Trumpworld it’s just the cost of doing business as they seek out non-existent ineligible voters. Federal law prohibits states from doing large-scale voter purges within 90 days before an election, requiring use of purges only on a case-by-case basis. So, while this rule may deaden the court’s shadow docket ruling, “the impact of yet another decision by the court’s conservatives that sweeps away all checks and balances in favor of giving Trump what he wants is still profoundly destabilizing,” warns Needham. Justice Jackson’s explanation in her eloquent dissent wrote, “The harm caused by burdening or disenfranchising even a few lawful voters outweighs the nonexistent harm that the Government experiences when it is prevented from taking an action that it likely lacks the authority to take.”

Needham concludes: “When it comes to the court’s conservatives, real-world harms are no match for Trump’s desires, but that’s not how democracy works, and those justices know it. They just don’t care.”

Oliver Willis on Daily Kos headlines his piece: ‘Mike Johnson Promises More Failure if GOP Wins Midterms.’ Speaker Johnson last week promised they will continue the agenda that has led millions to oppose and disapprove of the Republican Party, “putting the conditions in place for a strong America,” as he told the interviewer on CNBC’s ‘Squawk Box.’  Johnson falsely described the economy as “vibrant” and that Republicans have done “what we said we were going to do,” parroting the words of Dear Leader, both being disconnected from the reality for millions of Americans. A Fox News poll has 63% of registered voters accusing Trump of worsening Biden’s economy, with most agreeing that the economy and rising inflation are their top priorities, with trust leaning toward the Democrats. Trump and his agenda, including the ‘Big Beautiful Bill,’ are unpopular, albatrosses around the necks of the MAGAs.

Johnson’s Congressional Republicans have been pivotal in the downturn of the party as a whole, with Johnson refusing to let Congress serve as a watchdog of the executive branch, deferring to President Trump almost entirely. Johnson has ignored Trump and his cronies as they enriched themselves with their grifting, leading in his efforts to rubber-stamp Trump’s actions — conspicuously in the march to war in Iran. The Speaker and his allies ignoring  Trump’s illegal tariffs has led to increased costs for consumers, stalling the jobs market as well. Let’s see how ignoring the voter blowback on failure serves Johnson and his myopic double-down, double-crossing vision.

A Mike Luckovich political cartoon illustrates an ocean liner named ‘Trumptanic‘ sitting on the sea bottom, with GOP rats on deck asking, “Is it too late to abandon ship??” As Jimmy Kimmel says, “There are gas station bathrooms on Yelp with higher approval ratings than Donald Trump.”

Jason Linkins headlines his piece in The New Republic: ‘Trump’s Illegal Campaign Ads Are an Admission of Defeat.’ He says that even as the administration “pummels the airwaves with ‘slopaganda,’ Republicans are panicking about the president’s drag on their electoral ambitions,” as the president has decided to spend taxpayer money on campaign ads misleadingly characterized as “public service announcements.” Linkins calls the corrupt move “vintage Trump” as he spends $20 million from Homeland Security in violation of the Hatch Act. Supposedly, the administration has spent only a fraction of the funds allocated to this slop, so we can expect to see many more of his fake PSAs. Linkins says, ” I want to suggest that what these ads represent is desperation — an acknowledgment that if Trump’s goose isn’t cooked yet, the pot is at least boiling…this fusillade of propaganda will likely backfire…the power he had over people a year or 15 months ago has evanesced.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune is quoted as saying that he doesn’t mind Trump’s message but shouldn’t have used taxpayer dollars. Senator Mike Rounds said, “It’s not something I would have done,” and outgoing Senator Thom Tillis compared the action to that of dictator Victor Orbán, simply saying, “I hate it.” The ads aren’t the only plan Trump has in mind to “assist” candidates in their campaigns — he will spend most remaining days prior to the midterms on the road, visiting “bastions of conservatism,” which will be a significant commitment of time and resources in light of how dire the situation is for the GOP. One GOP donor told Politico, “The problem is that the fires are everywhere right now,” posing the question of whether the president’s injecting himself into the election cycle is a help or a hindrance. Texas Senate candidate Ken Paxton has expressed his opinion that Trump’s appearance at the ‘midterm convention’ was of no value, with GOP numbers dropping.

Linkins sees all the efforts adding up to defeat, quoting the Cook Political Report which says the Democratic takeover of the House is a “done deal,” and that winning the Senate is “very realistic.” “The Quinnipiac generic poll of the House has Democrats opening up a 51% to 39% lead, which are bloodbath numbers. The only headwind Democrats face is that while voters seem willing to give them their vote this year, they’re not as ready to give them their affection. Still, you’d rather be the Democrats right now than the GOP, who like Vice President JD Vance have been left begging voters for a ‘second chance’ without understanding that they’ve already received that second chance — and they’ve blown it,” deduces Linkins.

Elliot Kirschner’s essay on Substack reveals his opinion on future political power: “Republicans have never been afraid to use power once they get it. Democrats need to do the same. But they need to use that power to remake our democracy so that it is stronger, fairer, and more resilient. There will be many in the press and the business and legal worlds, along with others who helped define how power in Washington was wielded under previous status quos, who will say that any rush by those newly elected to pursue decisive action, experimentation, accountability, and ambitious efforts to remake broken systems goes too far. That should be a signal that we aren’t going far enough. It is time to retire not only this regime but the tired mindsets that allowed it to worm its way into our political firmament. Winning elections is the beginning. Governing with vision, boldness, and no heed to the naysayers must be the destination.”

Kirschner references the various polls that spark dread in the ranks of the powerful, but “we’ve been burned by polls before, seeing our hopes dashed,” so, many are guardedly speaking of the reboot of democracy with bated breath. The primary focus should be what will happen on November 3, but beneath that is the other question about what will Democrats do on November 4 if they gain if they regain a semblance of power? To Kirschner, most Democratic candidates speak the language of action toward overcoming the abuses of the past and what must be accomplished to right what is wrong. He recalls Mario Cuomo’s famous line: “You campaign in poetry, and govern in prose,” but sees a lot of the poetry of pragmatism in this election season — what do we need to do now and how do we actually get it done? “The current regime has rooted itself in many of the worst currents of America’s complex identity: racism, xenophobia, misogyny, divisiveness, violence, cronyism, and greed. We need reimagination, regeneration, and renewal,” declares Kirschner.

Satirist Andy Borowitz had his say this week re one candidate: ” Millions of Americans were still in a state of shock on Wednesday after discovering that Lindsey Graham’s sister Darline was not the stupidest member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Although Graham appeared barely sentient throughout Tuesday’s proceedings, she did not emit what were universally viewed as the session’s most idiotic utterances, a broad majority of Americans agreed. No one, perhaps, was more surprised at her not being the dumbest senator on display than Graham herself, who called the hearings “a big win for yours truly. I guess the bar for intelligence in the Senate was much lower than I thought,” she told reporters. “Now I can see how Chuck Grassley has managed to stick around this place for 900 years.”

When asked by Ross Douthat on CBS’s ’60 Minutes’ on Sunday if there’s a “risk” that President Trump will lash out should Republicans lose control of either, or both, houses in Congress, Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina replied that a “bad night” on November 3 poses a high risk for presidential misconduct. Tillis warned that attacks are possible toward members of the GOP even as polls show that low approval ratings with voters rebelling against the economy and affordability of goods and services is palpable. “It would be another political unforced error if we do that,” Tillis commented, during a discussion about Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential vote, which resulted in the January 6, 2021 Capitol assault. “Look, this was the first time in the history of this country that we had not had a peaceful transfer of power. And that was despicable. The people that led the charge, the people that assaulted police officers, I wish they were still in prison and serving a very long sentence.”

Tillis defended his vote to acquit Trump on the charge of inciting insurrection, arguing that Democrats rushed the impeachment proceedings only for preventing the president from running for office again in 2024. He claims that by taking this kind of tack was a means-justifies-the-end rationalization, thereby cheapening the impeachment process to prevent a future candidacy. Though substantiated instances of voter fraud in recent federal elections are few, Trump for months has been warning of the possibility of widespread fraud in the midterms, as he openly sets up what many believe will be his followup action to fight unsatisfactory results. In a recently published Time magazine interview, Trump refused to rule out invoking the Insurrection Act or declaring a national emergency around the midterm elections period. “I’m not committing to anything. We’re going to see how it plays out in court,” he said, foreshadowing a long legal process to settle what voters themselves have determined in the balloting.

Writing in ‘The Warning,’ Steve Schmidt the election will “be a historic wipeout, with MAGA being crushed, never again to function as a viable national political coalition.” He predicts it will endure as a “poisonous minority movement,” remaining committed to extremism and fascism, only sustained by grievance, and “organized around the worship of one man,” possibly intensifying its fanaticism. Schmidt expects Trumps response to his defeat will be “madness: an escalating fury directed at reality itself.” As the president has already shown he will deny the results, alleging conspiracies, which will lead to his coordinated effort to obstruct the verdict, a pattern already established by the seditious actions of January 6, 2021. “The sovereign will of the American electorate will threaten his control, exposing him to scrutiny, and place obstacles before his exercise of power, leading to is use of state power to maintain political power without consent through intimidation of officials, retaliation against opponents, pressure on institutions, and attempts to make lawful election results meaningless,” predicts Schmidt.

In ‘The Warning” he sees Trump offering the country its destruction if he loses, and dictatorship if he prevails — the news media moved on after he promised to be a dictator “only on the first day” in his new term, but it should have remained central to his every move afterwards. American media reported his initial words, “then discarded them as yesterday’s content, vanishing beneath his next performance, each episode beginning as though the last never happened,” says Schmidt, “An endless reality show, with no accumulated record and no sustained accounting. The president is granted a fresh narrative every morning, while the public is deprived of the connections necessary to understand what is happening. The pattern is the story. Isolation conceals its significance.”

Schmidt charges corporate journalism of fear of retaliation, fear of losing access, fear of corporate displeasure, fear of being accused of bias for describing conduct that would have disqualified another American politician from respectable company, and resulting in a vocabulary of evasion. The public is now becoming accustomed to the dangers, lacking adequate information, when the president’s capacity to discharge his responsibilities should be of public concern — the media needs to cease disguising instability as tactical brilliance simply because his behavior has become exhausting. “Every generation of Americans that warned about the essential role of a free press in protecting liberty understood something we are watching unfold: citizens cannot defend their rights when the exercise of power is hidden from them,” writes Schmidt, “Now those omissions co-exist with a propaganda culture that glorifies the leader, portrays opponents as enemies of the nation, and treats dissent as treachery. When government power carries that message, I regard it as fascist propaganda. The language prepares its audience to accept punishment as patriotism.”

In Schmidt’s eyes, the election scenario and its aftermath are rather grim if Trump has his way. The repudiation will be unmistakable, to be followed by refusal of MAGA candidates to concede; and within a week, Trump’s lie will have found its footing, even lacking evidence to reverse voters’ wishes. Within two weeks, Trump will be fully on the offensive, his accusations dictating the questions, as his allies weigh in demanding investigations, delays and exceptions — as the country is repeatedly asked to prove what voters have already decided. Schmidt expects corporate media to be filled with stories about whether or not the new Congress should be seated, or can be seated, with the MAGA obstruction supplying the controversy, which amplifies the coverage, which will confer legitimacy to the obstruction. Are we tired yet?

Schmidt sees the Sunday news shows allowing the liars to “filibuster a fantasy into apparent reality, exploiting every interruption, every timid follow-up, and every invitation to return, exhausting the distinction between an allegation and evidence. Truth and falsehood will receive the same lighting, the same introductions, and the same respectful opportunity to make their case, with viewers being invited to choose between them as though a certified vote count and an invented conspiracy were competing preferences — by mid-December, huge swaths of America will no longer know who won.”  Their confusion will become justification for extraordinary action, with a manufactured crisis offered as grounds for withholding recognition, obstructing the new Congress and protecting presidential power from the restraints that voters demanded. Schmidt sees it as the duty of the press to confront the sequence while it unfolds, requiring evidence, explanations and scrutiny of threats. “Repetition cannot turn a falsehood into a fact, and a presidential demand cannot erase a lawful result,” he says.

Therefore, citizens must vote; officials must count, certify and enforce results; institutions must withstand intimidation — a victory that cannot take effect leaves the people dispossessed of their own decision. Dangerous days lie ahead if the press can’t find its courage — the verdict must take effect! So who’s going to stop them? Results are what we expect, consequences are what we get. VOTE!