On Trump finally saying that he would leave office
Here I go with another news-of-the-week. My excuse: I have been saying for a long time that Trump will refuse to concede, or go quietly, even if he loses in November. Two recent interviews bring this to the forefront. Joe Biden told Trevor Noah that he is concerned that Trump would refuse to leave office upon losing, but that the military would properly escort him out of the White House, and that would be that.
The Biden interview pushed the question to the forefront of the national discussion. Finally. Donald Trump was asked about it in the friendly confines of a Fox interview with Harris Faulkner, and Trump said, "Certainly, if I don't win, I don't win." So he'll accept it, right? "You go on, you do other things." I guess we have nothing to worry about, right?
Um... no.
Once we have reached the point at which we are having this conversation, we're already off the rails. This is not a discussion we have ever had with previous presidents. Why not? Because no previous president ever intimated that he wanted to be a dictator for life, openly admired authoritarian dictators around the world for their authoritarianism and opposition to democracy, worked in advance to delegitimize democratic processes, made a practice of calling everything "rigged," and built up a steady stream of lies about voter fraud to prepare the way to refuse to leave.
That's why we have never been in this position before, and that's why we need to have this conversation now. That's why we are so far off the rails.
But Trump said he'd leave. Why am I not rejoicing that everything is fine, Biden just has to win, and democracy will be saved, yay?
Let's go through this.
First, remember the single most important thing about Trump. He lies. He told Harris Faulkner he'd leave voluntarily. Gee... has Trump ever lied before? Hmmm...
Moving on.
Look at what he actually said. "If I don't win, I don't win." I'm not going to belabor the point too much that there is no such thing as "the popular vote." But I gotta do this thing. You can aggregate votes across states in the same way that you can tally points on a chess board-- five points per rook, three points per knight or bishop, and so forth-- but aggregating votes across states is as meaningless as the point total on a chess board because that's not the rule. (I know you checkmated me, but I have more points on the board, so morally, I won! Shut up.) The rule is the electoral college. Hence, campaigns are geared towards the electoral college, turnout is affected by states' competitiveness, and so forth. All of that affects, and indeed, makes "the popular vote" a meaningless number. As meaningless as the point total on a chess board. Stop looking at it.
Stop. It.
That said, Trump is such a petty, insecure child that he couldn't stand the idea of losing that insignificant, symbolic, little nothing-number. So... he lied in 2016, and keeps lying about it. Voter fraud! "I won the popular vote!" According to Trump's favorite 2016 lie, he won the popular vote, if you throw out all of the supposed illegal votes.
And remember that "the popular vote" doesn't even exist. It's a mathematical nuisance that some people tally for reasons that make no sense to me. Like, it's fun to tally points on a chess board. Or.. we need to compute something for political science forecasting models or something. [cough, cough...] So, with nothing at stake but his petty and fragile, but massive ego, Trump spread a stupid and dangerous lie about voter fraud.
How far do you think he'll push that lie when the presidency is at stake?
Suppose Biden wins. "Certainly, if I don't win, I don't win." Do you seriously think Trump will admit he didn't win? Or... will he claim that he really did win, but that it was all voter fraud? Trump's campaign actually demanded that CNN apologize for releasing a poll showing Biden ahead. Not joking here. Yeah, "if I don't win, I don't win." Does anyone seriously think that on election night, the results come in, Biden wins the electoral college, and Trump just says, oh well, I lost, time to go back to pretending to be a real estate mogul? No. He's going to lie, and say it was all "rigged," there was unprecedented voter fraud, he'll say he really won, not just the "popular vote," but the electoral college, and what then?
Joe Biden painted a picture of the military escorting Trump out of the White House, but let's think through some actual processes based more on Levitsky & Ziblatt's How Democracies Die. The central premise of Levitsky & Ziblatt's argument is that you don't wind up with a sudden declaration of martial law, tanks going down the streets, and such. That's not how it happens, and get that out of your head.
In fact, that idea is precisely why the authoritarian gets away with it. You think that you still have a democracy because you have the symbolic processes and hollow institutions, but no meaningful rules or systems. So, you think of authoritarianism as the Stasi coming for you at night with armed soldiers on every street, and consequently, you let democracy die because you tell yourself it's still there when all you see is the empty gesture.
Democratic backsliding is about the hollowing out of institutions, not their abolition. Remember that when you think about the impending mess of the 2020 election.
So here's what's far more likely than anything involving the military in Biden's scenario.
Assuming Biden wins-- and that's far from certain-- Trump lies, and says that it was all voter fraud. I really don't see how anyone can deny Trump pulls this act. Look at everything he has said about voter fraud for the last four years, which is only a difference in scale from what other Republicans have been saying about voter fraud since Bush 43's second term, look at everything happening now in the fight over absentee balloting... be realistic. This is what he will say.
Legal battles ensue. These occur both administratively and through the court systems. Note, "systems," plural. Trump and his campaign make sure that the fight is as chaotic as possible. Why chaos? If it is total chaos, then the entire 2020 election becomes a "nobody knows anything" proposition. Undercut the concept of truth. That benefits Trump. Chaos at the level of every county registrar. Governors and secretaries of state beholden to Trump insert themselves in questionably legal ways. See, for example, Ron DeSantis. Chaos between county and state-level administrators will make this even more of a horror show. That will be the whole point. That will be the goal. State court challenges ensue. Federal court challenges ensue. On the basis of what? It won't matter. The goal will be chaos, so that reversion to the status quo becomes the simplest outcome.
You know that saying, possession is 9/10ths of the law? In this case, possession is the law. Chaos will mean reversion to the status quo. Possession is the law, and the more chaotic everything gets, the more that will play out.
If I had the resources, where would I be watching? I'd want to know which lawyers Trump is hiring, where he is putting them to work, and there'd be no way to get this, but what kinds of briefs they are already writing.
Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch could write their opinions right now. Well, Gorsuch would plagiarize his opinion, but the rest could write their own. No, Neil, I haven't forgotten about you, and I never will, you plagiarizing insect.
So you're asking yourself about John Roberts, right?
Side note: Notice that I'm just blithely assuming that a Biden victory automatically goes to the Supreme Court.
Yup.
Continuing, what would Roberts have done in Bush v. Gore? You know, the decision in which the majority said, hey, this ruling? You aren't allowed to use it as precedent in any future case 'cuz we know we're just trying to figure out how to make Bush president without it coming back to bite us later? That was three counties in one badly-written challenge by the Gore campaign. We're going to see a mess of nationwide challenges.
Whatever challenge Trump's lawyers are preparing now, they're already writing it directly to John Roberts.
What will happen? This isn't going to be Trump telling "my generals" to roll the tanks down Pennsylvania Avenue as he formally declares himself dictator for life, or simply says "no" to the election. The whole point of Levitsky & Ziblatt is that authoritarians maintain the thin veneer of democracy over a hollowed-out shell.
Trump wants to be Kim Jong Un, Vladimir Putin, Saddam Hussein, or one of the other full-blown authoritarian dictators he has openly admired so much, but you can't get there from here. Where can you get? You can get to Hungary. You can get to Viktor Orban, if you go step by step. You don't get there by suddenly rolling the tanks down the streets because you lost and you don't want to leave office. You don't get there by having a shoot-out at the White House because you lost and you don't want to hand over the nuclear football.
You get there by hollowing out institutions. That's been happening for a long time. In fact, it's been happening since before Trump took the oath of office. That scenario Biden proposed? If you're thinking in those terms, then you have missed the point of what is happening.
Trump may say, "if I don't win, I don't win," but there is no way, in the pit of Hades, that he admits that he didn't win. He will fight, tooth and claw, using the hollowed-out institutions that have paved the way for that fight. That's how democratic backsliding works.
In the friendly confines of a Fox interview, Trump finally said that he would abide the results of an election he lost, but a) if we have to have this discussion, something is already very wrong, b) Trump lies, and c) he was only willing to say it in the safe space of a Fox interview.
No, this doesn't put me at ease. Not at all.
The Biden interview pushed the question to the forefront of the national discussion. Finally. Donald Trump was asked about it in the friendly confines of a Fox interview with Harris Faulkner, and Trump said, "Certainly, if I don't win, I don't win." So he'll accept it, right? "You go on, you do other things." I guess we have nothing to worry about, right?
Um... no.
Once we have reached the point at which we are having this conversation, we're already off the rails. This is not a discussion we have ever had with previous presidents. Why not? Because no previous president ever intimated that he wanted to be a dictator for life, openly admired authoritarian dictators around the world for their authoritarianism and opposition to democracy, worked in advance to delegitimize democratic processes, made a practice of calling everything "rigged," and built up a steady stream of lies about voter fraud to prepare the way to refuse to leave.
That's why we have never been in this position before, and that's why we need to have this conversation now. That's why we are so far off the rails.
But Trump said he'd leave. Why am I not rejoicing that everything is fine, Biden just has to win, and democracy will be saved, yay?
Let's go through this.
First, remember the single most important thing about Trump. He lies. He told Harris Faulkner he'd leave voluntarily. Gee... has Trump ever lied before? Hmmm...
Moving on.
Look at what he actually said. "If I don't win, I don't win." I'm not going to belabor the point too much that there is no such thing as "the popular vote." But I gotta do this thing. You can aggregate votes across states in the same way that you can tally points on a chess board-- five points per rook, three points per knight or bishop, and so forth-- but aggregating votes across states is as meaningless as the point total on a chess board because that's not the rule. (I know you checkmated me, but I have more points on the board, so morally, I won! Shut up.) The rule is the electoral college. Hence, campaigns are geared towards the electoral college, turnout is affected by states' competitiveness, and so forth. All of that affects, and indeed, makes "the popular vote" a meaningless number. As meaningless as the point total on a chess board. Stop looking at it.
Stop. It.
That said, Trump is such a petty, insecure child that he couldn't stand the idea of losing that insignificant, symbolic, little nothing-number. So... he lied in 2016, and keeps lying about it. Voter fraud! "I won the popular vote!" According to Trump's favorite 2016 lie, he won the popular vote, if you throw out all of the supposed illegal votes.
And remember that "the popular vote" doesn't even exist. It's a mathematical nuisance that some people tally for reasons that make no sense to me. Like, it's fun to tally points on a chess board. Or.. we need to compute something for political science forecasting models or something. [cough, cough...] So, with nothing at stake but his petty and fragile, but massive ego, Trump spread a stupid and dangerous lie about voter fraud.
How far do you think he'll push that lie when the presidency is at stake?
Suppose Biden wins. "Certainly, if I don't win, I don't win." Do you seriously think Trump will admit he didn't win? Or... will he claim that he really did win, but that it was all voter fraud? Trump's campaign actually demanded that CNN apologize for releasing a poll showing Biden ahead. Not joking here. Yeah, "if I don't win, I don't win." Does anyone seriously think that on election night, the results come in, Biden wins the electoral college, and Trump just says, oh well, I lost, time to go back to pretending to be a real estate mogul? No. He's going to lie, and say it was all "rigged," there was unprecedented voter fraud, he'll say he really won, not just the "popular vote," but the electoral college, and what then?
Joe Biden painted a picture of the military escorting Trump out of the White House, but let's think through some actual processes based more on Levitsky & Ziblatt's How Democracies Die. The central premise of Levitsky & Ziblatt's argument is that you don't wind up with a sudden declaration of martial law, tanks going down the streets, and such. That's not how it happens, and get that out of your head.
In fact, that idea is precisely why the authoritarian gets away with it. You think that you still have a democracy because you have the symbolic processes and hollow institutions, but no meaningful rules or systems. So, you think of authoritarianism as the Stasi coming for you at night with armed soldiers on every street, and consequently, you let democracy die because you tell yourself it's still there when all you see is the empty gesture.
Democratic backsliding is about the hollowing out of institutions, not their abolition. Remember that when you think about the impending mess of the 2020 election.
So here's what's far more likely than anything involving the military in Biden's scenario.
Assuming Biden wins-- and that's far from certain-- Trump lies, and says that it was all voter fraud. I really don't see how anyone can deny Trump pulls this act. Look at everything he has said about voter fraud for the last four years, which is only a difference in scale from what other Republicans have been saying about voter fraud since Bush 43's second term, look at everything happening now in the fight over absentee balloting... be realistic. This is what he will say.
Legal battles ensue. These occur both administratively and through the court systems. Note, "systems," plural. Trump and his campaign make sure that the fight is as chaotic as possible. Why chaos? If it is total chaos, then the entire 2020 election becomes a "nobody knows anything" proposition. Undercut the concept of truth. That benefits Trump. Chaos at the level of every county registrar. Governors and secretaries of state beholden to Trump insert themselves in questionably legal ways. See, for example, Ron DeSantis. Chaos between county and state-level administrators will make this even more of a horror show. That will be the whole point. That will be the goal. State court challenges ensue. Federal court challenges ensue. On the basis of what? It won't matter. The goal will be chaos, so that reversion to the status quo becomes the simplest outcome.
You know that saying, possession is 9/10ths of the law? In this case, possession is the law. Chaos will mean reversion to the status quo. Possession is the law, and the more chaotic everything gets, the more that will play out.
If I had the resources, where would I be watching? I'd want to know which lawyers Trump is hiring, where he is putting them to work, and there'd be no way to get this, but what kinds of briefs they are already writing.
Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch could write their opinions right now. Well, Gorsuch would plagiarize his opinion, but the rest could write their own. No, Neil, I haven't forgotten about you, and I never will, you plagiarizing insect.
So you're asking yourself about John Roberts, right?
Side note: Notice that I'm just blithely assuming that a Biden victory automatically goes to the Supreme Court.
Yup.
Continuing, what would Roberts have done in Bush v. Gore? You know, the decision in which the majority said, hey, this ruling? You aren't allowed to use it as precedent in any future case 'cuz we know we're just trying to figure out how to make Bush president without it coming back to bite us later? That was three counties in one badly-written challenge by the Gore campaign. We're going to see a mess of nationwide challenges.
Whatever challenge Trump's lawyers are preparing now, they're already writing it directly to John Roberts.
What will happen? This isn't going to be Trump telling "my generals" to roll the tanks down Pennsylvania Avenue as he formally declares himself dictator for life, or simply says "no" to the election. The whole point of Levitsky & Ziblatt is that authoritarians maintain the thin veneer of democracy over a hollowed-out shell.
Trump wants to be Kim Jong Un, Vladimir Putin, Saddam Hussein, or one of the other full-blown authoritarian dictators he has openly admired so much, but you can't get there from here. Where can you get? You can get to Hungary. You can get to Viktor Orban, if you go step by step. You don't get there by suddenly rolling the tanks down the streets because you lost and you don't want to leave office. You don't get there by having a shoot-out at the White House because you lost and you don't want to hand over the nuclear football.
You get there by hollowing out institutions. That's been happening for a long time. In fact, it's been happening since before Trump took the oath of office. That scenario Biden proposed? If you're thinking in those terms, then you have missed the point of what is happening.
Trump may say, "if I don't win, I don't win," but there is no way, in the pit of Hades, that he admits that he didn't win. He will fight, tooth and claw, using the hollowed-out institutions that have paved the way for that fight. That's how democratic backsliding works.
In the friendly confines of a Fox interview, Trump finally said that he would abide the results of an election he lost, but a) if we have to have this discussion, something is already very wrong, b) Trump lies, and c) he was only willing to say it in the safe space of a Fox interview.
No, this doesn't put me at ease. Not at all.
Comments
Post a Comment