Tuesday, October 20, 2020

Tempests and Teapots

Actually, Trump says "if people call." If he'd included the possessive personal pronoun "my," it would still describe a criminal act. And he speaks extensively of what he could do. The caption to Aaron's tweet isn't misleading, it's perfectly accurate. Why people insist on cleaning up what Trump said remains a mystery to me.  Maybe it's the continuing confusion of speech and act.  Trump loves to speak, but seldom acts.  This is why (redux!) he won't challenge the election outcome and get it to the Supreme Court.  He'll tweet about it, but he won't be able to do it.  Why not?  He doesn't have a Jim Baker on his side.

Jim Baker took the Florida recount to the Supreme Court.  He knew what he was doing, and how to do it.  He was also much smarter (and savvier) than W.  W. was fine with that.  Trump has no Jim Baker on his side because Trump has driven away all the qualified people, and can't stand the thought that there exists anywhere in the land someone smarter than him ("Mirror, mirror, on the wall....").  That's why he loses so often in court and sends his lawyers in with arguments a first-year law student wouldn't try to defend.  (I thought of this watching "Trial of the Chicago 7" when Mitchell sends Schultz to court to try the 7 on conspiracy on a law that's never been used, period, and a conspiracy charge that can't establish all 7 defendants actually talked to each other before reaching Chicago.  In the end they were convicted of inciting a riot, so in a sense Schultz was vindicated.  He was also smart enough to include other charges which had a better chance of success.  Mostly his case was torpedoed by Judge Hoffman.).

Trump may try to go to court in November (on whose dime, I wonder?  I don't think the GOP wants to pay for that, and his campaign is broke.  Where'd the billion dollars go?), but he'll need a cognizable legal argument, not just "FRAUD!"  And he'll certainly grouse on Twitter and in public, but do his complaints constitute Presidential action?  Well, remember when he tweeted "Invoke P!"  Nobody knew what he meant, until he finally explained "P" meant the Defense Production Act.  That was on March 19-20, 2020. He finally employed the DPA on April 2, 2020.  This is the guy who's gonna force the election into the Supreme Court or the House of Representatives?

Not unless we do it for him.
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