Drive-By Whinging*

I have no problem with any religious figure being fully held accountable by the law, a law which has yet to really punish the most pagan of American presidents for his sexual crimes who is, in fact, about to become our dictator thanks in no small part to the irresponsibility of American lawyers, judges and "justices."

*Referring to my post, not the quote. Apologies for any confusion.

I’m not arguing with the sentiment so much as I just don’t think there was ever a “silver bullet” that was going to ensure Trump’s electoral loss.

America has a history of electing criminals to office, unlike Britain, where scandal used to drive politicians from public life instanter. (I think 🇬🇧 is closer to 🇺🇸 in that regard, now. But only just.) We sometimes like to elect criminals, just to show we elect people just like us. As Molly Ivins said, it’s a representative government.

Besides, the Paul Simon insight is correct: “A man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest.” My mother’s sole surviving sister and favorite aunt was telling me recently about a friend who spends too much time on Facebook and TikTok, and who voted for Trump. My aunt didn’t, in no small part because of his criminal conviction and his civil judgments. But when she pointed out Trump’s felony conviction, her friend demurred: “Well, I’m not sure that happened.”

I mention this because it’s the first time I’ve encountered this sentiment IRL, even at such a remove (and you are more removed, still, so you have to take my word for it). Even in the face of a criminal conviction, more people voted for Trump. Why? Does it matter? Was one more conviction, news story, Tweet, blog post going to make a difference? My aunt rattled off all Trump’s adversarial judicial opinions. That was why she didn’t vote for Trump. But had the Supremes refused to think about immunity and Trump had gone to trial in D.C., would that make a difference? He could be elected from a jail cell, and that would throw the prison doors wide open (a worse result, IMHO). I doubt any court in the land would require Trump to be President from a cell, based on separation of powers alone. The decision was always up to the voters, and the conclusion seems to be the majority of voters were upset by the cost of potato chips. 

I truly think part of the problem was Biden’s naïveté. He thought lowering inflation would float his electoral vote; or Harris’s. But Trump railed about inflation; baselessly, but as the campaign proved, not enough people listen to his lies and consider them lies. Indeed, the real impact of Trump’s victory is that he ran the most racist, offensive, and in the end lackluster campaign…and it didn’t matter. CW blames Harris or Biden or “woke” or fill-in-the-blank because CW can’t see what’s in front of its face: people (per polls; large grain of salt here, please) had made up their minds in October. And no one paying attention to the very important closing arguments of the campaign wants to reset their thinking to consider the impact of early voting (which is why people settled on their choices so early).

Or that campaigns don’t matter as much as CW and the campaign industrial complex want them to. Trump should have lost simply for that terrible campaign. Why didn’t he? Why did so many overlook his actions and statements? The cost of potato chips?

There are a lot of lessons in this election that a lot of people are very reluctant to learn. And in fact, it’s in their vested interest not to.