Unsolicited Advice to Trumpers

 I write this as an outsider. I did not want Trump to be reelected. I wanted him gone. I will be pleased when he is gone.  I voted for Jo Jorgensen,  but  I am not among those who condemn others for voting for Trump.  

It is time for  people who supported Trump to behave as patriots and stand up for the Constitution and laws of this republic. Trump’s behavior since the election has been ridiculous, disgraceful, and harmful to the country, but up until Monday it was at least legal. (There is no law against being delusional, telling outrageous whoppers, filing doomed and foolish lawsuits, or making a worse ass of oneself than usual.)  That is no longer true. He and various Trumpers in the media are now talking about having the house and senate refuse to accept the certified and transmitted votes of the electors of the states and instead declare Trump to be reelected.  That is pretty much by definition advocating a coup d’état.  It won’t happen  of course. It is a crazy fantasy that no one needs to take seriously as a possibility, but it is still serious.

I understand people who voted for him had their reasons, some of them good ones. I understand they were disappointed or even terrified by the results of the election. I know many of them believe they were cheated.  None of that matters here. Trump has now as much as declared himself an enemy of the republic.  His supporters can still wish he had won, can still be worried about the Dems, can still think the game was crooked, but they must reject his efforts to overthrow the government and Constitution.  That is they must if they wish to behave as decent and good Americans who love their country.

Worse than I Thought

 Before the election I thought those who worried that Trump would not accept the result if he lost were overwrought and even a little silly and paranoid.  After the jackass refused to admit he lost, made wild claims about being cheated out of a victory, and filed lawsuits to overturn the results of the election in several states, I admitted that I had been wrong, and the paranoiacs had been right. He was refusing to face the facts and behaving worse as time went along.  I still thought though that people who worried that he might try to attack the republic itself and keep power by some unconstitutional or illegal means if he thought he could were letting their understandable contempt for the man  get them too worked up and going too far.    

Now I am less nearly sure of that. After losing in courts  time after time in various states, he and his ally the embarrassing attorney general of my state took the case to the Supreme Court and lost nine to nothing.  (Seven justices including all three Trump appointed did not think the case worth considering at all.  Alito and Thomas favored looking at it on technical grounds  because it was a case where the court had original jurisdiction, but said they would offer no relief.) That should have been the end of it. Trump got his case to the Supreme Court, and the justices threw it out. The electors vote tomorrow, and Biden will be elected President of the United States officially.

However according to the news, Trump says he is not giving up and will be trying something else.  I’m not particularly worried by that. Whatever it is won’t work. Republican legislatures in states Biden won won’t meet tonight and select electors for Trump.  Congress is not going to fail to accept the results. The republic is strong. The citizens and the  armed forces are loyal to the  Constitution. Trump does not have a Thirteenth Legion to lead across the Rubicon.  He will be gone in a few weeks.

He won’t overturn the election and stay in power, but his behavior of the last few weeks is enough to make one worry about what other things he might do while he still can. He seems at least a bit unhinged – continuing to claim he not only won but won in a landslide. Several writers have likened him to  Norma Desmond. I would add to that a little of Bogart’s Captain Queeg  explaining about the stolen strawberries.   I hope all he will do is continue to rant, fire a few people, and pardon a few cronies and perhaps himself.  If people around him can limit things to nothing worse than that, they will have done well by the country. We’ll see.  Some people are more worried than I am, and those people have been on a winning streak in predicting what Trump would do.

Making Like Trump

 I have no use for Donald Trump. I am pleased that he lost the election. His  behavior since losing has been far worse than I would have guessed. It will be a good day for the republic when he finally is gone.

 However I also have no use for what various Twitterites,  traditional media types,  and writers at places such as the Bulwark are sayings about people who voted for him.  They claim  that the choice in the recent election was a simple one of good versus evil, and that those who voted for Trump sinned against morality and decency and should be treated  as unredeemed sinners at least until they repent and do penance.

There are good reasons why people might have supported Trump. The left wing of the Democrat party, which seemed to be in ascendency earlier in the year, wants to do some very bad things to this country. The so called center/left Dems are bad enough, and some  of Trump’s notions on policy are better than  or at least not as bad as theirs. It is not unreasonable  to have decided that Trump was the lesser evil in terms of policies and proposals and supported him for that reason, irrespective of his personality.  Of course some people went further and went for Trump enthusiastically.  Many of them were self-supporting, middle to low middle income, taxpaying, traditionally minded, often religious  people who were tired of their lives and beliefs being mocked, attacked, ridiculed, threatened, and belittled and saw Trump as someone who at least said he was on their side and said so vigorously.  One can’t blame them for that, though they should have found a better defender. They have valid reasons for being upset.

So I refuse to accept the notion that some of my friends and relatives or anyone else who voted for Trump is morally tainted for having done so. It is both nonsense and a little too medieval for me.  It is also ignorant, arrogant, pompous, rude, cruel, and unthinking – you know,  the sort of thing a guy like Trump would have come up with.