Trump and the Election

Israel’s War on Gaza has awakened many to react to our global plight today. The fight to stop the production of fossil fuels, the cries to save democracy as the means to guarantee our freedoms and matters dealing with government spying, the supremacy of technology, political corruption and the increasing unaccountableness of the super-rich in a world entrapped in finance capital, forced immigration, these and more weigh on everyone’s mind. Many writers have pointed to the tragedies of assassinations in the 1960s, the attack on the twin towers on 9/11, the crimes committed in wars on Afghanistan, Iraq and other Near East nations, none honestly examined and accounted for by government, as precursors and groundworks for our problems.

The U.S. government has lied and covered-up the truth in such a blatant manner, as if it considered the citizenry too ignorant to doubt it, that investigative scholars and journalists have had a field day exposing the culpability of its leaders. Governments have enablers, criminals and sycophants who use their positions to quash investigators. The public’s duty is to read those books exposing the crimes and question those who try to muddy the waters. I want to examine Laurent Guyenot’s The Unspoken Kennedy Truth (2020, 2023) concerning the assassination of the Kennedy brothers and JFK Jr. in a later blog. For now, the discussion in TV and social media argues over Donald Trump’s fitness to be president. Trump’s supporters are often uneducated, at least sufficiently to know they are being lied to constantly by this grifter.

{Recently Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC referred to Trump’s often repeated claim that the Chinese had to pay for the tariffs he imposed, to applause from his audience, which was not aware that by law the increasing costs in tariffs are paid by Americans. And so these gullible voters swallow another lie.} Voices warning that Trump would be a dictator are late to the subject. Donald Trump’s Hidden Agenda for America; Institutionalizing Bigotry, Dismantling Democracy by Michael Haas appeared in 2019. An educated public would have absorbed it.

The major question concerning Trump’s fitness for office seems not to be his criminal indictments, his mental instability, his tendency to violence, his treacherous behaviour but his leading an insurrection against the government which excludes him from holding elective office under Amendment 14 of the U.S. Constitution. Scholars with expert knowledge of the Constitution such as Laurence Tribe and Michael Luttig, from opposite political beliefs, have asserted that the arguments in favour of the Amendment are “unassailable”, an observation verified by the Supreme Court of Colorado which conducted an exhaustive investigation into the subject. I have, however, heard political operatives and TV journalists argue that Trump’s political right to be on the ballot supersedes the Constitution. Some fear a public riot by Trump supporters whose fanaticism Trump has nurtured. They say, as if in confirmation, that the U.S. Supreme Court will rule in Trump’s favour as if the conservative court overbalanced with Trump appointees will put politics over the law.. 

My view is that if the Constitution is ignored on one issue it can be ignored on any issue, which means there is no Constitution and the nation will have no mooring. The franchise in the U.S. is victimized by the archaic Electoral College in which the voters in smaller states have greater representation than in larger states, which sometimes leads to the candidate who loses the popular vote winning the presidency. This happened when Al Gore won the popular vote but lost the Electoral vote to George W Bush and when Mrs Clinton won the popular vote but Trump won the presidency with the electoral vote. In both cases the result was catastrophic for the United States and other nations. This procedure was introduced by slave-owners who feared the popular vote in which Blacks could be counted and who kept the concepts of the slave states alive. The 14th Amendment was a result of the Civil War fought over slavery in which Congress, wary of the Southern Confederacy seizing power, legislated that anyone engaged in insurrection against the U.S. government could not run for office. The winners of the War insured that the sacrifices they made to keep the union could not be undermined by someone like Donald Trump who promises to trash the Constitution and rule for his benefit. Some predict that Trump will lose the national vote to a weakened Biden but win the electoral vote to win the presidency again. If the U.S. Supreme Court ignores the Constitution and decides that Trump can remain on the ballot for the presidency it will transfer “victory” in the Civil War to the Southern Confederacy—a travesty of history. In that case will the voters follow Trump and trash their history? One trusts that honesty will prevail and intelligence guide the nation to reform rather than civil war. The latter will surely happen if Trump becomes president because democratic government is essential to half the population at the least.

There is a further problem. Trump will not accept defeat and will claim the election was rigged if he loses. The ensuing violence that political operatives fear if Trump is not on the ballot could happen when he is on the ballot. The U S Supreme Court has a fatal problem to adjudicate. If it refuses to deliberate Trump’s appeal of the state courts’ rulings, the wisdom of the states shall decide Trump’s status. Good luck to the intelligent Americans.

.