The Word "Rigged" is Permanently Linked to "Election" in This Country
There are a few things, as we head into Trump's second inauguration, that are still troubling to me. After eight solid years of claiming that the elections, both 2016 and 2020, were rigged, and yes, he was whining about 2016 and used the "rigged" excuse to explain away the popular vote, the rhetoric about the election rigging was ramped up, starting with his loss in 2020. It was his top theme, one that the media helped him trumpet for four straight years, virtually every day. It worked its way into his campaign, and it was the centerpiece of his self-defense when it came to inciting the Trump Insurrection and the fact that he never conceded.
Did anyone check this time, to see if there might have been some rigging done by his side? Of course, after his caterwauling, and the firm insistence of Democrats that the 2020 election was obviously not stolen, it would have seemed hypocritical for Democrats to make that same charge. All I want to know is that someone was keeping a close eye on it and that all of the steps were taken to make sure that the certified ballots were accurate. I never heard anything about that from Democrats, except that Harris would do the right thing, concede, and that there would be a peaceful transfer of power.
And the contrast between this election, and the Trump Insurrection incited following the last one, will be memorable and notable history. I just want to know whether we made sure Harris really did lose, or whether, after eight years of his describing American elections as rigged, it wasn't something they pulled themselves.
The Weak Link is the Justice Department
Jack Smith handed in his resignation. We got a consolation prize in the release of his report, but it isn't much consolation to realize that the reason the country's biggest existential threat to democracy did not get brought to justice was because an attorney general, appointed by President Biden, deliberately slow-walked and dragged his feet on getting it to trial. It is apparently damaging enough, given the reaction of Trump and his attorneys. But this was one of the most egregious examples of gross negligence and incompetence in American history, and the one which will cause the most damage.
The timely prosecution of those cases by the justice department would have sunk Trump's boat long before the Supreme Court could have attempted his rescue, since, in both cases, immunity would not have applied, even under their ruling. If Merrick Garland had moved with the same kind of speed he did when a few scattered classified documents turned up in Joe Biden's garage, nothing of the kind like those top secret ones Trump had by the dozens, or with the kind of speed he showed in getting information released in the Hunter Biden investigation, Trump wouldn't be the one being inaugurated on Monday.
Knowing and believing that Trump is an existential threat to American democracy, and doing absolutely nothing to stop him from running again is a dereliction of duty that both Garland, and President Biden, must share. I appreciate the President, admire him, and celebrate his accomplishments, but that does not preclude holding him accountable for the Justice Department's inept incompetence. His old school, partisan status quo approach to politics prevented him from doing what he should have done which was to fire Garland, and replace him with a go-getter who would have nailed this down in six months. And we know that it could have been done, because we've seen it happen before.
The Democratic Party is Responsible for Dropping the Ball on the 2024 Election
It will bother me every time I think about all of the things that went into this election loss for Harris, including the failure of a Democratic-appointed attorney general to prosecute crimes against Trump with the same enthusiasm and speed he did against the Bidens. Why he wasn't fired, regardless of how political that might have looked, is beyond my ability to understand, and it has created doubts in my mind about the sincerity of the whole anti-Trump movement in the Democratic party. His existential threat to American democracy was not taken as seriously as they made it sound, or that scenario would have played out much differently.
I'm a lifelong Democrat. The trust I have in the party has eroded considerably over the past six months. The failure to follow through on what were some pretty solid plans for the Biden administration to be a "transitional Presidency," laying the groundwork for continued control of the White House once the Trump menace was defeated and gone, is partly responsible for his ability to run again and get elected. And while I know it is difficult to convince a career politician like Joe Biden to step down when it was most prudent to do so, at the end of his term, and make that announcement far enough in advance to permit Democrats to have a primary and nominate a candidate with enough time to campaign, that was, in hindsight, something that should have been done. If he was willing to step aside for the sake of the country 100 days before the election, he should have been willing to step aside a year earlier for the same reason.
All that pearl clutching, hysterical confusion following the debate, especially the open influence of the rich donors, which did not give off the kind of image Democrats needed at this time, was costly enough to cost us the election, considering how narrow the margins actually turned out to be. Those three weeks of a party in clear disarray, with oligarchs vying for control of it, was profoundly damaging and was, I believe, a contributing factor in keeping enough people at home to hand this over to Trump.
And now, well, the response of Democrats to this election loss stands in contrast to the response of Republicans when they lost in 2020. I'm not saying we should have stormed the Capitol and created a ruckus like the Trump Insurrection. But the silence has been noticeable enough to prompt quite a bit of reaction that is showing up in the audiences of daytime talk shows like Stephanie Miller and Thom Hartmann. There's also a high level of frustration coming from listeners on our local progressive radio station here in Chicago. The appearance is of politicians and bureaucrats protecting their turf, jobs and paychecks, not of real anxious feelings over what's about to happen when the worst President in American History is inaugurated for a second term.
The inability of Democrats to get in front of the messaging, and to control the narrative, has been one of the biggest problems all along. I've made the statement that Trump got media coverage for most everything he said or did, from the day he left the White House, every day, several times a day, while the Biden Administration's achievements occurred in relative silence. It is unprecedented, the amount of coverage Trump got over a sitting President, and it appeared that Democrats either didn't know how to get past that, or kept up with their own protocols and status quo politics, hoping that reason would beat insanity.
It failed.
And why it is that someone, somewhere, either at the DNC, or in the Congressional and Senate delegations, or the Biden Administration itself, couldn't figure out how to get past that obstacle, and grab control of the narrative, is beyond my understanding. I know Biden doesn't like to do press conferences because of his stutter, and that his voice can appear to be weak, but this was a failure at several levels. The loss of Jen Psaki as an administration press secretary was huge, and left a big hole that never got filled. The DNC seemed to be underfunded and out of it.
So, we're about to see exactly how much of a threat Trump is to American Democracy. Among Democrats, it ranges from the passive belief that no elected office holder can drastically change government, and while the policy will be crazy, and the threats insane, the guardrails will hold, to the belief that dictatorship will show itself in an array of executive orders on day one, making it difficult to preserve those elements of the constitution that provide guard rails against dictatorship.
If we have the opportunity, then Democrats need to completely overhaul the party, including setting aside old school status quo politics, and elevating younger leaders to positions of responsibility, younger leaders who are willing to take risks, be bold, and who don't care about protocol. And, who will fight back with intelligent rhetoric, reason and facts, making ideological progress of the Heritage Foundation difficult, if not impossible.
Speculation is Not Necessary, We Are Entering a Political No-Man's Land
The only hope I have right now, that America will emerge from this nightmare with enough of the constitution intact to rebuild what will almost certainly be torn down, is the inept incompetence of Trump and the people he is choosing for his administration. His first term in office was a complete failure, and he did have some people around him who were competent enough to prevent the collapse of the government. This time, so far, there are few people he's chosen for his administration who are competent, capable leaders, or who have any respect or loyalty to the United States.
The second term will be worse than the first. The question is, are there still enough guardrails in place to prevent permanent damage from happening? Nothing this man does is harmless, though nothing he does is successful, either. How long it will take for people to realize he's not going to bring down their grocery or gasoline prices, and their mortgage payments, and taxes, will continue to go up? With the weakest, most ineffective leadership we have ever had in the House, it remains to be seen what will happen in the Senate.
And I'm waiting to see what Democrats do. Some, I'm sure, will sit back and protect their salary and their job if they can. We'll see if the boldness and the kind of leadership we need at a time like this, which will include being confrontational enough to keep Trump off balance and bumbling around, comes to the surface, or if the old political status quo still runs the party. I'm a little bit concerned about the ability of the Democratic party to be the kind of opposition necessary to hold back all of the possible scenarios that come with a second Trump Presidency. We didn't do very well in bringing him to justice as an insurrectionist, even with the evidence we had, which was pretty damning. I hope that we summon a little more boldness and aggressiveness than that this time.
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