The rump Trump dump exemplifies the marvel of unintended consequences
Can anyone have his rigged election cake, let alone eat it, if it never existed? Non-existence never stopped a perfect, self-destructive storm from demolishing Dismal Don’s thick head, if not future. How does peevishly throwing manure at a perfectly fine election—whose legitimacy his scurrilous legal ploys keep proving, state after state—not end his public career?
Not that many had doubts, but Trump’s matchless political incompetence has outdone itself, awash with negative outcomes. And for what, reams of bad publicity and some finagled cash flow to his deceptive PACs? Bad risk-reward ratio, any good business tycoon knows. Of all of Trump’s historic firsts, recklessly, maliciously defying a crystal clear repudiation of his politics will top the list. Crowning his seditious, pre-November outrages (he only loses a rigged election), Trump is going down in self-inflicted flames. “Don’t let the door cripple you on the way out.” Trump goes out with an historic bang: losing 35 out of 36 legal scams, a record of disgrace (if not idiocy) never to be topped.
Why this particular Trump infamy won’t likely reoccur reflects the blatant outcome: horrendous, anti-democratic plotting has managed to achieve exactly the opposite end. Here is a classic, marvelous triumph for the law of unintended consequences. Every time Trump tried to corrupt the vote counting, reality slammed him in the face: every state’s trustworthy voting legitimacy was reinforced in stone. Trump fabricated fraud but not even rightwing judges let him off without scathing rejections. Only sustained Trump stupidity could argue that, despite an amazing 160 million voters, this part of America didn’t work nearly to perfection. A myriad of states handled the enormous complexity of registering, mailing, checking and tabulating a record electorate. No muss, no fuss, no violence, not even the menace of rightwing intimidation, bullying or violence. Until Trump erupted, the ultimate bad loser, true to his corrupt core.
Donald alone owns this travesty
With no one else to blame (not exasperated advisers) and no “outside forces” at work, Trump owns all the bad faith of demonizing our decidedly accurate election systems. That alone should from this moment onward ban him from elections, let alone tarnish the name and presidency of Donald the Dick. After all, who but a fool first defies a five plus million plurality and electoral vote “landslide,” then sustains the scam, then fixes his bad faith with the galactic gracelessness of not conceding? There ought to be a law that tempers future, fascist bad losers from punishing the country for three weeks while attempting to overthrow a manifestly clear election decision. If Trumpers stay loyal to this desecration of democracy, they forfeit any sympathy awarded their understandable grievances (as part of the 80% they were also left at sea – and without life jackets).
Repeating the same failed routine – trusting Trump on the phoniest of election fabrications—defines not just bad judgment by Trumpers but proverbial insanity—doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Even dimwits learn that fire burns, and a dangerous, life-long con artist will never forego his malignancy. There will be more delusional Trump conspiracies and more fundraising for, as they say, fools and their money are soon parted.
Since a core fascist move is corrupting elections, Trump is now piling on disgraces, confirming for history his authoritarian agenda. That doesn’t make him a smart fascist, just a failed one. Aside from confirming our nation’s electoral legitimacy, the second big (unintended) Donald downside is a divided Republican Party. Those who fear base retribution (senators Graham, Cruz, Cotton, and other pontificators like Mike Pence) should be forced to live with their calculated dishonor. Yes, new proto-fascists will engage rightwing extremes, but in the process forfeit their shot at a national candidacy. And if Trump is callous and selfish enough to keep himself in the running for the next nomination, that will only cement this schism. I predict even greater numbers of traditional Republicans will bolt. Can anyone imagine Pence or Cotton or Cruz truly commanding a national constituency after this horror, let alone attract the center, disgusted with fundamentalist obsessions on abortion and/or the NRA/militant/ terrorist/white supremacist threats?
I project that shortsighted loyalists glued to this body of a lame duck, disgraced with both legs and wings clipped, will become caricatures of their earlier careers. Guilt by association is real in politics and irrefutable linkages to a scam election-buster makes that point. How do even smarter politicians than Trump defend themselves against being slammed as anti-democratic, majority-hating Betrayers of Legitimate Elections? Will Cruz and Cotton echo their Trumpian hero, that only fraud will defeat them? Or that legitimate election counting is suspect because too many people voted? Or it’s perfectly okay for any election loser to afflict the courts (and the public) with bad faith litigation, devoid of evidence?
One party must go
As the Wash Post’s Jennifer Rubin summarizes in “The Republican Party has split in two. Let’s keep it that way,” there are now three distinct parties:
The Democratic Party, the Anti-Democracy Trump Party and the Pro-Democracy Republican Party. Once the Anti-Democracy Trump Party is marginalized, we might have functional government again. The Democratic Party and the Pro-Democracy Republican Party should put their heads together and devise a strategy to bring that about — quickly, and certainly before 2024.
Can anyone imagine a Trumpian, anti-democracy, ant-voting gang pushing his corrosive poison in a year or two? I can even imagine voting rights bills passing the House and a now totally shamed Senate. Make this the top issue—who supports shrinking the electorate (for only the “legitimate”) and who supports expanding it in every possible way? That means not just expanding mail-in voting but eventually online and high tech voting. We put hundreds of billions at risk with online purchases so why not include voting free of the threats of disease, weather or intimidation?
Let us banish unAmerican yahoos like Trump who think only “legitimate” white, mainly conservatives should be counted. Demographics are firmly against the tyranny of any suspect (white) majority—and Trump has proved in spades that this shift cannot come soon enough. Diversity and the melting pot are the truest, core aspects of American “exceptionalism”—and this Trump election farce has clarified the core value of democracy. Why, here’s another unintended Trump gift to the country. Being unintended doesn’t make the gift to democracy less real. Imagine, Trumpian bad behavior expands the electorate. Serves him and his corrupt buddies right.
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