December 16, 2020

The guardrails held and the Electoral College did their jobs.  Joe Biden is the official president-elect.  Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, finally acknowledged Biden’s status after the Electoral College vote.  I guess it’s better late than never but by waiting this long and allowing this situation to fester, he has made the situation going forward even more difficult.  McConnell now has to try to keep the Republican Senators in line to avoid a major floor fight in the Congress on January 6^th when the results of the Electoral College vote are read and ratified in Congress.  If even one Republican Senator sides with any of the challenges which will no doubt be raised by some Republican members of the House of Representatives, it will lead to an ugly and embarrassing debate that is almost certain to fail but will tarnish American’s reputation and standing in the world even further.  The interference in the American electoral process in 2016 came from Russia.  The interference and biggest threat to democracy in this election is coming from Trump and his Republican sycophants.

It is extremely unlikely that the election results will change on January 6^th.  Biden will most certainly emerge as the next president in spite of all of the drama that will take place.  However, the longer Trump and his Republican toadies continue to propagate this myth that the election was fraudulent, more money will flow into his leadership PAC and the more radicalized his supporters (like the Proud boys) become.  You just wonder, with all of the ongoing rhetoric, when one or more of these heavily armed Trump supporters will actually cross the line and do something exceedingly stupid and someone gets killed.  One of Trump’s chief sycophants, Steven Miller, certainly seems to be doing everything in his power to pour gasoline on the fires of discontent fueled by kiln-dried timbers of misinformation stacked in large piles outside the studios of right-wing media outlets.  Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

Regardless of what Trump says and/or Tweets, he certainly knows his days are numbered.  So, the real question is, how much damage will he do on the way out the door?  Or perhaps, how many and how controversial will the pardons be that we all know are coming?  Let’s look at the first question.

Trump has already been purging officials at the top level of the Pentagon and a couple of Pentagon advisory boards and installing Trump loyalists.   Since there is only a little over a month left in Trump’s presidency, there is no rational reason to do this other than to just give a big ‘middle finger’ to Biden’s administration.  There is no other possible explanation for purging the Defense Business Board and installing Trump loyalists like Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie, neither of whom have any defense experience at all.  He has made similar moves on the Defense Policy Board by purging the likes of Madeleine Albright and Henry Kissinger. 

Attorney General Barr resigned after turning the Department of Defense into something resembling Trump’s personal law firm.  He fell out of favor when he wouldn’t publicly go along with the ‘wide spread voter fraud’ misinformation campaign.  Bill Barr’s resignation letter was pathetic.  It read more like an ‘Ode to Donald Trump’ than a resignation letter.  But now that he is gone and there are ‘acting’ people overseeing the DOJ, do you suppose it’s possible that Trump could put pressure on these people to start investigations into his political enemies?  He will surely try to exert pressure to have a special prosecutor named to investigate Hunter Biden.  And then, of course, there is the whole question of what role, if any, the DOJ will play in whatever pardons Trump chooses to dole out.

Trump will no doubt wreak as much havoc as he can on his way out the door, demonstrating once again that he cares nothing about American, but only about himself.  He has toyed with announcing another run for the presidency in 2024.  Personally, I hope he does.  The odds are not in his favor.  Only one president has successfully been president, lost the next election, and been reelected four years later – that was Grover Cleveland.  Three others have tired but all have failed.  And, Grover Cleveland actually won the popular vote but lost in the Electoral College for his second term.  And there is no way in hell that Trump will win the popular vote in 2024.  So, all in all, I hope he does run because the odds are stacked against him.

In addition, if Trump does run in 2024, it will basically sideline a lot of Republicans who have their eyes on the White House – Mike Pompeo, Ted Cruz, Nikki Haley, etc, etc.  Personally, I think there is no chance that Trump will run again in 2024.  I think he will keep that idea alive so he can continue his grift and get people to send him money, but I think he realistically knows the odds are against him.  However, he wants to stay relevant and he loves the adoration so he will try to stay in the limelight and continue to Tweet outrageous and inflammatory bullshit.

There are, however, all of the legal problems that the ‘Trump dynasty’ will face when Trump leaves office.  There is a plethora of investigations into the Trump organizations, not to mention a number of civil lawsuits.  And, we can’t forget that there is, according to the financial records that have been released so far, a debt of about $450 million coming due in the relatively near future.  I wish them well. 

Well, that’s not true.  I apologize.  That was a lie and we have had enough of lying.  I sincerely hope that the entire Trump family is held to account and that their days of being able to hide behind endless lawsuits, ignoring subpoenas and the ‘Presidential shield’ will come to an end.  I think its way past time that the ‘law and order’ President and his family, be ordered to comply with the law.