January 3, 2021, Trump’s extreme efforts to remain in power

The saga of Donald Trump vs. the People of the United States – Evening statistics

(WARNING:  this is an anti-Trump rant, in which I ordinarily would not indulge; but under the circumstances it’s unavoidable.)

“If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.”

The quotation comes from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night – the joke, of course, being that the character who utters it is on a stage himself.  But the scenario currently playing out in the capital at the moment, though it certainly would have been condemned as an improbable fiction in any novel or play written up to this point, regrettably is now sober fact.

Yesterday Donald Trump called Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state for Georgia, to pressure him into falsifying the results of the state’s election.  A sample quotation from this exchange, which is quite typical of the whole:  “So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.”

Raffensperger steadfastly refused to cave in to this pressuring and that is all to the good.  But why does no one push back against the President?  In a further Twitter exchange, Trump accused Raffensperger of covering up election fraud practices and Raffensperger’s response was, “Respectfully, President Trump: What you’re saying is not true.”  Muted responses such as this one are useless.  The only way to combat a bully is to confront him directly.  Like birds fascinated by the gaze of a serpent, even Trump’s opponents flutter about irresolutely whenever he turns on them.  When will one of them flap his wings and cast off that baneful presence once and for all?

I once worked on a project whose manager had a reputation for browbeating his subordinates.  At one point we had a disagreement about how to implement a certain procedure.  He began to become offensive, and I immediately made it clear to him that I was not going to stand for any of his nonsense.  When I did that, he obviously was taken by surprise, but I held firm and he backed down eventually; and in every subsequent encounter he treated me very civilly. 

If anyone from Capitol Hill chances to read about this episode, I urge him to bear it in mind the next time he is subjected to abuse from a superior, even if that superior happens to be the President.  But in all probability it would have no effect.  When people insist upon remaining on their knees, no amount of persuasion will induce them to stand upright.

In the meantime, eleven Republican senators have declared their intentions of disrupting the tallying of the Electoral College votes on Wednesday.  One of these is Ted Cruz – whose father, it may be remembered, was defamed by Trump in 2016 campaign as being involved in the assassin of President Kennedy in 1963.  Cruz had the effrontery to urge his critics to “calm down” after they have charged him with sedition.  “Just relax, and let’s do our jobs,” he said. “We have a responsibility to follow the law.”  This, from one of the most prominent members of a group that is deliberately subverting the law on a massive scale by attempting to set aside the results of a nation-wide election. 

The pundits have all declared that the chances of failing to tally the Electoral College votes are practically nil; and I earnestly hope that they are right.  But after today’s “antic hay” I can no longer be certain.  If it were merely a question of Trump’s being a loose cannon I would dismiss his last-ditch efforts with scornful laughter.  But the fact that he is able to lure dozens of politicians who should have sufficient legal knowledge to shun his illicit attempts to stay in power is deeply troubling.  I have already recorded Louie Gohmert’s call for street violence after the rejection of his lawsuit against Mike Pence.  And indeed, it is conceivable that the next week or so may see an armed conflict between the guards of the White House acting under Trump’s orders alongside other Trump activists vs. the municipal police of Washington DC.  I would have rejected such a conjecture as an improbable fiction as recently as two days ago, but now I am not so certain.  Even a favorable tallying of the votes on Wednesday in Biden’s favor cannot resolve such forebodings.  I simply do not know what Trump and his crazed groupies plan to do next.

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide:  85,489,462; # of deaths worldwide: 1,850,209; # of cases U.S.: 21,111,291; # of deaths; U.S.: 360,078.