Trump supporters gathered at the Central Counting Board offices in Detroit, Michigan this morning, hysterically chanting, “Stop the count!”
Obviously, that is one direct result of Donald Trump’s mendacious guile, his constantly shape-shifting assault on every norm, convention and law that holds up the fragile institution of democracy.
It had been a day of miracles: obviously, Trump’s incredible ability to motivate voters to defy the polls, logic and sanity and turn out for him in massive numbers; but more importantly, the fact that the election proceeded in peace. The central notion of democracy — having the freedom to agree to disagree without shooting each other — was being championed in real time.
Then Trump spoke, and reminded us that one man, utterly unconstrained, can bring it all down.
Trump’s claims were incoherent, internally contradictory, illegal and in every respect incorrect. He said he had already won the election — which he also said has seen massive fraud — but that the counting of votes must continue in Arizona while being stopped in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. He’ll be going straight to the US Supreme Court, which he can’t do, to stop the count.
The legal reality is that every valid vote must be counted, and the result will be determined in the electoral college on December 16 after every state has declared its own outcome.
It’s complicated, however, because voting is regulated at state level. Each state has different laws, so the legal challenges must originate in the state courts. There will be fights about whether mail-in ballots, post-marked before election day but received after, can be counted.
Trump will brazenly argue a line in one state that directly conflicts with what he’ll say in another. Some of the litigation might make it to the US Supreme Court, which might end up deciding the final outcome as it did with the “hanging chads” verdict in 2000.
But the litigation, like Trump’s assertions, will be performative. The real significance of what Trump is doing lies in the meta-communication he has perfected, signalled to the 65 million-plus American voters who are pledged to his faith.
The key in Trump’s speech was a phrase that, interestingly, most media reporting skipped over as they focused on his claims of fraud. Trump said: “We want all voting to stop”.
It will be widely assumed by the media and intelligent people that Trump misspoke in his enthusiasm, and meant to say “We want all counting to stop.” Contextually, looking at his other words around those ones, that would make far more sense.
But Trump knows what he is saying, and he is the master of conflating to inflame. He knows that his base, which was already convinced that he could only lose by fraud, departed from its critical senses four years ago.
He knows that it is an easy trick for him to convince them that counting and voting are the same thing. Look at the faces of the people trying to break into the voting centre in Detroit. They believe a crime is being committed; a crime they can’t describe, provide evidence of or understand. But they know it’s happening.
This is the perpetration of The Great Lie, in our faces. Trump is playing everyone. The media this morning was earnestly reporting that the thing that’s really needed now — the thing that will save America — is for senior Republicans, who have spent the past four years enabling Trump’s demagoguery, to turn around and repudiate his claims. That will do the trick.
The lawyers will believe that it will be the courts, the last pillar of democracy, who will save the day. They will dispassionately dismiss Trump’s idiocy, giving their verdicts to the peaceful transition of power.
They’re all wrong. Two undeniable facts tell us unequivocally that America is in deep, deep trouble: it is led by a demagogue who has no boundaries and will not blink; and nobody who is not consumed by blind mob hysteria could rationally cast a vote for Trump. Yet, half of America just did.
Oh, we can’t call it Nazism redux; we can’t compare Trump to Hitler. But Godwin’s rule is beside the point. Hitler taught the world a crucial lesson about what happens when you try to wrestle a snake.
Trump has built an army, loyal beyond reason and willing to believe every bit of bullshit their leader spouts. They’re tuned in for the dog whistles and ready to fight. They’re armed to the teeth, and they occupy most of the territory outside the big coastal cities.
I read this morning (from an unnamed senior Republican official) that, assuming the final count goes Biden’s way as is looking likely, Trump will make a lot of noise and then quietly go away.
I am intrigued that so many people still choose to believe that.
Yes, it’s a little bit unfair to compare Trump to Hitler. I mean, Hitler wrote his own books.
My survey of history, over mellenia, became embargoed. No doubt some readers will be releived!
What’s Trump’s current wife got to do with this?
Love that handle name, Anonymous Bosch!
Although I can’t take credit for it. IIRC, it’s either an early name for the band XTC, or something that Andy Partridge wanted to call one of XTC’s albums, but was outvoted by other members of the band. Or something like that?
Senses working overtime! Yeah, I’m a fan of the handle, had heard it before but didn’t know its history.
I’d love to see some of your artwork.
Yes, sort of. Mein Kampf did require two editors to be vaguely readable (have you ever tried to read it ?) and its author regarded it later as more a series of articles. One of the critiques of it from the 1940’s might have some contemporary echos.
The reviewer said – Mein Kampf was “vapid, vain, rhetorical, diffuse, prolix.” However, he added that “it is a powerful and moving book, the product of great passionate feeling”. He suggested that the book exhausted curious German readers, but its “ceaseless repetition of the argument, left impregnably in their minds, fecund and germinating”
So if Trump scrapes in watch out for him and the Republicans trying to pass an Enabling Act and then as Trump said, they would ‘stop the voting’..
Whereas Fungo-Phallus (ie Trump) could barely colour one in.
“The great liar takes dog whistling to a new low”
A dog whistle is a device pitched so high dogs hear it but not people. As a metaphor it refers to keeping the real message disguised in a way only a select group will notice it. There is nothing remotely dog-whistle about Trump saying ““We want all voting to stop”. Trump seldom if ever bothers with dog whistling. His messages are direct and obvious, with due allowance for his appalling syntax and frequent descent into unfathomable sprays of random words and phrases.
But if describing this effort by Trump as a new low is intended to suggest the pitch of the metaphorical whistle has been brought within the range of all normal human hearing, I salute the sub-editor.
I think the dog whistle was “Stand by”. It probably passed by your ears because you aren’t a proud boy. Those who were meant to hear the dog whistle heard it clearly. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t blown.
I said he seldom if ever dog whistles. I don’t see anything hidden in his call to the Proud Boys to prepare themselves to act, but let’s grant it was a dog whistle. (Do you claim to have seen something more in it?) One instance does not contradict the argument, and the article does not cite any new dog whistle to justify the ‘new low’ description.
Not much of a dog whistle if everyone understands what he meant by it.
How many USA brains are reduced to slimy sludge through exposure to lying advertising, Murdoch media, Hollywood, Disney, superstition??
about half, it seems
Great article thanks Michael.
With all respect to the commenters on this platform, as a regular reader I have noted that some of the most frequent commenters are a little too verbose and nitpicking. I’m guessing you’ll identify yourselves : )
Yes, you display intelligence and an in-depth knowledge across many subjects however, sometimes less is more.
Yep, we know who you mean….
yep… we know. A bit of a haughty self appointed sobriquet methinks. The individual in question spends all day responding in a prolix style. As much as I love Spinoza… I would not give my name as that…or even ‘Spinoza Lite’ for that matter.
Funny you should say that. I’ll correct you on one point, except in rare circumstances, less is always more.
We love to post, if that is wrong I don’t wanna be right!
To anyone who is aghast and has been aghast at Trump’s lunatic behaviours, his most recent utterances seem to be extreme even by his very low standards. But it is what his supporters are expecting. He has been grooming them for this moment for a very long time. For them, Trump is protecting “their America” and they would be lost without his demented rantings. I can’t see that he will leave the White House quietly – again this comes down to playing to his base. There will be, as we should expect from a reality TV faux-celebrity, a performance, but I suspect that, in the end, I would think Trump is not all that brave, so there will be a show of defiance, but he will want to stop short of being escorted out of the White House in disgrace. Even when he was
involved in the make-believe world of wrestling, his feigned attacks on people that could likely have torn him apart happened with their concurrence. After all, is this not a guy who dodged the draft and continues to lie about it – mind you, who in their right mind would have wanted Trump “in the trenches” with them.