== Brinsbury's summer and winter daydreams ==
In Gary Trudeau's wonderful Doonesbury strip, the lead character -- Mike Doonesbury -- has 'summer daydreams' of how things ought to be. In my case, it's year-round and every week! But hey, it's my job and someone's gotta do it -- ponder potential paths -- some plausible and many just kind-of and some not-at-all. Possible paths out of the traps that we face.
And sure, I'm generally relegated to the lamentation of Cassandra, muttering "I told you so!" too many times to count. Though not always, e.g. when the California Democratic Party asked me to propose "near future legislation" to address the plummet of factuality and verification in American politics. Perhaps the most crucial matter of our time! The resulting Fact Act at least got a little attention! Though not enough to get anywhere.
Other proposals include methods to get around the current Supreme Court's outrageous support for gerrymandering. One concept, that would bypass all politicians, got approving attention from a senior US Court of Appeals judge. My collection of such potential maneuvers - many of them non- or even anti-partisan - can be found in Polemical Judo.
But here I'll focus on four concepts that could affect one of the most important and pivotal days in the entire history of civilization.
That pivotal day is today, December 16, 2024.
It's the very last day that a few brave Americans might turn back (partially) a tsunami of treason and pain. Because the very next day -- Tuesday the 17th of December 2024 -- is the day that the Electoral College 'meets' to cast the actual votes that will make Donald Trump President for a second -- and maniacally destructive -- time.
Trying to get these concepts where they might be acted upon has been futile, of course. The Democratic Party political and punditry clans are frantically circling their wagons to fend off accountability for their incompetent blunders. Above all, any idea Not Invented Here is to be met with savage repression.
In particular, any mention of the Electoral College prompts shrugs and sighs, even though several past elections have tilted this way or that (depending on your view) with either patriotic acts of courage or shenanigans.
Well, well.
With one day left, I must admit I was straying outside my lane.
Still, here are the two EC notions that I tried to convey.
And one more that occurred to me just yesterday!
... Plus one that Joe Biden might still pull off, during his remaining month in office, and be known for it, forever.
== Two now-forlorn ways to shift the Electoral College... and one more that could work, even now ==
Okay, it's too late for these first two. In fact, it's because it's too late that I'm telling you the second one, now.
* The first one is so old that it's in Polemical Judo. It describes how two rich dudes - one Republican, one Democrat and both patriots -- might arrange for the Presidential Electors to actually meet and deliberate in person -- by their OWN volition and without any outside pressures -- as the Founders clearly intended. I describe the concept here. There's no reason it couldn't happen.
But not this year. And maybe - if the Putinists succeed - not ever. Still, here it is
* Second idea: I only hinted at this one, in hopes that I might be able to pitch it directly to Kamala Harris.
Only her.
It would have guaranteed her a place of amazed remembrance across U.S. history!
Alas, her layers of not-invented-here factotums were too thick.
Boiled down to essence, I suggested that she could declare:
"Look, I lost the election! That's on me. By narrow margins but in crucial states, the people chose for the next Senate, House and Presidency to be controlled by Republicans.
"But does it have to be THIS Republican? A capering, frothing madman whose every chosen appointee openly and gleefully declares open war against every fact-using element in American life? Like the Roman Emperor Caligula, who made his horse Consul of Rome, Trump is appointing a whole herd of utter crazies!"
Forget idiocies like "right" or "left." This is now about all-out war vs all fact using professions! From science and teaching, medicine and law and civil service to the heroes of the FBI/Intel/Military officer corps who won the Cold War and the War on terror. And so she might have continued:
"Already it's clear that many of those who supported Donald Trump -- perhaps because they feared or disliked me -- are having buyers' remorse. So let me ask this.
"If we're to be led by Republicans, can it at least be grownup ones? Anyway the last thing I should do is stand in the way of the ruling party making their own choice on the matter.
"And hence I am stepping out of the way.
"I now ask all of the U.S. Electoral College members who are pledged to me NOT to vote for me on December 17!
"Instead, I ask that all of them... every single one... vote for the current head of the Republican Party and Majority Leader in the U.S. Senate, the honorable John Thune."
Amid that moment of shock, she could point out that Thune and she have cancelled each others votes any number of times. They support vastly different policies. Moreover --
"If this works, I will oppose him at most levels of practical politics.
"But, unlike Donald Trump, John Thune is an honorable person, a sane person, a person of genuine mental capacity and above all, an American patriot."
Look, here's the deal: If every Democratic elector voted for Thune, the 312 Republican electors would then have a choice. A chance to back out of their monstrous deal with the devil. Just 15% of them could make the difference and turn a madman from all that power. Just 40 or so could instead make a decent human being President!
And then, in a spirit of bipartisan peace-making, maybe vote to make Tim Walz Vice President?
"Just 15% of GOP electors could do this. And don't let those sappy state laws against 'faithless electors' intimidate you! They have no value against the Founders' clear intent for Elector sovereignty.
"And so I urge you Democratic electors who are pledged to me, to follow my lead on this, one last time. Let us lay a challenge before our Republican neighbors. Tell them YOU WIN! Now show us that you plan to use your victory toward an America that is at least not-insane."
== Brin's gone mad? ==
So, okay, it's not gonna happen. I never shared this with all of you out there, in forlorn hope that she might ponder it. Ponder acting as Alexander Hamilton did, in the mixed up election of 1800. Rising above party to pick decency over corruption.
Is the idea at least original?
Sure. It's what I'm paid for...
... and it's why many DP hacks cry "Shields up!" against anything like original thinking.
Okay. Maybe I'm a fool. But at least an entertaining one!
== Tonight's last idea! ==
Okay then, if it's too late for those two ideas, then why am I hurrying to post this blog, on the last of all possible days?
Well, first, to once again remind Joe Biden that his own potential gambit still is possible! I described it here and the potential for utterly rocking the entire political boat is stunning!
(You could do this one thing, Joe! During the next month. It might accomplish nothing... or else transform U.S. politics and society utterly. And you have nothing to lose.)
But that's not tonight's featured idea!
Here it comes.
This one ain't gonna work, either! But it is related to the Biden vs. Blackmail concept. And I'd be wrong not to at least mention it...
...and I promise it is WAY unconventional. Though it would make a great concept for a thriller novel!
Okay, here goes.
Donald Trump has made it clear how much he hates modernity and every smartypants profession -- it is the shared hate that got him support from many former democrats and all of the MAGAs who now pour spite at the universities and nerdy civil servants and scientists and FBI/Intel/military officers and all the rest who are now hated-on nightly by Fox.
Above all, Trump was traumatized when nearly all of the adults-in-the-room he appointed in 2017 later turned and denounced him! Almost 100 of them. Two secretaries of state, two of defense, two chiefs of staff and so on and so on. And Don swore never to let it happen again!
The one common trait of ALL of his new appointees is that there is not a single adult among them. Not one who wants to do a good job. All are meant - above all - to spite every grownup in America and around the world. All of them are Caligula's horses.
But that's not enough. Personal loyalty is paramount to Trump. It is the ONLY thing that matters. And there is one way to ensure loyalty, that he learned from Vladimir Putin.
No, it's not poison tea or upper story windows. Not yet.
Rather, the thing that works.
The one thing that works almost always and almost perfectly is blackmail.
(I can just hear many of you: "Again, Brin, with the blackmail thing?"
(Hell yeah! Because everyone who simply shrugs it off is a pure dunce.
(And I am looking at YOU, right now, my friend.)
But... but Trump is making hundreds of appointments!
So how could he collect blackmail on all of them?
Or even the top fifty or so?
That's ridiculous, Brin!
Why... he'd have to.... He'd have to...
Ah, I see the light in some of your eyes.
You are starting to see.
You begin to picture a set of rooms, in a back corner of Mar-a-Lago...
== The irony of the donkey ==
Okay, we truly are down a rabbit hole, now! Some of you are storming off, in a huff, declaring that I've lost all credibility, if not my marbles.
The rest of you are staying, to see how far down it goes.
Hang in there. It won't take long.
LOOK at the execrable quality of the men and women Donald Trump is appointing! This is their one chance in otherwise miserable lives, envying and hating all those snooty, smartypants fact people who actually know stuff and can think.
These moronic appointees want aboard!
They will do anything Trump asks of them...
... including going into those back rooms at Mar-a-Lago and -- in front of cameras -- giving Don all the leverage and kompromat he could ever want...
...so he can feel secure in their loyalty, forever.
And yes, how lovely - if kinky - the symbolism, if some of the acts involve the symbol animal of the other party?
Before you sniff and roll your eyes... consider. The motive, means and opportunity are all there, along with the expertise.
The method has been standard in Russian secret services ever since czarist times!
The Oprichina, the Okrhana, the NKVD and KGB, the current Kremlin all used it... and quite a few western oligarchs, as well.
Can you give me one good reason why Donald Trump would NOT do this? Given motive, means and opportunity... and the flunkies' desperate wish to get aboard? And his own desperate wish to keep personal loyalty secured, forever and ever and ever?
== And so, one last forlorn hope ==
If any of you out there happens to know anyone who knows any of Trump's menagerie of jibbering losers (and I am deliberately excluding a couple of hugely brilliant winners), you MIGHT pass along word about this. Especially today.
Tell them there's a possible way out of this trap:
- If you reveal it on Monday December 17, you might have the perpetual respect and gratitude of the nation! A nation you just might have helped to save! And the donkey thing won't matter.
- if you reveal it to Biden and/or the FBI before January 20, you will likely get a pardon. And still be thanked for arming us to protect against the worst.
- and if you miss those dates, but ever step up and help us all to topple the madness, I promise that I - at least - will fight for you.
Okay then, there's my last gasp of a "Brin's Autumn Daydreams" about the mad election of 2024...
... followed by a generation of wretched rule by cruel theocrats...
... followed by a restoration of both sanity and enlightenment...
... and resumption of our wonderful climb out of darkness...
...to the stars.
