Weighing Options

"The law's totally on my side, the president can't have a conflict of interest."

            -- Donald Trump, November 2016, New York Times interview

"Well, when the president does it, that means it is not illegal.”

            -- Richard Nixon, 1974

After a cleansing pause for Thanksgiving - reflecting on how much we still have, to be thankful for - let’s go back to more post-mortems on the election. Like why and how this happened. But first:

1) Last time I spoke of all the frenzied ravings about “Electoral College Gambits,” like urging enough GOP Electors not so much to vote for Clinton as to abstain and thus plop this mess into Paul Ryan’s lap. Make him take responsibility.

Or see my 2004 proposal that some electors vote for the other party's VP nominee, as a gesture toward coalition, conciliation and renewal. 

Look. I had been a defender of the Electoral College, calling for reform, not abolishment. But I am fed up. The College was designed exactly for a moment like this, when sages elected by the population of each state should protect us from unqualified demagogues. If not now, when?

My most original suggestion was for some billionaire to rent a resort hotel and invite the Electoral College to actually meet, all expenses paid, for the first time in 240 years, before going home to vote! Hey, it couldn’t hurt to ask them to actually deliberate, as intended at the beginning.

Only then might they discuss ideas like this: "Members of the Electoral College should not make Donald Trump the next president unless he sells his companies and puts the proceeds in a blind trust, according to the top ethics lawyers for the last two presidents."

Some of these ideas sound cool and fun to picture… but face it, they aren't gonna happen.

2) Last time I also suggested a billionaire offer giant whistle-blower awards for any henchmen who squeal about vote tampering. It’s a sub-type of my general call for an annual Henchman’s Prize, which could do the world more good than anyone can imagine. Seriously, we can’t imagine.  That’s the problem. 

3) As for electoral tampering, well…  this cogent article by Craig Wright explores how perhaps Donald Trump was entirely right, that the election was "rigged." 

Five separate sniff tests stink to high heaven. For example, did Russia meddle? Certainly in the realm of propaganda and social media dirty tricks, to a degree that's now well-documented. Our intelligence services know even more. And if President Trump orders them not to confront this act of war, then we'll know what "T" word his first initial stands for.

But rigging goes much farther. Take the fact that exit polls - which have a history of great accuracy -- only failed to correlate with outcome in states with Republican governors and Republican secretaries of state, with voting machines built by companies owned by Republican activists. In all other states, exit polls performed well, as they have historically. Indeed, these cheats have been going on since Gore-Bush, so it will take time… and boiling, righteous-wrathful determination… to root them out.

4) Still hoping for recounts? Well, okay. Jill Stein's Green Party has led that charge successfully, so far, in Wisconsin, and one hopes to catch the thieves red-handed. (Again, some zillionaire offering a whistleblower "henchman's prize" could make all the difference.) Still, don't get your hopes up.

== Assuming we’re in it ==

No, there will be no panacea, no quick fix. I promote all of those ideas (above) more to get Americans into practice for a long, long struggle to save the nation from the latest, of many phases of our national fever – confederate fury. We’ll have to look at tactics that sink – a little – toward their level. 

Take the matter of boycotts.

It was raised when VP-elect Mike Pence attended the hit Broadway show “Hamilton”, getting a mix of audience cheers and boos. After the final curtain call, a cast member appealed to the departing Pence for inclusiveness and tolerance in the coming administration. There was nothing offensive in timing or content. Still, the right tizzied with shouts for boycotting “Hamilton.” (How do you “boycott” a show whose tickets are notoriously expensive and difficult to obtain?)

Boycotts can be a powerful force, under narrow conditions, e.g. Donald Trump’s businesses are taking a hit… some are being renamed “Scion,” it seems, to avoid brand failure. (He may be saved by the emoluments of foreign governments, leasing at his hotels.) But that’s a sideshow. Let’s drill down into when economic politics can work.

In this era, you do not need a majority to like you, only a large enough minority. Fox News proved the profitability of this model, keeping one-third of the nation glued to its endless maelstrom of falsehoods, raking it in for Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes, while stoking an ongoing Riefenstahl-level Nuremberg rally. 

Eagerly, MSNBC tried to imitate that successful Fox business model, catering to a lefty-Bolshevik echo chamber, but failed, tumbling almost into bankruptcy because – it appears – liberals are too fickle to stay glued to a single news source. They wander off – a difference in character. (In fact, liberals are not “leftists” in any meaningful way. See addendum below.)

Hence, any attempt to boycott must offer real leverage. You’ll never sway Fox, for example, by refusing to watch their channel. That just puts you in the other two-thirds and they’ll shrug. One third is more than enough to draw in advertisers, eager to buy time in order to reach tens of millions.

Far more effective would be to boycott those advertisers. But web sites urging this have been up for years, and Rupert Murdoch has merely chuckled. 

Only now, our attention is roused. This is no longer a boutique interest. We’ll know daily that the Trump Administration is a direct product of fact-allergic habits taught on Rupert Murdoch’s personal propaganda network. So perhaps this old idea can yet gain some real bite. 

Anyway, give a scan of the Fox advertisers. Calendar a reminder to skim it every quarter, or so. Tell your friends. Don’t let supposed ‘bad blood’ between Fox & Trump fool you. Murdoch is the heart and brains of this thing. 

Just look at Donald's appointments. Rupert Murdoch is still the puppeteer. 

== A “Scary New World” ==

So, is The U.S. Abandoning The World Order It Created? 

For example, the same NATO that Ronald Reagan loved and that leaped to our aid, after 9/11, is despised by both Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, as well as Trump's top security appointees.

Right wing pundit Peter Zeihan isn’t exactly crowing about a Trump presidency.  In his latest posting, Scared New World, he glowers cynically: 

* The World Trade Organization has less than a year to respond to what will undoubtedly be a tidal wave of U.S. cases. Should those cases not be dealt with in adjudication at a pace and in the way the new White House desires, the United States will start taking unilateral moves which will, in essence, obviate the global trade order.

*  One of those first moves -- which might not even wait for the WTO to try and act -- will be to declare China a currency manipulator as well as revoke its status as a free market economy. … This could throw China into its first recession in 30 years.

*  NATO is for all intents and purposes dead. Russia’s moves into Ukraine will increase, and broadscale Russian plans for its entire western periphery -- everything from Latvia to Poland to Romania to Azerbaijan -- will accelerate. The only way forward for Europe is for Sweden and Germany to massively rearm.  

* Almost everything from the Obama presidency will be undone by the end of January 2017. Obama has shown next to no ability/interest in having conversations with Congress, even with members of his own party. The only large law passed during his entire tenure is Obamacare, so only it cannot be undone without a few strokes of a pen. How that law is modified or unwound requires Congressional involvement, and since Congress remains in the hands of the Republicans, that too is on deck -- it will just take a bit more time. Any international treaties negotiated by Obama -- whether they be the Paris Climate Accords or the TransPacific Partnership -- are dead.

Phew!  Although it is nothing short of lunacy to blame Barack Obama for recent political gridlock. That resulted from the openly avowed Republican treason called the Hastert Rule, which barred any GOP officeholder from negotiating with a democrat, ever, over anything at all. Moreover, No one mentions the reason for Putin's grudge against democrats, blaming Obama and Clinton for "stealing" Ukraine from the Russian orbit.

Also, Republicans are in a tight spot, since Obamacare was originally their own damned plan.  All of their alternatives are variations on it. So expect extensive tweaking and cosmetic changes in nomenclature.  And "health savings plans" that no one will buy. So much for 7 years of hysterical, no compromise screaming.

Still, Zeihan certainly paints a vivid image, and there is little to prevent DT from doing any of this.

== More scary bits ==

Last time I offered reasons why Trump may listen to cooler heads – a hope also envisioned by Michael Dorf of Newsweek. Those reasons will work for us… and yet will probably fail. Especially if Trump keeps up the damned rallies. Which he's sure to do when he feels besieged.

Re foreign affairs: The most plausible prediction is that Vladimir Putin will bolster his friend by rapidly negotiating a deal in Syria, in order to cement Trump’s “art of the deal” mastery.  Perhaps “federating” the state, locking Assad’s grip on the country’s western third - the valuable bits - and letting go of the rest.  This would make Trump look strong while giving the Russians everything they truly want.

Trump is then liberated to eviscerate NATO -- Putin’s central goal. Bad news for Estonia and the other Baltic States.  If NATO is no longer drawing a hard red line before them, then Russian speaking populations could serve as an intervention lure/excuse, as others were in the Donbas. Think Sudetenland.

Of course, if this led to actual harm to Estonia, then it could embolden some House members toward impeachment.  Ooog. Interesting times. (Will Trump revoke the Iran nuclear deal?)

In fact, there may be an immature satisfaction or silver lining to be seen, when a Trump-led U.S. abruptly drops its 70 year burden that saved the world, and stomps off the stage. The new anti-western axis – extending from Ankara through Moscow and Iran and Beijing to Manilla – will surge and make some short term gains…

…and not keep them. Not so long as Russian women refuse to have babies. Especially as internal fractures erupt that seem not to be on anyone’s horizon, quite yet. For example, the Siberian vacuum will draw in a powerful and assertive China, turning its gaze northward.

Scary stuff, and Donald Trump’s crew is not up to these challenges. Still, we’ll at least get to ask the rest of the world “do you miss us, yet?”

== Final Note ==

All right, ‘the rules” don’t require that the office go to the winner of the popular vote, even by the immense margin we just saw.  Still, there is something honor demands, and the dishonorable ignore such things.

It was behooved upon G.W. Bush, in 2000, to say: 

"I know a majority of Americans didn't want me, so I will offer compromises and even appoint some people who will remind me to heed what the people clearly wanted."

Bush didn't do that -- (despite my urging it, at the time, go figure!) -- and may his entire corrupt clan squat in shame for it. (Yes, and the shame of knowing that their own party did not even mention them, at the RNC this august. What party has ever slunk and turned its back so, upon its last two presidents?)

But Trump's negative-margin - the large majority of his fellow citizens who voted zealously against him - is far more vast. Indeed, DT's biggest crime - so far - is making his appointments from the standard list of Bushite factotums, including a long series of fellow billionaires. So much for the Trump "Revolution." 

He could have at least tried the ecumenical approach. 

Alas. The fact that he has made no such outreach is proof of what kind of man he is.

Ft. Sumter has fallen, boys and girls. We need to remember what we’re made of.

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Addendum.  NPR tracked down the young creator of one of the non-Russian Fake News sites that fed a firehose of false stories into the alt.right-o-sphere, during the election. He claims to have been boggled by the eager gullibility that sucked in even the craziest conspiracy stories. "Coler says his writers have tried to write fake news for liberals — but they just never take the bait." Entirely consistent with what I said about MSNBC.  This is not about left-right. It is about sane-insane.