thebulwark--2020-11-08--A Good Man for a Wounded Country

A Good Man for a Wounded Country

Before we consider the daunting challenges facing President-elect Joe Biden , we should consider the depth of his achievement .
At the age of 77 , he emerged from retirement to surmount a history of failed presidential races .
He placed fourth in the Iowa caucuses , fifth in the New Hampshire primary , and second in the Nevada caucuses , before finally winning his first primary ever , in South Carolina , on Leap Day .
He then outpaced his competitors ; assembled a diverse coalition ; united a fractious party ; chose the first woman of color to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conquered doubts about his age and acumen ; and defeated a sociopathic president whose unremitting viciousness would have challenged the most poised and confident of leaders .
He was spurred by thwarted ambition , to be sure , but also by the deep conviction that Donald Trump was rending the social fabric of the country he loved .
It seems clear , in retrospect , that Biden was his party ’ s best candidate—likely the only one who could vanquish Trump .
His moderation , maturity , inclusiveness , and inherent decency made @ @ @ @ @ @ @ choosing him over a man whose feral inner landscape had turned America against itself .
However embittered Trump ’ s partisans may be , for millions of Americans Biden ’ s accession feels like a fever breaking .
This veteran of a 50-year public career defined less by innovation than compromise became , remarkably , a man for our times .
Amid vote-counting roiled by confusion , misinformation and the unprecedented complications wrought by deadly pandemic , Biden provided a salutary contrast with Trump ’ s corrosive claims of fraud .
“ Democracy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ told us .
“ It sometimes requires a little patience as well .
But that patience has been rewarded now for more than 240 years with a system of government that ’ s been the envy of the world.
” Here Biden ’ s very normality became a kind of statesmanship : He provided not only a measure of calm to counter the mass angst and anxiety , but reassurance that the core of our democracy—the counting of votes followed by a peaceful transition of power—would prevail .
As our soon-to-be ex-president threatened @ @ @ @ @ @ @ drag the country into the fever swamp of his own anarchic petulance , our electoral machinery ground on—the bones and sinews of a capable , honorable America engaged in a common enterprise which survived Trump ’ s contempt for the system which had elevated him so far beyond his worth .
Biden , by his very temperance—from his calls for patience to his gracious and unifying acceptance speech—reaffirmed the nobility of ideals greater than the wants and needs of those who would lead us .
As Biden ’ s victory settles into our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ many a sense of relief and resolution whose very depth will reveal how completely Trump ’ s character disorder had permeated our lives .
The essence of Trump ’ s pathology was that governance became a form of emotional terrorism .
At last we will be able to look away from our president without fearing what he might do next .
For this we have Joe Biden to thank .
But the conditions which gave us Trump remain .
For among the things no politician could do is banish the bitter estrangement between @ @ @ @ @ @ @ repudiation of Trump beyond reach .
The Democrats had a message of unity ; a cohesive party ; the support of numerous prominent Republicans .
They were running against an incumbent who had defiled to the presidency ; mismanaged a deadly pandemic ; and caused a generally strong economy to plummet into a crippling recession—an aspiring autocrat whose aberrant and abhorrent traits could inform a treatise on mental illness : mendacity , grandiosity , cruelty , misogyny , misanthropy , and paranoia .
Trump ’ s presidency proved him to be precisely what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gripped by an ineradicable personality disorder which sucked us into the vortex of his insatiable needs .
His notional America was not a model for the globe , but a Hobbesian landscape of ungenerosity , violence , fear , and predation that reflected his own inner world .
Yet , despite all , 48 percent of Americans voted to stay there .
There was no great shift from 2016 ; no loosening of Trump ’ s psychic grip on millions of loyalists ; no relief from the raw cultural divide which he maliciously @ @ @ @ @ @ @ That schism defies resolution in a single election—or anytime soon .
It is not merely geographic , economic , or educational ; it is profoundly cultural and racial—a conflict between fundamentalism and secularism ; white identity politics and the embrace of diversity ; xenophobia and openness to immigration ; equity for all and race-based resentment .
For Trump ’ s followers , the wall was not merely a thing but a metaphor : a barrier against the cultural and racial “ other ” who threatened their vision of an Edenic America populated by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Trump ’ s political career thrived on the economic insecurity exacerbated by globalism .
But that appeal is inseparable from the tribalism and racism he did so much to promote .
The Republican base believed that that their resentments were his ; their votes were less an expression of democracy than of a craving for an authoritarian who would subjugate the inimical forces personified by the African-American Barack Obama ; the San Francisco feminist Nancy Pelosi ; and a pioneering vice president-elect who symbolized both .
Trump ’ s followers embraced his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , for them , democracy itself had become the enemy .
Anyone who believes that his base , deprived of their president , will submit to social comity suffers from the misapprehension that reason as they define it is accessible to all .
And those who imagine that QAnon is an anomaly will learn soon enough that racism , atavism , ignorance , and anger are not easily extinguished .
Cynics like Mitch McConnell , who cater to the GOP ’ s voracious donor class while assuaging its restive base , have no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the new Biden administration .
Absent an unanticipated sweep of the two seats at stake in Georgia ’ s pending runoff , Republicans will retain control of the Senate .
Although there is optimistic speculation that McConnell and Biden might have a productive and friendly relationship , it seems more likely that McConnell will do to Biden what he did to Obama : frustrate and obstruct .
Sweeping legislative initiatives in education , healthcare , climate change , and infrastructure will fall hostage to the GOP ’ s rediscovery of its conveniently @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ever , McConnell ’ s chief weapon will be the filibuster ; his backstop a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court equally hostile to voting rights legislation , universal healthcare , campaign finance reform , oversight of financial institutions , the administrative state , and government regulation in such areas as environmental protection and worker ’ s rights .
Indeed , the two forces protect each other : By preserving the filibuster , the GOP ’ s Senate majority will prevent Democrats from expanding the Supreme Court while slowing Biden ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ immediate imperatives—combating COVID and providing badly needed fiscal stimulus—will prove challenging .
The least of it will be Republican sniping about more rigorous public health measures ; the worst will involve their obstruction of any appropriately sized initiative to relieve unemployment , rescue failing businesses , aid states and cities , and help those deprived of adequate healthcare .
The ongoing partisan gridlock will challenge Biden ’ s powers of legislative compromise—and , as crucial , his ability to reconcile Democratic moderates and progressives frustrated by McConnell ’ s hammerlock on legislation .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ party in 2018 and 2020 are at odds with progressives whose enthusiasms—single-payer healthcare ; defunding the police—they blame for defeating House members in swing districts .
In turn , and against all evidence , some ardent progressives insist that Biden should have moved further left .
During the election , leading progressives like Bernie Sanders , Elizabeth Warren , and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez played an important role in supporting Biden .
But not all their supporters are so politically judicious .
Instead of feeling great about helping Biden save their country , they imagine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s base—having twice failed to rally the base of his own nominal party .
Such fantasies are as pointless as blaming Biden for failing to pass progressive legislation and abolish the filibuster in a Senate controlled by Mitch McConnell .
What Biden needs is their support in achieving the legislative possible—and their help in using the considerable leverage of the presidency to accomplish real change .
For legislation alone hardly defines a president ’ s transformative power .
Were it otherwise , this election would not be so consequential .
But it is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in such disparate areas as foreign affairs , judicial appointments , anti-trust enforcement , the administration of justice , environmental regulation , consumer protection , immigration policy , and the treatment of groups victimized by Trump , from Dreamers to undocumented immigrants to asylum-seekers cruelly separated from their children .
Consider what Trump did all these areas , and be grateful for President Biden .
Consider , further , the power of our chief executive over such vital departments and agencies as Defense , Homeland Security , Justice , Labor , the EPA @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Human Services , the CDC , and our intelligence services .
Consider , finally , our good fortune in having a president who will not use his power to undermine a constitutional framework so badly eroded by his rogue predecessor and amoral enablers like William Barr .
Regardless of ideology or party , sentient Americans should be grateful that Joe Biden won the contest between decency and disorder , empathy and inhumanity , diversity and exclusion , democracy and authoritarianism .
The president sets the tone for who we are , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ perhaps , the ultimate grace of Joe Biden—because he believes in our collective goodness , he will leave the presidency , and therefore his country , better than he found it .

Before we consider the daunting challenges facing President-elect Joe Biden, we should consider the depth of his achievement.
At the age of 77, he emerged from retirement to surmount a history of failed presidential races. He placed fourth in the Iowa caucuses, fifth in the New Hampshire primary, and second in the Nevada caucuses, before finally winning his first primary ever, in South Carolina, on Leap Day. He then outpaced his competitors; assembled a diverse coalition; united a fractious party; chose the first woman of color to run as a vice presidential nominee; conquered doubts about his age and acumen; and defeated a sociopathic president whose unremitting viciousness would have challenged the most poised and confident of leaders.
He was spurred by thwarted ambition, to be sure, but also by the deep conviction that Donald Trump was rending the social fabric of the country he loved. It seems clear, in retrospect, that Biden was his party’s best candidate—likely the only one who could vanquish Trump.
His moderation, maturity, inclusiveness, and inherent decency made the undecided and unsettled feel safe in choosing him over a man whose feral inner landscape had turned America against itself. However embittered Trump’s partisans may be, for millions of Americans Biden’s accession feels like a fever breaking. This veteran of a 50-year public career defined less by innovation than compromise became, remarkably, a man for our times.
Amid vote-counting roiled by confusion, misinformation and the unprecedented complications wrought by deadly pandemic, Biden provided a salutary contrast with Trump’s corrosive claims of fraud. “Democracy’s sometimes messy,” he told us. “It sometimes requires a little patience as well. But that patience has been rewarded now for more than 240 years with a system of government that’s been the envy of the world.”
Here Biden’s very normality became a kind of statesmanship: He provided not only a measure of calm to counter the mass angst and anxiety, but reassurance that the core of our democracy—the counting of votes followed by a peaceful transition of power—would prevail. As our soon-to-be ex-president threatened, whined and blustered, striving to drag the country into the fever swamp of his own anarchic petulance, our electoral machinery ground on—the bones and sinews of a capable, honorable America engaged in a common enterprise which survived Trump’s contempt for the system which had elevated him so far beyond his worth. Biden, by his very temperance—from his calls for patience to his gracious and unifying acceptance speech—reaffirmed the nobility of ideals greater than the wants and needs of those who would lead us.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
As Biden’s victory settles into our collective consciousness, it will bring to many a sense of relief and resolution whose very depth will reveal how completely Trump’s character disorder had permeated our lives. The essence of Trump’s pathology was that governance became a form of emotional terrorism. At last we will be able to look away from our president without fearing what he might do next.
For this we have Joe Biden to thank. But the conditions which gave us Trump remain. For among the things no politician could do is banish the bitter estrangement between two opposing Americas which placed a massive repudiation of Trump beyond reach.
The Democrats had a message of unity; a cohesive party; the support of numerous prominent Republicans. They were running against an incumbent who had defiled to the presidency; mismanaged a deadly pandemic; and caused a generally strong economy to plummet into a crippling recession—an aspiring autocrat whose aberrant and abhorrent traits could inform a treatise on mental illness: mendacity, grandiosity, cruelty, misogyny, misanthropy, and paranoia.
Trump’s presidency proved him to be precisely what he seemed in 2016: a man gripped by an ineradicable personality disorder which sucked us into the vortex of his insatiable needs. His notional America was not a model for the globe, but a Hobbesian landscape of ungenerosity, violence, fear, and predation that reflected his own inner world.
Yet, despite all, 48 percent of Americans voted to stay there. There was no great shift from 2016; no loosening of Trump’s psychic grip on millions of loyalists; no relief from the raw cultural divide which he maliciously exacerbated for his own twisted ends.
That schism defies resolution in a single election—or anytime soon. It is not merely geographic, economic, or educational; it is profoundly cultural and racial—a conflict between fundamentalism and secularism; white identity politics and the embrace of diversity; xenophobia and openness to immigration; equity for all and race-based resentment. For Trump’s followers, the wall was not merely a thing but a metaphor: a barrier against the cultural and racial “other” who threatened their vision of an Edenic America populated by insular white Christians.
To be sure, Trump’s political career thrived on the economic insecurity exacerbated by globalism. But that appeal is inseparable from the tribalism and racism he did so much to promote. The Republican base believed that that their resentments were his; their votes were less an expression of democracy than of a craving for an authoritarian who would subjugate the inimical forces personified by the African-American Barack Obama; the San Francisco feminist Nancy Pelosi; and a pioneering vice president-elect who symbolized both. Trump’s followers embraced his baseless allegations of massive voter fraud because, for them, democracy itself had become the enemy.
Anyone who believes that his base, deprived of their president, will submit to social comity suffers from the misapprehension that reason as they define it is accessible to all. And those who imagine that QAnon is an anomaly will learn soon enough that racism, atavism, ignorance, and anger are not easily extinguished. Cynics like Mitch McConnell, who cater to the GOP’s voracious donor class while assuaging its restive base, have no such illusions.
That has profound implications for the new Biden administration. Absent an unanticipated sweep of the two seats at stake in Georgia’s pending runoff, Republicans will retain control of the Senate. Although there is optimistic speculation that McConnell and Biden might have a productive and friendly relationship, it seems more likely that McConnell will do to Biden what he did to Obama: frustrate and obstruct. Sweeping legislative initiatives in education, healthcare, climate change, and infrastructure will fall hostage to the GOP’s rediscovery of its conveniently situational passion for fiscal discipline.
As ever, McConnell’s chief weapon will be the filibuster; his backstop a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court equally hostile to voting rights legislation, universal healthcare, campaign finance reform, oversight of financial institutions, the administrative state, and government regulation in such areas as environmental protection and worker’s rights. Indeed, the two forces protect each other: By preserving the filibuster, the GOP’s Senate majority will prevent Democrats from expanding the Supreme Court while slowing Biden’s judicial appointments.
Even Biden’s immediate imperatives—combating COVID and providing badly needed fiscal stimulus—will prove challenging. The least of it will be Republican sniping about more rigorous public health measures; the worst will involve their obstruction of any appropriately sized initiative to relieve unemployment, rescue failing businesses, aid states and cities, and help those deprived of adequate healthcare. The ongoing partisan gridlock will challenge Biden’s powers of legislative compromise—and, as crucial, his ability to reconcile Democratic moderates and progressives frustrated by McConnell’s hammerlock on legislation.
Already moderates who feel they saved the party in 2018 and 2020 are at odds with progressives whose enthusiasms—single-payer healthcare; defunding the police—they blame for defeating House members in swing districts. In turn, and against all evidence, some ardent progressives insist that Biden should have moved further left.
During the election, leading progressives like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez played an important role in supporting Biden. But not all their supporters are so politically judicious. Instead of feeling great about helping Biden save their country, they imagine that Sanders could have mesmerized Trump’s base—having twice failed to rally the base of his own nominal party.
Such fantasies are as pointless as blaming Biden for failing to pass progressive legislation and abolish the filibuster in a Senate controlled by Mitch McConnell. What Biden needs is their support in achieving the legislative possible—and their help in using the considerable leverage of the presidency to accomplish real change.
For legislation alone hardly defines a president’s transformative power. Were it otherwise, this election would not be so consequential. But it is. Think of what Biden can do in such disparate areas as foreign affairs, judicial appointments, anti-trust enforcement, the administration of justice, environmental regulation, consumer protection, immigration policy, and the treatment of groups victimized by Trump, from Dreamers to undocumented immigrants to asylum-seekers cruelly separated from their children. Consider what Trump did all these areas, and be grateful for President Biden.
Consider, further, the power of our chief executive over such vital departments and agencies as Defense, Homeland Security, Justice, Labor, the EPA, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, the CDC, and our intelligence services. Consider, finally, our good fortune in having a president who will not use his power to undermine a constitutional framework so badly eroded by his rogue predecessor and amoral enablers like William Barr.
Regardless of ideology or party, sentient Americans should be grateful that Joe Biden won the contest between decency and disorder, empathy and inhumanity, diversity and exclusion, democracy and authoritarianism. The president sets the tone for who we are, and aspire to be. That is, perhaps, the ultimate grace of Joe Biden—because he believes in our collective goodness, he will leave the presidency, and therefore his country, better than he found it.


thebulwark--2020-11-08--Martha McSally, Arizonans Are Just Not That into You

Once upon a time , Arizona Republicans looked upon Martha McSally as the eventual heir to John McCain , after the old maverick decided to retire .
With degrees from the Air Force Academy and Harvard , more than two decades of military service—including the distinction of being the first American woman to fly in combat , and two terms in the House of Representatives on her résumé , she seemed like the ideal candidate .
Just one problem : Martha McSally is no John McCain .
She started her political career by running in a June 2012 special election @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after a gunman almost took the life of the incumbent , Gabby Giffords , in 2011 .
McSally wanted to portray herself as a moderate Republican in a Democratic-leaning district .
She avoided public statements on immigration but winked and nodded at immigration reform .
She maintained that , while she was personally pro-life , the Supreme Court had removed the issue from legislative consideration .
She lost the primary by a wide margin , and the Democratic nominee won in November .
Undeterred , McSally immediately launched her campaign for the same @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The same version of McSally ran , the pragmatic veteran , a problem-solver , trying to go to Washington to fight for affordable healthcare , jobs , Medicare , and Social Security .
This time she didn ’ t face a serious primary challenger and clinched the nomination .
But she lost the general election , this time by a razor-thin margin .
Democrat Ron Barber was declared the winner by less than 1 percent after an automatic recount .
Nevertheless , she persisted .
McSally ran again for the same seat in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Their majority in the House increased to the greatest number in the postwar period , and McSally rode the wave .
After yet another automatic recount , she was declared the winner by just 160 votes .
In the House , McSally was a Pima County Republican .
The county she represented is heavily Democratic and heavily Hispanic .
She tried to be a compromising and moderate Republican , avoiding controversial issues and focusing on national security matters .
She joined a congressional task force to come up with a legislative solution @ @ @ @ @ @ @ heavily affected her district on the Mexico border .
At least at first , she modeled herself in office after the man she one day hoped to succeed .
When Arizona ’ s then-junior senator , Jeff Flake , announced his retirement , McSally saw the opportunity to join McCain in the Senate .
( McCain had announced his diagnosis with aggressive brain cancer several months before Flake announced his retirement , raising the possibility of both of the state ’ s Senate seats becoming open in quick succession . )
In her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s two opponents for the Republican nomination were Joe Arpaio , the disgraced sheriff , and Kelli Ward , Arizona ’ s wacko daughter .
No longer interested in moderation or compromise , she tried to run a Trumpy campaign .
She dropped her support for Dreamers .
She emphasized her pro-life positions .
And she clinched the nomination .
During the general election campaign , she doubled down on Trumpiness .
It didn ’ t work , and she became only the second Republican nominee to lose a Senate election in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Kirsten Sinema was graceful .
During the campaign , McCain succumbed to his illness .
Arizona Governor Doug Ducey appointed former Arizona Senator John Kyl to finish his term , but Kyl announced his resignation within days of McSally ’ s loss to Sinema .
With a stroke of the governor ’ s pen , McSally was headed to the Senate despite having just lost her race .
But McSally was only appointed until a special election could be held—as it was this year .
She faced an easy primary challenge , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ politics throughout the entire campaign .
And she lost again , this time to Mark Kelly , a Navy veteran , astronaut , and husband to Gabby Giffords .
So : McSally launched her political career as a pragmatic , security-focused problem-solver .
She lost and lost and then barely won to get into the House .
Then , when Trump became president , she turned to base politics .
She attacked a competent and respected CNN reporter as a hack and then tried to fundraise over it .
In 2018 , she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tried to give her opponents Trumpy nicknames : “ Hollywood Sinema , ” a decent pun for her 2018 opponent ; and in 2020 , “ counterfeit Kelly ” —though she never explained exactly what that meant .
For good measure , she also tried to portray Kelly as a tool of the Chinese Communist Party for a fellowship he participated in , organized by an American nonprofit .
Her Senate electoral track record has been consistent : She lost one election .
Then she lost another .
McSally ’ s electoral history @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deterred by another loss .
But perhaps this can be an opportunity for yet another reinvention , because the latest version of Martha McSally wasn ’ t worthy of succeeding Jeff Flake or John McCain—and it might not even be good enough to succeed Mark Kelly .

Once upon a time, Arizona Republicans looked upon Martha McSally as the eventual heir to John McCain, after the old maverick decided to retire. With degrees from the Air Force Academy and Harvard, more than two decades of military service—including the distinction of being the first American woman to fly in combat, and two terms in the House of Representatives on her résumé, she seemed like the ideal candidate.
Just one problem: Martha McSally is no John McCain.
She started her political career by running in a June 2012 special election in Arizona’s 2nd Congressional District after a gunman almost took the life of the incumbent, Gabby Giffords, in 2011. McSally wanted to portray herself as a moderate Republican in a Democratic-leaning district. She avoided public statements on immigration but winked and nodded at immigration reform. She maintained that, while she was personally pro-life, the Supreme Court had removed the issue from legislative consideration. She lost the primary by a wide margin, and the Democratic nominee won in November.
Undeterred, McSally immediately launched her campaign for the same seat in the November 2012 election. The same version of McSally ran, the pragmatic veteran, a problem-solver, trying to go to Washington to fight for affordable healthcare, jobs, Medicare, and Social Security. This time she didn’t face a serious primary challenger and clinched the nomination. But she lost the general election, this time by a razor-thin margin. Democrat Ron Barber was declared the winner by less than 1 percent after an automatic recount.
Nevertheless, she persisted. McSally ran again for the same seat in 2014, a great year for Republicans. Their majority in the House increased to the greatest number in the postwar period, and McSally rode the wave. After yet another automatic recount, she was declared the winner by just 160 votes.
In the House, McSally was a Pima County Republican. The county she represented is heavily Democratic and heavily Hispanic. She tried to be a compromising and moderate Republican, avoiding controversial issues and focusing on national security matters. She joined a congressional task force to come up with a legislative solution for DACA recipients, an issue that heavily affected her district on the Mexico border.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
At least at first, she modeled herself in office after the man she one day hoped to succeed. When Arizona’s then-junior senator, Jeff Flake, announced his retirement, McSally saw the opportunity to join McCain in the Senate. (McCain had announced his diagnosis with aggressive brain cancer several months before Flake announced his retirement, raising the possibility of both of the state’s Senate seats becoming open in quick succession.)
In her 2018 campaign to replace Flake, McSally’s two opponents for the Republican nomination were Joe Arpaio, the disgraced sheriff, and Kelli Ward, Arizona’s wacko daughter. No longer interested in moderation or compromise, she tried to run a Trumpy campaign. She dropped her support for Dreamers. She emphasized her pro-life positions. And she clinched the nomination. During the general election campaign, she doubled down on Trumpiness.
It didn’t work, and she became only the second Republican nominee to lose a Senate election in Arizona since 1965. Yet her concession to Kyrsten Sinema was graceful.
During the campaign, McCain succumbed to his illness. Arizona Governor Doug Ducey appointed former Arizona Senator John Kyl to finish his term, but Kyl announced his resignation within days of McSally’s loss to Sinema. With a stroke of the governor’s pen, McSally was headed to the Senate despite having just lost her race.
But McSally was only appointed until a special election could be held—as it was this year. She faced an easy primary challenge, but she still doubled down on base politics throughout the entire campaign. And she lost again, this time to Mark Kelly, a Navy veteran, astronaut, and husband to Gabby Giffords.
So: McSally launched her political career as a pragmatic, security-focused problem-solver. She lost and lost and then barely won to get into the House.
Then, when Trump became president, she turned to base politics. She attacked a competent and respected CNN reporter as a hack and then tried to fundraise over it. In 2018, she accused Sinema of treason. She repeatedly tried to give her opponents Trumpy nicknames: “Hollywood Sinema,” a decent pun for her 2018 opponent; and in 2020, “counterfeit Kelly”—though she never explained exactly what that meant. For good measure, she also tried to portray Kelly as a tool of the Chinese Communist Party for a fellowship he participated in, organized by an American nonprofit.
Her Senate electoral track record has been consistent: She lost one election. Then she lost another.
McSally’s electoral history suggests that she won’t be deterred by another loss. But perhaps this can be an opportunity for yet another reinvention, because the latest version of Martha McSally wasn’t worthy of succeeding Jeff Flake or John McCain—and it might not even be good enough to succeed Mark Kelly.


Alex Trebek, 1940-2020

Many , many years ago—I ’ m going to say sometime in the early ’ 90s , possibly even the late ’ 80s—on a week night , my family was settling in for our evening routine when our television , a gigantic tube monstrosity , blinked out .
The picture just went black .
This was probably around six at night .
So , largely at the behest of my mother , though without objection from anyone else , a small selection of my family went out and bought a new TV .
There was a certain urgency to this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ less than an hour .
So as I ’ m sure you can appreciate , this crisis was no joke .
The habit of watching Jeopardy !
, the iconic quiz show that required its contestants to answer “ clues ” in the form of a question , has been with me for just about my whole life , and though certain things about it have changed—some rules have been tweaked , the set and answer board have been upgraded to the latest game show set style and answer board technology—it has always @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like the same show .
This is entirely because Alex Trebek has hosted the current iteration of the show ( earlier versions aired in the ’ 60s and ’ 70s ) since its debut in 1984 .
Trebek , born in Sudbury , Ontario , in 1940 , passed away this morning after a nearly two-year battle with pancreatic cancer , one of the most hideous and hateful forms of that hideous and hateful disease .
Through it all , he was very candid about the physical pain and psychological toll , recently @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he was so discouraged that he felt suicidal .
But , he continued : Yet despite all this—the cancer , the painful treatment , even the suicidal thoughts—Alex Trebek continued to host Jeopardy !
And even though every one of the show ’ s millions of fans knew what he was dealing with , they only knew because they knew , because he told them , and not because you could tell by watching him .
As the disease progressed , then retreated , then returned , Trebek hosted the game show—perhaps the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ States , that specifically rewarded intelligence and erudition—with the same grace , smoothness ( his facility with the pronunciation of seemingly any word in any language was staggering , if you stopped for a minute to think about it ) , sympathy , humor , and even taste for gently ribbing contestants who have guessed poorly , as he ever had .
Since news of Trebek ’ s death broke just a few hours ago , social media has been filled with people mourning him , and the absence they ’ re already @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you , consider the fact that Trebek inspires this emotional response not merely by virtue of having done this particular job for so long .
Lots of people in media and entertainment hold the same job for as long or longer but do not enjoy this kind of loyalty from their fans .
Some of it has to do with the show itself : Jeopardy !
can be very suspenseful , partly due to the amount of money that could be won by its smartest and best contestants ( see the jaw-dropping runs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ most famous champions , Ken Jennings and James Holzhauer ) .
In addition , it ’ s one of the few game shows in which the home viewer could reasonably pretend to be a full participant .
There is no part of the show that could not be done from your couch , aside from literally buzzing in .
But none of this would matter nearly as much with someone other than Trebek at the podium , a host who , among his many other virtues , seemed to be as smart as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ read .
Trebek exuded intelligence .
Did he know as much as he seemed to ?
No , because nobody knows everything .
But while attending the University of Ottawa he was a member of the English Debating Society , graduating with a degree in philosophy .
And while his career in broadcasting was long and included other game shows before Jeopardy !
, how many other game show hosts boast a similar eclecticism of interests ?
This air of scholarship—which could sometimes be mistaken for pomposity if you didn ’ t watch @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s frequent bursts of comedy , as when Trebek , in reading a clue , had to quote rap or rock lyrics that he was clearly unfamiliar with ( and if you think in these cases he didn ’ t realize the joke was on him , you ’ re wrong ) .
For all its celebration of learning the show could often be quite funny , because Trebek himself was funny .
And blunt .
In this clip , which seems to make the rounds on Twitter any time Trebek is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trebek responds to a contestant ’ s description of the kind of people who make and listen to nerdcore hip hop , with “ Losers , in other words.
” Unnecessary , maybe , but off-the-cuff , unexpected , and funny .
The show could be quite moving , too .
Several of the most memorable such moments have occurred in the last year and a half , such as last November when contestant Dhruv Gaur wrote “ We love you Alex !
” as his Final Jeopardy answer , requiring an obviously @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And just last week , winner Burt Thakur tearfully explained to Trebek that the reason this moment meant so much to him was that he had learned English by watching Jeopardy !
with his grandfather .
Jeopardy !
is going to remain an emotionally moving show until sometime after Christmas .
According to a press release issued by ABC and the show ’ s producers , Trebek ’ s last day of taping was October 29 , and the show will continue to run through the holidays .
So we will all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with Alex Trebek still present as the host , but we ’ ll know he ’ s gone .
That will be a very strange experience .
Each new episode will be sad .
Not because of anything visible on screen .
But because we ’ ll know .

Many, many years ago—I’m going to say sometime in the early ’90s, possibly even the late ’80s—on a week night, my family was settling in for our evening routine when our television, a gigantic tube monstrosity, blinked out. The picture just went black. This was probably around six at night. So, largely at the behest of my mother, though without objection from anyone else, a small selection of my family went out and bought a new TV. There was a certain urgency to this, because Jeopardy! was on in less than an hour. So as I’m sure you can appreciate, this crisis was no joke.
The habit of watching Jeopardy!, the iconic quiz show that required its contestants to answer “clues” in the form of a question, has been with me for just about my whole life, and though certain things about it have changed—some rules have been tweaked, the set and answer board have been upgraded to the latest game show set style and answer board technology—it has always felt, in the best way, like the same show. This is entirely because Alex Trebek has hosted the current iteration of the show (earlier versions aired in the ’60s and ’70s) since its debut in 1984. Trebek, born in Sudbury, Ontario, in 1940, passed away this morning after a nearly two-year battle with pancreatic cancer, one of the most hideous and hateful forms of that hideous and hateful disease. Through it all, he was very candid about the physical pain and psychological toll, recently telling the Los Angeles Times that occasionally he was so discouraged that he felt suicidal. But, he continued:
“You can’t be telling people ‘Keep your chin up, fight on!’ and then all of a sudden you counter that by: ‘What happened to Trebek?’ ‘Oh, he killed himself. He just got too discouraged,’” the quiz show host says in an interview from his office. “‘Well, hell, he was telling us to be positive. And then he did this negative thing.’ So, yeah. That’s the responsibility that has bothered me.”
Yet despite all this—the cancer, the painful treatment, even the suicidal thoughts—Alex Trebek continued to host Jeopardy! And even though every one of the show’s millions of fans knew what he was dealing with, they only knew because they knew, because he told them, and not because you could tell by watching him. As the disease progressed, then retreated, then returned, Trebek hosted the game show—perhaps the last, at least in the United States, that specifically rewarded intelligence and erudition—with the same grace, smoothness (his facility with the pronunciation of seemingly any word in any language was staggering, if you stopped for a minute to think about it), sympathy, humor, and even taste for gently ribbing contestants who have guessed poorly, as he ever had.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
Since news of Trebek’s death broke just a few hours ago, social media has been filled with people mourning him, and the absence they’re already feeling. If that sounds dramatic to you, consider the fact that Trebek inspires this emotional response not merely by virtue of having done this particular job for so long. Lots of people in media and entertainment hold the same job for as long or longer but do not enjoy this kind of loyalty from their fans. Some of it has to do with the show itself: Jeopardy! can be very suspenseful, partly due to the amount of money that could be won by its smartest and best contestants (see the jaw-dropping runs of victory by the show’s most famous champions, Ken Jennings and James Holzhauer). In addition, it’s one of the few game shows in which the home viewer could reasonably pretend to be a full participant. There is no part of the show that could not be done from your couch, aside from literally buzzing in. But none of this would matter nearly as much with someone other than Trebek at the podium, a host who, among his many other virtues, seemed to be as smart as the clues it was his job to read.
Trebek exuded intelligence. Did he know as much as he seemed to? No, because nobody knows everything. But while attending the University of Ottawa he was a member of the English Debating Society, graduating with a degree in philosophy. And while his career in broadcasting was long and included other game shows before Jeopardy!, how many other game show hosts boast a similar eclecticism of interests? This air of scholarship—which could sometimes be mistaken for pomposity if you didn’t watch the show often enough—contributed to the show’s frequent bursts of comedy, as when Trebek, in reading a clue, had to quote rap or rock lyrics that he was clearly unfamiliar with (and if you think in these cases he didn’t realize the joke was on him, you’re wrong).
For all its celebration of learning the show could often be quite funny, because Trebek himself was funny. And blunt. In this clip, which seems to make the rounds on Twitter any time Trebek is in the news for any reason, Trebek responds to a contestant’s description of the kind of people who make and listen to nerdcore hip hop, with “Losers, in other words.” Unnecessary, maybe, but off-the-cuff, unexpected, and funny.
The show could be quite moving, too. Several of the most memorable such moments have occurred in the last year and a half, such as last November when contestant Dhruv Gaur wrote “We love you Alex!” as his Final Jeopardy answer, requiring an obviously moved Trebek to read it out loud. And just last week, winner Burt Thakur tearfully explained to Trebek that the reason this moment meant so much to him was that he had learned English by watching Jeopardy! with his grandfather. Jeopardy! is going to remain an emotionally moving show until sometime after Christmas. According to a press release issued by ABC and the show’s producers, Trebek’s last day of taping was October 29, and the show will continue to run through the holidays. So we will all continue to watch for about two months with Alex Trebek still present as the host, but we’ll know he’s gone. That will be a very strange experience. Each new episode will be sad.
Not because of anything visible on screen. But because we’ll know.


thebulwark--2020-11-09--The Revenge of John McCain and John Lewis

Moral courage and physical courage are different .
Each quality is rare ; to find them both together is rarer still .
In the past two years , America has wished its final farewells to two men whose moral and physical courage made them nothing short of heroes .
John McCain and John Lewis both endured violence .
They were denied their freedoms .
They stood up for justice .
They defeated evil .
They were America ’ s best , and the beloved sons of their states , Arizona and Georgia .
And they both publicly feuded with Donald @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : They both stood up to bullies more aggressive and wicked than Trump , and in situations where they held less power .
They were consummate patriots who abhorred cowardice , racism , and selfishness in public servants .
So they were no fans of his , and he hated them .
McCain once said , “ nothing in life is more liberating than to fight for a cause greater than yourself.
” Trump has never fought for anything greater than himself .
McCain may never have fully hated Trump , but he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his own greed and selfishness .
But even if McCain didn ’ t hate Trump , Lewis did enough for the both of them .
And with a righteous fury .
He didn ’ t attend Trump ’ s inauguration .
How could he ?
Lewis was a civil rights hero , and Donald Trump couldn ’ t bring himself to condemn the Ku Klux Klan .
Lewis compared Trump to George Wallace , saying that both of them were demagogic , divisive politicians .
Trump ’ s feud with McCain began almost @ @ @ @ @ @ @ campaign .
Trump is not a man to let go of an attack gracefully .
He punched back .
When the then-candidate mocked McCain ’ s service , insisting McCain was not a war hero because he was captured , McCain told a confidant , “ All he did was get people to talk about what a hero I am all weekend !
” Trump ’ s attacks on McCain didn ’ t let up after his cancer diagnosis , nor even after his death .
Trump ignorantly accused Lewis of having been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ When , soon after Lewis ’ s death , Trump was invited to reflect on the legacy of the civil rights icon , he could only bring himself to observe that Lewis had skipped his State of the Union speeches and postured , “ nobody has done more for black Americans than I have.
” Trump might have gotten away with his crude and cruel comments , but for once America ’ s bad luck was his bad luck , too .
Cancer took away McCain and Lewis from us .
And Republicans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what heroes the two men were .
The heroes didn ’ t pass from memory but became martyrs .
As the country awaits the final declaration—still not entirely certain—that Georgia and Arizona have voted for a Democratic presidential nominee for the first time since 1992 and 1996 , respectively , and for a man who was friends with both men while they lived , it ’ s hard not to think it might be revenge from heaven .

Moral courage and physical courage are different. Each quality is rare; to find them both together is rarer still. In the past two years, America has wished its final farewells to two men whose moral and physical courage made them nothing short of heroes.
John McCain and John Lewis both endured violence. They were denied their freedoms. They stood up for justice. They defeated evil. They were America’s best, and the beloved sons of their states, Arizona and Georgia.
And they both publicly feuded with Donald Trump. It’s no surprise: They both stood up to bullies more aggressive and wicked than Trump, and in situations where they held less power. They were consummate patriots who abhorred cowardice, racism, and selfishness in public servants. So they were no fans of his, and he hated them.
McCain once said, “nothing in life is more liberating than to fight for a cause greater than yourself.” Trump has never fought for anything greater than himself. McCain may never have fully hated Trump, but he pitied the president as a prisoner of his own greed and selfishness.
But even if McCain didn’t hate Trump, Lewis did enough for the both of them. And with a righteous fury. He didn’t attend Trump’s inauguration. How could he? Lewis was a civil rights hero, and Donald Trump couldn’t bring himself to condemn the Ku Klux Klan. Lewis compared Trump to George Wallace, saying that both of them were demagogic, divisive politicians.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
Trump’s feud with McCain began almost as soon as Trump launched his presidential campaign. Trump is not a man to let go of an attack gracefully. He punched back. When the then-candidate mocked McCain’s service, insisting McCain was not a war hero because he was captured, McCain told a confidant, “All he did was get people to talk about what a hero I am all weekend!” Trump’s attacks on McCain didn’t let up after his cancer diagnosis, nor even after his death.
Trump ignorantly accused Lewis of having been “all talk and no action.” When, soon after Lewis’s death, Trump was invited to reflect on the legacy of the civil rights icon, he could only bring himself to observe that Lewis had skipped his State of the Union speeches and postured, “nobody has done more for black Americans than I have.”
Trump might have gotten away with his crude and cruel comments, but for once America’s bad luck was his bad luck, too. Cancer took away McCain and Lewis from us. And Republicans and Democrats took moments to reflect on what heroes the two men were. The heroes didn’t pass from memory but became martyrs.
As the country awaits the final declaration—still not entirely certain—that Georgia and Arizona have voted for a Democratic presidential nominee for the first time since 1992 and 1996, respectively, and for a man who was friends with both men while they lived, it’s hard not to think it might be revenge from heaven.


Trump’s Farewell Fiasco

“ So , I ’ m here on behalf of the Trump campaign , ” Rudy Giuliani announced , “ as an attorney for the president , to describe to you the first part of a situation that is extremely troubling.
” Hours earlier his client , the president of the United States , was in the White House tweeting “ I WON THIS ELECTION , BY A LOT !
” Now the president ’ s representatives were hastily assembled in a parking lot nestled among a crematorium and a sex shop , making the president ’ s constitutional case @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ And these lawsuits will be brought starting on Monday , ” Giuliani said—that is , two days after Joe Biden was recognized as the winner of this election .
Four years ago , the second day after Donald Trump ’ s own electoral victory , we witnessed a very different scene .
President Obama welcomed President-elect Trump to the White House , to move the country from election to transition .
President Trump had spent a year campaigning against the Obama administration , and years before that spreading a racist conspiracy theory @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And President Trump ’ s solicitous attitude toward foreign political interference , combined with his eccentric advisers ’ outreach to Russia and WikiLeaks , had set off alarms in the Obama administration .
Yet President Obama welcomed his victorious political nemesis to the White House for a 90-minute conversation to help prepare him for the awesome responsibilities of the office he would soon assume .
“ My number one priority in the coming two months is to try to facilitate a transition that ensures our president-elect is successful , ” President Obama @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Oval Office .
“ I believe that it is important for all of us , regardless of party and regardless of political preferences , to now come together , work together , to deal with the many challenges that we face.
” And President-elect Trump , to his credit , treated the moment with an equal measure of gravity and generosity : Needless to say , it seems unlikely that we will witness such a statesmanlike scene any time soon .
Rather , President Trump is geared up to delay the peaceful @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with one of his favorite tactics : messy litigation .
“ Beginning Monday , our campaign will start prosecuting our case in court , ” he announced , reiterating the campaign ’ s shadowy and yet-unsubstantiated allegations about wrongdoings .
In his business career , Donald Trump often wielded threats of litigation to fend off the creditors for his bankrupt business ventures and the adversaries in his sordid personal life .
Now he seems ready to do the same to cling to his presidency .
President Trump is counting on his supporters to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ situations—between a businessman launching dubious legal and factual allegations in a last-ditch effort to delay bankruptcy , and a president launching dubious legal and factual allegations in a last-ditch effort to delay the peaceful transition of presidential power .
But the country that elected him , and which then elected his successor , must keep that difference firmly in mind .
It remains to be seen what specific arguments President Trump will actually make not just on Twitter and in landscape-company parking lots , but in court .
Still , he and his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In his Saturday press conference outside Four Seasons Total Landscaping , Rudy Giuliani focused on allegations that Republicans were denied their legal right under Pennsylvania law to observe the counting of mail-in ballots : Giuliani brought two election observers who complained that they were kept fifteen or twenty feet away from the ballots , instead of the six feet required by federal law .
This was already the subject of litigation : On Thursday morning a Philadelphia judge ordered that “ all candidates , watchers , or candidate representatives be permitted to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and “ be permitted to observe all aspects of the canvassing process within 6 feet , while adhering to all COVID-19 protocols , including , wearing masks and maintaining social distancing.
” Later that day a federal judge rejected the campaign ’ s effort to stop counting votes in Philadelphia .
The basic problem with this line of attack , as multiple judges have pointed out in several of the Trump campaign ’ s cases , is that President Trump and his lawyers simply haven ’ t produced actual evidence that the election @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now , ” a Michigan judge said in response to the campaign ’ s unsubstantiated allegations .
That judge , assessing the weak evidence mustered by the Trump team , ruled that it was “ inadmissible hearsay within hearsay.
” The president ’ s second major argument has more legal substance .
It focuses on the U.S. Constitution ’ s provision for the states ’ role in the Electoral College : “ Each State shall appoint , in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct , a Number of Electors .
.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ that Pennsylvania violated this provision when the state ’ s supreme court , rather than the legislature , modified the deadline for receipt of mail-in ballots .
Some background : The Pennsylvania legislature had enacted a statute requiring mail-in ballots to be received no later than 8:00 p.m. on election night .
But in September , the state supreme court granted Democratic officials ’ and candidates ’ request to delay that deadline by three days .
Citing concerns raised by Pennsylvania ’ s chaotic elections in June , and an announcement by the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ counsel that “ certain deadlines for requesting and casting mail-in ballots are incongruous with the Postal Service ’ s delivery standards , ” the court concluded that strict enforcement of the Pennsylvania statute would violate the clause in Pennsylvania constitution guaranteeing “ free and equal ” elections .
As the court explained , quoting a 2018 precedent , that clause is taken to require that “ all aspects of the electoral process , to the greatest degree possible , be kept open and unrestricted to the voters of our Commonwealth , and , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ guarantees , to the greatest degree possible , a voter ’ s right to equal participation in the electoral process for the selection of his or her representatives in government ” —though , the court added , this constitutional right is subject to “ substantial , ” “ reasonable ” regulations .
And so the court extended the mail-in ballot deadline not by the seven days that Democrats had requested , but by three .
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court , like any state supreme court , has power to interpret the state ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the federal courts will not intervene in a dispute over the meaning of state law .
But the federal courts do have a responsibility to enforce the U.S. Constitution .
And , as mentioned above , the Pennsylvania court ’ s decision raises an interesting question : The U.S. Constitution requires that electors be chosen by “ in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct , ” but are Pennsylvania electors effectively be chosen by a manner directed by the state court ?
Two weeks before the election , the U.S. Supreme @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) to block the Pennsylvania court ’ s decision ; a week before the election , the justices issued an order declining to expedite Supreme Court review of the constitutional case .
No justices dissented from that decision , but Justice Alito ( with Justices Thomas and Gorsuch ) observed that this is an “ important constitutional issue , ” and he added that “ there is a strong likelihood that the State Supreme Court decision violates the Federal Constitution.
” Then , three days after the election , Justice Alito granted a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mail-in ballots received after the statutory election-night deadline , to ensure that they could be subtracted from final vote totals if someday the federal courts declare the Pennsylvania court ’ s decision unconstitutional .
( Justice Alito was the one to decide that motion because he is the justice responsible for initially handling motions arising from litigation in the Third Circuit , which includes Pennsylvania . )
The president ’ s lawyers ’ reading of the Constitution—giving state legislatures , not courts , complete authority over the selection of electors—is not unreasonable , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Yet the implications of such a reading are enormous : It would mean that each state legislature ’ s decisions regarding the Electoral College are categorically immune to any restraints from the state constitutions that create and limit those legislatures , and that state judges are stripped of all their ordinary powers with respect to enforcement of the laws of the state .
Nothing in the records of the 1787 Constitutional Convention ( held , ironically , in Philadelphia ) suggests any intent to so radically displace state constitutions or state courts .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ argument can be illustrated with a hypothetical example : Imagine that in the weeks running up to the election , Democratic activists went through predominantly Republican neighborhoods in Philadelphia , plucking mail-in ballots from mailboxes .
They could not know for certain whether the votes were for Trump or Biden , but they had good reason to guess that these were Trump votes .
After intercepting thousands ballots , they held on to them until after the state ’ s 8:00 pm election night deadline , at which point they brought their truckloads @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ we took these ballots , and we ’ re probably going to jail for it , but you are prohibited by state law from counting these ballots.
” In such a case , would anyone seriously argue that the state constitution ’ s guarantee of “ free and equal ” elections would be irrelevant , and that state judges and state election officials would have no power to ensure that voters ’ ballots were counted ?
Of course not .
Yet that is the upshot of Republicans ’ argument : that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to state legislatures for appointing electors implicitly nullifies the state constitutions ’ overarching limits on those legislatures—indeed , those legislatures derive their very existence from the state constitutions under which those legislators serve .
Perhaps the U.S. Constitution ’ s text does require such a counterintuitive outcome ; perhaps full briefing of the case could convince the justices , and the country , of the argument ’ s merits .
But the argument seems a long shot , to say the least—especially when the U.S. Supreme Court decided , just five years ago @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the term “ legislature ” in another provision involving elections should be read more capaciously against the backdrop of state constitutional provisions regarding the writing of state laws .
None of the Court ’ s current conservatives agreed with that decision , but would Chief Justice Roberts or others be quick to jettison the recent precedent in this case ?
And as with President Trump ’ s first argument , this line of argument raises a basic question of fact—or , more precisely , the lack of facts .
There is no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ received in the three days after election night would actually suffice to negate President-elect Biden ’ s ever-growing lead in Pennsylvania .
So Donald Trump finds himself with longshot arguments lacking any serious evidentiary support .
Surely there will turn out to be scattered , single examples of impropriety and incompetence in the counting the 150 million presidential votes cast nationwide ; but there is unlikely to be anything that can plausibly challenge Biden ’ s margins of victory .
If Donald Trump were simply a private citizen fending off creditors , then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; he could win , or at least extract a better settlement .
Like the lottery , you can ’ t win if you don ’ t play .
And if nothing else , pain delayed is pain denied .
But Donald Trump is not just a private citizen .
He is , for at least the next three months , the president of the United States .
He does not have the luxury of floating dubious lawsuits—he has the constitutional duty to “ take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the Bible , he swore an oath to “ faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States , and will to the best of my Ability , preserve , protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
” “ So help me God , ” Trump concluded .
So help us all .
There are moments when a president ’ s obligations go beyond self-interest to the public interest .
We think of those obligations on a presidency ’ s first day , when our government ’ s newly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ steps of the Capitol .
But the president ’ s obligations are perhaps never more important than in the presidency ’ s last days , when he prepares to transfer the office—willingly or unwillingly—to his successor .
The presidency is not the president ’ s .
Our first president knew this , and he emphasized it in his Farewell Address .
By its “ election of a Citizen , to administer the executive government , ” he began , our nation is “ designating the person , who is to be cloathed with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ in the discharge of this trust , ” he added , “ I will only say , that I have with good intentions , contributed towards the organization and administration of the government , the best exertions of which a very fallible judgment was capable.
” How lucky we are that George Washington took care to visibly exemplify statesmanship in leaving office , because our constitutional republic simply could not have survived the alternative course of history .
It is easy to forget this fact , especially in an era when presidents @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and more often than not presidents get serve both of them .
But our original Constitution imposed no such limits , leaving each president to pursue re-election while clothed with the office ’ s immense powers , and even to continue to wield those powers for months after his rejection by the people .
The Framers knew that this arrangement ( like all of our constitutional institutions ) could be put to both virtuous and vicious ends ; they put their trust in statesmanship , institutions , and the American people themselves .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ surely know how Donald Trump will approach the months ahead .
He will treat the White House like an Atlantic City casino , throwing trial lawyers at his adversaries as much as possible , as long as possible , before declaring bankruptcy ( perhaps even in the form of pardons ) and flying home to Mar-a-Lago .
The longer that President Trump uses dubious litigation to obstruct an orderly transition , the more that our country will suffer from the challenges exacerbated by a disorderly one : COVID-19 of course , but also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ home , and everything else that could come to mark the “ dangerous interregnum ” that Jeremi Suri and Jeffrey Tulis warn of .
Conservatives and Republicans might find it easy to downplay the costs of Trump ’ s litigation strategy , as if using longshot litigation to delay an orderly presidency transition—the kind of transition that Barack Obama afforded Donald Trump—entailed no costs other than legal fees .
But conservatives who respect the Constitution , and Republicans who honor the ideal for which our party was named , must not ignore the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ profoundly anti-constitutional , anti-republican gambit .

“So, I’m here on behalf of the Trump campaign,” Rudy Giuliani announced, “as an attorney for the president, to describe to you the first part of a situation that is extremely troubling.” Hours earlier his client, the president of the United States, was in the White House tweeting “I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!” Now the president’s representatives were hastily assembled in a parking lot nestled among a crematorium and a sex shop, making the president’s constitutional case against America’s election results. “And these lawsuits will be brought starting on Monday,” Giuliani said—that is, two days after Joe Biden was recognized as the winner of this election.
Four years ago, the second day after Donald Trump’s own electoral victory, we witnessed a very different scene. President Obama welcomed President-elect Trump to the White House, to move the country from election to transition. President Trump had spent a year campaigning against the Obama administration, and years before that spreading a racist conspiracy theory about President Obama’s American citizenship. And President Trump’s solicitous attitude toward foreign political interference, combined with his eccentric advisers’ outreach to Russia and WikiLeaks, had set off alarms in the Obama administration. Yet President Obama welcomed his victorious political nemesis to the White House for a 90-minute conversation to help prepare him for the awesome responsibilities of the office he would soon assume.
“My number one priority in the coming two months is to try to facilitate a transition that ensures our president-elect is successful,” President Obama told reporters in a joint appearance in the Oval Office. “I believe that it is important for all of us, regardless of party and regardless of political preferences, to now come together, work together, to deal with the many challenges that we face.”
And President-elect Trump, to his credit, treated the moment with an equal measure of gravity and generosity:
Well, thank you very much, President Obama. This was a meeting that was going to last for maybe 10 or 15 minutes, and we were just going to get to know each other. We had never met each other. I have great respect. The meeting lasted for almost an hour and a half. And it could have—as far as I’m concerned, it could have gone on for a lot longer. . . . So, Mr. President, it was a great honor being with you, and I look forward to being with you many, many more times in the future.
Needless to say, it seems unlikely that we will witness such a statesmanlike scene any time soon. Rather, President Trump is geared up to delay the peaceful and orderly transition of presidential power, with one of his favorite tactics: messy litigation.
“Beginning Monday, our campaign will start prosecuting our case in court,” he announced, reiterating the campaign’s shadowy and yet-unsubstantiated allegations about wrongdoings. In his business career, Donald Trump often wielded threats of litigation to fend off the creditors for his bankrupt business ventures and the adversaries in his sordid personal life. Now he seems ready to do the same to cling to his presidency.
President Trump is counting on his supporters to not understand the difference between those two situations—between a businessman launching dubious legal and factual allegations in a last-ditch effort to delay bankruptcy, and a president launching dubious legal and factual allegations in a last-ditch effort to delay the peaceful transition of presidential power. But the country that elected him, and which then elected his successor, must keep that difference firmly in mind.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
It remains to be seen what specific arguments President Trump will actually make not just on Twitter and in landscape-company parking lots, but in court. Still, he and his lawyers have already given us some indications.
In his Saturday press conference outside Four Seasons Total Landscaping, Rudy Giuliani focused on allegations that Republicans were denied their legal right under Pennsylvania law to observe the counting of mail-in ballots:
What I’m saying to you is, not a single one was inspected as the law required. Even when a court order was obtained to allow the Republican inspectors to get six feet closer, they moved the people counting the ballots six further feet away. . . . There’s got to be a pattern. As a friend of mine says, I don’t believe in conspiracies, but I also don’t believe in coincidences.
Giuliani brought two election observers who complained that they were kept fifteen or twenty feet away from the ballots, instead of the six feet required by federal law. This was already the subject of litigation: On Thursday morning a Philadelphia judge ordered that “all candidates, watchers, or candidate representatives be permitted to be present for the canvassing process” and “be permitted to observe all aspects of the canvassing process within 6 feet, while adhering to all COVID-19 protocols, including, wearing masks and maintaining social distancing.” Later that day a federal judge rejected the campaign’s effort to stop counting votes in Philadelphia.
The basic problem with this line of attack, as multiple judges have pointed out in several of the Trump campaign’s cases, is that President Trump and his lawyers simply haven’t produced actual evidence that the election results are fraudulent. “Come on now,” a Michigan judge said in response to the campaign’s unsubstantiated allegations. That judge, assessing the weak evidence mustered by the Trump team, ruled that it was “inadmissible hearsay within hearsay.”
The president’s second major argument has more legal substance. It focuses on the U.S. Constitution’s provision for the states’ role in the Electoral College: “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors. . . .” The Trump campaign argues that Pennsylvania violated this provision when the state’s supreme court, rather than the legislature, modified the deadline for receipt of mail-in ballots.
Some background: The Pennsylvania legislature had enacted a statute requiring mail-in ballots to be received no later than 8:00 p.m. on election night. But in September, the state supreme court granted Democratic officials’ and candidates’ request to delay that deadline by three days. Citing concerns raised by Pennsylvania’s chaotic elections in June, and an announcement by the U.S. Postal Service’s general counsel that “certain deadlines for requesting and casting mail-in ballots are incongruous with the Postal Service’s delivery standards,” the court concluded that strict enforcement of the Pennsylvania statute would violate the clause in Pennsylvania constitution guaranteeing “free and equal” elections. As the court explained, quoting a 2018 precedent, that clause is taken to require that “all aspects of the electoral process, to the greatest degree possible, be kept open and unrestricted to the voters of our Commonwealth, and, also, conducted in a manner which guarantees, to the greatest degree possible, a voter’s right to equal participation in the electoral process for the selection of his or her representatives in government”—though, the court added, this constitutional right is subject to “substantial,” “reasonable” regulations. And so the court extended the mail-in ballot deadline not by the seven days that Democrats had requested, but by three.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, like any state supreme court, has power to interpret the state’s own constitution and statutes, and the federal courts will not intervene in a dispute over the meaning of state law. But the federal courts do have a responsibility to enforce the U.S. Constitution. And, as mentioned above, the Pennsylvania court’s decision raises an interesting question: The U.S. Constitution requires that electors be chosen “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct,” but are Pennsylvania electors effectively being chosen in a manner directed by the state court?
Two weeks before the election, the U.S. Supreme Court declined (by a 4-4 vote) to block the Pennsylvania court’s decision; a week before the election, the justices issued an order declining to expedite Supreme Court review of the constitutional case. No justices dissented from that decision, but Justice Alito (with Justices Thomas and Gorsuch) observed that this is an “important constitutional issue,” and he added that “there is a strong likelihood that the State Supreme Court decision violates the Federal Constitution.” Then, three days after the election, Justice Alito granted a motion to require election officials to segregate mail-in ballots received after the statutory election-night deadline, to ensure that they could be subtracted from final vote totals if someday the federal courts declare the Pennsylvania court’s decision unconstitutional. (Justice Alito was the one to decide that motion because he is the justice responsible for initially handling motions arising from litigation in the Third Circuit, which includes Pennsylvania.)
The president’s lawyers’ reading of the Constitution—giving state legislatures, not courts, complete authority over the selection of electors—is not unreasonable, at least not at first glance. Yet the implications of such a reading are enormous: It would mean that each state legislature’s decisions regarding the Electoral College are categorically immune to any restraints from the state constitutions that create and limit those legislatures, and that state judges are stripped of all their ordinary powers with respect to enforcement of the laws of the state.
Nothing in the records of the 1787 Constitutional Convention (held, ironically, in Philadelphia) suggests any intent to so radically displace state constitutions or state courts. And the genuinely radical implications of this argument can be illustrated with a hypothetical example:
Imagine that in the weeks running up to the election, Democratic activists went through predominantly Republican neighborhoods in Philadelphia, plucking mail-in ballots from mailboxes. They could not know for certain whether the votes were for Trump or Biden, but they had good reason to guess that these were Trump votes. After intercepting thousands of ballots, they held on to them until after the state’s 8:00 pm election night deadline, at which point they brought their truckloads to the election officials, saying, “we took these ballots, and we’re probably going to jail for it, but you are prohibited by state law from counting these ballots.”
In such a case, would anyone seriously argue that the state constitution’s guarantee of “free and equal” elections would be irrelevant, and that state judges and state election officials would have no power to ensure that voters’ ballots were counted? Of course not. Yet that is the upshot of Republicans’ argument: that the U.S. Constitution’s grant of power to state legislatures for appointing electors implicitly nullifies the state constitutions’ overarching limits on those legislatures—indeed, those legislatures derive their very existence from the state constitutions under which those legislators serve.
Perhaps the U.S. Constitution’s text does require such a counterintuitive outcome; perhaps full briefing of the case could convince the justices, and the country, of the argument’s merits. But the argument seems a long shot, to say the least—especially when the U.S. Supreme Court decided, just five years ago, that the Constitution’s use of the term “legislature” in another provision involving elections should be read more capaciously against the backdrop of state constitutional provisions regarding the writing of state laws. None of the Court’s current conservatives agreed with that decision, but would Chief Justice Roberts or others be quick to jettison the recent precedent in this case?
And as with President Trump’s first argument, this line of argument raises a basic question of fact—or, more precisely, the lack of facts. There is no evidence that the number of mail-in ballots received in the three days after election night would actually suffice to negate President-elect Biden’s ever-growing lead in Pennsylvania.
So Donald Trump finds himself with longshot arguments lacking any serious evidentiary support. Surely there will turn out to be scattered, single examples of impropriety and incompetence in the counting the 150 million presidential votes cast nationwide; but there is unlikely to be anything that can plausibly challenge Biden’s margins of victory.
If Donald Trump were simply a private citizen fending off creditors, then longshot litigation would be a sensible gambit; he could win, or at least extract a better settlement. Like the lottery, you can’t win if you don’t play. And if nothing else, pain delayed is pain denied.
But Donald Trump is not just a private citizen. He is, for at least the next three months, the president of the United States. He does not have the luxury of floating dubious lawsuits—he has the constitutional duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” At his inauguration, with a hand on the Bible, he swore an oath to “faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
“So help me God,” Trump concluded. So help us all. There are moments when a president’s obligations go beyond self-interest to the public interest. We think of those obligations on a presidency’s first day, when our government’s newly inaugurated executive swears his oath on the steps of the Capitol. But the president’s obligations are perhaps never more important than in the presidency’s last days, when he prepares to transfer the office—willingly or unwillingly—to his successor.
The presidency is not the president’s. Our first president knew this, and he emphasized it in his Farewell Address. By its “election of a Citizen, to administer the executive government,” he began, our nation is “designating the person, who is to be cloathed with” an “important trust.” And “in the discharge of this trust,” he added, “I will only say, that I have with good intentions, contributed towards the organization and administration of the government, the best exertions of which a very fallible judgment was capable.”
How lucky we are that George Washington took care to visibly exemplify statesmanship in leaving office, because our constitutional republic simply could not have survived the alternative course of history.
It is easy to forget this fact, especially in an era when presidents are constitutionally limited to two terms, and more often than not presidents get to serve both of them. But our original Constitution imposed no such limits, leaving each president to pursue re-election while clothed with the office’s immense powers, and even to continue to wield those powers for months after his rejection by the people. The Framers knew that this arrangement (like all of our constitutional institutions) could be put to both virtuous and vicious ends; they put their trust in statesmanship, institutions, and the American people themselves.
Those are the stakes now. We surely know how Donald Trump will approach the months ahead. He will treat the White House like an Atlantic City casino, throwing trial lawyers at his adversaries as much as possible, as long as possible, before declaring bankruptcy (perhaps even in the form of pardons) and flying home to Mar-a-Lago.
The longer that President Trump uses dubious litigation to obstruct an orderly transition, the more our country will suffer from the challenges exacerbated by a disorderly one: COVID-19 of course, but also threats and instability abroad, discord at home, and everything else that could come to mark the “dangerous interregnum” that Jeremi Suri and Jeffrey Tulis warn of.
Conservatives and Republicans might find it easy to downplay the costs of Trump’s litigation strategy, as if using longshot litigation to delay an orderly presidential transition—the kind of transition that Barack Obama afforded Donald Trump—entailed no costs other than legal fees.
But conservatives who respect the Constitution, and Republicans who honor the ideal for which our party was named, must not ignore the true costs of Donald Trump’s profoundly anti-constitutional, anti-republican gambit.