January 31: No One Should Want Trump to Run Again

1/31/22: In a recent poll even 44% of Republicans said they did not want Trump to run again in 2024. 

 

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Mitt Romney got a higher percentage of the popular vote.

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According to one GOP pollster, President Biden currently has a favorable rating of 46%, and an unfavorable rating of 52%. 

Not good. But when asked if people had a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Trump, the numbers were worse: 40% to 57%. 

Right now, two thirds of Americans hope neither Trump nor Biden will run in 2024 and that’s with Biden running into serious problems. If they did run, however, by 47% to 43% they’d pick Biden. 

Mr. Blogger likes to point out that Mitt Romney got a higher percentage of the popular vote in 2012 than Trump did in two cracks at winning the presidency. Partly because, if you disagreed with Romney on positions (remember when he was touting investing in Chinese businesses), he was at least a decent human being.

If you have any brains at all, you should be able to figure out why you don't want the
military involved in settling elections.

 

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WE SHOULD ALL HOPE that Trump never runs again because he might win and destroy democracy once and for all. 

The New York Times has evidence that in December 2020, President Trump was well aware of actively supporting a plan to seize the voting machines in several states that he lost. His closest, craziest advisors, including Gen. Michael T. Flynn, were pushing hard for the seizure. In fact, Mr. Trump eventually asked his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to call the Department of Homeland Security and tell them to seize the machines, arguing that there was massive evidence of tampering to justify the move. 

(No such evidence has been found since.)

 

Trump had already asked Attorney General Bill Barr if he would like to seize the machines, but Barr told him plainly there was no evidence to justify such a move. 

The Defense Department was offered the chance next, with retired Col. Phil Waldron, circulating an email laying out the case for why the machines should be impounded and examined. 

In addition, we know Trump pressured local officials in Michigan and Pennsylvania to seize the machines in their states. Like Mr. Barr, local officials also passed on the chance to be part of a Latin American-style coup.

 

At a White House meeting, on December 18, the idea of ordering U.S. troops to seize voting machines was broached. Gen. Flynn was all for it. So was lawyer Sidney Powell. So was Waldron. Even Rudy expressed opposition this time – proving how really crazy the military-will-do-it option actually was. Waldron did a new draft of his plan, dropping the military, giving the job to the Department of Homeland Security, instead. A call went out to Ken Cuccinelli, head of DHS, but he, too, made clear he had no authority to grab the voting machines. 

How terrible was this plot? Even Howard Kurtz of Fox News had enough command of his senses to smell a surfeit of skunks once they sprayed the Oval Office. Commenting on the Times report, he said,

 

The gist is that Trump explored having the Pentagon, Justice Department or Homeland Security seize voting machines in disputed states based on a complete lack of evidence that they had been tampered with. The voting machine theories, promoted by fringe characters around Trump, were the wackiest of all, said to include machinations involving Venezuela and Hugo Chavez.

 

Think, for a moment, of the reaction if the leader of another country had ordered the confiscation of voting machines in a disputed election, and how that would play here. 

 

“You might say the system worked,” Kurtz finally added, “but the fact the president was openly debating these unconstitutional schemes in the White House is rather chilling. You can support Donald Trump, you can believe there was election fraud, but there’s no getting around the craziness of this particular plot.” 

The problem with Kurtz’s analysis, however, is plain. Had Trump been able to find a willing participant to order the seizure, it would have occurred. Then it wouldn’t have been an “unconstitutional scheme.” It wouldn’t have been “rather chilling.” 

It would have been a coup, carried out by Trump, with the help of whatever portion of the U.S. military would have been willing to go along.

 

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THE SECOND-RANKING Republican in the U.S. Senate, John Thune, was frank when asked to comment on the Times report. He praised those, like Mr. Cuccinelli, who stood up to Trump and his team. “I’m just glad that there were people in the right places and that the system worked,” he told reporters. “People who had positions of responsibility held their ground even when being asked to do things that they knew they shouldn’t do. Things may have bent a little bit, but they didn’t break.” 

What bent a little? 

The U.S. Constitution. 

And who tried not only to bend it but to break it? 

Trump and his pals. 

No one who truly loves this country should ignore these facts.