The Ultimate "Get Out of Jail Free" Card

Donald Trump has spent his whole life evading accountability for his actions. Most rich people do. Fight rich people in court and they can delay and delay, racking up the legal fees until you're exhausted and broke. Rich and powerful people flout the law with impunity, knowing that while they aren't necessarily untouchable, it takes a lot more effort and resources to hold them accountable.   

Until recently, Trump's legal problems were civil suits, not criminal charges. In the aftermath of his electoral defeat in 2020 he faced criminal charges for the first time. Several indictments were related to his attempts to overturn the results of the election, including inciting the violent attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. He was also indicted for retaining government records and refusing to return them when requested to do so. He was adjudicated a rapist (technically sexual abuse, a distinction without a difference) and lost a defamation suit by the woman he raped. He was convicted of falsifying business records in a scheme to hide payoffs to a woman he had an extramarital affair with. (He was convicted on 34 counts, which were basically the result of there being 11 checks written, 12 ledger entries and 11 invoices for legal services, all for the same underlying crime). But all of that is going to go away. The federal charges will be withdrawn when the new attorney general is appointed in January, or Special Counsel Smith may withdraw the charges in anticipation. The Justice Department has no jurisdiction over any state charges, but even if convicted, any sentence will be effectively moot - are we going to jail the serving president of the United States? Even before his re-election myriad legal maneuvers delayed accountability. The Supreme Court that he in large part appointed ruled that he had immunity for a large swath of actions taken while in office. A friendly judge dismissed charges, not on the merits, but because she thought the office of Special Counsel was unconstitutional. 

Trump and his supporters have accused the Biden administration and the mostly Democratic prosecutors of "lawfare" unfairly and illegally targeting him. Other than the so-called hush money case in New York we'll never know whether Trump would have been guilty as charged in any of the other cases. To anyone not blinded by worship of Trump, his actions clearly warranted some kind of legal action. He was indicted in all of these cases. Indictments are handed down, not by the prosecutor, but by a jury of 16, who in each case concluded that there was reasonable cause to hold a trial. The fact that someone aspires to political office shouldn't be sufficient to ignore potentially criminal actions. A majority of Americans apparently believe that it is. Many are even claiming that he's not really a convicted felon for reasons that don't make sense. And now, in typical Trumpublican doublespeak, they're cheering for using the Justice Department to go after Trump's 'enemies", not for any legally supportable reasons, but to enact retribution. There's talk of investigating Special Counsel Jack Smith apparently for doing his job. 

A majority of voters decided that the rule of law doesn't apply to Donald Trump. 

Why?

Why did Harris lose? Why did Trump win? Everybody has an opinion about what Harris did wrong. The truth is that nothing Harris did was going to make a difference. Nothing that any Democrat did was going to change the result. Why?

• People believe that the president is responsible for the economy and most people believed that the state of the economy was bad. 
• A president's policies affect illegal immigration and illegal border crossings were up significantly
• Many people who would have voted Democratic, or at least anti-Trump, stayed home because they believed that we were enabling a genocidal war in Gaza. 

Of course there were other reasons: misogyny and bigotry cannot be discounted. There are without a doubt demographics that usually vote for Democrats but harbored prejudice against women as leaders. 

The economy was the most common reason that I heard among voters who had voted for Biden in 2020 and didn't fit the stereotype of a Trump voter. Despite most metrics indicating that the economy was healthy, including the inflation rate being back to normal (around 2% annually), the results of several years of high inflation had not gone away. Prices are still high and aren't going back down. Many people remembered that there was low inflation during Trump's time in office and contrasted it with Biden's term and came to the conclusion that Trump was better suited to preside over the American economy than Biden or Harris. This belief required one to have no understanding of economics. The high inflation rate was a global phenomenon, not just in the U.S. and was the inevitable result of several interlocking factors. Supply chain issues, ballooning demand in the wake of Covid shutdowns, increased wages and even companies artificially raising prices to take advantage of the situation all contributed. Property taxes for home owners and rents for non-owners were big budget busters - the result of skyrocketing home valuations - a local, not a national issue. Gas prices were much higher during the first few Biden years compared to the last Trump year. Gas prices were low in 2020 mainly because few people were traveling and shot up in 2021 for the same reasons everything else went up - gas prices at least have settled back down to pre-2020 levels. Voters weren't wrong to be frustrated by the lingering effects of several years of high inflation, but ignorantly blamed Democrats for their predicament. 

While much of the criticism of immigration policy and border security falls into the tinfoil hat category, there's no question that Biden's approach to securing the border were inadequate. Was it all his fault? It was not, attempts to address the problem through legislation were sabotaged by Trump, who wanted there to be a border problem that he could run against. All many voters saw was a huge increase in illegal border crossings, ignoring the lack of Congressional cooperation. Also ignored was that although illegal crossings were lower under Trump, he was constantly crying wolf about "caravans" and even declared a national emergency at the border so he could divert funds to build his "big, beautiful Wall". Voters were apparently incapable of  seeing the nuances of the situation. 

Single-issue voters, or just people who thought that the Democrats were no different than the Republicans totaled around 1.6% of total votes nationally (0.5% to Jill Stein). Trump has 50.4% and Harris 48%. I haven't seen the state-by-sate breakdown to determine whether "3rd Party" votes would have made a difference if they had gone to Harris, but it's undeniable that a lot of 2020 Biden voters stayed home. Trump received almost exactly the same number of votes that he won in 2020 - 74 million. Harris however received 10 million fewer votes than Biden did. The most vocal of the anti-Harris, or sit-it-out electorate, were those who were opposed to our support of Israel in their war in Gaza. I'm not going to use this post to talk about what the U.S. should be doing (anyone who thinks they know what the "right" answer is over there doesn't know what they're talking about) but it's clear that no matter what position the United States takes a lot of people will be angry. One thing that is indisputable, our support of Israel's action in Gaza will continue, or even escalate, in Trump's administration. 

No matter what the reasoning for voting for Trump, or enabling his election by inaction, no matter how logical it may sound, how perceived self-interest had to prevail, a Trump voter had to be okay with the division, the hatred, the bigotry and the lies. A Trump voter, no matter how "normal" they may seem, had to be okay with his attempts to subvert an election, to rule autocratically, to jail his opponents. A Trump voter has to be okay with his ignorance of how things work, his cozying up to dictators while screwing our allies. A Trump voter has to be okay with the utter contempt with which he holds most Americans, including his own supporters. A Trump voter has to be okay with how he changes what he promises to do based on what gets the loudest applause, or who gives him the most money. A Trump voter has to be okay with his obvious mental decline. A Trump voter has to be okay with the economy being disrupted by increased tariffs and mass deportations. A Trump voter has to refuse to think. 

A Trump voter is complicit. 

Brainwashing and the Trump Cult

I've written a lot about the cultic aspects of Trumpism - how Trump fits the definition of a cult leader, how his core followers are no different than any religious or doomsday cult. What I haven't done is pin the label of "brainwashed" on them. 

What spurred me to write about brainwashing was a recent conversation with a friend whose mother accused him of being brainwashed. She brought up "coming to get him" and having him deprogrammed. This friend was not a Trumper, his mother is, and was offended at the "hate" (i.e. no holds barred opinions about Trump and his supporters) that he posted on social media. 

Trump and his supporters continually employ projection, accusing their opponents of the things that they are doing. Their own cultishness is projected onto Democrats, who are in turn painted as brainwashed cultists.

"Brainwashing" gets brought up a lot when it comes to cults. Although there is room for disagreement about whether those in religious cults are brainwashed or not, let me define the term as I understand it. Brainwashing is not a scientific term, and actually has no widely accepted meaning. But the way I understand it, it would involve the forcible conversion of an individual from one set of beliefs to another set that they would not have changed to without physical, chemical or mental coercion. Brainwashing could involve torture, it could involve sensory or sleep deprivation, it could involve threats to family members. Some kind of forcible change from one set of beliefs to another. 

I do not believe Trump supporters, even the most ardent, the most committed, have been brainwashed. Accepting the idea that they have been brainwashed would necessarily absolve them of any responsibility for their actions, most notably the Trumpists who participated in the January 6th Insurrection. No one tortured them into buying that giant Trump flag. No one drugged them in order to get them to attend one of his rallies. No one was locked in a sensory deprivation tank to force them to vote for him. Rather than Trumpers having their minds forcibly remolded in Trump's hate-filled image, Trump molded his image to conform to the hate that was already present. 

This isn't to suggest that Trump isn't a hate-filled misogynistic, ignorant, bigot - he is that. But that there was already a mass of grievance fueled resentment animating the electorate and Trump was giving voice to it all. It's as if there was this amorphous proto-cult just waiting for its cult leader to give it form, and Trump came down that golden escalator and it all coalesced.   

Assuming that Trumpists are brainwashed into their support assumes that they have no access to sources of information. Members of some religious cults were sequestered away from society - the cliche of the "cult compound" comes to mind. If a cult leader can control what information his followers have access to, he can mold how his followers think. It has been argued that this is exactly what Trump has done with his characterization of any news organization that didn't kiss his ring as fake news. Trumpists have eschewed professional news sources in favor of bloggers and podcasters who echoed Trump's nonsense. Much has been made of the social media echo chamber, where we are fed content mirroring what we already believe. But no one is forcing anyone to remain in their bubble. The sources of information are virtually unlimited and differing points of view are easy to find. Facts are easy to find. Trumpists who remain in a feedback loop of Trump fantasies are there because they choose to be there. 

Trumpists are not fooled, they're not tricked, Don't absolve them of their complicity.

Vote FOR 439 and AGAINST 434

The amount of disinformation, the amount of lying, surrounding the competing abortion referenda on tomorrow's ballot is just pissing me off. 

The anti-439 claims that if 439 passes that men will be able to force women to get abortions or that 439 will guarantee government intrusion into women's health decisions, or that somehow forcing children to transition is involved, is ridiculous, and hopefully no one who was planning on voting for 439 will be swayed to change their mind. 

Initiative 439 guarantees a right to an abortion up to fetal viability, usually around 22-24 weeks, with certain exceptions past that time (there are also similar exceptions in the current law and in Initiative 434). Most importantly, this right would become part of the Nebraska Constitution, preventing the legislature from any further restrictions. If you believe that the current 12 week cutoff if "just right", be aware that we were quite close to a 6 week ban this year - one vote away from it becoming law. The anti-abortion crowd is only interested in compromising insofar as it is a step toward a complete ban. People who believe that abortion is murder will not stop at 12 weeks, or 6 weeks. They will keep pushing until the job is done. 

I've always avoided debates or arguments with anti-abortion people - it's generally not something that's open to discussion. I'm not going to change their opinion. Yes, it's an opinion. There's no science that can unambiguously determine whether the embryo or fetus is a human being, a potential human being, simply part of the woman's body, or when the transition takes place. What you think is no more than your opinion, and it's usually an opinion informed largely by your religious beliefs. And even when that's the case, evidence from the holy book of one's choice cannot be produced - in fact scriptural evidence that a fetus is not yet a person, or at least inferior to a person can be pointed to. 

No one's opinion, no one's religious beliefs, should become the standard for anyone else. 

Vote FOR 439 and AGAINST 434

Voter I.D.

It's now a requirement in Nebraska that you present identification when you vote. It was the subject of a referendum that passed with a majority of votes cast. Nebraskans were swept up in the Republican-led faux-concern about election integrity spurred by the lies told by former president Trump. Proponents claimed that it helped ensure secure elections. But what problem did it actually solve?

Even though we occasionally hear about someone voting twice, or groups turning in fraudulent ballots, and despite the hysterical claims of election interference or the 2020 election being stolen or rigged, there isn't any evidence that our elections are anything but incredibly secure. What isn't secure in many cases is the ability for many people to exercise their right to vote. In early 2021 Democrats in Congress attempted to pass a bill that would have, among other things, made it easier to register to vote. The bill included workarounds for people who did not have a government-issued I.D. and standardized the types of documents that would be acceptable. It passed in the House of Representatives but failed in the Senate. At the time Nebraska Congressional Republicans justified their votes against the bill by claiming that our voting infrastructure in Nebraska was just fine thank you, and didn't require any adjustments. But when the question of voter I.D. was up for a vote by petition initiative, these same Republicans insisted that our elections weren't secure and we needed additional hurdles for voters to leap over. For anyone who lives in a city where there's a handy DMV, who owns a car or is close to reliable public transportation and can afford the fee required to get a license, an I.D. requirement doesn't seem onerous. But in many areas it's not so clear cut. In Nebraska, many DMV offices had to close because they could not staff them. In many states the voter I.D. requirements "coincidently" are most burdensome in areas that tend to vote Democratic. 

What problem is being solved by instituting voter I.D.? Why, it's the problem of too many people voting for Democrats!

In a democratic republic, one might be forgiven for assuming that the goal would be to make it as easy as possible for as many people as possible to vote. And some jurisdictions do try to make it easy. Many states loosened restrictions during the Covid pandemic and there are states where voting is completely done by mail (Nebraska's rural counties have gone to all-mail voting). But for many people voting isn't easy. Election Day is on a day when most people work. Many states and cities limit the number of drop boxes. Even mail-in voting can be a Byzantine process of signing, initialing and dating multiple papers and envelopes. Republican groups routinely go to court to get ballots invalidated for failing to cross their "t"s and dot their "i"s. Not because they care about election integrity, but because it's becoming increasingly harder for them to win over a majority of voters.

Until the 2016 presidential election there was no widespread perception that there was any problem with our elections. Trump, with no basis for saying so, started publicly questioning whether it would be a fair election. He won, which one would think would undercut his argument, but he then started claiming that even though Clinton had received more votes than he did, millions of non-citizens had voted, "explaining" her "winning" the popular vote. He created an election integrity commission, which despite being staffed with his sycophants, found no election irregularities and was disbanded after a few months. And we all know what happened after the 2020 election that he lost. In the wake of the failed  attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, Republicans throughout the country put into place many new laws that ostensibly increased election security, but in reality made it harder to vote: shortening early voting windows, restricting mail-in voting, eliminating drop boxes, restricting absentee voting, disallowing some types of I.D.'s, or purging voter rolls with short notice. 

In Florida a referendum restoring voting rights to convicted felons who had completed their sentences was neutered by the legislature by throwing up roadblocks that were virtually impossible to clear. In Nebraska the Secretary of State unilaterally decided that a law restoring voting rights to former incarcerated individuals was unconstitutional and refused to accept registrations until the State Supreme Court ruled that he lacked the authority. In Nebraska there have been multiple challenges to referendums: An end run around a successful  petition drive to repeal a bill giving public money to private schools involved the Republican-majority legislature repealing the original bill and substituting a similar one (a second petition received enough signatures to get on the ballot tomorrow); two medical marijuana petitions are being challenged in court because a notary failed to follow procedure involving a small percentage of signatures; what could have been a simple yes/no vote on abortion rights has been confused as a second referendum claiming to protect women and children is also on the ballot. In Ohio, the legislature attempted to increase the threshold for passing a  constitutional amendment for 50%+ to 60% (they failed). 

Given enough time I could point to numerous other examples. 

In a nation where there is no credible evidence of "cheating" or "rigging", where the elections are free, fair and secure, what is the purpose of making it more difficult to vote? 

I think I'll be voting for the party that wants me to vote.

Dan Osborn Ad Fishing for Trump Voters

An ad just broke for Independent Senate candidate Dan Osborn claiming, among other things, that he's "with Trump" on "China, the border and draining the swamp. In an article about his outreach to Trump voters he is quoted as saying that he would "help Trump build the Wall". None of this should be any surprise.

Osborn has never run for public office. He is a former union organizer who led a strike against Kellogg's in Omaha. He has been outspoken from the beginning that he is not beholden to either party, although early on he seemed friendlier to Democrats, even though no one could mistake him for a liberal. When he first declared his candidacy there was apparently a handshake agreement that he would accept an endorsement from the Nebraska Democratic Party (NDP) in exchange for the NDP not running a candidate. He later reneged and refused to accept the endorsement. 

His public statements seemed to suggest that he was a moderate libertarian. To the left on social issues like abortion and marijuana legalization and more conservative on border security and crime. (He is on record as suggesting that the undocumented immigrants who pay into social security should be "just given a social security card"). He has said that he would not caucus with either party, although how he will get anything done without aligning with one of the major parties is unclear. (Hint: it's close to impossible)

Frankly, I don't trust him. I predict that he will end up caucusing with whichever party holds the Senate majority, and be a thorn in the side of the party that takes him in. Think Manchin without the experience or Sinema without the urge to build consensus. The biggest thing that he's got going for him is that he's not Deb Fischer. Whatever he ends up doing I guarantee that he won't be voting in lockstep with Republicans. 

The purpose of this ad is obviously designed to get Trump voters to vote for him and not Fischer while still voting for Trump. So what does he say in the ad? He's "with" Trump on China. Guess what, there's not a lot of daylight between Trump and Harris or Biden on China. Drain the swamp? He's been railing against corruption in DC since Day One. The border? Okay - I have a problem with that. The ad starts off by accusing Fischer of "betraying Trump", calling her "the same as Hillary Clinton". Ironic since the Fischer campaign is trying to paint Osborn as a AOC/Sanders/Pelosi/Harris liberal - maybe he's trying to counteract those ads.

Anyway, I don't fully trust him, but I'm going to hold my nose and vote for him

Why Should You Vote for Trump?

The election is in nine days and some people are going to vote for Trump. Why?

In another post I speculated that it was people hallucinating that 2017-2020 was an era of unprecedented peace and prosperity, with low crime and virtually no illegal immigration. They believe that in addition to domestic tranquility, we were respected and feared internationally.

Great reasons, other than them not being true. 

On the international stage Trump was viewed by our allies as unreliable and by our enemies as a joke. He was literally laughed at at the United Nations. Russia was in the process of invading eastern Ukraine, even though the full-on war hadn't started yet. We still had troops in Afghanistan and sent troops back to Iraq to fight ISIS, not to mention incursions into Syria and the assassination of an Iranian general. Illegal border entry, while not as high as during Biden's first few years was still substantial. Have we forgotten that Trump declared a national emergency at the border?  Crime statistics are a little hazy (the FBI stats showing crime reduction did not include several large cities) but there's no evidence that crime is any worse than it was four years ago. Inflation, which was a global problem, not specific to any policy of Biden's has resulted in a higher cost of living. Trump claims he will not only "end inflation" (which has receded to pre-2020 levels) but to reduce prices (how?). 

In other words, any reason to vote for Trump is based on a complete fantasy version of what his time in office was like. 

I have seen Trump supporters propose a straw man version of why people oppose Trump: "Orange Man Bad" or "Mean Tweets". No one that In know reduces their opposition to him to those "reasons". 

Trump started off his 2016 campaign with hate and hasn't let up. He has consistently labeled his opponents as enemies and traitors and called for their imprisonment. Not for actual crimes, which he stands accused of, but simply for opposing him. His supporters argue that he just "telling it like it is". But I expect the President of the United States, whether I voted for him or her or not, to represent all the people. I don't expect the president to threaten to withhold disaster relief from states whose governors criticize him, or whose electoral votes he didn't win. I expect the President of the United States to exercise a minimal level of decorum and represent our nation on the world stage and not act like a mafia don. 

Trump, before, during, and after his time in office displayed an appalling ignorance of how things worked. His lack of understanding of how tariffs work and how NATO is financed are two of the most obvious. But his ignorance of the laws that effect the office of the presidency or how legislation is passed is dangerous. And he's proud of his ignorance, displaying no willingness to learn. He's adverse to facts and information, preferring to make decisions based on his gut and has the attention span of a toddler. His appointees are "the best people" when he brings them on, but "losers" when they leave. And they usually resign, rather than be fired. 

Much has been made about Harris recently comparing Trump to Hitler, as well as the ongoing labelling him as a fascist. I'll concede that the comparisons are sometimes over the top and not very helpful, but the fact of his authoritarian tendencies is undeniable. This is what you get when you elect "businessmen". The CEO of a private company is effectively a mini-dictator. What he says, goes. They usually don't understand that an executive in government is constrained by the Constitution and by the other branches. And it's not like we have to speculate. Trump has made clear that he will exercise dictatorial power (but only on Day One) and has made many references to using the Justice Department and the courts to exact retribution on his opponents. 

Think his ignorance and incompetence means that the dystopia that he promises won't come to pass? That it's just rhetoric? The one thing he learned from his time in office was that appointing people whose loyalty to the Constitution was greater than their loyalty to him frustrated his plans. You can guarantee that the appointees in a second Trump term will not only be efficient, but will be unquestioningly loyal to Trump. 

But sure, vote for him because you believe that Harris didn't really work at McDonald's