2/9/24
Newsletter #558
The Crack of Dawn
I’d say that Trump won that first round in front of the Supreme Court. The pundits, to whom I supposedly don’t listen, said that the court would find an “off-ramp,” and indeed they did. There is no precedent for using the 14th amendment on a presidential candidate (although part of its meaning was to disqualify Jefferson Davis from running for president), it doesn’t specifically say “president,” although it does say “all officers,” so the court found it “ambiguous.” Judge Luttig said that the 14th amendment was self-executing, but the court says it’s not.
I’m not in the political prognostication business – nor is Judge Luttig. Nevertheless, Luttig suggested that part of the self-executing aspect is that, theoretically, if every state has the right to include or exclude Trump, then half will, half won’t, and everybody will sue everybody else.
In any case, the Supreme Court does not seem likely to disqualify Trump from the ballot. Not in my assessment anyway.
My guess is that Trump will lose the immunity case, which goes before the Supreme Court Monday. Upon losing the immunity case, the Jan. 6 case in D.C. starts back up. Then all of these other cases – the Georgia RICO case, the purloined documents, Stormy Daniels, etc. – will continue.
I am generally not an optimist, although in recent years I’ve been trying to change my tune. However, as I listened to this case today (I was surprised that they allowed live audio to be broadcast), I could envision Trump getting off the hook for everything and becoming president again. And as good old H. L. Mencken said many years ago, “Democracy is where the common man gets the government he deserves, good and hard.”
Still, there is no reason to add any more pessimistic vibes into the atmosphere. Everything could still work out fine.
Let’s not forget that historically speaking the incumbent president generally wins. Also, Biden beat Trump by seven million votes, and I believe that plurality has only increased in the intervening four years. The popular vote does matter, and is in fact the truth, not the bogus electoral college. Plus, I still think that Trump will be convicted of felonies which will cause some folks to not want to vote for him.
Trump winning back the presidency is anything but an inevitability.
I have, for the most part, avoided politics in this newsletter. Ultimately, though, we are in a time of politics, not art, so it’s difficult to avoid the subject entirely. The 14th amendment issue interested me because it was unprecedented. Alas, it remains unprecedented. But it still seemed prescient on the part of the constitution’s framers to envision a situation just like the one we’re presently in.
Well, I’ll leave politics to the pundits.
Nor has the court yet made its decision, so I could be wrong again.
I’m pretty used to being wrong. John Ford said that a film director makes decisions all day long, one after the other. He felt that if you can make better than half of them right, you’ll make a good movie.
Have a brilliant day.
It is now possible to place bets on the Presidential election with Las Vegas online -
The odds are 341/297 Biden/Trump. You may want to check these facts before sharing.
You are my political pundit!