How Do We Get Past Trump?

Sheila Markin

3 months ago

WHAT WILL WORK TO GET PAST TRUMP AND THE MAGA MOVEMENT?

In the CNN interview that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz did with Dana Bash, Bash asked Harris about Trump’s comment that Harris had suddenly decided to “turn Black”, which carried with it the cynical idea that Harris was playing up her Black heritage to help her to win by appealing to Black voters.

Shaking her head, Harris said: “Same old tired playbook. Next question please.”

Bash asked if that was all she wanted to say.

“That’s it”, she said.

Kamala Harris just showed us part of the way we move on from Donald Trump. Stop paying attention to his provocative comments. Every time we pay attention to this garbage we elevate him… and the garbage.

According to Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark who conducts focus groups with former Trump voters, there is widespread exhaustion about Trump these days even with his formerly loyal voters. Many of them have become Harris/Walz curious. They want to know more about her policy positions. On Wednesday, Harris spelled out a bunch of these policies that will help promote small businesses and make it easier for small companies to launch. She is also giving specifics about her plans to help families with child care needs. By way of contrast, Trump is unable to articulate any specifics when it comes to his plans.

Part of the way we move on from Trump is remembering that he is not capable of really understanding specifics which was one of the reasons he did so badly when it came to handling the pandemic or understanding what his intelligence officers were explaining to him in the morning briefings.

But part of the way we move on also requires that we understand what Trump and his gang are up to.

For starters, we should be aware that everything Trump accuses others of doing tells you what HE is doing. Trump is the one who cynically changes what he stands for to get more votes. He is a political chameleon- shape shifting to get on the good side of whatever audience he is trying to please. He brags about putting the three anti-abortion justices on the Supreme Court to woo evangelicals. Then he says he is all in on IVF. Then, under pressure from the evangelicals, he announces he will vote against the initiative to counter the 6 week abortion ban in Florida. The guy is all over the map.

He may have figured out that most Americans have had it with his bogus claim that he won the 2020 election when he lost. The Big Lie. Yesterday he actually acknowledged that he lost:

Former President Donald Trump publicly acknowledged that he did not win the 2020 presidential election, telling podcaster Lex Fridman that he “lost by a whisker.”

With Trump one thing is certain: He will do and say anything to get and keep power. He is only changing the narrative because he senses that Americans aren’t buying it anymore. Trump has a dark, ugly and fact free version of America that he keeps trying to sell us again and again: our country sucks, the border is letting in homicidal maniacs (when it is young men with AR-15s we should fear), the economy is a disaster (no, that’s a lie). He alone can fix it. (He had 4 years in office and when he left we had huge rates of unemployment and crime and we were reeling from the pandemic thanks to his shocking mismanagement and refusal to listen to scientists.)

SAME OLD SAME OLD

Donald Trump is like a worn out comedian with a schtick, the archetypal con man selling us snake oil and trying to pretend it’s the remedy for everything we need to be happy.

Some Americans are ready to turn the page on this ugly, regressive movement led by Trump which seeks to empower toxic masculinity, white supremacy, intolerance, repression and divisiveness.

So, who could really help us all turn the page on the Trump era in the next election?

Here is the answer: Women voters.

Labor Day snapshot: Vice President Harris didn’t get much of a convention bounce, but widened her advantage among women in a new ABC News/Ipsos poll.

Among women, Harris leads by 13 points, 54%-41%.
Among men, former President Trump leads by 5 points, 51%-46% (not statistically significant).

Why it matters: That’s an 18-point gender gap.

Between the lines: Much of the female-male change occurred among white people.

“White women have gone from +13 points for Trump pre-convention to a virtual dead heat (Trump +2) now; white men, from +13 points for Trump before the convention to +21 points now,” ABC News polling director Gary Langer writes.

Reality check: Harris had what many insiders call the best month in the history of presidential politics. But the race is still tied.

A finding from another poll that leaps out:

Among swing-state women under 45, abortion has overtaken the economy as their top voting issue, according to N.Y. Times/Siena College polls of registered voters. (Axios)

WHY MORE AND MORE WOMEN ARE READY TO MOVE ON FROM TRUMP

More women are ready to turn the page on Trump in November because they see through his attempts to say anything just to get their vote and they know that if he is elected they will lose more than they could gain. For women this election is about the freedom to be in charge of their own bodily autonomy. It’s personal for women.

That Trump has suddenly decided to turn into a supporter of IVF and reproductive rights shouldn’t fool any0ne and it no longer fools most women.

Former President Donald Trump said Thursday (on NBC news) that if he’s elected again, his administration would fund in vitro fertilization treatments.

“I was always for IVF. Right from the beginning, as soon as we heard about it,” the Republican nominee said in an interview with NBC News in Michigan.

Fool me once. Shame on you. Fool me twice. Shame on me.

SOME REPUBLICANS STILL WANT TO BE FOOLED

What do all Republicans say they care about most? Freedom! The Republican holy grail is that being American means you are free to do what you want to do and be who you want to be without interference from your government.

Remarkably, however, MAGA extremism violates that holy grail by imposing the heavy hand of government on women (oh, and LGBTQ folks and books they don’t like…) in ways that impair and affect free choice. When it comes to women, the MAGAs insist on forced birth the second you are pregnant. Forcing women to give birth against their will is not only repressive, it can be lethal.

Failing to abort when a woman miscarries can lead to bodily harm. Miscarriages can cause women to bleed to death and failing to manage a pregnancy gone wrong can result in loss of the ability to get pregnant in the future. Deciding to have a child and navigating a pregnancy and the life you and your family will have after giving birth to a human being, requires thoughtful personal decisions not an edict from government. Our state representatives are not qualified to make medical determinations or dictate our life stories to us.

But MAGA extremists insist that government must have the power and the right to tell women what they can and cannot do with their pregnant bodies.

Women in America are pushing back. Remarkably, that includes Republican women.

This backlash is coming even from women in ruby red states like Kansas, Florida and Missouri. These are states with state house majorities packed with MAGAs that do not represent the will of the majority in their districts. These Republican majority state houses are turning states like Florida into model autocratic states. But they are out of step with their constituents. Two-thirds of Americans say abortion should be legal in the first trimester (69%) and majorities support access to mifepristone and do not think Dobbs was a good decision. When it comes to abortion in particular, many more women are demanding that government “mind your own damn business”! (as Governor Tim Walz has said.)

Nonetheless, this is the hill Republican evangelicals have decided to die on.

PART OF GETTING PAST TRUMP IS RECOGNIZING HOW BAD A SECOND TERM WOULD BE

With Trump as president, the MAGAs will implement Project 2025. As Gov Tim Walz noted- you don’t spend time putting together a 920 page playbook if you don’t intend to use it. And these guys are not only putting the playbook together, they are already pre-vetting Trump loyalists for government jobs who will replace knowledgeable governmental experts who protect us from harm.

Loyalist hires will give Trump whatever he asks of them unlike the law abiding aides in Trump’s first administration. The Project 2025 team is also writing up executive orders for Trump to implement on day one. Trump 2.0 promises to be dark and vengeful with concentration camps for migrants. women forced to give birth against their will, pregnant girls and women and their “accomplices” criminalized if she tries to flee to another state or country to get an abortion, women’s menstrual periods monitored in case they get pregnant and try to go get an abortion, whole periods of history will be repressed with book bans, science and climate change banished, LGBTQ attacks, and revenge against people Trump thinks of as his enemies, not to mention empowerment of vengeful faux populists like Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller, and empowerment of the ultra rich coattail riders including Elon Musk, the Koch Brothers and many more. Retribution and domination will be the theme of the administration.

In short, Trump 2.0 would be a nightmare.

Prominent former White House aides like Stephen Bannon and Stephen Miller have demanded locally elected Republicans use their power to target Democrats. Ronny Jackson, a House representative from Texas, said he would encourage Congress to “aggressively go after” President Biden and his family. And Laura Loomer, a far-right activist, said that some Democrats should “get the death penalty.”

WHAT IS THE PLAYBOOK TRUMP AND THE MAGAS ARE USING TO GET TRUMP INSTALLED?

Turns out there are many ways to game out a presidential win that is not a win based on votes, given our Electoral College, flawed constitution and a fragile democracy that relies on people to act in good faith and follow norms. Acting in good faith and following norms is something we know Trump and his gang will not do. They represent a minority viewpoint party which means their best path to a win will be paved with dirty tricks to limit the votes of people they know don’t want them in power. In other words: voter suppression, gerrymandering, intimidation, election subversion and gaming the system after the election takes place. Now that Trump owns the GOP and has allies who are determined to ride with him into power, we can see evidence of the MAGA playbook: how they will try to game the Electoral College, emerging in Georgia like the fin of a deadly shark in the water.

In Georgia, the State Election Board approved a rule this month that gives election officials in each of the state’s 159 counties the option to delay or refuse certification in order to make a “reasonable inquiry” into the results. What counts as a “reasonable inquiry?” The new rule does not say.

The rule injects a new layer of murk into the legal waters less than 100 days before the election.

On Monday, the board approved another revision to the rules that affords members of county election boards an additional option for delaying or refusing certification. The rule allows local board members to demand “all election-related documentation” before certifying the results.

Under federal law, the executive of each state — either the governor or another designated official — has until Dec. 11 to send official, certified state results to Washington for the Electoral College count. But if that deadline is not met, then what? The law provides for an expedited appeals process in the courts that should be resolved before the Electoral College meets on Dec. 17. How the courts rule will be considered conclusive.

But if, at the end of this process, one or more states still do not produce results, the number of electoral votes required to win a majority — and therefore the presidency — would be reduced accordingly. (NYT op ed by Rachel Maddow)

By refusing to certify their districts and/or endlessly delaying certification, MAGA election denialists who wants Trump to win might try to reduce the total number of electoral college votes from 270 to a lower number to get Trump elected. This scheme could effectively disenfranchise voters in an entire state like Georgia. More than one state could have an election denier (Trump loyalist) who refuses to certify, claiming election fraud, intentionally or otherwise lowering the overall number of Electoral College votes to a eventual level that provides Trump the win he wants. Would a mandamus order by a court force a devious official to certify against his or her will? Maybe. We do not yet know. Stay tuned.

The Harris campaign is aware of these dirty tricks to re-install Trump. Marc Elias, (Democracy Docket), the most high profile litigator pursing hundreds of election cases being fought now, has joined the Harris/Walz campaign. There is already a lawsuit in Georgia asking the courts to throw out these new rules. These new laws are superfluous because there are already effective legal remedies in place to ensure that vote totals are accurate. Marc Elias and his team are hard at work beating back right-wing legal assaults. In 2023-2024 there have been 283 voting related court decisions so far. 30 had neutral outcomes. 75 were losses for voting rights. 178 were victories for voting rights. But the MAGAs have a lot more tricks up their sleeves. These days fighting for a fair election is like playing whack-a-mole.

Those of us who care about our democracy must stay vigilant to counter this authoritarian movement. It’s going to get uglier.

But there are things we can do to help Harris win big which will make it harder for the MAGAs to game the system after the election. Part of getting past Trump is getting out the vote EARLY!!! The earlier the better. The election really could be won big by Harris given the energy of the Democrats and the huge sense of exhaustion with Trump. Women of color are registering to vote in huge numbers across the country. That’s evidence of excitement and engagement for Harris/Walz. If we can help get out the vote early it will become clear that Harris is the front runner and will help to defeat the tired old Trump narrative that he won the election when he didn’t.