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Delaying the Election
Months ago I suggested to my husband that Donald
Trump would attempt to delay, postpone or call off the Presidential
election altogether. I suggested that his excuse would be either the
inability of the government to prevent foreign interference (along
the lines of "Until we can guarantee the security of the voting
process, we will be postponing the election") or the pandemic (along
the lines of "Because we cannot be certain that our voting locations
will be free of all virus-passing surfaces, implements, marking
pens, etc., we must postpone the election until such a time as a
vaccine guarantees everyone's safety.") Thus, I wasn't the least
surprised to get up this morning and see the headline from a
newspaper twitter feed that directed me to Trump's tweet in which he
floated the idea of postponing the election. My only surprise was
that he had not done this earlier.
The reaction to this was similar to many reactions in the past. "The
Constitution forbids this," topped the list. But this particular
response to Trump's musing about violating the Constitution has, for
me, the substance of tissue paper. Trump has been violating the
emoluments clause of the Constitution since the day he walked into
the Oval Office and nothing has stopped him from doing this and
more.
I see Trump quite differently from the woman who responded to my
first email of thoughts with: "No one cares what you think. Take me
of your email list!" Obviously, with all evidence before her eyes,
she apparently must assume that Trump has demonstrated Presidential
honor and leadership from the beginning. So be it. In my eyes, Trump
has from the first systematically dismantled safeguards to our
Democracy through putting into positions of power sycophants who
wish to curry favor by acceding to his wishes or ignoramuses who,
having no idea what their jobs are supposed to be, are easily led by
lobbyists, mega-donors, corporate interests, and others who are
dominated by greed and possessed of the belief that having more
trumps being more every time. Thus, in the example of the Judicial
Branch of the government, we have seen a succession of Attorneys
General in order to arrive at William Barr whose contempt of
Congress can be viewed each time he is asked to appear before them
and whose outright lies (his words about the Mueller Report being
one example) have sullied the branch of government of which he is
supposed to be the leader.
So here we are today. Interestingly, here we are just days after
Trump had an undocumented phone call with Vladimir Putin. We can
call the timing of this idea of postponing the election--days after
his conversation with Putin--merely coincidence. We can ask each
other, Twitter, the universe, or ourselves what it is that Putin
"has" on Trump. We can even theorize that Putin can reveal Trump's
money laundering for the Russians, his romping with prostitutes in
Moscow, his suspicious monetary deals with Deutche Bank, his
fraudulent businesses, the extent of his abuse of adolescent girls
while in the company of his pal Jeffrey Epstein...and on and on. But
I believe it's something rather different. I believe that from the
moment Putin met Trump year ago, he knew exactly what he had: a
stooge. No fool when it comes to human nature, Putin saw through
Trump's braggadocio to the heart of the man: lacking in confidence,
crippled by a life of privilege, embarrassed about his blatant
ignorance and as a consequence desperate to cover it up, inept,
eaten up by petty grievances, riven with jealousies. And seeing
this, Putin knew how to play him. Not by threatening him but,
despite his contempt for Trump, by puffing him up with attention,
pretended deference,and fulsome compliments with regard to his
talents.
What we know about human nature is that a person in possession of
self-esteem and self-reliance, sure of who he is and sure of the
value of what he has to contribute does not need to seek the
approval of anyone. But Donald Trump does not have these qualities.
Why he does not have them cannot be our concern at this point. But
that he does not have them should be the concern of every person on
this planet.
Elizabeth George
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