A big sigh of relief

Maybe I'm crazy, but I'm feeling pretty hopeful right now. The coup attempt has failed. It was way closer than it should have been, but the institutions of democracy withheld the assault. Not a shot was fired; the tide was turned by heroic bureaucrats like Georgia Secretary of State Raffensperger. The fact that he had to sacrifice his career and withstand death threats just to do his job is chilling, but he did it.

 

I continued to feel very nervous until yesterday when the State of Michigan managed to pull itself together and do the right thing in the face of unthinkably brazen direct pressure by the POTUS. After the shameful spectacle in Georgia I didn't have much faith in the Republican leadership in Michigan and was pinning my hopes on the Democratic governor to save the day. But in the end it was the Republicans who stood their ground in service of democracy and the embattled Democratic governor did not have to make a move. Read the statement from the Michigan legislature's Republican leadership after their visit to the White House and see if you don't feel a bit better. "We have not yet been made aware of any information that would change the outcome of the election in Michigan and as legislative leaders, we will follow the law and follow the normal process regarding Michigan's electors, just as we have said throughout this election." 

 

I am not happy that the Federal court system has been loaded with conservatives, but I think that the fate of Trump's legal strategy to steal the presidency makes it clear that conservative is not the same as Trumpist. More than 30 baseless lawsuits brought by the Trump campaign were ruled against or outright thrown out of court as absurd. Note that the judge that rejected their last big case in Pennsylvania (with a savage 37-page rebuttal of their conduct) was not a Trump appointee but he unquestionably identified as a conservative Republican. And he was clearly fed up to the max.

 

Trump is now a has-been. His brand as a Big Winner has collapsed and he is already looking frail and pathetic. In two years he will be where Newt Gingrich was in 1998.

 

Anyway, that's what I think.