Electoral College vote doesn’t mean the end of Donald Trump’s career. Watch it blossom.
Today’s the day. What, you ask? Today is the scheduled meeting of the Electoral College, the day when “The electors meet in their respective States and vote for President and Vice President on separate ballots. The electors record their votes on six Certificates of Vote, which are paired with the six remaining Certificates of Ascertainment. The electors sign, seal, and certify six sets of electoral votes. A set of electoral votes consists of one Certificate of Ascertainment and one Certificate of Vote.”
Supposedly then, today is the time when Democrat Joe Biden and gal pal sidekick Kamala Harris officially become the president-elect and vice-president elect of the United States. The longtime swamp dweller from Delaware and junior senator from California already awarded themselves the lofty titles a month ago when the media declared Pennsylvania for the ticket led by the now 78-year-old, a pronouncement that put he and she over the top of the 270 Electoral Vote threshold. Only the journos don’t have the authority to call races, even if they’ve assigned themselves the power. A lot of smart people dispute the media’s premature jumping of the proverbial gun.
Anyone who’s paid attention to the news since then -- and there probably aren’t many who haven’t -- have seen President Donald Trump’s campaign engaged in an intense battle to present their assertion that the election was stolen due to widespread mail-in ballot fraud. The lawsuits are evolving, including several seeking to withdraw the individual states’ appointed slate of electors. As of this writing, it still appears as though the meeting of the Electoral College will go forward with its inevitable conclusion.
You may recall the hubbub from four years ago, when frantic liberals desperately tried to get the various states’ presidential electors to become “faithless” and refuse to cast their votes for Donald Trump. According to the leaders of the “faithless elector” movement, the reasons for doing so were many, including the just-getting-started faux allegation that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to edge out Hillary Clinton’s one mad woman rage campaign. Oddly enough (or not odd at all, actually), there’s been no similar expenditure of time and energy to turn electors against Biden this year. This despite tons more evidence of suspicious activity. That’s the way it is in Washington.
As has now become clear, liberals will say and do anything to get what they want. No need to rehash the whole sad tale.
Some happily think today’s vote and next month’s inauguration means the end of Donald Trump’s political career. In a column titled, “Relax, A Trump Comeback In 2024 Is Not Going To Happen”, Politico founding editor John F. Harris wrote that there are three reaons Trump will fade: “Most important are the abundant precedents suggesting Trump does not have another important act in national politics. The perception that Trump will remain relevant hinges on the possibility that he is a unique historical figure. Trump, however, is singular in one sense only: No politician of his stripe has ever achieved the presidency. In multiple other ways, he is a familiar American type, anticipated by such diverse figures as Joseph McCarthy, George Wallace, and Ross Perot...
“[T]he second reason Trump is not well-positioned to retain his hold on public attention: He has largely abandoned any pretense that he thinks about anything other than his personal resentments, or that he is trying to harness his movement to big ideas that will improve the lives of citizens...
“[The third reason:] Politics never stands still, but Trump largely does. As he leaves the White House, Trump should be haunted by a stark reality — if he had any capacity for self-calibration, he wouldn’t be leaving the White House at all. He’s got one set of political tools. When things are going well, his instinct is to double down on those. When things are going poorly, his instinct is to double down on those.”
I don’t know Harris personally and I don’t recall seeing him on cable news programs in an “expert” commentator capacity. But one could easily envision what it must be like to go to dinner with someone like the “founding editor” of a liberal establishment media rag like Politico. The powers-that-be would arrange out-of-sight backroom seating in a restaurant that’s supposed to be closed to the public due to “health concerns”, where you, Harris and other stuffy liberal media-types would sip on expensive wine, consume gourmet dishes with impossible to pronounce names and bloated menu prices and engage in spirited conversation over current events.
Of course liberals all portend to know everything, so there’s no making headway on convincing them otherwise. As a result, the talk slowly devolves into a semi-argument that soon turns to veiled name calling, questioning of your ancestry, intellect and educational background and finally, silence before the check arrives. It’s as certain as the sun rising tomorrow, because liberals are all the same.
Harris basically advances the same critiques regarding Trump that every other establishment media pundit has done since the New Yorker declared his candidacy for president. Harris’s first contention, that “precedents” indicate Trump will recede from view and importance -- is flat out false. There’s never been an American politician like Donald Trump, and to compare him to the likes of Joseph McCarthy, George Wallace, and Ross Perot is as baseless as it is incorrect.
While it’s true that McCarthy, Wallace and Perot achieved some measure of lasting fame and short-term success due to their anti-establishment orientations and penchant for controversy, none of them belong in the same realm with Trump, who was famous for decades before even entering the political ring. While it could be declared the aforementioned trio were outsiders, Trump was truly apart from the DC swamp and the adjoining bogs that dot the landscape from sea to shining sea.
It could also be said that McCarthy, Wallace and Perot were, in essence, one-trick issue ponies, whereas Trump has come to embody an entire movement. It took a few years, but Trump is now the undisputed leader of the Republican Party, something the others never came close to accomplishing. Therefore, Trump would begin a 2024 run with a huge head start over all potential challengers. In short, the New Yorker has staying power unlike any outsider in recent American history, maybe ever.
No, Trump isn’t doing this solely for himself, and his set of political tools is unmatched
Harris’s second observation, that Trump has abandoned any pretense that he thinks about anything other than his personal resentments, is about as old and stale as a ten day aged crusty French loaf. For people like myself, who were initially skeptical of Trump’s motivations, the feeling that he is merely a maniacal attention-seeking megalomaniac egotist faded long ago. While it’s true that Trump’s biggest fan is still probably himself, he’s done enough selfless things over the past four-plus years to prove he’s all about America and only a little bit about Donald J. Trump’s personal legend.
What establishmentarians like Harris resent most about Trump is he not only spares little in openly criticizing the media and his political enemies, he won’t even give them the time of day. The elites can’t tolerate that Trump won’t stand there like a boxer wedged in a corner with his gloves covering his face; he won’t allow them to pummel him unanswered like the standard stereotypical Republican (George W. Bush, John McCain, Mitt Romney?). No, Trump fights back hard and sometimes dirty. Don’t expect the president to give on anything. Maybe it’s pride. Or it’s an enduring love for America and its traditions. I choose the latter.
Lastly, Harris wrote that Trump will disappear because he can’t adapt his political tools to different situations. This, like his other points, is far too simple to take seriously. To claim that Trump doesn’t adapt to shifting scenarios is ridiculous. As a lifelong businessman who wrote a book on negotiation, Trump knows give and take better than your garden variety politician. And he’s certainly more adept at reading opponents than any media hack ever could hope to be. His enemies mistake the president’s confidence for arrogance and hard-headedness. Trump won’t throw the first punch, but he’ll definitely give back everything he’s got.
Trump has employed social media to bypass the mainstream establishment squawkers. “Doubling down” on one’s positions is sometimes called being principled and forthright. Why retreat when you know you’re right about something? If you believe NAFTA hurt the American working man and woman, why give an inch to salvage a crappy deal? Or if you think NATO members should pay up for their own defense, “doubling down” on asking them for more money is exactly the right thing to do.
Is Harris seriously suggesting that Democrats like Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and “Chucky” Schumer don’t “double down” on their positions? And if they did, would they be considered boorish and stubborn like the media accuses Trump of being? Why the double standard?
We get it that Harris doesn’t like Trump. And the incumbent’s apparent loss in the 2020 election does not confirm the rightness of their biases against him. Over 74 million people voted to give Donald Trump another four years in the White House. Here’s thinking most if not all of them would stick with him if he opts to run again in 2024. Liberals can comfort themselves with the forlorn hope that Trump will simply go away. Perhaps they’ll wish upon a falling star… but it definitely won’t be Trump’s.
Assuming there are any, Trump’s 2024 GOP rivals must do more than “transcend” him
At the risk of beating an already dead and decaying horse, Harris said something else that was curious and worthy of comment. Once again, the Politico founding editor wrote, “Ambitious Republicans who wish to regain control of the party and become president themselves do not have to confront and defeat Trump, as his 2016 rivals tried and failed to do. They merely have to transcend him, using issues to create leadership personas that will soon enough make the 74-year-old Trump look irrelevant, an artifact of an era that has passed.
“What about his 88-million Twitter followers, and the possibility that in his ex-presidency he will start his own news network? It is true that Trump will not lack for avenues to get his message out. But what will that message be, beyond repeating claims of a stolen election that his own attorney general has said are not true. Conspiracy theories, of course, can have power, even when the evidence is nil — that’s just proof of how deep and wide the conspiracy must go. But this isn’t a promising basis to return Trump to the White House or make him kingmaker.”
Has Harris even been awake the past four years? If so, he’s certainly not paid attention to what has become known as the MAGA agenda, something that’s as synonymous with Trump as his signature orange skin tone and styled Trumpian hairdo. The soon-to-be former president’s long list of accomplishments will survive, and it ain’t no conspiracy theory. What does Obama have to tout? Talk about irrelevant.
If liberals think Trump was omni-present through social media during his presidency, just wait until he’s able to loft bombs from the outside looking in. With each Grampa Joe Biden bobble and stumble, or failure to pass something he promised to do during the campaign (after being blocked by the “murder turtle” Mitch McConnell), Trump will be ready to pour gasoline on the poor dunce’s funeral pyre.
The media will need Trump to drive ratings and readership, so you can bet they’ll keep hanging on his every word, even if it’s delivered via tweet. And here’s thinking Trump will use some of the money he’s raised post-Election Day to hold rallies and other events. Trump will find a way to dominate the narrative regardless of what Harris and his fellow skeptics predict.
Let the “shadow presidency” commence. Trump’s joked about staying around for at least 12 years. Maybe he was serious.
Trump’s supporters aren’t about to let go of the possibility of electing him in 2024. As of now, there isn’t a Republican who could touch him should he decide to try it again. Trump still has by far the biggest profile of any politician in America, and that includes the new president and his hand-picked successor, Kamala Harris. Take that, Electoral College.
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