Thinking Citizen Blog — Lies, Stolen Elections, and Lawfare — Have You Done Your Homework? Who Has? Anyone?
Thinking Citizen Blog — Saturday is Justice, Freedom, Law, and Values Day
Today’s Topic — Lies, Stolen Elections, and Lawfare — have you done your homework? who has? anyone?
Ever cheated on an exam? a homework assignment? What percentage of your friends have?
Is it tough to be honest about this?
In the last 200-plus years, in what percentage of elections have Democrats or Republicans cheated? Was the 1960 election “stolen” thanks to the dirty tricks of Joe Kennedy? Do any other problematical election results come to mind?
How standard is it to “cheat” or play as many “dirty tricks” as possible to win?
Certainly, only the extremely naive would think that no cheating goes on in elections. But the accepted tradition is to accept defeat — the other guy did a better job than you did in the game of cheating and not cheating and move on…
Trump does not play by the rules of accepted tradition. Will his iconoclasm win the votes of more Americans than his Democratic opponent? Will his “felon” badge be a net vote-getter because, net net, it will be seen as further evidence of “Democratic” cheating? That is, of using the legal system for partisan ends?
Last time, one of the most important posts of the last ten years in which I invoked the ghosts of Ulysses and William James to urge you to take the Thinking Citizen test to find out exactly how much homework you should do but have not done.
Have you taken the test yet?
If not, we only have a few months left before a historically pivotal election, and I urge you to do so.
Below, are excerpts from two articles. One pro-Trump. The other anti-Trump.
The first was by Elise Stefanik, the youngest woman elected to the US Congress.
The second was by Jonathan Chait, a pundit, writer for New York magazine, and former senior editor at The New Republic.
The first argues that the Democrats are “using lawfare against Trump because they can’t beat him fairly.” The second argues that the Republican “lawfare” claim is a lie and that the truth is that Trump is a crook. Is one right and the other wrong? Or is there more than a grain of truth in both?
What is to be done? Vote Muresianu in 2024? Is it time for the Party of We and Yes? Have you opened a local chapter yet? Have you spread the word? (See last three links below.)
Parenthetically, what would your dream Democratic ticket be when Biden pulls out? Harris-Shapiro? Harris-Whitmer? How about an out-of-the-box idea like Harris-Romney? And what exactly is your rationale?
Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
“DEMOCRATS HAVE OPENED UP A DANGEROUS PANDORA’S BOX BY BREAKING LEGAL AND POLITICAL NORMS TO TRY TO IMPRISON PRESIDENT BIDEN’S CHIEF POLITICAL RIVAL FOR 2024"
1. “It is irreparably harmful to the fabric of America to normalize the reigning political party using its power to lock up its main challenger.”
2. “The American people fundamentally understand that if the Left can shred constitutional protections and weaponize government to illegally target President Trump, what can and will they do to the average American?”
3. “Just ask Catholics, conservatives, and parents at school board meetings.”
NB: Below, Elise Stefanik, a government major at Harvard, Class of 2004.
“DONALD TRUMP IS NOT THE VICTIM OF LAWFARE. HE’S A CROOK.”(below Jonathan Chait, University of Michigan, 1994)
1. “The advantage of this catchall term (“lawfare”) is that it allows Trump’s defenders to ignore the specifics of Trump’s misconduct, or at least analyze it in a highly selective way.” (Chait)
2. “There are indeed a couple of instances in which Trump has faced legal challenges that are questionable (the attempt to disqualify him from the ballot based on the 14th amendment) or downright weak (Alvin Bragg’s indictment over hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels).”
3. “Conservatives tend to focus obsessively on these cases, and “lawfare” is a permission structure that allows them to use these cases to ignore or discredit the others, where Trump’s behavior is impossible to defend.”
NB: “What’s unusual about Trump is not that a politician got into legal trouble, or even that a professional scammer went into politics, but that a political party allowed a crook to rise to its top. That, in turn reveals the deeply unhealthy state of the GOP….”
CAN YOU REMEMBER AS FAR BACK AS 2016? What a different ticket in 2024!
1. “One of the reasons Republicans were so reluctant to accept Donald Trump’s nomination in 2016 is that he was quite obviously a crook.” (Chait)
2. “His business record reflects the often dubious norms of the milieu: using eminent domain to condemn the property of others; buying the good graces of politicians — including many Democrats — with donations,” editorialized the National Review.”
3. “Marco Rubio lambasted him as a “con artist.” The Wall Street Journal editorialized about Trump’s deep ties to the mafia and his fulsome praise of its work.”
NB: “After Trump won the nomination, the Journal spiked a second editorial about his mob links.”
Dems Are Using Lawfare Against Trump Because They Can’t Beat Him Fairly
Thinking Citizen Blog — Why I Am Running for US President in 2024
Thinking Citizen Blog — The Party of We and Yes (Part II)
Thinking Citizen Blog — The Party of We and Yes
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
My spin — then periodically review, re-rank, and exchange your list with those you love. I call this the “Orion Exchange” because seven is about as many as any human can digest at a time. Game?
For the last four years of posts organized by theme:
PDF with headlines — Google Drive
Four special attachments below:
#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).
#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, (11/17/20)
#4 Palestine Orion (Decision) — let’s exchange Orions, let’s find Rumi’s field (“Beyond all ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. Meet me there” Rumi, 13 century Persian Sufi mystic)
YOUR TURN
Please share the coolest thing you learned in the last week related to justice, freedom, the law or basic values.
Or the coolest, most important thing you learned in your life related to justice, freedom, the law, or basic values.
Or just some random justice-related fact that blew you away.
This is your chance to make someone’s day. Or to cement in your mind something that you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply about something dear to your heart.
