View from America
By M.R. Josse
GAITHERSBURG, MD: Though we are just 15 days away from the inauguration Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States, the petulant outgoing incumbent, President Donald J. Trump, is not only flailing out in an unseemly, embarrassing outburst of tantrums but is now actually engaging in egregious anti-democratic moves that put Nixon’s Watergate aberrations in the shade!
These last-ditch, delusional maneuvers aimed at overturning the result of the 3 November 2020 presidential election – which Biden won decisively and has been so certified by the Electoral College – in the opinion most independent analysts and experts, is patently shady if not criminal.
WATERGATE IN THE SHADE
Nowhere has this perhaps been underlined more starkly than in Trump’s craven, desperate attempt – caught on audio tape in all its chilling, ugly detail – to pressure, bully and threaten Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” the votes to overturn president-elect Biden’s nearly 12,000 margin of victory in that state!
(Those votes have been recounted thrice, with no evidence of electoral fraud being established. Georgia, incidentally, will hold runoff polls for two Senate seats Tuesday, 5 January – elections that will determine whether the U.S. Senate is controlled by the Republicans or the Democrats.)
Trump’s latest abuse of power instance came in the form of an hour-long recorded telephone call on Saturday (2 January) – first published in the Washington Post, 3 January, and subsequently broadcast in segments by CNN, among others the same day. It was repeatedly aired for hours by CNN as breaking news.
CNN has also reported that the White House had been trying to phone the Georgia Secretary of State’s office some 18 times in the past week or so.
In excerpts of the shocking and hectoring call from Trump to Raffensperger, the former lambasted his fellow Republican for refusing to falsely declare that he won the election in Georgia and repeatedly touted baseless claims of election fraud.
“The people of Georgia are angry, the people of the country are angry. And there is nothing wrong with saying that, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated,” Trump said in one segment of the call. Raffensperger responded: “Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is, the data you have is wrong.”
In another part, Trump said: “So look, all I want to do is this, I just want you to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.”
“You should want to have an accurate election. And you’re a Republican.”
“We believe we do have an accurate election,” Raffensperger said in response, to which Trump replied, “No, no you don’t. Not even close. You’re off by hundreds of thousands of votes.”
Criticism of Trump’s call has been wide-ranging with some alleging that it is tantamount to vote tampering. Others aver that Trump’s aforementioned pressure-tactics are tantamount to attempting to steal an election from its legitimate winner.
Carl Bernstein, of Watergate fame, told CNN that Trump’s Georgia tapes are more egregious than Nixon’s Watergate tapes! Nixon, he reminded, resigned when confronted of wrongdoing by his own party; Trump revels in what he has done, still enjoys the support of a big chunk of his party and assumes he can get away all, or any, such anti-democratic shenanigans.
The new reality is, however, that many Republicans fear that Trump’s rash phone call might undermine their effort to win Georgia’s two Senate seats, though most of Trump’s allies are mum even after Trump’s now widely exposed attempts to coerce Georgia officials to overturn the election results. Both Trump and Biden are holding rallies in Georgia 4 January, ahead of the two Georgia runoff Senate elections, 5 January.
THEATRE OF THE ABSURD
Another Trump caper in the ongoing theatre of the absurd is attempting to disrupt the smooth transition of power on noon 20 January 2021 and relates to a move by Republicans to ‘protest’ the Electoral College results – overwhelmingly in Biden’s favor – when formally presented to a joint session on Wednesday, 6 January.
Initially proposed by Josh Hawley, freshman Senator from Missouri, the protest scheme has, as of this writing, been joined by Texas Senator Ted Cruz and 10 others, with 140 Republican Congressmen – though these numbers could change by 6 January, as a result of the controversial Georgia tapes.
Notably, a number of Democratic lawmakers have declared their intention at the joint session to bring their own motions condemning Trump’s unconstitutional effort to bully Georgia officials to overturn results of the 3 November 2020 election.
While how the 6 January ‘protest’ ploy plays out at the joint session of Congress remains to be seen, it has been excoriated by several Republican leaders, including Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, till the other day Senate majority leader, Senator Ben Sasse of Illinois, and South Dakota Senator John Thune who declared the protest proposal would ‘go down like a shot dog.’
Hawley and Cruz are known to nurse presidential ambitions and, according to pundits, hope to reap political benefit for the 2024 race, if Trump himself drops out of consideration. Cruz and Co. have been criticized for ‘playing out for an audience of one, wishing to get a hold on Trump’s base.’
Most believe Trump’s goal in shooting-off his quiver of never-ending antics is to create a core group of Republican leaders to serve as an effective pressure group to make life difficult for Biden, post 20 January. Given the current math in Congress, however, this proposed ‘Hail Mary’ challenge at the 6 January joint session is doomed to fail. At most, what is expected is that the formal confirmation of the results of the Electoral College by Congress may be delayed by a few hours.
It may be germane to mention that, in any case, it is not Congress’ function to certify the results of a presidential election; that is the business of the Electoral College which has already spoken, and whose results now need merely to be formally presented to a joint session of Congress.
It may also be noted that the role of Vice-President Mike Pence in the process of endorsing the Electoral College’s certified results is purely ceremonial; he is not empowered by the Constitution to declare who won the 2020 presidential election. At this point, it may usefully recalled that Biden, as U.S. Vice-President, himself oversaw, without incident, the same ceremonial confirmation of the results of the 2016 election that the Electoral College then deemed Trump had won.
There are some other noteworthy ‘scenes’ from the on-going theatre of the absurd now playing out here. One is that despite the fact that the Covid pandemic is on a rampaging spree with the new U.K. variant being increasingly discovered in several states, Trump maintains an eloquent, aloof and cruel silence.
Thus, while Trump still absurdly claims he has won the election, he has simply abandoned his role as president which he still has till noon 20 January 2021. While the roll out of the new vaccines has been slow – only 4.2 million have been inoculated, against the 20 million that had been expected at year’s-end – the total number of Covid-19 cases nears 21 million and current fatalities figure is 351,590.
No account of the fecundity of the absurdities or dangerous turns and twists of the current American political scene can be considered complete if one were to ignore the unprecedented move of all the 10 living former U.S. defense secretaries – including two who served in the Trump administration – weighing publicly on the danger of involving the military in election disputes. That would, in their opinion, be tantamount to crossing into “dangerous territory.”
As per Barbara Starr, CNN’s Pentagon correspondent, Dick Cheney – a former Vice-President, under President George W. Bush – took the initiative in getting 9 other former defence secretaries behind the move to go public, as described below.
Ashton Carter, Dick Cheney, William Cohen, Mark Esper, Robert Gates, Chuck Hagel, James Mattis, Leon Panetta, William Perry and Donald Rumsfeld, in an opinion piece in the Washington Post, 3 January solemnly declared, inter alia:
“Our elections have occurred. Recounts and audits have been conducted. Appropriate challenges have been addressed by the courts. Governors have certified the results. And the electoral college has voted. The time for questioning the results has passed; the time for the formal counting of the electoral college votes, as prescribed in the Constitution and statute, has arrived.”
As they tellingly pointed out, “there’s no role for the U.S. military in determining the outcome of a U.S. election.” Significantly, they affirmed: “Acting defence secretary Christopher C. Miller and his subordinates – political appointees, officers and civil servants – are each bound by oath, law and precedent to facilitate the entry into office of the incoming administration, and to do so wholeheartedly. They must also refrain from any political actions that undermine the results of the election or hinder the success of the new team.
We call upon them, in the strongest terms, to do so as many generations of Americans have done before them. This final action is in keeping with the highest traditions and professionalism of the U.S. forces, and the history of democratic transition in our great country.”
So what prompted this unprecedented move? As far as one can tell, there are at least two solid reasons: 1. Former Trump National Security Adviser, Gen. Mike Flynn’s reported recent advocacy of martial law to overturn election results in favor of Trump.
- The apprehension that Trump – in the dying days of his administration – might be tempted to either order ill-conceived or rash military operations, including those designed to block Biden from taking over his legitimate presidential duties on 20 January 2021.
Trump’s actions and utterances since his electoral defeat have fed those fears, since inflamed by sycophants who have been fueling his paranoia and delusions, for their own vested future political interests.
BACK AT THE RANCH
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, what’s up? As far as I can make out, there is still no glimmer at the end of the political/geopolitical tunnel.
While it would seem that NC bossman, Sher Bahadur Deuba, has begun dreaming of another stint as premier, our monarchists are in a bind of sorts having their own roseate dreams: wondering whether the monarchy can/will be restored via (a) a referendum, (b) restoration of the 1990 constitution, (c) amendment of the current constitution or (d) through a street revolution.
I am not optimistic about Nepal’s political future, as it is no cake-walk to put the genie back into the bottle, or to unscramble a scrambled egg. If you must know, my attention during the week just ended has been grabbed by other two ostensibly divergent developments related to the post-House dissolution scenario back home.
The first concerns a news story in the Hindustan Times breathlessly informing its readership that “China has positioned a three-member team in Kathmandu that is continuing to reach out to prominent politicians in Nepal” – incidentally, not reported in the People’s Review – even after the departure of the recent high-level Chinese delegation led by Vice-Minister Gao Yezhou.
Only slightly less absorbing was that the newsy stuff was attributed to “people familiar with the matter” which to me strongly points the finger at India’s foreign intelligence agency.
The other thing that attracted my fancy was a report in Telegraphindia.com which reported that Prachanda had questioned India’s ‘silence’ in the matter of Nepal’s constitutional crisis, as reported in an interview to Kantipur TV.
Aware how Prachanda has alternated regularly between a pro-and-anti India stance, it is most hazardous to make a guess what’s really behind that complaint – if it is a complaint! Since the ‘street’ level view in Kathmandu, as I’m informed by my moles, is that India is in fact backing Prachanda, and is vehemently against Prime Minister Oli, could it be that P. is actually praising India for not meddling in Nepal’s affairs?
The writer can be reached at: manajosse@gmail.com
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