The View from Right Field

Secret Documents. First Trump. Then Biden and Pence. Who’s Next?

Donald Trump kept confidential/secret documents from when he was president.  Joe Biden kept the same kind of documents from when he was vice president.  And so did Mike Pence.  (Not surprisingly, former President Trump was the most obstreperous about it, but that is true for pretty much everything.)

What I’m wondering is when we’re going to check on Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Dan Quayle, Jimmy Carter, and Walter Mondale.  For that matter, why should the fact that George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, Nelson Rockefeller, Richard Nixon, and Spiro Agnew are dead make a difference?  Shouldn’t their papers/libraries/museums be checked, too?  (Well, I don’t suppose former Vice President Agnew has a library or museum.)

Other than obstreperousness and sloppiness, it might be interesting to figure out just how different former President Trump is on this issue.

The Great January 6 “What-If”

The House of Representatives’ January 6 Committee¹ has issued its report.  I’m not going to go into its conclusions.  What Donald Trump did on January 6, and what he did not do that he should have done,  was appalling, but then I knew that on January 6.  As I have said before,² the only question after January 6 was: what was the best way to make sure then-President, now former President, Trump went away and never came back again.  But that is not the question for this post. 

Rather, the “what-if” question for this post is this: What if the Capitol had had better security on January 6?  What if there had been enough police officers, and national guard personnel, etc., so that the protestors, aka rioters (aka insurrectionists or whatever you want to call them), had not been able to break into the U.S. Capitol building that day?  In one way, things would have been the same.  Then-President Trump would have still tried to convince Mike Pence to put off the counting of the electoral votes (or whatever other cockamamie scheme then-President Trump was pushing).  Some idiot Republicans would have objected to the counting of the electoral votes.³  And Vice President Pence would have told them all to, in effect, “pound sand.” 

On the Special Counsel for Donald Trump

I let out a big sigh when I read that Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed a special counsel to investigate whether Donald Trump should be indicted with respect to the events of January 6 and with respect to confidential documents he took to Mar-a-Lago.  I sighed because, at least to me, the appointment means former President Trump will likely be indicted, and I can’t see that as a good thing.

I don’t know whether former President Trump broke any laws with respect to January 6 or the Mar-a-Lago documents.  I don’t know all the facts, and I don’t know the specifics of the laws.  But, ultimately, I don’t think former President Trump should be indicted because I don’t think it will help the country.  I want former President Trump gone.  And I think the best way to get him gone is to just ignore him.  Don’t talk about him.  Stop giving him the respect of attention.

Winning Elections in the Age of Trump

In Friday’s Wall Street Journal, Kimberley Strassel wrote about elections across the country, from Washington State’s Senate to gubernatorial elections in Kansas and Florida where Republicans are pushing education issues.  In Washington, long-time incumbent Patty Murray is ahead of her Republican challenger by only three points with Seattle teachers having recently voted to go on strike.

Ms. Strassel says that that “[a]ny Republican who isn’t making criticism of failed Covid education decisions – and promises of school choice and parental involvement – a lead message is committing an election foul.”  The problem is that Donald Trump doesn’t agree.  Former President Trump tells us there is only one issue: the stolen election of 2020.  And far too many Republicans agree with him.

Democrats for Trump

Back when they had campaign buttons, you would see buttons that said “Republicans for [Democrat]” or “Democrats for [Republican].  In fact, I think we still have some “Democrats for Nixon” buttons in our basement.

If they still had campaign buttons, a lot of Democrats, at least Democratic leaders and Democratic campaign advisers, would be wearing “Democrats for Trump” buttons – or at least they would if they were honest.  Because a lot of Democrats, and a lot of Democratic money, are trying to help pro-Trump Republicans win Republican primaries.  That is what happened here in Illinois.  The Democratic Governors Association kept sending me mail, the old-fashioned kind, via the Post Office, telling me that Darren Bailey was “too conservative” and that he liked Donald Trump too much.  Both of which were true, but both of which were designed to get pro-Trump Republicans to vote for Darren Bailey in the primary, instead of one of the other candidates who might have actually had a chance to beat our Democratic governor, who is running for re-election, in November.

Optimism for November?

Daniel Henninger wrote in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal about “The Conservative Case for Optimism.”  I wish I could be as hopeful as Mr. Henninger with respect to the Republicans’ chances in November.  Unfortunately, the Republicans’ ability to shoot themselves in the foot gives me pause.  When Barack Obama was president, it took the Republicans until 2014 to take the Senate, even though they won the House in 2010, largely because they nominated some terrible candidates in 2010 and 2012.  And they did it even without Donald Trump.

With former President Trump around, the Republicans’ chances to throw away victory in November are even greater.  As always, former President Trump is focused on himself, and his grievances about the “stolen” election of 2020, instead of party or policy – or country. 

Georgia On My Mind

With Georgia having a primary election on Tuesday, a couple of thoughts.  First, it will be interesting to see what the turnout is.  The left has said that the new election laws Georgia passed last year were designed to reduce minority turnout.  Among other things, Atlanta lost the All-Star Game because of it.  Let’s see whether turnout really is reduced.  Reports so far indicate turnout may actually be up.  If so, will MLB apologize?  How about the Democrats?

Second, I find it bizarre that former U.S. Senator David Perdue is running against Governor Brian Kemp in the Republican primary on a pro-Trump stolen election platform.  Regardless of whether you think Donald Trump was cheated out of Georgia’s electoral votes in 2020 (I don’t), there can be little doubt that former President Trump’s tactics and campaigning in the two Georgia run-off elections in early January of 2021 cost Republicans control of the U.S. Senate – and David Perdue his Senate seat.¹
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¹ See “The Great Georgia 2021 Senate ‘What If?’” here.

The Great Georgia 2021 Senate “What If?”

November of 2020, there were 50 Republican senators and 48 Democrats.  But there were two races in Georgia where there had to be run-off elections because no candidate had gotten 50%+1 of the votes cast on election day (as required by Georgia law).  In both races, the Republican candidate got more votes than the Democratic candidate on election day, but the Republican had not gotten 50%+1.  So there were going to be two run-off elections on January 5, 2021.  The Democrats won run-offs, thus giving the Democrats a 50-50 “majority” in the Senate because of Vice President Kamala Harris.

But what if Donald Trump, instead of going down to Georgia in December of 2020 in a snit and complaining he had been cheated out of the election and saying there was no way any Republican would be allowed to win anywhere, even in Georgia¹; what if President Trump had gone to Georgia in December of 2020 and tried to rally Republicans to vote for the Republican Senate candidates, telling his supporters that they needed to get out and vote so we could keep the Democrats from controlling the Senate?²  And what if, therefore, even one of the Republicans had won?  The Republicans would have controlled the Senate.  But what more might have happened?

Donald Trump Praises Vladimir Putin – As Putin Invades Ukraine

One would like to think that Donald Trump’s praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin at the very moment Russia is invading Ukraine would be enough to finally put enough Republicans off former President Trump, but I fear it may not.

Note: I will leave it to others to explain why former President Trump said these things.  I don’t know if there is a reason other than, for former President Trump, everything is always about him.  I doubt there is another reason, but if somebody can come up with one, more power to them.

An Alternate Covid History

Here’s a thought experiment or maybe, more accurately, a possible alternate history of Covid in the United States:

• Donald Trump wins re-election in November of 2020.  (It was possible.  As I noted here, Joe Biden’s margin of victory was only 66,000 votes.¹)