A Contagion of Frustration
Terry H. Schwadron
Dec. 12, 2020
As always, waiting for other people to do their job is frustrating, though we got big pushes overnight towards vaccine approval and in a U.S. Supreme Court decision smacking down the calls to overturn the election.
But waiting seems to be our collective fate — or our punishment for living in a country where, generally, things still do get resolved, even if they take too long, cost too much, even if we disagree with the outcome.
This year is different, of course, mostly because of a disease over which, until now, we have had little control; but now, even on cusp of emergency approvals for the use of the first of these vaccines, we have to hear spinning over vaccines as a plot to turn us into zombies. It is frustrating, if not nutty in a country that claims it wants to get moving again. So, yes, we now have emergency FDA approval for vaccines, but there more questions and lots of skepticism out there before we can look for relief.
We’re long overdue for Donald Trump to do the right thing and acknowledge that our national vote was definitive; instead, we’re being subjected to daily bouts of his egotistical fantasies about spun versions of voter fraud. Likewise, I suppose there are Trump supporters wondering why the earth hasn’t swallowed Joe Biden whole by now.
Court Rejection
Overnight, too, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a brief, unsigned rejection of the legally loony, last-ditch appeal from Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, directly to challenge how other states allowed for mail-in voting. By the time the court rules, it had turned into another us-them political campaign, drawing more than 100 congress members to sign on, to see Sen. Ted Cruz, the one-time Trump enemy number one, offering to argue the case, and to see 17 other attorneys general jump on with supporting signatures.
In any event, it would seem that Trump is merely now launching the next appeal for states — and ultimately Congress — to ignore popular vote totals. It feel like a long 40 more days until Jan. 20, in which one way or another, this all has to come to a head.
Meanwhile, we feel a daily barrage of uncontrolled presidential fury that doesn’t hurt President-elect Joe Biden; instead, the effect of gridlock over stimulus checks and aid to small business during coronavirus, more destruction of environmental and consumer rules and threats to bomb Iran any minute fall on us — the people who elect these so-called leaders.
We have a new contagion of frustration — frustration that for some, I fear, will turn to violence. Keep an eye on this weekend’s promised Trump rallies in Washington, for example.
OK, Complications
In my kinder moments, I remember that most issues at this level are complicated enough to require more time to go through the arguments. But I can’t deny feeling anger that we’re facing societal danger while the Roman emperors fiddle (actually, Nero and friends likely played a harp) over who gets credit.
In fact, the Food and Drug Administration should take extra days to answer more questions about vaccine safety, and the White House ought to be doing a lot more than throwing mask-less holiday parties to celebrate a victory over coronavirus at a time when we’re seeing 3,000 deaths a day.
In fact, we ought to be locking Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in room where he is forced to look at the effects of his recalcitrance to get a vote done about necessary economic aid to help states get people vaccinated even while keeping jobs afloat.
And in fact, we ought to be dismissing quickly what may be the last of these seemingly endless claims that the election results can get overturned just because Donald Trump doesn’t like them. Besides rejecting this case, the U.S. Supreme Court, even with its three Trump appointees, already dismissed the guts of these unevidenced fraud claims in a one-sentence decision just last week.
Whatever the Legality
A good analysis in The Washington Post had laid out, and pretty much destroyed, the best of the would-be legal arguments behind the appeal to the Supreme Court.
The lawsuit charged that “the 2020 election suffered from significant and unconstitutional irregularities” in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Georgia that turned from Trump to Biden, and asks for state legislatures to pick his electors in those states instead. The Electoral College is supposed to vote on Monday, and this was a lawsuit that, like the Rudy Giuliani press conferences, was more about politics than law.
In rejecting the lawsuit, the Court stayed out of the election overturn campaign. It did not respond to arguments that it was unconstitutional for state election officials to expand mail voting, because the legislatures should decide how to run elections. That argument ignored the fact that five states already had mail balloting in place before this year — and that Georgia is using the same rules for its Senate elections next month. There were other argument that were demonstrably untrue about observers or absurd, including a claim that it was statistically impossible for those states all to have turned against Trump.
Clearly it is frustrating for Trump supporters to acknowledge that their Dear Leader lost the election. But it is more frustrating to me that we would risk throwing out democracy because one candidate can’t accept Loser as a title.
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