Not Without Incident: Questioning Big Brother's Platitudes

Keiran’s Take on the Week Ending July 23^rd

This week I will focus on two news stories related to Trump. First that he is apparently planning to make himself a dictator if he is elected for a second term in office, as there are fears that he will invoke the unitary executive theory. This is an interpretation of Article II of the US constitution that gives the president absolute authority over all executive branches of government, from the EPA to the FCC.

Second, Trump’s fake electors in Michigan have been indicted. What is astounding about this story is the rank hypocrisy surrounding it, as there was a campaign to persuade Republican electors, in states like Michigan, that Trump won, to defect and vote for Hillary Clinton instead. Although this was pushed as an effort to first stop Trump from being sworn in as president, but to then spark a debate about the merits of the electoral college, it is ridiculous that a buffoonish and inane scheme to have fake electors vote for Trump instead of Biden is seen as much more destructive to democracy than a crusade that was seen as legitimate by celebrities, scholars, and multiple news organizations.

Finally, I was going to conclude with some notes on my work in hip hop analysis. This is a reworking of my thesis for an essay I wrote in one of my last honors classes that I did as part of my undergraduate studies in English Literature. However, the two news items were longer than I initially expected, so I will publish these notes in a post this weekend.

Newsflash, America is Already Totalitarian

Breaking this week is Trump’s intention to invoke the unitary executive theory if he regains the presidency. The unitary executive theory argues that the executive, the president, has absolute authority over all aspects and actions of the executive branch. It is based on an interpretation of Article 2 of the US constitution, which states that “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States.”[i] This has been the source of heated debate over the scope of the authority vested in the executive.

Under the Nixon presidency, this scope of authority was greatly expanded. In the international realm, Nixon waged a secret war in Southeast Asia, and in the domestic realm, he used the executive branch law enforcement agencies to target his political opponents. Arthur Schlesinger documented and critiqued Nixon’s abuses of power in his book on the imperial presidency, in which he argues that under Nixon, the president had given himself monarchical authority.[ii] Nixon himself said in an interview with David Frost that “Well, when the president does it … that means that it is not illegal.”

With every president we see ruthless, brutal acts being approved daily that would see anyone else behind bars for life. The permanent regime in Washington acts with impunity, whether there is approval or dissent from the White House. If anything, the administration in the White House is a front company for the mafia state. Thus, those who are freaking out at the prospect of Trump becoming a unitary executive, like Robert Reich, who wrote in an op-ed this week “Make no mistake: The “unitary executive” theory is thinly disguised justification for authoritarianism.”, are shills for the illusory system of democracy.[iii]

Reich cites Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s support for unitary executive theory, as well as most of the justices being conservative, as reasons for why Trump’s enactment of unitary executive theory would be legitimized by the court. He may be right, but his argument that somehow this would be an unprecedented shift towards authoritarianism in the US is absurd. I will speak more about this in a future long form post, but for now, I just want to briefly note how deluded Trump’s opposition is. It is their delusion that fuels figures like Trump and his movement.

The hysteria over Trump and his cronies becoming a unitary executive is odd, as over the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations, the presidency became more imperial. Trump inherited an already expansive set of despotic powers. What people are afraid of is already occurring.

Censorship, carried out through collusion between Silicon Valley oligarchs and government officials, is being pushed by the Biden administration. They may have lost a case in Louisiana, which states that government officials are not allowed to collude with tech companies to monitor speech, but they are fighting to appeal that decision. Biden has continued Trump and Obama’s foreign policy, for the most part.

There is already a totalitarian party in control in Washington. Although it is not totalitarian in the traditional sense, it is totalitarian in a much more sinister manner, as we are lulled by the illusion of free choice and democracy, but underneath the gleaming surface, there is a group of sociopathic lunatics, the permanent regime, who are in total control of US foreign and domestic policy. This regime allows for petty squabbles over cultural issues, but on the most significant issues, like the ballooning defense budget or the vast empire of military bases and troops stationed across the globe, there is no debate, only coerced consent.

However, the question remains: Could Trump carry out a purge of the executive agencies and make the US government bend to his will? I doubt it. Even if he were to do so, the groundwork for a totalitarian leader, or as many refer to it, what is essentially a kingship or a monarch, is already laid and consolidated. Bush expanded the powers of the security states, effectively turning the US into a police state, Obama signed Section 1012 of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, getting rid of habeas corpus and allowing for indefinite detention, Trump indicted Julian Assange under the Espionage Act, and Biden continues to pressure social media companies to censor American citizens, despite it being barred by a court decision.

So, if the prospect of Trump becoming a unitary executive, a king, frightens you, then wake up and understand that the imperial presidency reigns supreme, with or without Trump. The permanent regime will go about its rapacious business. That America becoming despotic is news to people like Reich proves how insulated they are from reality.

Electoral Hypocrisy

In Michigan, the Attorney General Dana Nessel has filed charges against 16 people allegedly involved in Trump’s fake elector scheme. This, according to her, undermined public faith in election integrity.[iv]

In the J6 Committee’s final report, it outlines a scheme by Trump and his campaign to lobby then Vice President Mike Pence to overturn results in states that Trump lost, and an attempt to get electors in those states to choose their own electors, no matter who won the state. A law professor, John Eastman, author of the infamous “Eastman Memo”, and Kenneth Chesebro, one of Trump’s campaign advisers, argued in legal memos that state legislatures had the right to choose their own electors. Trump and his campaign put together groups of their own electors to cast electoral votes for Trump in seven states that he lost, including Michigan.

To many, this will be a bombshell and further proof that Trump and his campaign sought to overturn the 2020 election results and by proxy, US democracy. While it may be true that Trump tried to overturn the election results, it was through harebrained schemes like the fake elector’s plot. This is abhorrent, but not unique, as in 2016, the Clinton campaign and DNC operatives in the corporate media, as well as celebrities and academics, sought to have state electors vote for Clinton instead of Trump in states that he won, like Michigan.[v] Arguments like those made by Eastman and Chesebro were made by people like the Hamilton Group and others who wrote articles and tweets advocating for Republican electors to defect and vote for Clinton.

As noted, what is striking about this story is that after the 2016 election, there was a coordinated attempt to get electors to vote for Clinton in states that Trump won, and everyone, from celebrities to constitutional scholars, cut ads and delivered heartfelt tweets pleading with electors to vote for Clinton instead of Trump.

There were many articles that sought to calm the mania that ensued after Trump’s victory through the electoral college. Don’t worry they said, Clinton can still be president. A change.org petition was run to persuade electors to vote for Clinton instead of Trump. In USA Today, there was an article by Robert Farley of factcheck.org titled “Could the Electoral College elect Hillary Clinton instead of Donald Trump?” and he proceeded to say that yes, it was technically possible, but no, it would not happen.[vi] Apparently, many readers asked about the possibility of electors voting for Clinton instead of Trump. It wasn’t just terrified illiberal liberals in the public who fretted over a Trump presidency so much so that they wondered if he could be stopped via electors defecting to vote for Clinton, many prominent scholars posited this as well. For example, Laurence Tribe, a constitutional scholar, tweeted that “All it will take is just 12% — a bit over 1 in 10 – of the 306 Trump Electors to vote against a walking, talking impeachable offense . . .”[vii] Supposedly it is up to people like Tribe who gets elected, not the states or the people in those states.

Putting the merits of the electoral college as a system aside for now, it is astounding that the Democratic party and the illiberal liberal class can enact such a coordinated attempt to undermine the US electoral system, and then when similar action is performed by their opponent, Trump and his 2020 campaign, clutch their pearls and be in awe that anyone would dare question the legitimacy of a US election and try to overturn it.

In 2016, there was a group called Hamilton Electors who were trying to persuade Republican electors to defect from Trump.[viii] This group was open about not only stopping Trump, but about sparking a serious debate on the merits of the electoral college and its eventual abolishment. The electoral college, like anything else, should be open to constant and rigorous debate; however, the results of an election should not be tossed out because a candidate is deemed by the ruling class to be unfit for office.

The most disturbing notion in all of this is that a political candidate can be deemed unfit to serve as leader by elites, and when that same candidate questions the electoral process, it is perceived as a unique threat, allegedly undermining the same electoral process that is consistently doubted whenever the Democrats lose.

Thus, the electoral process can be subverted to prevent that candidate from attaining an office he fairly won, whether you agree the electoral college is a fair system. Within the current electoral system, Trump won in 2016. To people like Tribe, their perception that Trump is unfit for office is enough to tear down the whole electoral college. Debating the electoral college is a separate matter from debating Trump’s fitness for office. The election is where people get to say where they are on Trump’s fitness for office.

Overall, Trump was pulling at straws in 2020, acting on ridiculous legal theories and enacting buffoonish plots to overturn the election. Such acts are anti-democratic and repugnant, however, the same people who tried to subvert the will of many states, including Michigan, in 2016 to campaign for the electors in states won by Trump to vote against him, have no business lecturing the rest of us about democracy or norms. If anything, the crusade to stop Trump through the electoral college was far more insidious as it was backed by prominent scholars and celebrities. What Trump was trying to do with his fake elector’s scheme was abhorrent, but it pales in comparison to an elaborate attempt to have 37 Republican electors’ defect from Trump in 2016.

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[i] National Archives. “The Constitution of the United States: A Transcription.” Edited by James Madison and Jacob Shallus. National Archives. The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, 2018. https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript.

[ii] Schlesinger, Arthur M. The Imperial Presidency. Mariner Books, 2004.

[iii] Reich, Robert. “Robert Reich: Trump’s Path to Dictatorship.” Eurasia Review, July 20, 2023. https://www.eurasiareview.com/21072023-trumps-path-to-dictatorship-oped/.

[iv] Honderich, Holly. “Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel Files Charges in Fake Elector Scheme.” BBC News, July 18, 2023, sec. US & Canada. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66239857.

[v] Cheney, Kyle. “Democratic Presidential Electors Revolt against Trump.” POLITICO, November 22, 2016. https://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/democrats-electoral-college-faithless-trump-231731.

[vi] Farley, Robert. “Could the Electoral College Elect Hillary Clinton instead of Donald Trump?” USA TODAY, November 16, 2016. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/2016/11/16/fact-check-could-electoral-college-elect-hillary-clinton-instead-donald-trump/93951818/.

[vii] Tribe, Laurence. “Https://Twitter.com/Tribelaw/Status/809011225858342912.” Twitter, December 14, 2016. https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/809011225858342912.

[viii] Cheney. “The Rogue Electors’ Long Game.” POLITICO, December 19, 2016. https://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/electoral-college-rogue-electors-hamilton-232802.

References

Cheney, Kyle. “Democratic Presidential Electors Revolt against Trump.” POLITICO, November 22, 2016. https://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/democrats-electoral-college-faithless-trump-231731.

———. “The Rogue Electors’ Long Game.” POLITICO, December 19, 2016. https://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/electoral-college-rogue-electors-hamilton-232802.

Farley, Robert. “Could the Electoral College Elect Hillary Clinton instead of Donald Trump?” USA TODAY, November 16, 2016. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/2016/11/16/fact-check-could-electoral-college-elect-hillary-clinton-instead-donald-trump/93951818/.

Honderich, Holly. “Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel Files Charges in Fake Elector Scheme.” BBC News, July 18, 2023, sec. US & Canada. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66239857.

National Archives. “The Constitution of the United States: A Transcription.” Edited by James Madison and Jacob Shallus. National Archives. The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, 2018. https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript.

Reich, Robert. “Robert Reich: Trump’s Path to Dictatorship.” Eurasia Review, July 20, 2023. https://www.eurasiareview.com/21072023-trumps-path-to-dictatorship-oped/.

Schlesinger, Arthur M. The Imperial Presidency. Mariner Books, 2004.

Tribe, Laurence. “Https://Twitter.com/Tribelaw/Status/809011225858342912.” Twitter, December 14, 2016. https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/809011225858342912.