DEATH TO REELECTIONS

Donald Trump recently stated the election fraud shenanigans that forced him out of the White House was THE CRIME OF THE CENTURY.

And as long as Republicans in Congress are convinced they need Trump's approval to get reelected, they will have to go along with whatever nonsense it might be that escapes from the man's power-haunted cranium.

The problem, of course, is that Trump is an ignorant lunatic with a zeppelin-sized ego. He's never going to be right, but he's never going to find that out.

But there is a way to loosen his grip on slightly less imbecilic Republicans: remove the destructive allure of reelections.

Just look at all the crap reelections engender:

Congress critters have to raise money for future campaigns—from whatever compromised source. They have to genuflect before powerful, nation-warping lobbies like the NRA and the Christian Evangelicals. They have to support volumes of embarrassing political jibber-jabber erupting from random former presidents or party leaders.

All because they desire a career in Congress that can be instantly short-circuited by a rocky path through uncertain reelection.

So, how can we rid ourselves of this existential threat? Term limits.

One term, and hit the road. No reelections, ever.

How can such a paradise be achieved? With great difficulty. What sitting House or Senate member would vote to dynamite their only path to political nirvana?

One way, maybe. They might vote in term limits if the new restrictions are designed to have no effect on them personally.

Get it? Term limits for the next guy!

And to make them even more palatable, the limits could be applied gradually. A three-term limit now, a two-term limit later, leading to the one-term wonder in the great beyond. It would take years and years to achieve the desired effect, but it could be done.

The good news: Nobody currently in power would be touched by it.

But there might still be opposition from those looking to the future of their party. Just like Trump tried to avoid prosecution by taking measures designed (he said) to protect future presidents from vicious attacks by opposition parties bent on destroying the country.

So here's an alternate to one-term and hit the road:

One term, and enjoy the ride. Forever.

One single term that goes on and on and on: life-time terms, like in the Supreme Court. Once you're in, you can stay as long as you like. Leave for personal reasons, if you want. Or resign your seat in the House to run for another, theoretically more comfortable one in the Senate.

Or quit Congress to run for president.

There would always be that element of sacrifice—you can run for another position, but if you lose there will be no safe haven waiting for you in government. You have to give up your seat.

But in the meantime, glory in the everlasting here and now: No reelections to worry about, ever. No fund raising, no campaigns, no kowtowing to special interest groups, no rubber-chicken dinners with the pious glad-handers.

Just do your job and you're good.

But there's the other rub: You actually have to do your job, which—according to the Constitution—is to pay attention to the folks back home. When you take a seat in the big room, you have to do what the people in your district want you do. No exceptions.

And that means you have to do what all the people want, not just the ones who voted for you. If the political landscape shifts around back there, you'll just have to roll with it. Don't forget, your opinion on any given subject is irrelevant. You represent those people, not yourself.

That also means you can't hang on every word your party leaders mutter. Your job is not to toe the line for party unity. Too much of that, and the folks back home can un-elect your ass.

Do your job and you're good. Is that too much to ask?

LIE VS LIE

Donald Trump has been banned for life from Twitter. That's a done deal. And a couple days ago a Facebook review board upheld his ban on that platform for at least another six months.

Nevertheless, the man continues to get stuff out there. In a blog posting last Monday, he proclaimed: "The Fraudulent Presidential Election of 2020 will be, from this day forth, known as THE BIG LIE!"

Which is interesting, because the phrase "Big Lie" has been quite in use on selected TV news shows since (and before) the January 6th uprising at the Capitol. But in those cases, the lie referred to is that Trump won the election (by a landslide, and everybody knows it.)

This attempt to subvert the meaning of simple words is positively Orwellian.

I wonder if he knows that?

In Maricopa County, Arizona, a QANON-linked security firm called Cyber Ninjas is conducting yet another recount. It's taking a long time. A spokesman recently pointed out they have to use a special camera to photograph each ballet, looking for "bamboo."

Seems there is an allegation (they're not saying from whom) that forty or fifty thousand fake ballots were shipped in from China—and counted. Apparently these fakes were so potent they turned the tide for Biden not only in Arizona but all across the country.

(Otherwise, why bother uncovering them?)

Oddly, even though the clever tricksters who printed these ballots were able to copy the sacred document with superhuman precision, they simply couldn't figure out how to buy American paper on Amazon.

More election fraud news:

The Number Three Republican in the House, Lynn Cheney, is likely to lose her position for the crime of not believing Donald Trump when he said he won the election. Maybe it makes sense. Some seventy percent of Republicans apparently do believe the man. She is definitely on the wrong side of Republican history here.

As is Mitt Romney, who got booed by a room full of Republicans when he suggested he might have some issues with Trump's character.

Believing Donald Trump's lie has become the gold standard, the litmus test for proper Republican behavior. Folks have to listen to him and believe.

And it's not just adhering to party mythology. Trump still raises a crap-load of money from rabid supporters. (Sometimes with "opt-in" boxes pre-checked to perpetuate contributions month after month or week after week.) As for Congress critters, he credibly threatens to "primary" Republicans who won't toe the line.

(Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska faced something like that in 2010, pre-Trump. She lost the primary, but won the general election in a write-in campaign. Not an easy thing to do.)

A substantial number of states are writing or planning to write new election security laws to keep what happened in 2020 from happening again. (Republican controlled states don't want any more Democratic victories.)

These new laws can be gotten around by following the letter and overwhelming the system with perfectly legal votes. It's just going to be harder.

And if traditional (read: older) Republican supporters can't decode the trumped-up voting prohibitions, the party may be shooting itself in the foot. But that's their problem.

The Republican leadership in Congress has aligned itself with making sure no Biden-based policy passes into law. And it's not even a question of the president's legitimacy. They just think his agenda is socialism.

They reject that agenda, even as the majority of the country supports it.

That means we no longer have representative government in America. We have strict party rule. The party in power makes the rules, and representatives from all states must follow the party line.

At least, as long as that party is Republican.

(Would Democrats act the same way? Maybe. Humans always do what they know to be the right thing. And they always know what the right thing is. Or think they do. And that's good enough, right? What could go wrong?)

Even though they are not in control, Republicans want to run everything in Congress by passive-aggressive behavior. They think that plan will lead to gaining actual control in future elections.

And it might.

All they need to do is blame Biden and the Democrats for any logjams in Congress. If voters buy that, they might put the GOP back in power.

But that seems like a losing strategy. I think Republicans may be confused by the smokescreen of Trump's election fraud claims. The majority of the people actually did vote for Biden and like what he's doing. It's going to be hard for the Party of One Hundred Percent Opposition (Mitch McConnell's words) to blame him for his failure to continue doing it.

But say it works. What would Republicans do if they took power again in 2022 or 2024? Reverse Covid relief policy at a time when that policy is becoming (because of its success) less and less important to the country?  Would they tear down repaired bridges and jackhammer new roads? Yank child care away from American workers?

About all they could realistically do is reinstate low taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals, throwing the national debt way out of whack. And somehow blame the Democrats for that.

(Look what you made us do?)

Their problem is that the American people want a socialist agenda in place. They would just rather you stopped calling it socialism. That's all.