One Thing After Another

You know, here's been so much going on recently, I can't keep up . . .

A snowfall today that turned to be a much bigger deal than originally forecast has allowed me to stay home all day and type up this blog post, in which I try to make sense of a senseless campaign for what could be the last American presidential election with more than one candidate.

Last week, the Supreme Court heard arguments that Colorado (and, by extension, Maine) can drop Donald Trump from the presidential ballot on the basis of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which bars insurrectionists from running for office, and it turns out that not being allowed to go to the Capitol on January 6 was the best thing that could have happened to him. Trump's lawyers argued that Trump technically did not support the insurrection because he wasn't at the Capitol that day, despite the fact that he did nothing for three hours to stop it.  More galling was the suggestion hat Colorado can't keep Trump off the ballot because one state - a state Joe Biden will likely win in November anyway -  shouldn't alter the course of a national election.  Even Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson made that assertion despite years if not decades of history showing states denying voters to cast a ballot on the basis of their race.

Meanwhile, Trump has appealed the federal court decision against presidential immunity to the Supreme Court, as expected (as I expected), which could delay the federal election intervention trial,but hopefully not for too long.  I think the trial will start.  Just not next month.  More likely, sometime in mid-spring.    

As for Joe Biden, many Democrats still fear the effect of the age issue while the media go on and on about Biden's age without even considering the more pertinent issue of his intelligence (and the 77-year-old Trump's lack thereof).  Robert Hur's reference to Biden's age in his independent counsel's report doesn't even pertain here, as these concerns have been playing out for months.  Many pundits are critiquing the Biden campaign for not allowing the candidate to grant an interview during the Super Bowl, missing the opportunity for President Biden to communicate with the voters he needs among the game's 123 million viewers . . .  like young women who were watching the game because Taylor Swift's boyfriend was playing for the (ultimately victorious) Kansas City Chiefs. While I understand the argument for such an interview, I have a few arguments against that:

• Many people who watched the Super Bowl will likely either vote for Trump or stay home in November.
• There were 138 million Americans of voting age - myself included - who didn't watch the Super Bowl because they don't care about American football.
• Taylor Swift didn't actually perform at the Super Bowl halftime show.  Usher did.  And a lot of rockist music fans have strong opinions about that! (I'll get to that in a later post.)  Taylor Swift was just there. 
• Does the prime minister of Great Britain give an interview during the FA Cup match?

With the Super Bowl over, and the presidential campaign continuing, Biden has plenty of opportunities ahead to make the case for himself.  If the polls don't move in his favor by next month, though, I'll begin to worry.  Because poll numbers can solidify into permanence eight months out before anyone votes.  If that sounds unthinkable, just remember I was a supporter of Martin O'Malley's eight-month campaign for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.  All throughout those eight months, O'Malley was in single digits in the polls and all throughout those eight months, I kept expressing faith that those numbers could move.  And they did. In the wrong direction; in Iowa, the only state O'Malley competed in, he won only a fraction of a percent of the vote and withdrew as a candidate.

My advice is to prepare to move abroad in December if you can or keep you rear end clean if you can't.  And to be fair, even fleeing the country might not help, because Trump's return to power could put the whole planet in jeopardy.  Just don't be surprised if, come January, the border closes to emigrants and opposition to the Dear Leader becomes a capital offense.