The five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
We are stuck on number three, bargaining, in the Trump campaign’s post-election bid to win back the presidency. The latest in some 50 unsuccessful lawsuits came not from the campaign itself, however, but from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who sued Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — four of the battleground states in which President-elect Joe Biden bested President Donald J. Trump — arguing that coronavirus-related changes to election rules in those states were unconstitutional, even though Texas also made changes. Seventeen red states joined the Texas suit, as did Trump and 106 Republican members of Congress.
The U.S. Supreme Court — which has something called “original jurisdiction” over the states, albeit for things like border disputes and water rights — gave the four defendants, which were backed by 22 blue states and Washington D.C., about 24 hours to respond. Needless to say the response was swift and merciless with the four defendants accusing Texas of undermining the rule of law. The Lone Star State — which has a saying, “Don’t Mess With Texas” — opened up a whole can of worms by messing with other states. For what was to stop blue states like California and New York from suing red states in the South over their gun policies, for example? In the end, the Supremes denied the Trumpettes even the courtesy of a hearing.
But that wasn’t the last word from Texas — no, of course not. Texas GOP chair Allen West suggested that since everyone’s being so unfair to the Lone Star State that Texans should just pick up all their toys in the sandbox and secede from the union, something Texas has threatened before. As one waggish poster put it, if at first you don’t secede, cry, cry again. Whereupon many posters noted that oil-rich Texas could take the other red states with it and support them in a new country, since the red states take more from the federal government than they give to it, while the blue states give more than they take. I don’t think Texas is going anywhere.
But the damage is done. Repudiated Repubs can kiss their chances of carrying Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin goodbye for the foreseeable future and that’s no small thing as Georgia’s runoff campaign for two U.S. Senate seats heats up, with control of the Senate hanging in the balance,. (The vote is Jan. 5.)
Many in the blogosphere are saying the parade of Trumpian lawsuits is “the definition of insanity — “doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results” — a definition attributable to novelist Rita Mae Brown. But there is a method to this madness. According to a Dec. 10 New York Times article, Paxton “is under indictment in a securities fraud case and facing separate accusations of abusing his office to aid a political donor by several former employees.” Thus, the theory goes, he may have been angling for one of those preemptive pardons Trump has been dangling. But as I once said to a judge at the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (jury duty), what is legal is not necessarily moral and vice versa.
All this time spent on frivolous lawsuits. But where is the coronavirus relief for people who are out of work and food insecure children? Where are the assurances that there’s enough vaccines for the United States? Where is the smooth handoff from one administration to another?
And most important, where is the moral outrage? It’s with people like the poised, personable Dr. Richina Bicette of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, who told the “PBS Newshour’s” Amna Nawaz:
“It's not about what the leaders are doing. It's about what they're not doing. There are still places in Texas where businesses are allowed to operate at 75 percent capacity. There are still places where bars are open.
“The New England Journal of Medicine, which is probably one of the most respected and most recognized scientific journals in the world, actually wrote a piece on it called ‘Dying in a Leadership Vacuum,’ where they stated that our leaders have failed us, they have failed this test and they have turned crisis into tragedy.”
Amen, sister, amen. Instead of Texas messing with everybody else, maybe it should get its own house in order.