Trump’s not a Good Fit for Jackboots

It’s now an article of faith among the Left that Donald Trump is a threat to American democracy, that he is unsuitable to be President.  Will that claim be supercharged – gain even more traction – now that Biden, who clearly was not fit to be President, is out of the race?  Probably.

But what evidence is there for this?  No-one ever challenges his detractors to provide such evidence. They never ask, what does this mean in practical terms? I am going to demolish this urban myth.

Let me begin with the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.  This is the major black mark against Trump, arguably, the only one. Chris Uhlmann, who is emerging as one of the best recent acquisitions of The Australian, but is not immune to Trump Derangement Syndrome, had a piece, scathing of Trump, on this subject last weekend.  It does not get off to a good start:

… no matter how you choose to name it, five police who held the line against the mob that day died in the wake of the storming of congress as it sat to confirm the legitimate election of Joe Biden as the 46th President.

Five.

Oh, my God, that sounds damning, but wait.  The key words here are ‘in the wake’ of.  Read on:

US Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick had pepper spray shot in his face by a rioter and died of a stroke the next day. Washington’s chief medical examiner concluded he died of natural causes but added “all that transpired played a role in his condition”.

What also transpired four days after the assault was that officer Sicknick’s US Capitol Police colleague, Howard Liebengood, killed himself. Metropolitan Police officer Jeffrey Smith also committed suicide after the attack. By early August 2021 the number of suicides would rise to four as two other Metropolitan Police officers, Kyle de Freytag and Gunther Hashida, also took their own lives.

Tragic as these deaths are, the only one that can be arguably linked to the riot is that of Sicknick.  But if pepper spray can induce a stroke, or even contribute materially to it, what are we doing routinely deploying it against protestors – such as the elderly lady (below), who was knocked to the ground in 2021 at an anti-lockdown rally by one of Daniel Andrews’ praetorian thugs, aka VicPol.

As to the suicides, what can Uhlmann possibly know about their motivation. Suicide — “eating you gun” — is a major cause of death among police officers across the globe. It is generally a result of PTSD acquired over a long period.  It is a very long bow to suggest that any, or all, of these suicides is directly attributable to the events of January 6.  For all we know Officers Liebengood, Smith, de Freytag and Hashida had become disgusted at the state of their country, following the Democrat state governments’ feeble, even encouraging, response to the BLM riots and calls to defund the police.  Nonetheless, it beggars belief that four officers could have been so traumatized by a relatively peaceful riot (irony intended) – no shops ablaze at this one – that they took their own lives.

Guided by his own favoured lawyers’ opinion, Trump apparently believed Mike Pence, the President of the Senate, had some constitutional power to do that

Guided by his own favoured lawyers’ opinion, Trump apparently believed Mike Pence, the President of the Senate, had some constitutional power to do that — and there was a precedent of a sort for thinking that way. In the election of 1876, Democrat Samuel Tilden garnered a quarter of a million more votes than Republican Rutherford Hayes but was not confirmed as the winner due to disputed returns in three Southern states. A special Election Commission was established which, after the usual palm-greasing and back-room deals, reversed the popular vote and installed Hayes in the White House. The circumstances then and now are not identical, but the precedent that the result of the popular vote can be challenged had been established and it was this Trump sought to explore. Democrats insist Trump sought to “overturn” the 2020 election, which is true in that it was his ultimate goal. But his first intention was to stop the confirmation and thereby prompt an investigation of voting irregularities, of which, Democrat objections aside, there were many.

Pence believed that he had no such power – the Constitution says merely that

The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President …

That said, Trump supporters must confront the reality of January 6′.  I argued at the time that Trump did not cover himself in glory on that day, that once the courts had failed to consider his protests, he should have retired gracefully.  I thought a second Trump presidency unlikely and that a future President Pence would be the best way to preserve their joint legacy. Events have proved me wrong. For one thing, the Biden administration has applied a scorched earth policy to that legacy. It will now have to be rebuilt — from border enforcement to energy policy — and Trump is the only one who can do it.

It is worth noting here that, in any case, under the Constitution (Article II, Section 1), the states are under no compulsion to appoint delegates in accordance with the popular ballot, although that has been established by precedent.  No doubt the Constitution anticipated that states would enact their own democratic mechanism to allow their constituents a say in who should be President.

So, was democracy under threat here?  I would emphatically argue not. Even if Pence had  acceded to Trump’s demand, would everyone have accepted that?  Would they have just shrugged shoulders and gone off to rewrite the order of service for the Inauguration?  Without his own armed militia – an obligatory auxilliary for any would-be dictator – Trump could not have prevailed.  Governments regularly seek to act unconstitutionally – as Gough Whitlam proposed to do in 1975.

Governments regularly seek to act unconstitutionally – as Gough Whitlam proposed to do in 1975.

There would have been a Supreme Court action and Pence would have been overruled. I suspect that this is all that Trump wanted – to get the Supreme Court to hear his case.  Given the forces arrayed against him, Trump could hardly have hoped for more.  And what could be more democratic than letting a contentious matter be decided in Court? Let me elaborate.

In December 2020, the State of Texas lodged a suit in the Supreme Court against the state of Pennsylvania on the grounds that its executive, and those of other states such as Wisconsin, had unconstitutionally altered their voting procedures.  The Constitution states that only the legislature in a state can determine the electoral rules. The Supreme Court refused to get involved, ruling that Texas had no standing in this matter, Justices Alito and Thomas dissenting, thereby avoiding having to take a position on the central issue of electoral fraud.

As to the riot, this was simply a protest that got out of hand — not by any stretch of the imagination “an insurrection”.  There was no aim.  There was no co-ordination. There were no guns discharged other than the one that killed pro-Trumper Ashli Babbit.

Stories about January 6 always state that ‘Trump repeated the lie that the 2020 election had been stolen’. It is not a lie. It is a claim. Trump believed then and still believes, as do I and many others, that electoral malpractice occurred on a scale sufficient to rob him of victory.  He may be wrong about that, but he is not lying in expressing a sincere belief.  It’s an important distinction because it ameliorates his questionable judgement in relation to January 6.  He believed at the time that democracy had already been overturned.

So, what other evidence is there that Trump will destroy American democracy?  Was American democracy threatened during Trump’s first presidency?

So, what other evidence is there that Trump will destroy American democracy?  Was American democracy threatened during Trump’s first presidency?  Did he use the justice system to pursue Hilary Clinton for the mail-server scandal or the concocted Russiagate scandal?  Did he abuse the justice system to imprison the 234 rioters charged over protests at his 2016 Inauguration?  In fact, 21 pleaded guilty, the rest were acquitted or had charges dropped.

If re-elected, what specific actions do his detractors foresee Trump taking that would threaten democracy?  Is he going to dissolve the Congress?   Is he going to sack Supreme Court justices he doesn’t like?  Is he going to be a dictator – other than in the sense that he jokingly stated vis a vis dictating Executive Orders on day one?  To even venture that suggestion, as many on the Left have done, is to parade an invincible stupidity. To become a dictator, he would first have to recruit his own armed militia and then subvert the entire armed forces by persuading its members to join him in revolt.  Well, dictators don’t last very long without devoted military back-up.  You don’t get to be inaugurated and then just declare ‘Henceforth I am a dictator’.

You can’t imagine how much it pains me to quote Kevin Rudd, but my advice to the Trump haters, on this issue anyway, is the same as his – ‘Chill, guys’.