TARGETING TO REVERSE ELECTORAL DEFEAT

At the conclusion of the first presidential debate, moderator Chris Wallace asked President Trump if he would pledge to not declare victory until the election has been independently certified. His answer was illuminating: "If I see tens of thousands of ballots being manipulated, I can't go along with it." It is obvious that the president's campaign plans to aggressively challenge election results, especially in battleground states. As the 2020 presidential election is creeping closer, and as President Trump's poll numbers remain steadily well below those of his challenger, rumors about how the president intends to pull victory out of the jaws of defeat are everywhere. For most Americans contemplating disputing the results of a routine quadrennial election, an expression of our democratic traditions, appears unimaginable. For President Trump, losing an election appears equally unacceptable. It helps to comprehend how our system works to understand what is involved. While most of us believe that we vote to elect a president every four years, we actually select our chief executive indirectly. In reality, we vote for a slate of electors which ultimately decides who wins. The election of a president is essentially a two-step process. In each state voters cast ballots. In nearly every state, the candidate who gets the most votes wins the "electoral votes" for that state, which become part of the Electoral College. The president and vice president are ultimately elected by the Electoral College, consisting of 538 electors from the 50 states and Washington D,C.. Electors are nominated by a political party and pledged to vote for the candidate to which the elector is pledged. Most do. Since the election of 1824, when John Quincy Adams defeated Andrew Jackson by garnering more electoral votes through the House of Representatives, most states have appointed their electors winner-take-all, based on the popular vote on election day. Article II, section 1, clause 2 of our Constitution empowers the state legislature to determine the manner by which the state's electors are chosen. The number of electors each state is entitled to equals the combined total number of representatives the state has in the Senate and the House. Mr. Trump understands how the Electoral College can shift the outcome of an election in his favor. In 2016, he lost the popular vote by close to 3 million votes, but, with 270 needed to be victorious, he won the Electoral College by 304 to 227. There are essentially two ways President Trump can attempt to overthrow a win by former Vice President Biden. He can activate lawsuits challenging mail-in ballot results, something his campaign has already prepped the voting public for over the past six months. He can file a series of lawsuits aimed at blocking the counting or disqualifying of mailed-in ballots. In such a case, the Supreme Court will most likely end up deciding the outcome, not the voters. This process would be reminiscent of what happened during the 2000 election in Bush v. Gore, which many considered less an exercise in legal reasoning than in power, given the 5-4 Republican split on the Court. The second, more complicated, method would involve manipulating the electoral count in enough swing states to alter the national outcome. The idea is to target states with Republican legislatures that voted Democratic. Since the Constitution gives each state the power to certify its slate of electors, legislatures might be convinced to change the outcome of the election, override the vote count, and send Trump supporters to the Electoral College. According to one of Mr. Trump's advisors: "The state legislatures [could] say, "All right, we've been given this constitutional power. We don't think the results of our own state are accurate, so here's one slate of electors we think properly reflect the results of our state." Questions like: "How far is he willing to go to win?" and "Will he leave office if he loses?" were once seen as far-fetched hypotheticals pondered by experts and pundits. Now they have become mainstream concerns. Mr. Trump's often repeated exclamation that "the only way we're going to lose this election is if the election is rigged," can no longer be dismissed as pure bluster. Theo Wierdsma

FEAR FACTOR DOMINATES ELECTORAL STRATEGIES

"The only thing we have to fear is .... fear itself." Franklin Roosevelt's memorable proclamation, uttered during his first inauguration address on March 4, 1933, has been firmly entrenched in our political history. Short of the inauguration speech expected next January, both camps in the developing presidential election campaign seem thoroughly committed to employ the fear factor as well. President Trump aggressively cautions his political base that an electoral loss would unquestionably result in a radical socialist takeover of the country. Democratic candidate, former Vice President Biden, warns that four more years of Trump would lead to obliterating our democratic and constitutional values, thoroughly eliminating our country as we know it. In short, both candidates claim that their opponent would destroy our country's democratic framework. The fear of failure has become the most significant operative concept in either campaign. During the 2016 campaign, Mr. Trump ran as an outsider intent on shaking up the "deep state." His base of support cared little about his policy ideas. It enjoyed the president sticking it to an entrenched Washington elite. Ending up with a more conservative judiciary was a bonus. Almost four years later, the president goes to great lengths to defend his record in office, something unexpectedly made more difficult with the coronavirus pandemic, something the administration has been ill-equipped to come to grips with, and a tanking economy which still features 14 million unemployed, and a country $26 trillion in debt, $4.7 trillion more than the previous year. What was once a promising issue for the president, evaporated almost over night. No wonder that the Trump re-election strategy required significant re-engineering. Volatile, violent demonstrations, emanating from multiple "Black Lives Matter" flash points, provided the administration with what it felt it needed. Taking a page from a successful tactic employed by President Richard Nixon, it adopted the "law and order" mantra, focusing more on order than law. Infusing federal troops into cities experiencing significant unrest not only inflamed the demonstrations, it served to cement Mr. Trump's narrative that he was the defender of the fatherland. He quickly claimed: "I'm the only thing standing between the American Dream and total anarchy and chaos." "Do you want to be ruled by the radical left-wing mob, or do you ant to stand tall as free men and women in the greatest country on earth?" "We're going to have an election that is all about the survival of the nation." On the other hand, aside from heavily criticizing President Trump's handling of the ongoing pandemic, Democrats zoom in on his perceived affinity for autocratic leaders and dismissal of constitutional norms, are spreading fear of an impending Fascist dictatorship. Their playbook comes straight out of 20th century Europe, including: despotism of a single leader, suppression of the courts, (erasion of the independent judiciary), militarization of domestic life, and the merging of most economic life with governmental purposes. All of this obviously depends on a very liberal interpretation of facts on the ground. Mr. Biden now has the advantage of 3 1/2 years of history to work from. Whether either strategy will work is difficult to tell. Mr. Trump's base may not care what policy prescription the president is offering. Many of its members tend to favor style over substance. They like Trump because he fights the Washington elite in the way he does, no holds barred. Democrats essentially coalesce around an anti-Trump strategy, realizing hesitantly that so far their cause outpolls the president's in most states. One of their major fears is that, because of the expected influx of mail-in ballots, routinely declared suspect by the president, Mr. Trump could appear to have seized a decisive victory on election night, thanks to a delay in counting these ballots. Trump may declare himself the victor - crying foul as his lead evaporates as additional votes are counted, and challenge any loss based on the mail-in ballots, claiming the election was rigged. Our fear is that this spectacle could well turn into a serious constitutional crisis. Theo Wierdsma

DEBUNKING THE THREAT OF MARTIAL LAW

President trump's recent mantra defining himself as a "law and order" president, ordering hundreds of federal law enforcement agents into cities suffering from aggressive demonstrations, have renewed fears that he might declare a national emergency or impose martial law, potentially affecting the November 3rd election. Back in July, Mr. Trump already suggested that the November election be delayed "until people can properly and safely vote." And more recently, his head of Homeland Security was quoted responding to criticism of unasked for federal interference in cities like Portland and Chicago, stating: "I don't need invitations by the state mayors or state governors to do our job. We're going to do that whether they like us or not." Mr. Trump's continued slippage in the polls, and his continued attempts at changing the narrative from his mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic to violence in cities demonstrating for "black lives matter" promoting himself aggressively as the antidote and savior of America as we know it, continues to feed the rumors. Although our president is known for breaking constitutional norms and acting outside of constitutional bounds, the short answer to these rumors is decidedly "No!" He absolutely does not have the power to declare martial law, or to change the timing and scope of our presidential election. Martial law, the displacement of civilian authorities by the military, is nowhere to be found in our Constitution, and no act of Congress defines it. The 10th Amendment to our Constitution stipulates that all powers not expressly relegated to the federal government are reserved for the states. This includes police powers. Thus far the administration has paid little attention to these legalities. However, states have already taken them to court, and the magnitude of recent incursions won't compare to what would need to happen on a national scale to potentially threaten the election. President Trump has made a point of hiding behind the Insurrection Act of 1807, which allows him to deploy federal troops against the will of local authorities in certain circumstances. State approval is not required when the president determines that a situation in a state makes it impossible to enforce U.S. laws, or when citizens' rights are threatened. However, the Insurrection Act only covers military assistance in localized situations, not the all encompassing military involvement martial law would allow. Under the latter provisions the president would be able to censor the press, enforce a curfew, detain civilians without charge, and, in Mr. Trump's mind, presumably allow him to affect he scope, content and timing of the upcoming election. Since World War II, we have only declared martial law nine times, five of which intended to counter resistance to federal desegregation decrees in the South. Among these, President Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock to enforce high school integration against the wishes of Arkansas in 1957. And President Kennedy federalized the National Guard to force integration of the University of Alabama in 1962. Scholars are clear: Our president does not have the power to move the date of the election. Article II of the Constitution empowers Congress to choose the timing of the general election. An 1845 federal law fixed it as the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. At the same time, the Constitution specifically stipulates that the new Congress be sworn in on January 3rd, and that the new president begins his or her term on January 20. Alan Dershowitz, a legal scholar and a staunch supporter of our current president, puts it this way: "Were the president to claim that both the violent disruptions and the spread of the coronavirus justified the use of the military or the suspension of certain basic rights, he would be embarking on unchartered waters, and so would the courts." Theo Wierdsma

SAFELY REOPENED SCHOOLS ELSEWHERE COULD BENEFIT U.S. PURSUITS

Recently, being curious about how people in other parts of the world are faring with the Covid-19 pandemic, I contacted my family in Europe. Almost all of them are either parents or grandparents of school-aged kids. Given our contentious discussion about how to educate these young people during the coming year, I wanted to find out how that subject was being approached over there. Whether their children should attend school again in person, or continue remote learning, has been controversial in most European countries as well. Parents expressed similar concerns about safety as our families do over here. An open letter, published and signed by more than 1,500 members of the United Kingdom’s Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health sums it up, when it concluded that continued school closure risks “scarring the life chances of a generation of young people.” Many adults decided that their governments had addressed most of the salient issues and that it was time to bring children back to school. By early June, more than 20 countries had done just that. How did they do this and how did they manage to keep everyone safe? Sweden, Taiwan and Nicaragua never closed their schools. Denmark was the first country in Europe to reopen its schools. During the process the country’s number of new Covid cases remained flat or continued to decline. The Danish school system assigned students to small groups, pods, that would be allowed to congregate during recess. The Danes also found creative ways to give these groups as much space and fresh air as possible, even teaching classes in a graveyard. Belgium, taking a page from the Danish experience, proceeded to have some classes meet in churches. Kids in The Netherlands, Germany and Austria went back to school in April and early May. The Dutch cut class sizes in half. However, they did little to enforce social distancing among students under the age of 12, and they actually just announced that, come September, everyone under the age of 17 can attend using the same rules. Germany reopened its schools by employing a shift system, to allow more space for social distancing. None of these countries experienced spikes of new cases. In the mean time, Norway went back. Finland did the same, not cutting classes, but preventing classes from mixing with one another. Scotland successfully adopted the pod system. Italy and Spain plan the reopen schools in September. Curiously, few of these school systems make a big deal about face coverings. The thought process appears to be that the discomfort of wearing masks might make this requirement counter -productive. In China, South Korea, Japan and Vietnam masks are already widely accepted and worn by many during flu season. Schools require them for almost all students and teachers. Kids don’t take them off. They listen! European kids seem culturally more rebellious. Obviously, opening safely isn’t just about the adjustments schools make, it’s also about how much virus is circulating in the community, which affects the likelihood that students and staff will bring Covid-19 into their classrooms. By May or June most European countries had flattened the curve on Covid-19. A prime example, as of July 8, the 7-day average of new cases in Italy was 198. It’s stringent lockdown regimen early on proved extremely effective. In the U.S. during that same period that number was 52,636. (Italy’s population is roughly 1/5 of that of the U.S.). Germany “only” suffered 9,000 total deaths during the pandemic. Their disciplined pro-active approach had done the job as well. The point is that Europe has been successful in bringing kids back to school safely. No spikes or related infestations. Given our deplorable situation, we have a way to go before we can take advantage of the successful adjustments European schools have adopted. We seem to be operating in an entirely different universe. Even when we compare ourselves to Canada, we need to admit that they did their due diligence. Their 7-day average was “only” 423, and the Canadians complain about that. It’s no wonder that they plan to bring kids back in September, allowing them to socialize in groups of six. For many countries this is the new normal. We just need to begin working harder and smarter. Theo Wierdsma

SUMMER 2020 – EUROPE ANYONE?

Four months ago, when we locked our respective businesses, supposedly for “just a few weeks,” our family was awash in e-mails questioning how long we ought to keep reservation sixteen of us had secured for a vacation some of us had looked forward to for years. Our destinations were The Netherlands, where I was born and where virtually all of my family lives, and Sweden, the ancestral home of my wife’s family. Since I had turned 75 earlier this year, I felt compelled to arrange for a family get-together. After all, you never know when your time runs out. As it turned out, none of us needed to make the tough decisions. Tourist attractions closed down, airlines cancelled our flights, refunds were processed, and even our hopes for a postponement until later this year were crushed. We all know what happened. The “few weeks” turned into several months. President Trump unceremoniously, without warning or consultation with European leaders, issued a travel ban, first for the Schengen area and subsequently for Britain and Ireland. Some suggested early on that this decision would ultimately result in a reciprocate response from the E.U.. When the European Union reopened to visitors on July 1, after months of coronavirus lockdowns, the U.S. did not make the list of 14 countries allowed tourist entry. The E.U.’s calculus was complicated. It aimed to reduce risky Covid spikes. E.U. nations opened borders to non essential travelers coming from a select list of countries in which the Covid-19 pandemic has been deemed sufficiently under control. The number of new Covid cases per 100,000 population within any running 14 day period needs to be close to or below the E.U.’s June 15 number, which was 16. At the time, the U.S. score was 107. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Trump administration did react to the E.U. decision. U.S. Executive V.P. for Public Affairs and Policy, Tori Emerson Barnes, called the E.U. news “incredibly disappointing and a step in the wrong direction as we seek to rebuild our global economy.” A New York Times opinion piece recognized that much of the world seemed united behind the position that travelers from the U.S. are no longer welcome. “As countries across the world ease coronavirus restrictions but block American travelers, a long-held sense that the U.S. passport was a golden ticket is losing its luster.” As politicians on our side of the Atlantic grumble about retaliation, epidemiological and pure economic data tend to fly in the face of any logic supporting that contention. Europe has much more to lose than we do. In 2018, 15 million visitors spent $144 billion tourist dollars in Europe, second only to visitors from China. Hardly worthy of political calculations. New coronavirus cases between us and the E.U. are also disproportionate. Europe averages 15,000 new cases per day. We are now topping 60,000. The 27 E.U. countries are not the only ones blocking our entry. We are also not welcome in Canada, Switzerland, Iceland, India, South Africa and many other destinations. Our abominable success record controlling the virus’ spread will continue to get in the way. We have to get our act together, not just spout off slogans some of our voters may want to hear. Europe will review its list every two weeks. In the mean time visiting some of our favorite destinations are well out of reach. Theo Wierdsma

GENESIS AND LIFE LINE OF HATE GROUPS IN AMERICA

One of the outstanding cultural characteristics of the past fifty years or so is the proliferation of hate groups. The Southern Poverty Law Center lists literally hundreds of them. For 2018, these include 54 chapters of the Ku Klux Klan, 112 neo Nazi groups, 148 white nationalist organizations, 63 racist skinheads affiliations and a smattering of other wannabees, some of which come and go. According to an annual FBI report, hate crimes against persons (as opposed to property) reached a 16 year high nationally in 2018, with notable increases in attacks against Latinos and transgender people. Hate groups, by definition, are social groups that advocate and practice hatred, hostility, or violence toward members of a race, ethnicity, nation, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation or any other designated sector of society. According to the FBI, a hate group’s primary purpose is to promote animosity, hostility and malice against persons belonging to any of these categories. These groups don’t develop in a vacuum. They tend to crop up during times of social an economic upheaval. Its organizing principles tend to include elements of fear, insecurity and ignorance. Their propaganda leans heavily on the fear that what we have taken for granted historically no longer applies. The rules are changing. The predominance of straight, white, Protestants can no longer be taken for granted. The extend of any transformation and the speed with which cultural changes are taking place usually determines how unsettled people feel. Many won’t see themselves operating in such an unstable social structure with dramatically changing social norms. Strong organizational skills of ideologues, facilitated by extensive social media manipulation can do the rest. As cultures transitioned, hate groups have been around for centuries. French sociologist Emile Durkheim, writing during the late 19th century, a time of revolutionary technological and demographic change, coined the term “anomie,” meaning social instability due to the breakdown of social norms. He grew up right after the nominal end of the Industrial Revolution, a time of rapid change, during which agricultural societies became more industrialized, when the economic center shifted from a cottage industry to mechanization in factories, and the invention of electricity, the transcontinental railroad, the cotton gin, et. al., changed society permanently. Monarchies became democracies and people were entirely disconnected from their past. While these seismic changes did not seem to have generated the kinds of hate groups we are familiar with today, multiple vigilante groups did develop. One of these, the Luddites, became a violent force against the textile industry. Fast forward to all the changes wrought during the 2nd half of the 19th century The end of the Civil War, the end of slavery, which gave rise to substantial economic change, especially in the south, becoming the impetus for the Ku Klux Klan, pushback through Jim Crow laws, World War I, the Russian Revolution, a global depression, World War II and, more recently, the rapidly developing technological revolution, forcing people out of familiar sources of income, demographic shifts changing society’s make up, seemingly at warp speed and the consequent alienation of entire segments of our population, which no longer recognize their place in the new society. While some parts of society struggled to be included, traditional, mostly white men, resisted the change for fear of losing all they had become used to . A situation ripe for the growth of hate groups, fueled by populist politicians. Dr. Randy Blazak, a former professor of sociology at Portland State University, studied the phenomenon from the inside and has continued to monitor the activities of racist skinheads, neo-Nazis and Klansmen, as well as newer far-right groups like the Proud Boys and Patriotic Prayer. While doing research for his master’s and doctoral degrees in sociology at Emery University in Atlanta, he went under cover to study these hate groups and learn what motivated their hatred. (See: Randy Blazak, “Blind Hate, why White Supremacy Persists,” The Sun, March, 2020.) He agrees that what connects all these groups is the core belief that straight white males are under threat, and that their country is being taken away from them. What has changed over time is who they identify as the main threats. In 1988, nobody talked about transgender people. Hardly anyone talked about Muslims and even Latinos were way down the list of enemies. Recruitment changed as well. In the past you needed to be handed a flyer, or know somebody who knew somebody. There was a certain risk to hanging out with skin heads or going to a Klan meeting. You used to have to be physically present to belong to a group, but now you can join on line. It’s like a 24 hour a day rally happening on line. Groups can present a more mainstream message and on message boards call for violence and civil war on a daily basis. Blazak suggests that, with assistance of sophisticated usage of social media, proliferation and intensification of these hate groups will continue for some time to come. When asked about his opinion about our upcoming election, he says: “It’s going to get worse before it gets better. Either Trump gets reelected and we have more of this happening, or he doesn’t get reelected, and a small group of his supporters refuse to accept it and we see a spike in violence.” Theo Wierdsma

JUNETEENTH AND MAGA – A VOLATILE MIX

President Trump’s reelection campaign scheduled his first campaign rally after Covid-19 imposed lockdowns to take place in Tulsa Oklahoma, on Friday, June 19. Date and location were immediately attacked as, at best, a poor choice, or, at worst, a defiantly symbolic signal to Mr. Trump’s shrinking base. Even though the resulting outcry prompted him to change the date by one day, the damage was done. June 19, or Juneteenth, AKA Emancipation Day or Freedom Day, happens to be one of the most significant, longest running holidays for the African American community. Tulsa was the site of the single worst incident of racial violence in American history, resulting in a massacre, now 99 years ago. According to Republicans close to the president, the campaign was aware of the significance of the date when it announced the site. It decided to go ahead anyway, even before the contract with the event venue was finalized. Site and date selection were suspect from the very beginning. Oklahoma is not one of the states the president’s campaign needs to worry about. In 2016, he won the state by 36.39%. The choice may well have been strategically deliberate. It has widely been perceived as a nod to white supremacists, and a slap in the face of the African American community. To quote California Senator Kamala Harris: “This isn’t just a wink to white supremacist – he’s throwing them a welcome home party.” On June 19, 1865, the Emancipation Proclamation, originally issued January 1, 1863, was read to enslaved African Americans in Texas by Union Army General Gordon Granger. Once Union forces took control of Texas, a state still holding 250,000 slaves, the proclamation could finally be enforced. The event was billed as the emancipation of the last remaining African Americans in the Confederacy. Contrary to a widely held believe, President Lincoln’s proclamation had not freed all the slaves. It read: “All persons held as slaves within the rebellious states are and henceforth will be free.” He only covered ten states. The date of the Texas ceremony is filled with racial symbolism and is often considered the second American Independence Day. Given Mr. Trump’s contentious relationship with African Americans, selection of the date itself was perceived as an affront. The site selection of the planned campaign event quickly became highly controversial as well. Beginning on May 31, 1921, mobs of white residents ransacked Tulsa’s Greenwood district, also known as “Black Wall Street.” The attacks came on the ground and from private aircraft. A massacre ensued, which killed an estimated 300 residents, left 10,000 black residents homeless, inflicted $32.5 million (at today’s dollars) in property damage and destroyed more than 35 square blocs. Instigating this race riot was the arrest of a 19 year old black shoe shiner, Dick Rowland, accused of assaulting a 17 year old white elevator operator, Sarah Page. The Tulsa Tribune broke the story with the headline: “Nab Negro for attacking Girl in an Elevator.” A secondary headline: “To Lynch Negro Tonight,” set things in motion. Angry whites congregated outside the courthouse where Rowland was being held. Alarmed by rumors that a lynching had actually taken place, a contingent of blacks went to the courthouse as well, some armed with rifles. Shots were fired and twelve people were killed – ten white and two black. As news of the deaths spread, mob violence exploded. Sarah Page never pressed charges. Dick Rowland, who apparently tripped getting into the elevator, was released and left town. It is difficult not to see this site and date selection as intentional. Campaigns tend to do research and schedule events for a reason, not by happenstance. It has been suggested that the president intends to make a speech about race. Given the emotional baggage attached to this selection, the choice is poor one, especially if the president decides to make a speech reacting to the ongoing protests and unrest following the murder of George Floyd – at a campaign rally of all places. Multiple historians and commentators have complained out loud. CeLillianne Green, an activist, writer, and public speaker, commented: “It’s almost blasphemous to the people of Tulsa and insulting to the notion of freedom for our people, which is what Juneteenth symbolizes. Theo Wierdsma