Coop Scoop: Trump is Not On Trial. The American People Are.

"A republic, ma'am. If you can keep it. "

August 5, 2023

By Marc Cooper

Don't it always seem to go That you don't know what you've got till it’s gone-- Joni Mitchel, Big Yellow Taxi

Yes, this week we are going to talk about Trump, the indictment, the possible trials, the election and so on. But we're going to start with a beaker of water. Or if you prefer we will move on to colorectal cancer.

But first the water. Imagine you had beaker of water or even  a glass of water. It doesn't matter whether we're talking about 8 oz or 128 ounces. Take four drops of red food coloring and drop them into the 128 ounces. You will no longer have a beaker of clear water +4 drops of coloring. No. You will be looking at some vaguely pinkish water whose nature, at least its appearance, if not its chemical makeup has been forever altered by those four drops. And there's no way you can take them out. It’s no longer a glass of water with 4 drops of dye.  It is something new.

That leads us to the question of colorectal cancer something I don't wish on most people. If one suffers from this malaise and if it has already metastasized enough, removal of the original tumor, will do very little to nothing. And maybe some post surgery treatment be it radiation or chemotherapy might palliate, slow down and in some cases eradicate the threat. But if that cancer has already spread to a number of other sensitive organs, the tumor itself becomes irrelevant. I think you know where I'm heading.

Donald Trump is many many things including having a definite aspect of being a colorectal tumor. As much as anybody else of course I want to see him pay for the damage that he has done to this country to its history and to its future. I admit however this is mostly schadenfreude. It's personally very satisfying to see him twist and turn and agonize even if he puts on that good face in public -- something we know for sure that does not reflect his inner turmoil and cold stark fear of dying either in prison or as a completely discredited, losing politician.

I wrote as recently as last week that Donald J Trump has a “zero chance” of being reelected as president of the United States.  As much as I can, I am sticking to that notion because it is the most logical and the most probable. Clearly using the adjective zero here is a bit of hyperbole because any presidential candidate especially one that's floating around 40 to 45% in the polls has a chance of becoming president. As I said last week the most recent polling that shows a Biden Trump tie at 43 percent is very less than convincing. How Donald Trump especially under these circumstances is going to make up the 7 or 8 million votes he lost by in 2020 would seem almost surreal. Let's just say impossible. Yes, there are those seven so-called swing states that could swing the wrong way and that could elect this piece of shit even if he loses the popular vote.  That scenario while not out of the question is much farther out of reach than it was in 2016. Donald Trump lost the suburbs in 2022 and while Joe Biden is less than a stellar, exciting and inspiring candidate I don't see those burbs swinging en masse back to trump. The Supreme Court ruling on abortion and the hyper reactionary response by as many as half the states to impose even more draconian obstacles, bans, and prohibition on abortion only make those suburbs even more volatile for Trump or any other republican.

That said, with absolutely no trace of emotional overreaction, using cold dead logic, as we sit here today Donald J trump represents the single greatest threat to democracy and to rule of law in the United states since the civil war if he is reelected. Once again emphasizing the reality that he might only have a 15% or 20% chance of actually winning the election that's about 21% too much. You know that a revolver generally holds six cartridges. You play Russian roulette with one bullet which represents 16.5% of a probability of suicide. You like those odds? You wanna play? I  don’t.  So please don't mistake the rest of this newsletter as some as some sort of hysterical irrational the sky is falling warning about imminent dictatorship. That's not what I’m intending. My warning is that if that bullet in that revolver winds up in the wrong chamber and if Donald J Trump racks up a few extra votes in Arizona or Georgia, for example, enough to put him back in office, that one bullet is going to be fatal to American democracy..15% chance…100% outcome.

The only high profile trial that counts this coming year is one we already have the date set for: the first Tuesday of November 2024. This is the great historic trial of the American people. I can't say that we failed our first trial along these lines in 2016 because a great majority of Americans did not want Trump to be in the White House and only an antiquated, obsolete 250 year old ass-backward electoral system allowed this snake to slither into office. Unfortunately, the damage that he has brought upon the nation, the way he has changed the nature of our civil society and our political process, the very same way that a few drops of red food coloring can change an entire glass of water, is going to haunt us, hector us, impede us, and possibly undo this great society eventually even if he is locked up forever or dies tonight.

Data coming in from a slew of polls this week give contradictory signals and yet some of them are very disturbing. The relatively good news is that about half of Republican voters say they would not vote for Trump if he is convicted of the January 6 related crimes--- then again, half would. I think the most revealing piece of data that's come out is that about one out of four Republican voters say they would vote for Trump even if he was in jail. When you talk about the Dead Enders, the real knuckle dragging morons, the real living human threat to civil society, we are talking about that 25% or so of Republican zombies who would vote for their dear leader while he's in jail for trying to overthrow the government and violate the United States constitution. Do I have to remind you that these people are unreachable and should not even be considered remotely in any outreach by Democrats or other anti Trumpers?

These people are lost forever and hopefully they can be contained. The bigger problem is the other 25% or so or more maybe 50%, eventually maybe 75% or more of Republicans who are going to nominate Donald J Trump for president come hell or high water, no matter how many indictments, trials, convictions or how many people he's gunned down on 5th Ave.  Trying to move them or anybody else for that matter by having Heather Cox Richardson and other remote liberals lecture them on the virtues of “Bidenomics“ belongs in a SNL skit.  Trump voters, even the softest ones, don’t care about “the issues.” They want a president who will shower “retribution and revenge” on everything and everybody that blurs their vision of a Great America. They want a president who uses state power to punish their imaginary enemies, who will keep foreigners, immigrants, minorities, queers, non-believers (except Jewish believers) in their place and not let them get uppity.

That the nominee is a crook, a con man, a serial liar, an amoral sociopath devoid of compassion, a world class ignoramus, a monumental incompetent, an ego maniac for whom nobody else in this world exists other than Himself, that he has cheated, plotted and conspired with a gaggle of nut cases around him in a Keystone Kops attempt at a political coup, that he is very clearly a zealous racist, a deadbeat, and soon to be a convicted felon hardly registers on their radar.  Some say they don’t like his personal behavior but “approve of his policies” and therefore might still vote for him. What policies? A Muslim ban? Misdirection of Covid? Plotting to seize voting machines, contemplating the deployment of Army troops to put down dissent in the streets, shitting on our allies. Or is it his stalwart defense of the “January 6 political prisoners” who registered their opinion by literally shitting on the floor of the US Congress?

Of the 49 Republican senators, I have to estimate about 42 of them would love to see Donald J Trump drop dead tomorrow but do not have the minimum of courage to speak out against him. Of the 220 or so  Republican members of the House that's a slightly different story. Probably about a third of them would love to see Trump disappear. But the other 2/3 seemed ready to light up their torches get in line in and march obediently behind their dear leader as he tramples American democracy, the rule of law, the constitution, and eventually our way of life while on his way to Nuremberg for a victory rally. The public statements by such reprobates as Kevin McCarthy, Lindsey Graham, Ted Cancun Cruz and the other crackers and jellyfish who populate the GOP leadership make it very clear that in 2023 and going into 2024 the Republican Party of the United States of America, the third oldest political party in the world, is now a firm and staunch opponent of constitutional democracy, political pluralism, rule of law, and can now be correctly called an insurrectional party.

Joe Biden goes out of his way to make a distinction between MAGA and the Republicans when in fact they are one and the same. Obviously, not all 70 million Republican voters are dangerous Trumpies though that 70 million did vote for him in 2020. The much bigger problem is the leadership and apparatus of the Republican Party upon which the way below average IQ Donald J Trump has a stranglehold. As Andrew Sullivan wrote this week:

The 45-page indictment, in this respect, is simply sickening. But just as sickening has been the response from the right. National Review penned a disgraceful and error-ridden editorial, providing cover for behavior that no Constitutional conservative could ever defend. (At least they published an internal dissent from Noah Rothman.) The Wall Street Journal was mealy-mouthed. Right-Twitter was unhinged. Two desperate arguments were invoked: that the contrast with the prosecution of Hunter Biden by a Trump-appointed prosecutor proved a two-tier justice system (for all Hunter’s depravity and corruption, it does nothing of the kind); and that organizing an attempt to nullify a fair election was protected under the First Amendment (seriously?). Butters is even declaring that a jury is somehow invalid because of where it will be convened — another assault on the rule of law.

There is no rationality at work here; merely rationalization. But it is a rationalization powered by a tribalism so intense it now obliterates everything before it: truth, reality, civility, and every virtue, large and small, that keeps a liberal democracy intact. This is not a democratic debate or discussion anymore. It is not a fight within our existing system. It is the effective delegitimization of the entire system — because its procedures and norms cannot validate one deranged man’s sick psyche.

And because Trump has brilliantly tapped the deep wellspring of often justified contempt for the meritocratic elites, and sustained his delusions with the energy of the insane, he has half the country on his side — and is going to campaign next year for a democratic repudiation of the rule of law. If he loses, he will insist again that he won. The rhetoric he and his cohorts have used would justify mass violence in response.

For the moment we have only one political task: to make sure Donald J Trump is not re-elected president and we must prepare for that under the supposition that he WILL be re-elected (even if it is not likely.  Like, you know, when you spin the barrel of the revolver better have somebody standing by to mop up the mess just in case).  Nothing else matters until this issue is behind us because if Trump becomes president, and names Jeff Clark as Attorney General and MTG as Director of the FBI if not VP, then this will be the last free and fair election in the US for the foreseeable future. We would also experience a dizzying rollback of civil and political liberties and basically would be living in an increasing hellhole.  Our children deserve better. We deserve better.

The choice in 2024 is Democracy or Eventual Dictatorship.

I  know very well I am pissing into a hurricane with the following sentences, but I am compelled to put them on paper.  I don’t seem them happening, but it still needs to be said.

NOTHING ELSE COUNTS.  We, the people, have 15 months to organize the greatest civilian political campaign in recent history to rid ourselves of this fascist and by doing so we will be laying down the groundwork for an ongoing movement that will be strong enough to confront the extremist movement that has seeped into every corner of American life and will only grow over the next four years with or without Donald Trump. That now  cancer-compromised brain, liver and lungs could not care less if the original rectal tumor is excised. This requires a cross ideological, cross gender, cross racial, cross everything coalition that stretches from GW Bush “Normie” Republicans who hate Trump all the way through to Bernie Sanders’s followers and out and beyond the narrow confines of both of our malignant parties.  This means no distractions and detours. This means no deep dives, no political capital, no time invested and wasted in other secondary issues. And please let it sink in: every other issue except defense and guarantee of the rule of law is secondary until this election is over.  Period.

This does not mean falling into lock step with the Democratic Party as its leadership is weak and it has shown no interest in basic community level political organizing to grow the party.  I don’t give a good god damn what the DNC thinks.  I don’t even care what Joe Biden thinks.  I only know, I insist, that we must pull out all the stops to re-elect him and as many Democrats and as few Republicans as possible.  That means a brick wall of rejection against perpetual gadflies like Marianne Williamson, and jokers like Cornel West who are playing with fire, and certainly RFK Jr. who is not only a fucking nut, he is also bankrolled by Republicans

You can play with yourself all you want, but as far as I am concerned, and I have been a socialist for 55 years, but until this election is over and until Donald Trump is safely distant from the White House, I will be paying no attention to the sophistry about who is a socialist, who is a progressive, who is a centrist and so on down the line.  Yeah yeah yeah. Send Krystal Ball and David Sirota and the other YouTube Revolutionaries a memo letting them know we already know that the Democrats are captives of Wall Street and are just one of two capitalist parties.  True enough. But the Democrats are not openly flirting with fascism as is the GOP and that that is a yawning gap the size of the Grand Canyon. So save your outrage, comrades.

I have only one litmus test alone for choosing my allies for the next 15 months: are you willing to do everything you can to make sure Trump is never back In the White House and are you going to help defeat the authoritarian majority in the House?  That’s it.  Just don’t come with bullshit like Williamson and/or West are “needed to move the Democratic Party leftward.”  Have you been asleep the last 8 years?  It was the base of the Republican Party that strengthened Trump and turned it toward insurrection not the other way around. The Democratic Party will move leftward, if ever, when millions of Democrats ORGANIZE and exert pressure on all strategic points.   The Sanders campaigns of 2016 and 2020 accomplished this in part precisely because so many millions of Democrats backed him and didn’t just gave money, but also their time, bodies and engagement. Those same progressive millions, under these circumstances, are not about to challenge the incumbent. Voting for a couple of dead sure losers like West and Williamson exerts no positive pressure, it only weakens an already weak president who we cannot afford to lose.  You are most welcome to fund, join and lead the Green Party or the Workers World Party the day after Biden is sworn in in 2025 (because you know if and when Trump is defeated in 2024 we are going to be dumped right back into the insurrectionary stew).

And so begins the Great Trial of The American People. Whether Trump goes to trial or not, is convicted or acquitted.  Makes no difference. We the people are on trial now. And there will be no appeals if we lose.  It is worrisome enough, and it will create enough problems as it is, that we have an entire young generation that has grown up lathered in insurrectionary propaganda and vile Trumpism.  We have a disproportionate number of older white people who are scared shitless of everything except a possible Christian Dictatorship which would make them shed 25 years. We see a weakening of Democratic support among working class blacks and latinos because they see themselves not so much as “bipocs” or “Latinx”  (two of the most horrid terms to penetrate our lexicon) but primarily as workers on the short end of the stick not getting enough support from Democrat “leaders.”  In other words, we have a tough case to prosecute this coming year.  And very simply put: it’s do or die

P.S.  Listening to podcasts  you agree with, watching Youtubes from your “allies”, replying to tweets etc. does not count as political activism. What counts is organizing and doing. Time is short. Wake up and fight back or we will lose the election, and with it, the Republic. ++

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