Dead Patriots Society

Dead Patriots Society

may our children not behave like our president

Post #7 February 24, 2025

Dear Chief Justice Roberts,

With the Senate having confirmed many Trump loyalists to his Cabinet, the Nation needs the judicial branch to check this President. I implore the Court to take any opportunities that come its way to lay down clear restraints on the Chief Executive. 

I applaud the Court’s recent decision to let be a temporary restraining order on the administration’s unlawful attempt to remove the head of the Office of Special Counsel.

This President, who was plenty bold before the Court’s ruling in Trump v United States, surely read that as a green light to do whatever he pleases. One could cite many ill-considered actions by Donald Trump and Elon Musk, which seem heedless of any public interest. I note here the appointment of Pam Bondi and Kash Patel as Attorney General and F.B.I.Director, respectively.

Having regretted picks for both posts in his first term, this time Trump chose true believers. In Senate hearings, neither Bondi nor Patel could give a straightforward answer to these questions: who won the 2020 election? and, would you resign rather than follow an illegal order? The acrobatics of both betrayed an allegiance to one man.

Since Trump v. United States, is there such a thing as an illegal presidential order?  The President now enjoys “absolute immunity” in “exercising his core constitutional powers”, including “official discussions between the President and his Attorney General” [and presumably his F.B.I. director]. Or, is there such a thing as an illegal presidential order, but the issuer does not have to answer for it? Can an Attorney General be prosecuted for complying with an illegal order the President cannot be?

We will never know how many senators would have voted in February, 2021 to convict Trump of inciting insurrection, had they known a criminal prosecution for the same conduct might be ruled out. In Trump, the Court downplayed the Trump factor:

“This case poses a question of lasting significance: When may a former President be prosecuted for official acts taken during his Presidency? …[I]n addressing that question today, unlike the political branches and the public at large, we cannot afford to fixate exclusively, or even primarily, on present exigencies. In a case like this one, focusing on ‘transient results’ may have profound consequences for the separation of powers and for the future of our Republic.” Youngstown, 343 U. S., at 634 (Jackson, J., concurring)  pp.49-50.”

But the Constitution must anticipate Presidents like the one alluded to in “present exigencies”: a man deeply insecure and vengeful, whose chief concern is self-aggrandizement, not any public interest; one heedless of truth and any harm he causes others; one who stokes division and scapegoats minorities; one who insists on allegiance to himself and not the Constitution; one who, with vast financial resources, is willing to “primary” disloyal members of his party; one who will go to great lengths to avoid a peaceful transfer of power, even inciting a violent assault on Congress.

. The Constitution must anticipate a President free of any internal checks, who may be mentally ill. Can a “unitary executive” model best keep the Republic, or do we need extensive checks and balances between the three branches of government?

The Majority opinion contains approximately a dozen references to a much desired bold President, or the corresponding fear of one chilled by the possibility of criminal prosecution, and only a single reference to any countervailing interest, specifically, “fair and effective law enforcement”. Whatever balance between those interests the Court may have intended was surely lost on Donald Trump.

As many high school students know, and as the two dissents note, the Founders were equally concerned to protect against a usurper as President.

 On July 1, when the decision was announced, the return to the White House by a vengeful Donald Trump was as likely as not. We can bet he has no intention of seeing to a peaceful transfer of power in four years, should the Republican candidate lose.

I have  posted a highlighted version of Trump v. United States and excerpts on the internet  (at: https://trumptimes.blog). As I first read the dissents, I recalled Alan Barth’s book, “Prophets with Honor”, which I read in high-school in 1975. In my opinion, both Justice Sotomayor’s and Justice Jackson’s dissents rank with those in Barth’s book. I have included excerpts from the dissents in the attached Appendix. 

This is our hour of peril. Trump is the man our Founders feared.

Respectfully,

Todd Buchanan

APPENDIX

In-text references are omitted, but page numbers of the text are included. 

From Justice Sotomayor’s dissent:

To determine whether a particular type of suit against a President (or former President) could be heard, a court “must balance the constitutional weight of the interest to be served against the dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.”…”When judicial action is needed to serve broad public interests—as when the Court acts, not in derogation of the separation of powers, but to maintain their proper balance, or to vindicate the public interest in an ongoing criminal prosecution—the exercise of jurisdiction has been held warranted.” (p.80)

The majority relies almost entirely on its view of the danger of intrusion on the Executive Branch, to the exclusion of the other side of the balancing test. Its analysis rests on a questionable conception of the President as incapable of navigating the difficult decisions his job requires while staying within the bounds of the law. It also ignores the fact that he receives robust legal advice on the lawfulness of his actions. (p.81)

[F]ederal criminal prosecutions require “robust procedural safeguards”….The criminal justice system has layers of protections.(p.82)….

The grand jury provides an additional check on felony prosecutions, acting as a “buffer or referee between the Government and the people,” to ensure that the charges are well founded….(“[A] criminal prosecution cannot be commenced absent careful consideration by a grand jury at the request of a prosecutor….

If the prosecution makes it past the grand jury, then the former President still has all the protections our system provides to criminal defendants. If the former President has an argument that a particular statute is unconstitutional as applied to him, then he can move to dismiss the charges on that ground. Indeed, a former President is likely to have legal arguments that would be unavailable to the average criminal defendant. For example, he may be able to rely on a public-authority exception from particular criminal laws,3 or an advice-of-the-Attorney-General defense…(p.83)

If the case nonetheless makes it to trial, the Government will bear the burden of proving every element of the alleged crime beyond a reasonable doubt to a unanimous jury of the former President’s fellow citizens… If the Government manages to overcome even that significant hurdle, then the former President can appeal his conviction, and the appellate review of his claims will be “‘particularly meticulous.’” … He can ultimately seek this Court’s review, and if past practice (including in this case) is any indication, he will receive it. (p.84)

In light of these considerable protections, the majority’s fear that “‘bare allegations of malice,’” … would expose former Presidents to trial and conviction is unfounded. Bare allegations of malice would not make it out of the starting gate….[I]t took allegations as grave as those at the center of this case to have the first federal criminal prosecution of a former President. That restraint is telling. (p.84)

{B]ecause of longstanding interpretations by the Executive Branch, every sitting President has so far believed himself under the threat of criminal liability after his term in office and nevertheless boldly fulfilled the duties of his office. (p.84)

Although it makes sense to avoid “diversion of the President’s attention during the decisionmaking process” with “needless worry,”…one wonders why requiring some small amount of his attention (or his legal advisers’ attention) to go towards complying with federal criminal law is such a great burden. If the President follows the law that he must “take Care” to execute, Art. II, §3, he has not been rendered “‘unduly cautious,’”… Some amount of caution is necessary, after all. It is a far greater danger if the President feels empowered to violate federal criminal law, buoyed by the knowledge of future immunity. (pp.84-85)

From Justice Jackson’s dissent:

….We have long lived with the collective understanding that “[d]ecency, security and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen…(p.99)

 When the Federal Government believes that someone has run afoul of a criminal statute and decides to exercise its prosecutorial discretion to pursue punishment for that violation, it persuades a grand jury that there is probable cause to indict….Then, the Government marshals evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant engaged in the prohibited conduct and possessed the requisite state of mind (p.100).

. Notably, criminal defendants have various constitutionally protected rights during the criminal-liability process…

The defendant also has at his disposal many means to defend himself against the criminal charge (p.101).

….The defendant may also raise, and attempt to prove, affirmative defenses that “excuse conduct that would otherwise be punishable.”

….Consistent with our foundational norms, the individual accountability model adheres to the presumption that the law applies to all and that everyone must follow it; yet, the model makes allowances for recognized defenses. One such defense is the special privilege that Government officials sometimes invoke when carrying out their official duties (pp.101-102).

With that understanding of how our system of accountability for criminal acts ordinarily functions, it becomes much easier to see that the majority’s ruling in this case breaks new and dangerous ground. Departing from the traditional model of individual accountability, the majority has concocted something entirely different: a Presidential accountability model that creates immunity—an exemption from criminal law—applicable only to the most powerful official in our Government.

[Under the new Presidential accountability model] whether a President’s conduct will subject him to criminal liability turns on the court’s evaluation of a variety of factors related to the character of that particular act—specifically, those characteristics that imbue an act with the status of “official” or “unofficial” conduct (minus motive). In the end, then, under the majority’s new paradigm, whether the President will be exempt from legal liability for murder, assault, theft, fraud,  or any other reprehensible and outlawed criminal act will turn on whether he committed that act in his official capacity, such that the answer to the immunity question will always and inevitably be: It depends (pp.105-106).

…[T]he majority holds that the President, unlike anyone else in our country, is comparatively free to engage in criminal acts in furtherance of his official duties. 

That point bears emphasizing. Immunity can issue for Presidents under the majority’s model even for unquestionably and intentionally egregious criminal behavior. Regardless of the nature or the impact of the President’s criminal conduct, so long as he is committing crimes “pursuant to the powers invested exclusively in him by the Constitution,” … or as needed “to carry out his constitutional duties without undue caution,” …he is likely to be deemed immune from prosecution (pp.106-107).

[R]ecall that under the individual accountability model, an indicted former President can raise an affirmative defense just like any other criminal defendant. This means that the President remains answerable to the law, insofar as he must show that he was justified in committing a criminal act while in office under the given circumstances….

Under the majority’s immunity regime, by contrast, the President can commit crimes in the course of his job even under circumstances in which no one thinks he has any excuse; the law simply does not apply to him. Unlike a defendant who invokes an affirmative defense and relies on a legal determination that there was a good reason for his otherwise unlawful conduct, a former President invoking immunity relies on the premise that he can do whatever he wants, however he wants, so long as he uses his “‘official power’” in doing so….In the former paradigm, the President remains subject to law; in the latter, he is above it (pp.108-109). 

[T]he Court has unilaterally altered the balance of power between the three coordinate branches of our Government as it relates to the Rule of Law, aggrandizing power in the Judiciary and the Executive, to the detriment of Congress. Second, the majority’s new Presidential accountability model undermines the constraints of the law as a deterrent for future Presidents who might otherwise abuse their power, to the detriment of us all. 

Law, we have explained, “is the only supreme power in our system of government, and every man who by accepting office participates in its functions is only the more strongly bound to submit to that supremacy, and to observe the limitations which it imposes upon the exercise of the authority which it gives.”…. With its adoption of a paradigm that sometimes exempts the President from the dictates of the law (when the Court says so), this Court has effectively snatched from the Legislature the authority to bind the President (or not) to Congress’s mandates, and it has also thereby substantially augmented the power of both the Office of the Presidency and itself (p.110).

As to the former, it should go without saying that the Office of the Presidency, the apex of the Executive Branch, is made significantly more powerful when the constraints of the criminal law are lifted with respect to the exercise of a President’s official duties. After today’s ruling, the President must still “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” Art. II, §3; yet, when acting in his official capacity, he has no obligation to follow those same laws himself.

But whatever additional power the majority’s new Presidential accountability model gives to the Presidency, it gives doubly to the Court itself, for the majority provides no meaningful guidance about how to apply this new paradigm or how to categorize a President’s conduct. 

Article II does not contain a Core Powers Clause. So the actual metes and bounds of the “core” Presidential powers are really anyone’s guess (pp.110-111).

[P]romoting more vigor from Presidents in exercising their official duties—and, presumably, less deliberation— invites breathtaking risks in terms of harm to the American people that, in my view, far outweigh the benefits (p.115).

This is not to say that the majority is wrong when it perceives that it can be cumbersome for a President to have to follow the law while carrying out his duty to enforce it. It is certainly true that “[a] scheme of government like ours no doubt at times feels the lack of power to act with complete, all-embracing, swiftly moving authority.” …. But any American who has studied history knows that “our government was designed to have such restrictions.” Ibid. (emphasis added). Our Constitution’s “separation of powers was adopted by the Convention of 1787, not to promote efficiency but to preclude the exercise of arbitrary power. The purpose was, not to avoid friction, but . . . to save the people from autocracy.” (Brandeis, J., dissenting). (pp. 115-116).

Having now cast the shadow of doubt over when—if ever—a former President will be subject to criminal liability for any criminal conduct he engages in while on duty, the majority incentivizes all future Presidents to cross the line of criminality while in office, knowing that unless they act “manifestly or palpably beyond [their] authority,”… they will be presumed above prosecution and punishment alike (p.116).. 

For my part, I simply cannot abide the majority’s senseless discarding of a model of accountability for criminal acts that treats every citizen of this country as being equally subject to the law—as the Rule of Law requires. That core principle has long prevented our Nation from devolving into despotism. Yet the Court now opts to let down the guardrails of the law for one extremely powerful category of citizen: any future President who has the will to flout Congress’s established boundaries (p.118).

Dead Patriots Society

may our children not behave like our president

Post #6 February 16, 2025

Mr. President,

A friend tells a friend what he should hear, not what he wants to hear. A friend would tell you that you are not well, and you need professional help, not more power. Indeed, your insatiable thirst for power, and need for blind loyalists like Kash Patel and Pam Bondi, is one indication you are not well. 

I do not pretend to be your friend, though I do not wish you harm. But I am authorized to advise you, because I hold “the only title in our democracy superior to that of President, the title of Citizen”.

I was 23 when Jimmy Carter spoke those words. The timing of his passing was uncanny, if not providential, because the contrast between you two is stark.

Whatever else one might say about Jimmy Carter, he aspired to be a good example for Americans and their children, during his presidency and afterward. Now many of us pray our children will not behave like our President. 

One lesson we try to teach our children is how to lose with grace, without loss of self-esteem or animosity toward the winner. Your inability to admit defeat in the 2020 election, and your willingness to put lives at risk which included egging on rioters chanting “Hang Mike Pence!”, demonstrates that you never learned that lesson.

Mr. President, I was a classmate of Rick Reilly, whose 2019 book “Commander in Cheat” was prophetic. If Donald Trump cheats openly and shamelessly at golf, what is he capable of in the oval office?

To my knowledge, you have not uttered one word of apology to Mike Pence or any of the legislators trapped in the Capitol on January 6th, or the Capitol police who defended them, or those very people you incited to violence by your Big Lie. But releasing hundreds of them who were duly tried and convicted was no way to redress the wrong you perpetrated on the American people. Instead, you have put more people at risk.

I have written before that you seem incapable of self-reflection. The other day I inquired of an ancient source what advice I could give you. The answer I got is titled “Contemplation”. Here is part of that answer:

“Self-contemplation means the overcoming of naive egotism in the person who sees everything solely from his own standpoint. He begins to reflect and in this way acquires objectivity. However, self-knowledge does not mean preoccupation with one’s own thoughts; rather, it means concern about the effects one creates. 

“It is only the effects our lives produce that give us the right to judge whether what we have done means progress or regression.”

Mr. President, have you and Elon Musk stopped to ponder, for instance, what your abrupt halt to many humanitarian aid projects has meant to the world’s poorest people?  Do you honestly believe you have the right to dispossess Gazans of their land?

Mr. President, life is not about power. It is about doing good. The same ancient source quoted above says of power: “Whereas an inferior man revels in power whenever he comes into possession of it, the superior man never makes this mistake.”

Mr. President, from your own words and actions, and those of Steve Bannon, the American people have cause to believe you never intended to accept an electoral defeat in any of the last three presidential elections. We all need to know now that there will be a free and fair election in 2028, and that you will not attempt to halt the peaceful transfer of power to a Democratic administration, should the Republican candidate lose. We need to know that you will put the Big Lie to rest, and your days of sowing distrust and division are done. 

Are you capable of living up to your oath of office, to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution? Are you finished trying to usurp power from the other two branches of government?

We deserve, and need, to know.

The truth will make you free.

Todd Buchanan

 

Dead Patriots Society

may our children not behave like our president

Post #5, February 6, 2025

 

Dear Senators:

The Senate has already jeopardized the rule of law enough by approving an Attorney General who cannot answer a simple question that probably a hundred million American voters could: who won the 2020 presidential election? 

If the Senate approves Kash Patel as F.B.I. director, the man with the gal to publish a list of members of the “Deep State”, that will further undermine the rule of law, and extend the Senate’s complicity in the Usurper’s demolition of  our democracy.

Here is the answer Pam Bondi  gave Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the first on the Senate Judiciary Committee to ask her who won in 2020:

 “…President Biden is the President of the United States, he was duly sworn in, and he is the President of the United States. There was a peaceful transfer of power. President Trump left office, and was overwhelmingly elected in 2024.”

There was a peaceful transfer of power in 2020, but only after Donald Trump did everything he could, including inciting a violent attack on the legislative branch, to stop it. Now those convicted of attacking the Capitol police and attempting to exact retribution on Mike Pence, Nancy Pelosi, and possibly others, are back on the street, obviously where Trump wants them.

Pam Bondi needs to read the January 6th Report. She needs to read Jack Smith’s Report (here is a highlighted version: https://trumptimes.blog/2025/01/26/the-smith-report/). A quick, easy read is Cassidy Hutchinson’s account of that horrific day in chapter 16 of her book, “Enough”.

Cassidy Hutchinson is, not surprisingly, on Kash Patel’s list.

     When Senator Durbin asked Bondi what she made of Trump’s January 2, 2020 call to the Georgia Secretary of State, telling him to find an additional 11,780 votes, she said she had not heard the tape (likely?). Durbin replied: “Well the quote I give you is exact: “Find 11,780 votes.”

To which she replied: “It is my understanding that is not what he asked him to do.”

To which Durbin replied: “You need to listen to it.”

Now this True Believer is Attorney General.

Kash Patel is equally a threat to the rule of law. Patel has already complicated the job of the F.B.I. by publishing his list, which has surely raised the level of threat to all on that list. 

(By the way, Kash Patel could not answer the question ,Who won in 2020? either.)

Especially after the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Trump v United States, which someone like Donald Trump will read as guaranteeing presidential immunity for ALL of his actions, it is a fair question if there is any longer such a thing as an illegal order from the President, when he/she is arguably acting within the president’s exclusive sphere of authority. (It is also a fair question, given that a Trump victory was as likely as not last spring and summer, to ask the author of the Court’s opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts: What were you thinking?)

It was tough enough before this recent Court decision for a conscientious official to stand his or her ground against an illegal order. Now Trump and Company are determined to rid the executive branch of Deep Staters, apparently anyone capable of independent thought.

Senators, it is incumbent upon you to end this carnage of American democracy. If you fail, history, and growing numbers of your constituents, will not pardon you.

Sincerely,

Todd Buchanan

Dead Patriots Society

may our children not behave like our president

Post #4, December 1, 2024

Preface: The following was posted before news broke on the same day that President Biden pardoned his son, Hunter. This development would seem to strengthen the case that Biden should pardon at least some of the January 6 defendants. Many would oppose that on the grounds that it would be a false equivalency. But in the minds of millions it would not be, and might dampen somewhat the impression that the President’s pardon of his son was raw politics.

I have posted a response from by dear professor Michael Cummings, of the political science department of the University of Colorado, Denver, who invested great time and energy into my master’s thesis, and various other papers. I have known Michael Cummings for forty-some years, ever since I took my first run at a masters. Including his response is the least I can do in appreciation. You will find it following the Afterward (which is more properly an appendix) below.

BY NOW, it may have occurred to many Trump opponents that the outcome of this election could have been worse. Harris could have won, and all hell might have broken loose.

Or either of the would-be assassins might have succeeded, and the same, or worse, might have happened  sooner.

So as despairing as many Americans are about the outcome of this election, if they believe truth and justice be on their side, if not exclusively, they must also believe those things still have purchasing power.

And the same may find some solace in this: unbalanced power is destined to over-extend, and in doing so will provoke countervailing power to restore a rough balance. We see this both in domestic and international politics. There may be no such thing as an ironclad law in political science, but this might be as close as it gets.

Similarly, it is too soon to assume compassionate conservatism is dead. If its opposite is Donald Trump who seems to know no boundaries, the former may be destined for a revival.

Democrats must now hone their political skills and work with the seemingly few moderate Republicans to stop the worst of Trump’s plans, and thereby demonstrate to the American voters they can govern.

Can Democrats strike a grand bargain with John Thune, the new Senate majority leader, in exchange for him refusing to comply with Trump’s plans for recess appointments? 

Progressive activists need to be vigilant, persevering, and creative, but receptive to any good policies Trump might actually dream up. I say this even though I don’t feel I owe Trump the benefit of any doubt. We know this guy inside and out. But like they say, even a broken clock is right twice each day.

Afterall, this is a guy who publicly mimicked a disabled reporter, openly cheats at golf, publicly took Putin at his word that Russia did not interfere in the 2016 election, contrary to the consensus of the U.S. intelligence community, and asserts that immigrants “are poisoning our blood.” Did I leave anything out?

If this sounds presumptuous and unfair, I recommend Bob Woodward’s book on Trump’s first term titled “Rage”. There is plenty right there, which is why I am re-reading it. And there is more to come in “Peril”,  which I plan to read as well.

It is important that we know this man and what he is capable of. That is just as important as understanding how the Democrats so widely missed the mark and managed to lose to him. In trying to understand how the Democrats accomplished that, I am reading back columns by Marc Thiessen of the Washington Post. He and I don’t agree on a lot, but he gives me insight. He is not glib, and he seems like someone I could have a conversation with.

I learned of Marc Thiessen just the other day when he co-authored with Danielle Pletka an op-ed in the Washington Post proposing that Biden pardon Trump, even at this stage of the game. I learned that the two had proposed such in June of 2023 (see:https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/06/15/biden-pardon-trump-argument-politics/). The same idea occurred to me some time ago, but only lingered a couple of days, It resurfaced a few days before the election. Only then did I voice it to anyone, which anyone–a dear friend–thought I was out of my mind.

Thiessen and Pletka begin their arguments, in both op-eds, recounting the conciliatory words of President Biden when he assumed office. Like many, maybe even most who voted for him, I thought he was running for one term, with a pledge to rebuild the center in American politics. But the victorious Party cannot help itself, and the progressive agenda, which I supported, took center stage. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia seemed to single-handedly frustrate some of that, and his determination eventually frustrated me. But with the Biden administration downplaying warnings about inflation (like it would call Russia’s security concerns a “non-starter”), maybe Manchin spared the Democrats and the Nation of something worse.

Fast-forward to today. Like many Democrats, forced now to reckon with the discontent which propelled Trump to victory, it is increasingly clear that he got large numbers of voters to identify with his grievances and contempt for wokeness. And I have come to believe that the only hope of defeating Trump without resulting chaos would have been a magnanimous act by Biden to pardon most if not all of the January sixth defendants, and to call for a halt to all prosecutions of Trump.

Marc Thiessen’s and Danielle Pletka’s op-ed in June of 2023 is worth reading in its entirety, but here are a couple excerpts:

 “In pardoning Trump, Biden would be a true statesman. Sparing the country the ordeal of a trial would go a long way toward repairing the nation’s frayed political fabric. He would display the kind of leadership that has been missing in Washington. And he would drive Trump crazy. With one action, Biden would eliminate the narrative of a “deep state” conspiracy that is helping to fuel Trump’s political comeback.

“….This isn’t about Trump. It is about the nation. It is within Biden’s power to restore norms that have been torn apart by both Trump and his opponents. If ever there were a time to heal, this is it.”

There is no painless way for Democrats to do what we need to do. Maybe Thiessen and Pletka were mistaken, but I like to think they weren’t. Just because Donald Trump seems to be spared of any humility, does not mean it can’t do the rest of us some good.

Afterward

As stated above the idea of Biden pardoning Trump came to me sometime in the last couple of years, but I do not recall when. It recurred a couple days before the election. Immediately after the election, I consulted the Chinese Book of Changes for advice on the new state of affairs. The first answer was titled “Deliverance”. It begins: “Here the movement goes out of the sphere of danger. The obstacle has been removed, the difficulties are being resolved. Deliverance is not yet achieved; it is just in its beginning….”

I was perplexed by this answer, which struck me as wide of the mark. The second answer, “Darkening of the Light”, also called “wounding of the bright”, seemed like a better match, from my admittedly partisan point of view.

“Here a man of dark nature is in a position of authority and brings harm to the wise and able man (emphasis added).

“DARKENING OF THE LIGHT. In adversity it furthers one to be persevering.”

Further:

“In a time of darkness it is essential to be cautious and reserved. One should not needlessly awaken overwhelming enmity by inconsiderate behavior. In such times one must not fall in with the practices of others; neither should one drag them censoriously into the light. In social intercourse one should not be all-knowing. One should let many things pass, without being duped.”

In the oft-quoted words of Shakespeare’s comical character Falstaff, “discretion is the better part of valor.”

This seemed to fit the conditions as I saw them. But what was with the first answer, Deliverance? Only a day or two afterward would it dawn on me that it must have been referring to 2021, when Biden won the White House with the promise to restore some normalcy and bipartisanship.

“Deliverance” refers to “a time in which tensions and complications begin to be eased. At such times we ought to make our way back to ordinary conditions as soon as possible….”

“These periods of sudden change have great importance. Just as rain relieves atmospheric tension, making all the buds burst open, so a time of deliverance from burdensome pressure has a liberating and stimulating effect on life. One thing is important, however: in such times we must not overdue our triumph. The point is not to push on farther than is necessary…(emphasis added).

(The switch to the first person plural in the paragraph above is interesting.)

Further:

“Thunder and rain set in:

The image of DELIVERANCE.

Thus the superior man pardons mistakes and forgives misdeeds.

“A thunderstorm has the effect of clearing the air; the superior man produces a similar effect when dealing with the mistakes and sins of men that induce a condition of tension. Through clarity he brings deliverance. However, when failings come to light, he does not dwell on them; he simply passes over mistakes, the unintentional transgressions, just as thunder dies away. He forgives misdeeds, the intentional transgressions, just as water washes everything clean.”

Having received this information immediately after Trump’s victory on November 5, I was understandably receptive to the argument of Marc Thiessen and Danielle Pletka.

Response by Michael Cummings:

Pardon Trump? Then bye-bye, rule of law, and welcome to all future would-be despots! Pardoning Trump will not mollify the MAGAtes. “You’re all losers,” he told his followers in 2016. “But it’s not your fault. And only I can make you winners!” Tens of millions of Americans bought into this demeaning pitch, which he paraphrased endlessly in both 2016 and 2024. (In 2020, he had supposedly made them all “winners,” so his MAGA pitch changed to “Keep America Great.” Well, not the million Americans who died of Covid because of his denialism and delayed response.) The punchline of this stump speech was a lie, because nobody “makes” me a winner. But the loser pitch is real in a win-lose, “entropic” culture that creates a few big winners and millions of losers. When “winning is the only thing,” when beating out others in a war of all against all for wealth, status, and power is the key to personal happiness, the millions of losers are susceptible to authoritarian appeals of the Trumps, Putins, and Modis of the world. Even if Biden were to unwisely pardon Trump, the losers would still be losers, both objectively (ever rising income inequality) and subjectively (soaring deaths of despair).

Unable to address the cascading crises of our times, liberal democrats in the U.S. and around the world scramble to get better leaders, better policies, and reformed institutions—good for them—but they are missing the clue hiding in plain sight: a toxic culture that pits us against one another, undermining the common good, and its necessary alternative, a win-win, “synergistic” culture in which people primarily pursue values such as knowledge, friendship, family, community, craftsmanship, the arts, humor, exploration, and the simple pleasures of daily life. They ignore the millions of individuals, families, and groups that are already leading the way in choosing synergy over entropy in their daily lives. As Foucault puts it, they just don’t have power yet, referring to power not as a value but as a means to the end of making their government promote the common good.

When a plurality of voters choose a 34-times convicted felon, perennial sexual assaulter, habitual liar, racist, misogynist, and insurrectionist to lead them once again, we have a sick and dysfunctional culture that must be changed. Our officials and pundits assume we can’t change an entire culture, but we and other peoples have done it again and again. The myth that we’re stuck with a toxic culture is a self-fulfilling prophecy. In Winning, Losing, Living, I test my theory that cultural synergy promotes national well-being whereas cultural entropy undermines it in 21 diverse countries on five continents. My sample’s most entropic cultures turn out to be the U.S., Russia, and India—all under the sway of authoritarian charlatans–suffering from a wide array of social pathologies. The most synergistic cases are Finland (the world’s happiest country for the past seven years), Denmark, Iceland, and to a lesser degree Canada and Mexico. Even such mixed bags as France, New Zealand, Morocco, Peru, Vietnam, and Japan provide strong evidence that their win-win values help to offset the harmful consequences of their win-lose values.

We need to change our culture, not pardon our self-serving, felonious President-elect.

Dead Patriots Society

may our children not behave like our president

Post #3, November 17, 2024

Every day since the election, hopefully, more Harris voters conclude or at least come to suspect that most people who voted for Trump are not stupid. They just see things very differently. Indeed, it is more helpful to say that Trump voters and Harris voters literally see different things. This best explains why we talk past each other.

It is possible, and necessary, to separate the honest-to-God bad apples from the millions of Americans who voted them into power.

Take the criminal cases against Trump. Democrats insisted that no person is above the law, and failing to prosecute him would set an awful precedent. Little did they suspect that, due to the pursuit of one of those cases, the Supreme Court would issue a ruling that appears to have weakened the rule of law when applied to presidents.

Trump supporters interpreted the criminal prosecutions of Trump to be the “weaponization of the Justice Department” (the prosecution of Hunter Biden being an anomaly of some sort). Thus, the same might regard the objections by Democrats to Matt Gaetz becoming Attorney General to be sheer hypocrisy. From their perspective, since the Democrats weaponized the Justice Department in the first place, we need someone to weed out all the culprits, and perhaps to prosecute those outside the Department who pulled the strings.

This is just one issue in which Trump voters and Harris voters seem to be worlds apart. A similar and more fitting analogy would be that they reside on different planets. I will explain.

An old friend and I are reading the Copernican Revolution, by Thomas Kuhn. It is a dense read, denser I would say than his more popular book, “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”.

My friend is more adept than I at scientific stuff, but he tolerates my excursions into politics and how contrasting theories in the history of science can inform us about the state of political polarization in the United States.

Copernicus was not the first to postulate that what is obvious could be misleading. It is obvious that the stars, the moon, the planets, and the sun are all circling the earth, all pretty much in the same direction, excluding the peculiar meanderings of planets (the “wanderers”).

It was those odd movements of the planets, which previous astronomers had gone to great lengths to explain with additional regressive, circular movements as they “circled” the earth, that led Copernicus to postulate that the earth was moving as well. In fact, he postulated three movements of the earth, one of which is most likely untrue.

But it is this fundamental insight that Copernicus and others came to which is analogous to our current state of politics: “Viewed from a moving earth a planet that in fact moved regularly would appear to move irregularly.”

Those are Kuhn’s words, and they contain a world of meaning, so-to-speak.

To Harris supporters, the Trump voters, and the MAGA people especially, are moving in ways that are not normal. And to the Trump voters, the Democrats and the woke vigilantes are the ones moving irregularly.

But it is possible that both sides are moving, presumably in opposite directions (hence the growing polarization), and to most observers on either side it might appear that only the other folks were moving, that one’s own planet is remaining still.

As a Harris voter, I need to be asking myself and other Democrats: What are we missing? What are we doing to contribute to the impression of the MAGA people that we are condescending and elitist and leaving them behind in our thinking and the politics we champion?

The best Democratic minds were likely asking this question months before the election, but the dynamics of the election season especially overwhelmed such thinking.

Somehow the much reduced “center” has got to hold, and rebuild itself. We all should be asking ourselves what our scared cow is, and if we are willing to take it off the pedestal. Maybe it was never the real thing anyway.

Dead Patriots Society

may our children not behave like our president

Post #2, November 15, 2024

Decades ago, before Rick Reilly became known as the Rock Star of sports journalism, Jack Nicholson said he was “hotter than a three-dollar pistol”. 

In 2019, Reilly, my Boulder High School classmate of ’76, nailed Donald Trump with his book “Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump.” To cheat like Trump does, tells us just how insecure he is. 

Here are some highlights from Rick’s book:

“Why does Trump cheat so much when he’s already a decent player? And how can he be so shameless as to cheat right in front of people? They call him on it, but he just shrugs and cheats some more.”

“I wrote this book to say one simple thing: If Trump constantly cons people in a thing that doesn’t matter, imagine what he’s doing in the things that do?”

“‘So what? He cheats at golf. It’s just golf. It doesn’t matter.’ But that’s exactly why it does matter. Golf isn’t political.”

And from the Acknowledgments: (again, written before January 6):

“Lastly, thank you to every reporter out there who keeps pursuing the truth head-first into the worst hurricane of lies, insults, and constitution-trampling I’ve seen in my 40 years in the business.”

If your head is still spinning and you aren’t sure where to begin with this piece-of-work we call Donald Trump, you could do worse than read Rick Reilly’s book.

Why does Trump openly cheat at golf? Perhaps for a similar reason that a surprising number of homicides committed by men happen with witnesses present. There was a time in our past when this might have been “adaptive”, a warning to those witnesses: “Don’t mess with me”.

Maybe Trump is saying: “Rules are for everyone but me. I am above the law.” His choice of Matt Gaetz for Attorney General,  an obvious move to weaponize the Justice Department, and his threats to senators that they better consent to recesses when necessary to avoid the constitutionally-mandated confirmation process–or face his wrath–are statements that he will transgress all bounds.

And so far, maybe it is accurate to say Trump is above the law. Our job, we citizens of the United States, is to make clear to him that he is not.

We aren’t going to do that with prosecutions that Special Counsel Jack Smith is shutting down, as the first post at Dead Patriots Society discussed. He might very well escape a legal accounting during his remaining time on earth.

Whether it be a law per se or a fundamental social norm, most of us are deterred from breaking it (absent an inherent respect for it) because we don’t need the resulting shame. Donald Trump would appear to have seldom known shame. 

But he must know his remaining years on this earth are not many. His power and all the personal thrill it brings him will soon dissipate. What will survive of him on earth will be how his young son, the rest of his family, and all Americans remember him.

“We cannot escape history”, Lincoln reminds us. “We…will be remembered in spite of ourselves.”

And how we all  remember Trump will be the lesser of the two reckonings he is due.

In the months and years ahead, we will find principled, non-violent means to frustrate and hopefully defeat Trump’s machinations, even as we accept and applaud any worthwhile policies he may propose or implement. We must be open to any good he would do, and vigilant not to return his wrongs with wrongs of our own. 

But make no mistake. To give a man like Donald Trump, who openly cheats at golf, the benefit of the doubt, would be foolish, and would shirk our civic duty. 

We know way too much about him.

Rick Reilly Might be the Only Man Trump Fears

Decades ago, before Rick Reilly became known as the Rock Star of sports journalism, Jack Nicholson said he was “hotter than a three-dollar pistol”. 

In 2019, Reilly, my Boulder High School classmate, nailed Donald Trump with his book “Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump.” To cheat like Trump does, tells us just how insecure he is. 

Here are some highlights from Rick’s book:

“Why does Trump cheat so much when he’s already a decent player? And how can he be so shameless as to cheat right in front of people? They call him on it, but he just shrugs and cheats some more.”

“I wrote this book to say one simple thing: If Trump constantly cons people in a thing that doesn’t matter, imagine what he’s doing in the things that do?”

“‘So what? He cheats at golf. It’s just golf. It doesn’t matter.’ But that’s exactly why it does matter. Golf isn’t political.”

And from the Acknowledgments: (again, written before January 6):

“Lastly, thank you to every reporter out there who keeps pursuing the truth head-first into the worst hurricane of lies, insults, and constitution-trampling I’ve seen in my 40 years in the business.”

If your head is still spinning and you aren’t sure where to begin with this piece-of-work we call Donald Trump, you could do worse than read Rick’s Reilly’s book.

Why does Trump openly cheat at golf? Perhaps for a similar reason that a surprising number of homicides committed by men happen with witnesses present. There was a time in our past when this might have been “adaptive”, a warning to those witnesses: “Don’t mess with me”.

Maybe Trump is saying: “Rules are for everyone but me. I am above the law.” His choice of Matt Gaetz for Attorney General,  an obvious move to weaponize the Justice Department, and his threats to senators that they better consent to recesses when necessary to avoid the confirmation process–or face his wrath–are statements that he will transgress all bounds.

And so far, maybe it is accurate to say Trump is above the law. Our job, we citizens of the United States, is to make clear to him that he is not.

We aren’t going to do that with prosecutions that Special Counsel Jack Smith is shutting down, as the first post at Dead Patriots Society discussed. He might very well escape a legal accounting during his remaining time on earth.

Whether it be a law per se or a fundamental social norm, most of us are deterred from breaking it (absent an inherent respect for it) because we don’t need the resulting shame. Donald Trump would appear to have seldom known shame. 

But he must know his remaining years on this earth are not many. His power and all the personal thrill it brings him will soon dissipate. What will survive of him on earth will be how his young son, the rest of his family, and all Americans remember him.

“We cannot escape history”, Lincoln reminds us. “We…will be remembered in spite of ourselves.”

And how we all  remember Trump will be the lesser of the two reckonings he is due.

In the months and years ahead, we will find principled, non-violent means to frustrate and hopefully defeat Trump’s machinations, even as we accept and applaud any worthwhile policies he may propose or implement. We must be open to any good he would do, and vigilant not to return his wrongs with wrongs of our own. 

But make no mistake. To give a man like Donald Trump, who openly cheats at golf, the benefit of the doubt would be foolish, and would shirk our civic duty. 

We know way too much about him.