Dear Editor,
“Everything was done in strict compliance with applicable law, under the advice of counsel and tax experts,” said Alan Garten, the Trump Organization’s general counsel, as quoted in the New York Times (“Manhattan D.A. Intensifies Investigation of Trump,” December 11, 2020). That mantra is used to defend a man whose taxes and financial dealings are under investigation for fraud. That is the mantra for a self-proclaimed billionaire who is reported to have paid only $750 in taxes in some years, and nothing at all in other years. Although he may have stepped over the line of legal activity, clearly, it indicates a genius in ability to work every possible loophole for his personal advantage.
Our electoral system is similarly rife with loopholes that Trump has been trying to exploit to reverse the resounding loss he suffered in November. Although he has failed, his efforts have exposed a previously unrecognized weakness. Nearly all elections have ended with the loser conceding to the winner. Both candidates shared a greater respect for our democracy than for their personal political victory. Not this time. Trump has tried every legal technicality, and many extra-legal strategies, including flooding us with a tsunami of disinformation that repeats lies that he won.
We must close the loopholes in our election system before a more competent demagogue comes along and successfully perverts our democracy. First on the list is removal of the Electoral College, either by constitutional amendment or with the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. This time, not only did just a few states get all the attention during the campaign, but they also were the target of post-election maneuvers that nearly overturned the results. Every voter’s vote should count equally, but the Electoral College gives small-state voters over three times the impact of large-state voters. That just ain’t right. NationalPopularVote.com has a solution to this threatening problem.
Bruce Joffe
Piedmont, Calif.
Bruce:
We share your concern.
Assuming that the Zombie Party of Lincoln survives into 2024—which is to say, assuming that one-third of the nation remains in thrall to a worldview as accurate as that of Essex County, Massachusetts in 1692—it would be suicidally reckless to assume that whatever amoral goon it puts forward would be as inept as the incumbent fetid gasbag.
The future, if we let it, may prove Marx was wrong. The first time may have been the farce, the second could be tragedy.
Dang. Now you’ve got us so worked up about this we’re going to have to write about it in the Alleged News®….
The Editor