This will be a short round up as I am in Vermont to ski for the New Year weekend, but I wanted to write a few thoughts about the Maine Secretary of State’s decision to disqualify Trump from that state’s ballot. I offer some reactions on the substance of the decision in the video clip below (and Renato and I took this last week off but will be discussing it further this coming week), but one thing I have been thinking about is how important each one of these proceedings are — regardless of what the final outcome is — to create the historical record of the January 6 insurrection and Trump’s role in it.
We are, after all, looking ahead to an Orwellian future if Trump wins a second term. Undoubtedly he will try to create his own Ministry of Truth to make his false claims about the 2020 election “real” (not sure how he will do this but honestly I don’t doubt that he would try to get his new loyal minions in the federal bureaucracy to rewrite history much like he tried to reroute a hurricane with his Sharpie). But think about it: Starting with the impeachment hearings, the sixty court cases that rejected his claims of voter fraud, the voluminous fact-finding report by the January 6 Committee, and now these state decisions, the truth is being indelibly entrenched in the historical record and there is not a damn thing Trump can do about it. (One of my favorite lines from the Maine decision is where she notes that Trump’s lawyer own conceded on the record that Biden won the 2020 election: “When questioned at the hearing, Attorney Gordon admitted that, as a factual matter, Mr. Trump did not win the 2020 election.”)
Let’s hope that state officials courts keep speaking and documenting the truth. I’m not holding my breath for SCOTUS, but it will be increasingly difficult for that institution to maintain its credibility or legitimacy if it tries to sidestep the issue in the face of the trend we are seeing now.
Noteworthy clips from this week:
Upcoming events:
Freedom Academy Book Club, Wednesday, January 17, 12 p.m.: A discussion with by Scott Shapiro, author of Fancy Bear Goes Phishing: The Dark History of the Information Age, in Five Extraordinary Hacks. Zoom link will be sent to paid subscribers at 9 a.m. The talk will be recorded and posted the following day.
Happy New Year everyone! I am staying positive and have a good feeling for 2024!
Good to hear your level-headed reasoning from the news (I watch only Netflix on my telly). And I look forward to a deeper dive from you and Renato. Very interesting times indeed and all is recorded and revealed by so many media sources. On to 2024 with all best wishes.
I hope you're having a great ski weekend! Killington, by any chance?