Big Boy Pants

It’s now been three weeks that Donald Trump has tried to hold the country hostage. His grip on his alternate reality is starting to slip away. His spoiled child act that he really didn’t lose the election has continued to embarrass the country before the world. Kids who don’t get what the want will throw a tantrum or go sulk in their rooms. Trump rages around the White House and only comes out on weekends to play golf while the pandemic is out of control and getting worse by the day. Put that picture up against the thousands of cars lined up around the country for hours with people trying to get free food because they lost their jobs or get tested for Covid. People are still going to crowded airports to travel for Thanksgiving when all public health officials say it’s a bad idea. Trump ignores what he doesn’t want to see. His refusal to cooperate with a peaceful transition of power could have serious national security ramifications and hinder the incoming Biden administration’s plan to deal with Covid and roll out the vaccination distribution plan. Trump doesn’t care. It’s all about him, as it’s always been.

As the charade gets more bizarre by the day, leaders of the Republican Party have continued to show no backbone and continue to stand up and defend Trump’s right to file all these ridiculous lawsuit around the country to throw out legal votes. Just as they have stood by for four years as Trump has torn the country and their party apart. They are afraid Trump will exact some political revenge even when he’s out of office and the seventy three million people who voted for Trump will vote them out of office. Senate Majority Leader Republican Mitch McConnell and Trump sycophant Lindsay Graham just got re-elected for six more years. But don’t expect them to drive down to the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue and tell Trump it’s time to go for the good of the country.

There has now been some cracks in the Republican wall of denial. Former New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie, an avid Trump supporter, has now said the efforts of Trump’s legal team have been a “national embarrassment.” Christie had remained loyal to Trump even though Trump humiliated him four years ago by dropping him as leader of Trump’s transition team in 2016. It seems son-in-law Jared didn’t like working with Christie, who as US Attorney in New Jersey, made a plea agreement with Jared’s father for what Christie called a “loathsome” and “disgusting” crimes of illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion and witness tampering. The elder Kushner spent fourteen months in prison.

US Judge Matthew Brann sitting in Williamsport, Pennsylvania listened to Trump’s off the rails lawyer Rudy Giuliani argue to block certification of the state’s votes because voters in some counties were allowed to correct errors on their mail in ballots. In his opinion, Brann wrote Giuliani presented, “strained legal arguments without merit and speculative…this claim, like Frankenstein’s Monster, has been haphazardly stitched together.” While Judge Brann was appointed by President Obama, he is a Republican and a member the conservative Federalist Society which recommended the last three conservative justices Trump put on the Supreme Court.

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan has been one of the few Republicans to criticize Trump. He lamented the damage Trump’s behavior has done to our standing in the world. He complains, “We used to supervise elections around the world, and we were the most respected country with respect to elections. And now we’re beginning to look like a banana republic.” Perhaps the best advice given to Trump came from Philadelphia Democratic Mayor Jim Kenney. He was defending his city against voter fraud claims by Trump right after Election Day. He said, “What the president needs to do is frankly put his big boy pants on and he needs to acknowledge the fact that he lost and he needs to congratulate the winner.” We have to hope Trump can find those pants among all those golfing outfits.