Ed. note: The Resistant Grandmother (TRG) returns after a three-week hiatus. Half of that time I was visiting my family in California, where I make it a policy not to be writing or researching in their presence – concentrating on them 100 percent. If not, it sends the message: You are not as important as my writing. And I never want them to think that.
The other reason for the lapse involves burnout. I’ve been writing this column for almost four years – first as a blog, but then transformed two years ago as a written column on the Substack platform. I choose my topics carefully – things I feel passionately about and don’t see being written with the same intensity, care, or attention to detail I bring to the task. Sometimes I spend four or five days researching and writing. So it takes time and energy to produce what ends up in any one post.
And lately, it’s also taken a toll. I haven’t been sleeping soundly. And an old, dormant, unserious, but annoying autoimmune problem has reared up. A doctor said it was stress-related and I should cut back on tension. Sure. Six and a half months before the most consequential election in the nation’s history, or at least one ranking up there with the reelection of Lincoln in 1864, and I’m going to ease up?
Each day we’re bombarded with reasons why none of us can relax now – the Trump-caused obliteration of women’s reproductive freedoms, the danger of a Russian takeover in Ukraine due to Trump’s ordering Mike Johnson not to pass the Ukraine aid bill, the threat of another Trump-planned insurrection if he loses – etc., etc. This election will determine whether or not we keep our democracy. And whether we maintain our leadership position in protecting democracy around the world.
Trump’s very frightening 2025 plan
Skeptical? Look no further than Donald Trump’s “Project 2025” – a collection of policies for reshaping America. Included in its list of Putin-style governing plans is the weaponization of the Department of Justice and other federal agencies to attack Trump’s enemies. Media companies and their journalists could be targeted as “enemies of the people,” put out of business, and legally harassed.
The 2025 plan also calls for the elimination of expert officials who populate the various departments across the federal government, replacing them with alt-right temps and toadies only interested in doing Trump’s bidding, not telling the truth.
The result? The destruction of the kind of secular expertise that has defined America as a great nation, and has burnished our reputation around the world as a good place to do business because of our truth-based expertise. For additional information on how a would-be president is planning to bring about such destruction? Click on the link below:
(https://archive.org/details/project-2025-mandate-for-leadership-full_202309-manifesto/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL/).
The 2025 plan is all the more frightening because it mirrors what’s happening now with the recent and ongoing decimation of the Republican National Committee (RNC). Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump and Michael Whatley, a North Carolina Republican who has echoed Trump’s contentions about the 2020 “stolen election,” have taken over the NRC in Russian pogrom fashion – swooping in, firing all but the most sycophantic Trump supporters, and creating money funnels from donors directly to Trump PACs paying for his mountainous legal bills.
RNC employees – some who have worked faithfully for the party for years – had to resign their jobs and reapply, first passing Trump “stolen election” loyalty tests posed by the new management. Republican party infrastructures across the states have faced similar purges. The only good news – the Trump-caused chaos has put Republican get-out-the-vote efforts in a number of key swing states on their back feet, struggling to find their footing in the critical ramp-up to the November election (march 9 wall street journal) just months away.
Where the Democratic Party state-based infrastructure is well-funded, organized, and has been developing solid ground operations and advertising since last year, the GOP framework remains fractured through infighting and lack of funding. In other words, in a state of chaos by virtue of the Trump way of doing things.
That seems to be why Trump has put the squeeze on billionaires like Apple CEO Tim Cook who have pledged millions to the Trump campaign. Cook’s bowing to Trump’s pressure when, after Jan. 6, he cut all ties with the former president, reinforces Trump’s danger: Americans without long-term integrity will bow to pressure and fall in line as a hedge against Trump’s coming after them.
As dire the 2025 plan and everything Trump’s doing to ruin the America we know, Trump is failing. Since his strong State of the Union performance, Joe Biden’s poll numbers have been surging while Trump’s have been barely holding even, and now sagging. Pulling at the threads of Trump’s election-hopes sweater are the former president’s many self-imposed errors. For example, he bragged proudly how he destroyed Roe v. Wade, now placing the abortion issue firmly in the hands of the states where it belongs, per Trump.
As if Karma were writing the remainder of Trump’s abortion script, the next day the Republican-dominated Arizona Supreme Court invoked an 1864 law that denies abortions to all women except to save the life of the mother. We know by now that even that safety valve phrase has become meaningless, as what is “life-saving” care is now often impossible to prove under Draconian Republican law.
Then there’s his refusal to allow Congress to adopt strict border laws in order to retain immigration as one of the few issues he believes he can run on through November. That steals the thunder of Republican politicians up and down the November ballot. It’s hard to blame Democrats who worked with Republicans to craft a bill to fix the problem when the Republican House leader — under Trump’s direction — refused to let the bill come up for a vote.
Last but least are Trump’s multiple legal problems. Sure, the Trump-appointee-dominated Supreme Court has for the time being put its thumb on the scales of justice for the former president as has Florida federal judge Aileen Cannon. But tomorrow jury selection begins on Trump’s criminal case on election interference in Manhattan. A New York light now shines in the dark.
That Trump’s legal team has been trying to delay or dismiss the trial through a series of bogus Hail Mary legal challenges in the last weeks – all to no avail – shows their level of panic. If Trump is found guilty of any one of the 34 indictments against him, which the evidence amassed and witness list suggests may well come to pass, the country must choose whether or not to elect a convicted criminal as president. Even by today’s standards, prevailing against Manhattan Prosecutor Alvin Bragg’s strong case places another high hill in Trump’s path.
Bottom line: Yes, the times we’re living in are stressful, and will only get worse between now and November — and beyond, if Jan. 6 tells us anything. But what keeps me going are seeing the signposts – a growing number of them – that show Trump is weakening. Trump and his Republican Party seem to be stuck on a flypaper of lies and corruption of their own making. It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy and group (/s).
And so I’ve decided to stick it out at least to November, and maybe longer — doing what I can to shine a light on Trump’s darkness. If I can provide information you can use or share with others, my spring, summer, and fall will be well spent.
– trg
Empire State of Mind
Even as recently as today – the day before jury selection begins in the Manhattan trial– some legal pundits have been repeating the old trope that this isn’t the case that should go first: “What a shame it isn’t Jan. 6!”, the repeated refrain.
But thanks to the foot-dragging of our Republican-dominated Supreme Court, the Jan. 6 case remains in limbo – captive of their ill-advised presidential immunity hearing this month.
The Supreme Court problem
If we had a real Supreme Court, like the one that acted speedily to send firm, clear messages to another criminal president — Richard Nixon — that he was, in fact, not above the law, the Jan. 6 case could have already begun – in March when it was originally slated for – and possibly adjudicated by now. If not for the Supreme Court, a Trump conviction for what he did to steal the 2020 election could have been determined well before election day.
The Florida judge problem
But we do not have such a court. So where does that leave us? For one, beholden to another Trump-appointed federal judge – in Florida, also doing her level best to slow-walk the national secrets case.
That leaves the two state-brought cases – the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) Act charges out of Fulton County, Georgia and the election interference case in Manhattan.
Georgia on our mind, but not yet on the docket
Given the 19 co-defendants in Fulton District Attorney (DA) Fani Willis’ case, many pundits have made a career out of handicapping its ability to go to court before the election. Turns out it wasn’t the RICO charges as much as the unforced errors of Ms. Willis that threatened the case’s likelihood of going to court before November. As for the documents case, I won’t belabor Judge Cannon’s complicity with the Trump camp as it’s as obvious as the nose on her face – the one painted brown in Trump’s honor.
I’ll take Manhattan…
That leaves the Manhattan proceeding and its advantages:
* As a State of New York case, it’s beyond Trump’s ability to pardon himself – something not as certain as what Trump as president would do if found guilty of the federal crimes around Jan. 6 or stealing national secrets.
* In spite of its 34 criminal counts against the former president, the case centers around the overriding view that this is Trump’s first attempt to interfere with a presidential election by keeping his affair with a porn star quiet. Then-Trump attorney Michael Cohen paid her at Trump’s direction. Trump falsified documents in reimbursing him – from his desk in the Oval Office, no less. After the “Access Hollywood” tape came out in October, Trump couldn’t risk more bad news getting out before the election. So he paid up, covered up, and lied.
* Chronologically, it’s the case that sets in motion Trump’s long line of criminality as president. Without ever facing charges for a lifetime of criminality until now, Trump spent four years breaking U.S. laws, culminating with his fomenting the insurrection
of Jan. 6.
* And the case highlights Trump’s misogyny. Trump disrespected and endangered third wife and new mother Melania by having affairs with two women — porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen Mcdougal. He bragged about his assaults on women in the “Access Hollywood” tape. These stand as reminders to the majority of American voters — women — of who Donald Trump really is, just as he’s reeling from his disastrous abortion record. The case reminds women of why Donald Trump is bad for them.
Up to the job
* It’s good that this case is taking place in New York, a jurisdiction with good judges, competent attorneys, and serious juries doing their jobs well. I stand by thankful that, so far, New York appears to be up to the task of bringing criminal charges for the first time in the nation’s history against a former president of the United States.
And I’ll be watching, and writing.
Popcorn, anyone?
—trg
Who I write for…