What I did yesterday

And a return of one guy's thoughts on these Trumpian times

Hey! Remember me? In 2020 I used this little e-newsletter to share my thoughts about that year’s American presidential election and its aftermath with a small but loyal readership. I also wrote it for myself, sort of as a journaling exercise, since writing is how I work out what I think. I also want to record these thoughts for my future grandkids, so that they can know that old Grandpop Jase was a decent chap during some awful events.

In the run-up to the 2024 election, I have written dozens upon dozens of more notes and scraps about America in the Trumpocene; I’ve refrained from sharing most of them. But now, with the election just two and a half weeks away, I decided to share some thoughts with that same JOHR audience. Hello to all of you.

You might see several more Jase off his Rocker essays between now and election day. I understand if you unsubscribe. But I’d prefer if you comment or share.

-Jason

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Yesterday I voted for president. 

Easiest vote I’ve ever cast in my life. 

It was a privilege to declare that I, Jason C. Scherschligt of Plymouth, Minnesota, would like the next President of the United States to be a smart, decent, and respectable human being who will protect and defend the Constitution and pursue the well-being of the American people, rather than a raging bigoted narcissistic madman who every day threatens the foundations of democracy and the stability of the world.

I’m basically a single issue voter this time around. I’ll articulate that issue like this: before we even consider questions about immigration, economics, or foreign policy, let’s inspect whether anyone in the contest has a history of attacking American constitutional fundamentals and threatens to do so yet again. Wait: one major candidate does? Oh my. Let’s eliminate him as an option. Vote for his opponent. Easy. No other issue is worth discussing.

Easiest vote ever.

For someone to vote for Trump in 2024, they have to reconcile Trump in 2020. And that man, in that year, did the single worst thing an American president has ever done.

We all recall this, don’t we? Here’s what I remember (and I kept detailed notes!):

After a lifetime of complaining about contests of every stripe being rigged against him (including the Emmys, the Nobel prizes, the 2016 Iowa republican caucus, and the California election in 2016), Trump (predictably) refused to accept his loss in November 2020. He raged that the election was unfair, and he said that the counting should stop. He greenlit a fake electors scheme to overturn the will of the people. He pressured the Georgia secretary of state to find eleven thousand votes. He and his team filed something like 64 legal challenges, which were evaluated by courts and judges of all political persuasions, and all but a minor one of which he lost. He kicked off a crazy "just get the VP to not certify" scheme that they nicknamed the Green Bay Sweep. I don’t think the Packers deserve to see their name sullied like this—and I loathe the Packers.

When all that failed, he assembled a mob of Redhats bearing bear spray and nooses to the Washington mall on the very day the election results were supposed to be formalized. He grinned and gloated while they stormed the Capitol, shat and whizzed in our nation’s hallowed halls, and caused congress to actually suspend their proceedings for a bit. Trump’s actions and words suggest he was perfectly fine with his own VP possibly being murdered. 

This all happened. We all saw it. We all remember it. I know we also all remember the January 6 commission hearings, when nearly every witness was a Trump staffer or crony who explained in detail how shamefully and criminally Trump had acted during those days. Oh sure, as of this moment, he hasn't yet been convicted for those high crimes, but that's mostly because we have this weird thing in our system where a president, enabled by a morally bankrupt cackling senators, gets to pre-appoint his own judges. Justice still comes for Trump.

So voting to keep him away from power is the easiest vote ever.

In my own logic (and sure, maybe I’m missing something—but what?), it is impossible to simultaneously know the basic truth that Joe Biden is legitimately the current president of the USA and also to want Trump to be president. To do this requires one to reject the most basic principles of justice and fairness and respect for one’s fellow Americans, and I just can't believe that 46% of Americans are so broken that they would do so. Trump himself seems to understand that he has to whip up some justification for his horrid behavior regarding the 2020 election, which I guess those 46% somehow believe. He justifies it through a sloppy combination of "I didn't do that," and "I totally did that but was allowed to do it" and "well this guy selling pillows told me about these Italian satellites and Dominion voting machines," and "the mail-in ballots and absentee votes, which I personally have used many times, are obviously unfair." 

So that’s the single issue.

And as you contemplate this issue, remember that Trump has never once answered the question that is the primary question every American should ask him about 2020: 

“Mr. Trump, given that election officials from every state certified their outcomes in 2020, and that highly trained professional election experts have said that the 2020 election was the most secure ever, and that sixty-some state and federal courts have found that your legal challenges are baseless, and that the expert whom you yourself hired to prove interference reported that there was no interference—given all that: what information do you have—what information did you consume—that caused you to think otherwise? 

Because we have to say: in the absence of credible evidence, your continued insistence that it was rigged suggests that you are either profoundly corrupt or royally stupid.

So again I will ask: what information did you receive indicating the 2020 election was rigged that is more compelling than the experts and the journalists and the officials and the courts and the guy you hired and every other fact about the epistemic reality in which we all reside?”

He has to have a good answer for this. It would be nice for the 70 million Trump voters to have one as well. 

After four years, I’m beginning to think they don’t.

Anyway, like I said: easiest vote I’ve ever cast.

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My 2024 “I voted” sticker. Note that I wore a red, white, and blue plaid shirt to vote this year. That was intentional.