Democracy May Involve Disorder and Disruption but It Requires Dependable Integrity

Do I think the objections to the Electoral Vote certification will succeed? No.
Do I think that the objections should nonetheless be made? Yes, absolutely.

Some may question my answers above, but if one takes a step back from their feelings for or against President Trump and looks at this past election more objectively, anyone who cares about our American democracy must agree.

There is no question that there was a much higher number of ballot irregularities in this election than the few that occur in every election.  In some cases, the numbers were huge enough that they could have changed (though there is no proof, nor may there ever be any, that they did or did not change) the outcome of not only the presidential result but results of other contests on the ballot as well.

If there is any possibility that fraud or other lack of integrity allowed illegal votes to be cast and counted, then those votes diluted the votes of those who cast legal ballots, thus disenfranchising those legal voters just as if their valid votes had not been counted.  This should concern everyone of us who enjoys the benefits of our democracy.

A number of senators, led by Ted Cruz, will object on Wednesday to results from specific states.  Their joint statement indicates that they will vote against accepting the election results until there is a 10-day audit:

Congress should immediately appoint an Electoral Commission, with full investigatory and fact-finding authority, to conduct an emergency 10-day audit of the election returns in the disputed states. Once completed, individual states would evaluate the Commission’s findings and could convene a special legislative session to certify a change in their vote, if needed.

Will this divide the country?  Perhaps, but probably no more than it is already divided.  Will it cause some anger and uncertainty during the 10 days if the objection prevails and the proposed Commission is established?  Yes.  But then, uncertainty is a part of democracy.  Only in those nations where a governing body, not the people, makes all decisions is there any kind of certainty.  That certainty may not be pleasant (“This week you will get one loaf of bread and two potatoes”), but the people will know exactly what will happen. 

Democracy does not have certainty, pleasant or unpleasant.  That is because the people have a voice and as that voice changes and evolves, the people will make different choices.  And, because those choices often address if not resolve many opposing viewpoints, then the disruption and disorder they cause become an essential part of the preservation of our democratic freedoms.

Putting aside the turbulence this objection may cause, isn’t it more important that we establish the integrity of our elections when it is those very elections that are a key cornerstone of our democracy?  The trustworthiness of our elections is needed for the people of the nation to accept and support their results as the true voice of the people.  Without that certainty, we no longer have a government of, for, and by the people, and our democracy is in peril.

Today, 39% of Americans believe the 2016 Presidential election was “rigged”; that includes 17 percent of Democrats and 31 percent of independents.  This needs to be addressed.  It affects not only the legitimacy of this election and presidency, but the legitimacy of all future elections as well. 

Ted Cruz said, that dismissing these claims “does real violence to our democratic system. We ought to have a serious, fair process and tribunal to consider these claims, consider them quickly, consider them expeditiously. We can do it in 10 days before the inauguration.”

What is wrong with that?  We have within our democracy a system for objecting to the Electoral vote.  These senators are following that established procedure.  It is not treasonous as Democrats and others who oppose the objections assert.  Indeed, Democrats objected in 2004 and 2016 and were praised by Democratic leadership and the media when they did. Those objections, like the objections to be made by Republicans this Wednesday, were legal and a valid and necessary aspect of our democracy.

The people need to know that they can trust the democratic process, they need to know that only legal votes will be counted and that all such votes will be counted.  Our vote is a great privilege and to weaken or cancel it by allowing even the perception of a lack of voter integrity is one of the most destructive things that can be done to the American people and their democracy. 

I am aware that the fact that this election was about retaining or not retaining President Trump causes many people to lose any objectivity in the matter and forget what the bigger picture of election integrity is all about.  I understand that President Trump’s sometimes abrasive language, which is not missing in his current fight to find the actual and true vote totals, is a trigger for some sort of anger and/or hate in many. 

The cloud that covers so many eyes and minds when President Trump speaks (the cloud sometimes known as “Trump Derangement Syndrome”) was triggered again by the leak of a phone conversation with Georgia’s Secretary of State wherein, amongst his rant about the hundreds of thousands of questionable ballots, President Trump commented that all he needed was 11,780 of those hundreds of thousands to win.  How this could be any kind of criminal act is ludicrous, yet Democrats and Trump-haters are calling for criminal investigations if not the death penalty.

But while for Trump, who may very well have had an election stolen from him, this is primarily about his vote totals, for the rest of us this should be more fundamentally about American democracy.  While we can clearly see the very different consequences for our country that a Trump or Biden presidency would have, hatred of or love for our current president should not remove our focus on the bigger picture. 

While it is unlikely that, even if the objection prevails and a commission investigates, the final election result will change, that does not mean that this objection should not be made.  The Commission it seeks should be granted. 

We the people have a right to know what happened in this election:  how, for example, in some instances there were more votes than voters, or how a precise needed number of votes miraculously appeared in bulk in the middle of the night.  Even if we live with questions about our president for the next four years, we need to know what happened so that we can have faith in the integrity of our future elections.  That trustworthiness is essential to our democracy.

NOTE, the full statement of those senators planning to object to the Electoral vote on Jan. 6 can be found here: LINK     

 

Step Back from This Battle but Fight for the Future

As a lawyer I have fought some hard-won battles and I have suffered a few excruciating losses.  There have been one or two times when I knew absolutely that I/my client were right and yet we lost.  That is hard. 

I think for Republicans and others who question the fairness of the election that this is one of those times.  Like many I believe there was significant cheating or dishonesty in this election and that many illegal ballots were counted.  Because once counted it is impossible to know for whom those illegal ballots were cast, recounts do little; they find the occasional counting error but not the fraud regardless of whether that fraud was minimal or widespread, committed by rogue individuals acting alone or due to some greater coordinated plan.

It is next to impossible to prove election fraud, especially the mail-in fraud that almost certainly occurred or the counting machine tampering that has been alleged.  Moreover, even if proven, it is impossible to prove what the legitimate vote totals would have been.

Yes, there is proof that some vote counting was intentionally deceptive, that some votes that should not have been counted were nonetheless counted and others that should have been counted were not.  But did that swing the election?  There is no proof of that; it is impossible that there could ever be proof of that.

Those who know they are right about the fact that illegal votes were counted are fighting the good fight.  Some are fighting because they believe the presumptive result is inaccurate and want it overturned, some are fighting because they simply want a clear declaration of the improprieties that occurred, and others are fighting to protect the vote in the future. 

The fight is properly playing out in the courts and the fight on behalf of free and fair elections is losing.  The cases asserting fraud are not unreasonable and there is some evidentiary support.  The problem is, because of the very nature of the fraud alleged, there cannot be sufficient evidence to move forward.  As to the Texas case that was dismissed by SCOTUS, that dismissal was expected based on precedent.  That does not mean that Texas should not have brought the case – lawyers sometimes bring cases in which they know they are not likely to prevail in a hope of convincing the Court to reexamine the law.  SCOTUS chose not to do that in this case.

Some (mostly Democrats and Biden supporters) refuse to believe there were any irregularities at all.  Some (mostly Republicans and Trump supporters) will never be convinced that Trump did not win.  The truth is likely somewhere in between.  Yes, there were irregularities and some of those irregularities may well have amounted to fraud.  Trump may well have won more electoral votes and Biden fewer than the results show; but that does not necessarily mean that the ultimate result would have changed.  Sadly, we will never know what the result would have been if irregularities, tampering, and possibly fraud had not occurred. 

But we do have a result.  While other legal actions are available, it is clear that any further challenges to that result will likely have no effect. 

As a lawyer I learned to be a good winner (don’t gloat) and perhaps more importantly to be a good loser – know when it is time to step back from the battle and congratulate your opponent, even when you know that the result is not what it should be, even when you know there were mistakes made, laws misread, evidence missing or incorrectly excluded.  

Sometimes, you just don’t have what you need to prove your case.   For those of you more familiar with the popular Queen’s Gambit miniseries than the courtroom, sometimes the chess player must realize that it is time to lay the king on his side and resign.   For card players, the phrase is “you’ve got to know when to fold ‘em.”  The point is, when the outcome is clear and when it is equally clear that any further efforts will be entirely fruitless, it is time to walk away.  Now is that time for the Republicans.

I am sad that half of America was not interested in examining or even discussing the large number of irregularities that evidence indicated occurred.  I am sorry that so many feel it is just easier to move on than to seek the truth when that truth may lead to unpleasant results.  I am saddened that so many care so little about our right to vote and how essential it is that it be protected in order for our democracy and our freedoms to continue.

As I have said from the beginning, this election was not just about the specific men running; it was about much more than that.  This election was about what kind of country we are going to become.  This inertia towards any unpleasant narrative, this lack of concern over a core element of our democracy saddens and concerns me.  That people are celebrating when an election lawsuit is dismissed while their comments reveal they have no understanding of why it was dismissed or even the important right of the people that it involved, I wonder where indeed this country is headed. 

I hope the bitterness of this election passes and that when it does that people stop and think rationally about it, about the Constitution, and about the central role that voting rights play in our democracy.  I hope that it is not too late for every legitimate voter in this country to demand that safeguards be enacted so that the voting irregularities of this election never happen again.  That is necessary to protect the vote of those entitled to cast one and more importantly to preserve the freedoms that those votes protect.

It is time to accept the result even if you feel it is not fair.  Step back from this battle.  Use that energy instead to fight to ensure that our Constitutional protections will be the guiding force for our country’s future. 

Freedom Requires Questioning

While I do think there was fraud in the 2020 Presidential election, I also believe it cannot or will not be proven.  Rand Paul amongst others has pointed out that statistical fraud was found in four states where President Donald Trump lost in the presidential election during supposed “data dumps” in the middle of the night and early morning.  But this, amongst other anomalies and miscounts, and counts of illegal votes, is something that most people, and especially Big Tech, the Mainstream Media, and the Washington Deep State prefer to ignore.  So, that being the will of the people and this being America, that is what I and the rest of the country will do.

This is not the first time my candidate will not be the one inaugurated in January.  But this time it troubles me far more than others.  This election was not just about my candidate winning or losing; it was not really about the candidates at all; rather, it was about the future of America.  I think that too many voters did not understand that.

So, as I move forward, my concern is how do we educate the electorate so that they understand better what was at stake in this election as well as what might be at stake in the future.

I, like many others, have tried and tried to educate people about our system of government, about the truths of socialism or even a significant move toward socialism and its “trickle up poverty” ^* and hopelessness.  I and many others have tried to explain that a narrative, an opinion, an interpretation, that none of those are facts and that to make good decisions about our future we must arm ourselves with facts, not feelings or opinions.  Yet, for the most part that has been to no avail.

I have a friend to tells me that people are not interested in thinking about these things, but that they will sit up and take notice only when they are personally and fiscally affected.  Well, I suspect that those who pay taxes will not have long to wait:  Biden announced that he will nominate Janet Yellen, a former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, to be his Secretary of the Treasury.  Analysts tell us that will mean personal income taxes will increase, 401ks will drop in value as the new administration and Yellen increase the corporate tax on the corporate stocks in those 401ks, and the cost of gasoline and energy will increase.  That will hit taxpayers and other Americans where it hurts, in the pocketbook.

But is that really enough?  I don’t think so.  In my state we are willing to accept food lines and arbitrary closures of food sources as well as other unsupported mandates issued under the cover of COVID-19.  When people are not willing to question or to think for themselves, then they are likely to accept most anything they are told to do.  So, if they are told that the financial hits they are about to take are for some noble cause, they are likely to accept it without question.

What we need is EDUCATION.  But not just education for our children (which there is no question needs to be improved), but also for the adult population who take their information from media or tech sources that are no longer interested in providing factual and objective information but rather in creating a story or furthering the propaganda of one or another political cause.

For example, over the last 4 years, given the many accomplishments of President Trump, the media could have used their biased rhetoric to laud him and paint him as one of the greatest presidents ever.  Instead, they chose to paint him as the most despicable.  This was done by the ever more biased word and fact choices in the stories they presented as well as in the complete failure to report many of his accomplishments.  For example, how many people know about his criminal justice reform, his raising the economic status of minorities to the all time best, his help for Black colleges, or even his work to negotiate not one, not two, but three peace accords in the Middle East?  And those are just a few of many of which a vast number of Americans are completely unaware.

So, when a particular and totally negative picture of President Trump was created, the people simply accepted it.  And now, the reverse painting occurs as the portrait of Biden is nothing but positive.  And the people simply accept.

It is amazing how many news stories start with an unproven assumption upon which the rest of the story is based.  For example, “Trump’s unfounded statements that  . . . .”  Too many accept stories which begin this way as if the statements were in fact not founded whereas at the time of the statement is made it is nothing more than an opinion/a wish/a narrative.  It is not a fact, and everyone should be asking “On what are you basing the conclusion that the statements to which you refer are unfounded?”

When one bases an argument upon a false or arguable assumption, the whole argument is in danger of falling apart. We used to learn the classic deductive syllogism in our schools, and it became an essential part of our thought structure:

All men are mortal

Socrates is a man

Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

We also learned that if the first and second statements were true, the conclusion must be true; therefore, the way to attack a deductive conclusion was to question the two premises:

All swans are white

Jack is a swan

Therefore, Jack is white

Because all swans are not white, Jack is not necessarily white. But coming to this understanding requires questioning the first premise that all swans are white.

All Brand X car batteries die at 20,000 miles

My car battery is Brand X

Therefore, my battery will die at 20,000 miles.

But, perhaps we might want to check to make sure my battery is indeed brand X because if we question and check and find it to be brand Y, then given the information we have we don’t know when it will die.

QUESTIONING.  It is the beginning of being truly informed.  Some of us have forgotten to do that.  Others were never taught.  But unless we start doing it again, start asking questions, we will never be truly informed.  And once we become uninformed and willing to simply accept what we are told, then we lose control over our lives and our very selves.

And to be clear, numerous repetitions of the same assumption or opinion do not make that assumption or opinion a fact or even true.  If you tell me a million times that my black swan Jack is white, that does not make it so.  If you tell me over and over I have a car battery Z so I don’t have to worry that it will die at 20,000 miles, that does not make it so.  I need to question – is it really a Z or is it an X?  And if it is a Z, what facts do we have about when it might die?  Just because I’d like my swan to be white or my battery to last forever, does not mean it can or will be so.  I need to look at facts, not assumptions or desires.

When we let our emotions and feelings rule us, when we become lazy enough to simply accept what we are told because we like what is said, then that is how we lose our country.

Many did not question the negative facts about Trump because they chose to hate him from the moment he was elected.  Others were simply lulled into accepting the total negative picture because it was all they saw and heard on their social media and MSM.  Trump was not perfect, nor was he pure evil.  Like any human and any president, he is complex.  Facts give us a much clearer picture than any narrative.  We need to remember that.

When we get the rosy pictures of Biden and his administration, we need to remember again that no one is all good or all bad.  We need to question what we see and hear.  Just because the preferred media narrative is that everything Biden is good does not mean that we should not question the assumptions we are given.  We always need to demand facts, even when those facts are inconvenient and do not fit our preferred narrative.

We tend to question less when we are in fear and uncertainty.  We look to someone else to provide the certainty and answers to our pain in the same way that children look to parents.  But certainty and safety can become a prison.  Questioning is the only true way to alleviate uncertainty and fear.  It is the only way to retain the true ability to control one’s own destiny.   

If we stop questioning it means that we are leaving the course of our future to those who control the narrative.  We are not children and I, for one, do not want to become like children to an all-powerful government/Big Tech/Media that makes my decisions and creates my narrative for me.  Therefore, I will continue to question. 

Question narrative.  Question facts.  Question support.  Question interpretations of facts.  Question opinions.  Simply Question.

*******************************************************************

*I don’t know if the term “trickle-up poverty” has been previously used to characterize socialism, but it is definitely appropriate.  I discovered it in this well thought out and well explained piece by the CEO of Whole Foods. LINK 

 

The Nice Vote

I hate to keep harping on fraudulent elections, but before I get to the main point of this post I have one final thought on the election which I present in the first paragraph below.  The rest of this blog addresses what I refer to as the “nice vote.”

Elections and Integrity

I know that even if fraud is officially found it is unlikely at this point that it will change the outcome – in large part because once illegal votes have been cast it becomes next to impossible to determine which those votes were and hence impossible to remove them – but I am appalled that so many Americans seem not to care if there even was any fraud.  Even one illegal vote dilutes the strength of every legal vote.  If there are huge amounts of illegal votes as it appears there were in this election, then the essential right to vote of all Americans has been tampered with.  This is not a political issue but an American issue that goes to the very core of our democracy.  Every American, regardless of their political leanings, should demand a full investigation and demand safeguards so that from this point forward we can all trust in the fairness and honesty of our elections.  Many people don’t want the acrimony that may bring, but sometimes democracy is not “nice” which brings me to the main point of this post.

The Nice Vote

If the currently questionable results are nonetheless the same as they would have been if this were an election of unquestionable integrity, then I think that the reason that Trump lost is due to the people who voted for nice.  He got more minority votes than in 2016, but most Democrats and Republicans unlikely changed their votes, so it had to be the nice vote.

What do I mean by that?  Here is the reason given by many people, both Democrats and Republicans, whom I personally know and generally respect, for why they voted for Biden:  They wanted to express their hope for a kinder and more civil country.  These people, despite reservations about the dangers of big government, or reservations about Biden’s past record and corruptions, despite praise for Trump’s foreign policies and his accomplishments toward peace in the Middle East, despite their approval of how he was able to handle and improve the economy and the economic status of minorities, despite these acknowledgements and more, these people simply voted for nice.

Now, I happen to think they made a big mistake.  But I also think that they were not even seeing what was right before their eyes.  While Biden claims to be a nice guy, he is not.  He is a career politician and with that comes the self-interest and lying that is a common part of that role.  While he says he is a straight shooter, he is not straight with the American people. 

As I listen to Biden and his unauthorized transition team make more and more pronouncements about their plans, I become more and more concerned for America.  I wonder if the nice vote is beginning to realize what they voted for, and if they are beginning to have some sort of buyer’s remorse.

I also realize that if one is going to vote based on nice, then they really have very little understanding of our country and how it works.  Most of those I know who voted for nice live outside cities in comfortable suburbs.  They are of the type often referred to as “soccer moms” (though some are not moms, and some are men).  They have not experienced firsthand what it is like to live in a city, either as one of the privileged or as one of the underclass. 

Violence is likely something that is not part of these nice voters’ regular lives, although they see it on TV and therefore from a media perspective – a narrative, not a reality.  They have the things they need, including material goods and things like healthcare.  They feel badly for those who don’t, but they themselves do not experience it. 

Looking from afar they are told how those sorts of problems should be dealt with rather than having any real understanding of those problems.  So, they vote for what they feel is nice, be it nicer, more sophisticated verbiage, or nice sounding narratives about the future that a candidate will create.

But nice is not a requirement for any of the systems of our government.  And indeed, nice is often ineffective.  If we accept for the purpose of discussion the proposition that Biden is nice, then for 47 years his niceness was totally ineffective in getting anything done for the country. If anything, many of the programs his nice verbiage supported were more harmful than beneficial to our country or certain groups of people within our country.   Former President Obama made nice speeches, but his actions tore this country apart as he built and strengthened a politics of identity. 

Yet President Trump, with his rough and often acrimonious words, accomplished so many things that the nice talkers have only talked about for years:  prison and criminal justice reform, return of economic hope for inner city minorities, better quality of life for most Americans, more opportunities for all, but especially minorities, return of respect around the world, working to end foreign wars and bringing troops home; improved trade agreements that are fair to our own country, the list goes on.  He made and kept his campaign promises.  He followed the law and the Constitution.  And in getting it done he was often not nice. But his actions benefited our entire nation.

And that is what a President is supposed to do.  Support our laws and our Constitution.  Work hard, but within our system.   Put our country first.  Work to make things better for all of our people, not just those belonging to favored identity groups.  

There is no requirement of nice.  And indeed, no one can mandate nice because, at least in this country as long as we retain our Constitutional protections, people have the right to their own views and to speak their own words, and sometimes that is not nice.

The nice voters have in my mind been fooled by pretty words.  Pretty promises – we will all be civil and we will all get along and the government will take care of everyone in a kind way.  In the words of Thomas Sowell:  “Mystical references to ‘society’ and its programs to ‘help’ may warm the hearts of the gullible but what it really means is putting more power in the hands of bureaucrats.”

Listening to the plans being put forth by Biden and his handlers since he was declared the presumptive winner tell us that the nice that these people voted for will be a large government in charge of our lives and a diminishment if not loss of our freedoms, especially those set forth in the First and Second Amendments of our Constitution. They voted for a loss of our nationhood and a movement toward the New World Order.  They voted for loss of tolerance for individuality as we move toward a society where even our thought will be under government control.

What they voted for may sound nice, we may not hear so many acrimonious words (though I doubt that), or they will only be spoken in secret behind closed doors, but what they really voted for is not what I would call nice.  What they voted for is a march down the path toward full out socialism and all the evils and pain and suffering that brings.   

I think the nice voters made a huge mistake.  I suspect it will not take them long to realize that.  But it may nonetheless be too late.   God save us from nice!

Real Elections Require Honesty and Fairness and Sometimes Patience

 Elections.   Most every country has them, but they are not all the same.  In some countries we know that despite the people going to polls to vote that the result has been predetermined by those in power.  We laugh when leaders like Putin “amazingly” receive an almost unanimous vote. 

We laugh, because we know that in America that doesn’t happen – we vote, our votes are counted, and we the people decide the winner.  We have faith in that.  At least until now.

But now only a fool would think that there were no irregularities in this election.  Whether that changed the result, we will likely never know.  But it cannot help but change the faith of the people in our elections, both now and in the future.

But this is not just a problem with the fraud itself, it is a problem with the way we are reacting to it.  And that is what I want to address here.

First, there are credible acts of fraud, sworn affidavits by numerous poll workers, a small number of whistle blowers who were poll officials unattached to either party, obituaries from a year or more ago of people who seemingly also cast votes in this election, etc. etc.  The MSM does not report this because it does not fit their narrative.  The credible allegations by Republicans are regularly referred to by the press as “unsubstantiated” and “unproven.”  Well, of course they are at this point only allegations – that is why the Republicans ask for investigations that would prove or disprove what are credible and sworn statements of fraud.

By way of example of what is being alleged and some of the affidavits, here is a link to the complaint filed in Wayne County, Michigan (LINK). It is long.  The affidavits are near the end.  Its allegations are less egregious than what is being found and asserted in Pennsylvania and Georgia and perhaps other states.  

As I write this, the Georgia Secretary of State has announced a state wide hand recount.  The reason for the recount is to create trust in the ultimate result.  Yet even as it reports that announcement the press continues to call the allegations unmerited and essentially characterize them as nothing more than sore losing.  

Any citizen who truly cares about free and fair elections should be concerned.  And that concern should go far beyond the results in Trump v. Biden.  Because if we cannot trust our elections, if the identities of the dead are being stolen, if legitimate votes are not being counted while illegitimate ones are, then we are all being disenfranchised.  And we will never again be able to take the results of our elections seriously.

Any realist will acknowledge that no election is fraud free; there are always some dead people who vote.  But the problem this year was the huge amount of mail in ballots.  The mass mail in balloting of this year must be distinguished from absentee balloting which requires a request for a ballot as well as other verification procedures in order for one to cast a vote by mail.  But general mail in balloting has no such protections.  The following quote from The Kafka Election: Finding a Way Out of the Maze  (LINK) lays out the problem with frightening clarity:

          “When you vote in person, you first make an active choice to vote, confirm your identity as a registered voter to a poll worker, then mark your ballot privately but in the presence of other people, and finally hand it off to a poll worker who scans it directly into a vote-counting machine while you watch. In other words, you establish your legal right to vote and have a secure chain of custody of your ballot until it is scanned, which you yourself participate in.         

        None of those steps is present in mail balloting. You are a passive recipient of a ballot, your identity is assumed rather than confirmed, you may be marking your ballot under pressure of either family members or strangers, and you send the ballot to an anonymous election worker through any number of insecure methods of transmission. You have no assurance that your vote has been counted, and what’s worse, you may not even be a participant in your own vote being cast in your name.  

           The most important thing to remember about mail ballots is that once they are separated from their secrecy envelope, they are completely unidentifiable. They may have come from legal voters, or they may not have. They may have come in the mail, or they may have come in the soda delivery truck. They may have come one at a time, or they may have come 100,000 at a time.

                         And no one will ever know.”

We should all remember that near the end of the first presidential debate, moderator Chris Wallace asked Biden if he would “pledge not to declare victory until the election is independently certified.”  Joe Biden answered, “yes.”  Wallace then asked, “Will you urge your supporters to stay calm while the vote is counted, and will you pledge not to declare victory until the election is independently certified?” “Yes,” answered Biden.  (See C-Span video of that debate HERE.  This exchange happens about an hour and a half in)

Yet Biden, now proclaimed by the media and his party to be our next president, despite no certifications, and with legitimate ongoing challenges and recounts, does nothing to urge calm or patience.  Rather, he and his handlers and supporters mock the Republicans as simply sore losers for being concerned about the validity and fairness of one of the most importance processes of our democracy – the people’s vote.

Biden and the rest of America should review the Constitution.  The Electors must vote before we have a President-elect and that vote must be certified.  That is scheduled to occur in December.  That has not happened yet this year, so while we can have a presumptive or predictive President-elect, we legally and Constitutionally do not have an actual President-elect.  And the one who claims to hold that title should be the first one to understand that and to clarify our Constitution to us.  Afterall, the actual president must take an oath to uphold that very same Constitution.

Indeed, that is what makes us different from the countries whose obvious manipulated elections we laugh at.  We are a country of laws, not of emotion and mob rule.  We are governed by laws, not media.  We the people are the ones in control, not the ones who scream loudest or who have the best emotional propaganda.  To quote the current presumptive winner, “c’mon man.”  And by that I mean, c’mon, stop pretending and follow the facts and the law.  If Biden and his supporters really believe their victory is secure, then why not take the time to prove it?

As the above explanation of mail in ballot fraud demonstrates, we will never know what the true result of legitimate votes in this election was because once the illegal vote is put into the tabulating machine it becomes unidentifiable.  Even if we were able to say there had been a precise number of fraudulent ballots cast, we would not be able to tell specifically which of those votes were the fraudulent ones. 

So, as the Democrats now assert, it is unlikely that even if the challenges successfully show significant and possibly result changing voter fraud, we will nonetheless likely not see a change in the current narrative proclaimed to us by the media.

Whether any fraud was conceived and designed at some broad level with some master plan, or whether it was simply a result of a number of poll workers suffering from the hatred of Trump Derangement Syndrome, it doesn’t matter.  The fact is, the mass mail in allows it to happen and it is next to impossible, once it has happened, to determine for whom the actual legal votes were cast.

But that does not mean we should just ignore what went on.  It does not mean that we should just let the media decide for us when they decide that the time is right.  It does not mean that we should let the media and the presumptive winning party simply acclimate us to that win so that we accept it as we do so much of what we hear repeated to us on our various media sources. 

It does not mean that we should not demand, both now and in the future, that every legal vote be counted and that only legal votes be counted.  It does not mean that we should accept, or worse participate in, condemnation of someone who with credible evidence challenges election results.

Yet, that is what is happening.   We are being encouraged to just forget this and move on.  The presumptive winner, who said he would be the president for all Americans, seemingly does not care enough about those Americans to keep his word or to ensure for them that these as well as future results will be fair and honest.  That tells us a lot, doesn’t it?

Mass mail-in balloting was widespread in this election, and as predicted it was fraught with fraud.  Yet now the people are used to the convenience of mail in.  They will want to use it again and regularly.  If we do not fix its problems now, we will never again have an election result that the people can trust and believe in.  And every single American should care about that.  Even if this election provides you with the results you like, that does not mean that future fraud will do the same.

We need to return to elections that we can be proud of and that we can trust.  That requires patience.  It requires support for the investigation of legitimate and credible allegations of fraud.  It requires not letting the media decide who won.   Only when we know that the results are honest can the winner truly claim victory and delight in the result and only then can those who lost know that they were not cheated out of victory.  And what is wrong with waiting to prove an honest result?

 

Unity Requires Tolerance and Other Post Election Thoughts

So it is now 5 days post-election and we still do not have an official winner, although at the moment Joe Biden is the presumptive winner.  The media is treating him as the winner and people are beginning to accept that, though that does not necessarily make it so.  If it turns out that he is indeed the official winner, I hope that everyone will accept that just as I hope everyone will do so if the tide turns in Trump’s favor.  

In the meantime, several different but related thoughts and issues are rolling around in my head and I will discuss some of them here.

First, let’s understand that in this country, accepting a victor does not mean agreeing with all the policies or views of that victor or his party.  In America we accept the vote of the people and support the legitimate office holder, but we retain our right to hold our own views and beliefs, and to speak out both for and against various political policies.  If we do not like the policies of the chosen winner, we can work to see someone with different policies elected in the future.  The win of one side does not make the other side’s views wrong nor require them to alter their individual beliefs.

Last night Mr. Biden gave a speech in which he essentially claimed victory and called for unity in the nation.  A nice thought, but I don’t see how we can take that call seriously when we still have the leaders of his party, people like  former President Obama, his wife Michelle, the presumptive Vice President Harris, Senator Schumer, Speaker Pelosi, Rep. Cortez, and many others, along with most of the Democrat voters continuing to throw a variety of ad hominem attacks against the more than 70 million who voted for President Trump. 

Mrs. Obama just yesterday called that 70 million plus racist.  Others assert they are uneducated.  Some call for the identification of all Trump voters so that they can be “educated.”  Others yelled F**k USA at groups of Trump supporters singing the National Anthem after the press had declared Biden the winner.  Hypocrisy is everywhere when we see such things as Biden supporters celebrating without masks or social distancing when Trump and his supporters were regularly criticized by Biden and the Democrats for the same behavior.

The speeches, but even more so the actions of Mr. Biden and the Democrats seem to make it clear that there will be no tolerance for views of which they disapprove.  And real unity requires tolerance of viewpoints that are not one’s own.  So I see Biden’s words as nothing more than that – pretty words of a politician. 

Another thought is about the election challenges.  We should remember that Mr. Biden and the Democrats all applauded Stacey Abrams when she challenged election results in 2018.  Yet today they condemn the President and the Republicans for their challenges based on much stronger evidence than what was held by Ms. Abrams.  Not only are there serious and verified accounts of widespread voter fraud, there are also very credible allegations of unconstitutional procedures in Pennsylvania and perhaps other states. 

Now I know the Democrats don’t want to hear this, they want to get on with their celebrations.  And many Republicans are just tired and want to move on.  But every American should be very concerned about this because if we do not have fair elections that we can trust, then how are we going to retain and protect our democracy?  And the most concerned person should be the presumptive winner and probably next president. 

These challenges go well beyond winning or losing.  Obviously, if they go forward there is a chance Trump could win and if they end here Biden will clearly win.  But at what cost to the nation?  We should all want these challenges to go forward so that we can know that the final outcome was fair and honest.  And the person for whom this should be cause number 1 is the next president of the U.S., whichever candidate that might be.  And if he is not willing to support that assurance to the American people, then how can Biden claim that he intends to be president of all of America?

I hear many proclaiming that now we will not have a bigot/racist in the White House.  First, while many have called President Trump those things when they did not like his policy or action or his sometimes vulgar language, I have seen no actual proof of real bigotry or racism.  Indeed, I have seen a presidency that tries to treat all persons equally under the laws that exist. 

But I would argue that even Mr. Biden’s VP is the result of a racist act.  You will recall that he promised and did select his VP based upon skin color and sex, thus excluding the majority of Americans and American politicians from any consideration whatsoever.  To base such considerations on two immutable characteristics is the very definition of racism.  And no, it is not OK to be racist just to try to prove that you or your party are not racist.

While they are continuing to throw their ugly and hurtful words toward Trump and his supporters, many Democrats now call for conversations wherein we will learn to “understand one another.”  It is hard to have a conversation of understanding when one half of that conversation has already determined the other half to be guilty of things such as racism or other sins and in need of change.  Without tolerance for other views there can be no real understanding.

People are claiming that with a Biden administration we will see a return to love, kindness, family, etc.  Nice words, but the actions betray them.  It is not loving or kind to call those who do not parrot your views the ugly epithets that Democrats fling at Republicans.  It is not kind or loving to threaten them when they do not accept the Democrat view. 

As to family, the Democrat policies are in so many ways anti-family.  Without even mentioning many social values, just looking at economic policies it is clear that Biden’s proclaimed agenda is not family favorable. 

It was Trump who helped to bring many minorities out of poverty and with that create stronger families.  It was Trump whose renegotiated and USA-favorable trade policies helped not only farmers but American businesses and with that jobs for American families.  It was Trump who reformed criminal justice, who made sure Black colleges would remain funded, whose economic polices created better investment opportunities meaning more home ownership, better retirement savings, etc.  Biden has said he will reverse all this, which I do not see as family friendly.

While hate has blossomed on both sides of the aisle, I honestly see the Democrats as the party of hate.  It was VP Biden who participated in illegal plans to spy against President Trump even before he took office.  It was the Democrats who for 4 years refused to accept Trump as their president and did everything within their power to try to remove him from office, thus working to overturn the will of the people.  It has been the Democrats who, blinded by their irrational hatred of President Trump, have spent the last four years lying to the American people and disregarding any aspects of our system of  laws that do not immediately provide them with what they want. 

It is the Democrats who have removed the boarded-up windows in cities that were placed there to protect from rioting after the election, because it was really to protect against riots by Democrats.  Now that a Democrat is the presumptive victor, there is no fear which implies that the Republicans are not the ones likely to riot and destroy.  It is the Democrats who refuse to condemn violence against the Right by their own people as well as by groups such as Antifa (and yes, despite the media and Democrat narrative, Trump has many times condemned violence and White Supremacists).  And it is the Democrats who just keep on posting their nasty memes about Republicans and Trump, claiming that they are just celebrating.

And Joe?  Does he condemn any of that behavior?  No, he just says we will have unity.   Yet if he is willing to continue to accept the hateful behavior upon which the hateful Democrat campaign was built, if his only tolerance at this point is of the continued hatred from the Left, if the only behavior that he will accept is a blind acceptance of his view, then there really is no call for unity at all. 

And so we wait for an official decision, for challenges to be heard and recounts to be had.  We wait, and if we really want an honest and fair election, then the wait is both valuable and worthwhile.  It would be nice if the wait included a call against hatred from the presumptive winner.

Reflecting on Our Great Divide while waiting for Election Results

I am not quite sure what is happening with the returns or when we will know who our President will be come January.  I do know that it may take time to count legitimate ballots.  I know that our system provides for challenges and recounts (which are not voter suppression!).  I know that it seems strange that suddenly late election night all counting stopped as certain states looking as if they would go to Trump suddenly decided to await additional ballots (many of which, legitimate or not?, they seem to have found supportive of Biden).

If Biden is elected, I will accept that.  I will not like it and I will mourn for the America that I believe in.  If Trump is elected, I hope that Democrats will accept that, unlike their hate-based refusal to do so from the date of his 2016 election until today.  But I do not hold out much hope for any tolerance towards Trump or his supporters from the Democrats.  I wish there was something more positive to say.  There is not.

One thing that this election (as well as the last 4 years) has made perfectly clear:  We have two Americas.  And they cannot be reconciled.

Look at the election maps.  In nearly every state you will see vast expanses of red in rural areas with large blue spots atop the big cities.  This red-blue political divide reflects the larger divide between the values and lifestyles of the two groups.  These values, these hopes and dreams for themselves, their neighbors, and for America are often in direct opposition to one another.  The divide is really a divide of two cultures not unlike the divide between two countries. 

It has been suggested that we should have a Fulbright type program between metropolitan and rural areas within the U.S.  This would be a way to foster a better understanding of different ways of life, different cultural values in the same way that the Fulbright program fosters such understanding between different nations.

While I like the sound of this idea, I wonder if it would really help to bring this nation together.  Yes, it would probably promote understanding just as the current Fulbright program promotes understanding of other countries and cultures.  But that understanding does not actually unite two countries into one and currently we essentially have two countries within our borders. 

In 2018 the Pew Research Center published a study of the differences between urban, suburban, and rural cultures.  The study found significant differences between urban/suburban and rural not only in politics, but also in such things as measures of economic well-being, education, optimism about the future, basic values,  views on social issues, importance of diversity, drugs and drug addiction, importance of family ties and attachment to community, interaction with neighbors, immigration, age and economic status of population, type of jobs available, etc.  These are discussed in great detail with statistics and charts showing nuances of similarities and differences; the entire report can be found here:  LINK  

While there are small areas of similarity between urban and rural (with suburban a sort of neutral zone between the two that leans toward each in some ways), there is really very little upon which they agree.  Their differences can all be traced to differences in core values.  While it is possible to tolerate a different value system in another, it is not possible to change it to your own. 

Yet that is exactly what many Democrats and their policies would do.  They would force us to conform to a given set of values legislated or mandated by the government.  There would be no room for tolerance of others.  And the core values of rural and urban are distinctly different and irreconcilable. 

Our country was mostly rural for much of its existence.  Cities have grown larger and larger with former rural dwellers as well as many immigrants who are newer to America and its culture.  The two cultures have different needs and different desires; their cultures are different.

World views, values, beliefs are formed in childhood.  While their superficial expressions may change, their core rarely does.  So if we have entirely different core values being instilled then the populations and the culture that result from those values will be very different and perhaps unable to live together as one.

While Pew did not discuss religion, I think that one’s faith leads to and supports many of one’s values.  Faith and religion play different roles in the lives of rural and urban dwellers.  In many instances the faith of a rural area is a central part of the community; it is something that helps to hold the community together.  In urban areas there may be pockets of sub-communities held together by a particular faith, but faith/religion is not the driving force within most urban areas.

Additionally, the values necessary to a rural culture include self-reliance and independence.  In an urban setting where large numbers of people are grouped together in small spaces, there is more need to become a part of the group and a greater dependence on the group than on ones’s self, for both daily needs as well as one’s own identity.  A belief that one has the right to control one’s own destiny does not merge well with the belief that government can and should control much of a citizenries’ behavior.

Rural and urban America have different mind-sets that have resulted in different cultures.  At one time the total populations between rural and urban were not that different allowing both cultures to have some say in the overall running of our country.

Today, the urban cities, because of their large populations are more and more able to control the outcome of both statewide and federal elections.  This is dangerous.  When two cultures must reside together and only one is heard, the outcome is never good.

I honestly do not think that the huge rural-urban gap can be bridged.  We have two countries and two cultures.  We used to be able to tolerate different views, but this goes well beyond different views.  Because the underlying values are so different the two groups seek entirely different Americas.  While they might want to visit, neither wants to live in the America of the other. 

In this election, once the counts and recounts are concluded and court battles decided, we will have a winner.  The people will have spoken.  But I wonder how long we are able to have one half of the country whose views are polar opposite of the other decide how the entire country will live.   We will permanently be at war with one another.   

We cannot solve this problem with politics or legislation.  We cannot require someone to change their values or beliefs to suit whomever is in power.  We cannot have both big and small government.  We cannot have both capitalism and socialism.  We cannot hold traditional values and deny those traditions for a new world order. 

Once this election is resolved, we will have people calling for us to understand one another and get along, to have “conversations” about our differences.  These things never work.  We are different people and we simply have to accept that fact.  The question is, being so different that we are essentially entirely at odds in all that we believe, how do we live together? 

Our Constitution and our government used to help us to do that with its protections of each individual’s beliefs and speech and its demands for tolerance of others with differing views.  But one of the great divides is that half of us no longer respect that Constitution or our form of government. 

I wish I had a solution.  I do not. 

 

Reflections for the Election

I am less than 3 years shy of having spent three-quarters of a century as an American.  I can still remember when I turned 21 and was able to vote for the first time.  I walked several blocks through a pretty seedy part of Detroit to reach my polling place and proudly cast my ballot.  Since that day I have voted in every election – not just presidential or midterm, but local things like schoolboard, etc.  I truly believe it is my responsibility as an American to do so, and I proudly cast each and every ballot.

Today I want to reflect on how this election is different and why, beyond any discrete issue, it is so important to the future of America.  This year it is absolutely crucial that voters understand not just for whom, but more importantly for what they are voting.

I have always been interested in politics – one of my earlier memories is my father allowing me to stay up to watch the nomination of Eisenhower for president.   Growing up there were many political discussions in my family; one thing they always included was the need to be well informed in order to properly carry out the Constitutional duty of voting.  I always try to follow that principle even though it is much more difficult in today’s world.

For most of my life I have been able to rely on a fair and objective media to keep me informed.  For most of my life I had a high respect for the media and its First Amendment right (and responsibility) to gather information and inform the people.  (My second law review publication while still in law school dealt with the First Amendment and specifically with freedom of the press and a reporter’s ability to gather news.) 

The press is sometimes referred to as the Fourth Estate which denotes its influence in the political system.  It has enormous power to frame and advocate political issues.  Until recently it, for the most part, did this in a fair manner.   But that has changed.

Today we live in a world of narrative rather than fact.  People select a narrative that is pleasing to them and support its authors without regard to the factual support or lack thereof for that narrative.  Because the news media now also takes that approach, it is no longer the source for fair and objective factual information. Even the alleged media fact checkers disagree based on bias. It has become more and more difficult for those who seek the facts (not interpretation of or opinions based on them) to find what they are seeking.  That alone affects the nature of this election.

My belief and my personal education about various candidates in the past always led me to the conclusion that they all wanted essentially the same future for America – a betterment and closer approach to the ideals embedded within the Constitution.  The various politicians and political parties may have had different ideas about how to accomplish that, but all those different paths had the same goal in mind and the same underlying respect if not love for America and its founding principles.

When I protested for civil rights and to end the war in Vietnam, I was not protesting against my country or its form of government.  Rather, I was protesting about specific policies within that government.  The protests were a means to an end – a way of making our country better, but not completely different.  In law school, when discussing those protests, one of my Constitutional Law professors noted that many wrapped themselves in American flags, not out of disrespect, but out of respect for the country that allowed us to speak our minds in this way.  That flag, representing America, was the shield that protected our freedom of thought and our ability to speak our views.

In the past voters looked at the planks of a party’s platform – what did each party intend to do for America?   It has always been unlikely that someone would agree with every plank of any party’s platform and so, in past years, informed voters would generally choose the platform and party with which they had more in common.  In the end, the voter knew that both parties had the same interest – a better America – at heart, and that they would listen to and follow the will of the people to get there. There was a unified respect for and pride in our country and that held us together.  Our goals were the same.

That is not so today.  Today there are two very different goals that include starkly different views of what America is and what it should be.  This year’s election is ultimately not about the specific planks in a platform.  This election requires the voter to go beyond the planks and specific policies to see the fundamental and dissimilar view that each party has of and for America.

Looking at various aspects of our nation’s culture and government, the two parties have contrasting views of what should be, many of which I have discussed in prior posts.  These include but are not limited to:  the individual vs. identity groups; self-reliance and self-determination vs. large government control; protection of inherent individual rights as outlined in the Constitution vs. rights created by the government that controls (or takes away) those rights; representative government giving voice to all vs. pure majority (mob) rule which silences the voice of the minority; equal opportunity vs. equal result for everyone; creating opportunity vs. maintaining an underclass of hopeless individuals; rule of law vs. rule by emotion and personality; capitalism vs. socialism.

The bottom line is that the Republican party is generally satisfied with the current governing structures of America.  While they would work to improve them and with that the lives of all Americans, to move ever closer to the aspirations that define America, they would not fundamentally change them.

In contrast, the Democrats generally no longer respect those structures.  They believe the very nature of our country and its governing bodies must fundamentally change. To reach their goals, to create the America that they envision, rather than improving current structures the Democrats would dismantle them and turn them into something else entirely.  

To achieve many of its goals, the Democrats must ignore aspects of our Constitution and cannot continue with our three separate but equal branches of government.  The Democrat vision provides much less voice to the people and much more to the control of the party and its government.  This would require removal of an independent and non-political judicial branch – hence the Democrat plan for Court-packing to create enough political judgeships so that their party would never lose a political case.  It would require more secure control of a Democrat voting bloc in the Legislative branch – hence their plan to create 2 new states giving a larger seat count to Democrats in the House and the Senate.  And it requires an assured voting bloc for those things over which the people maintain control – hence create 11 million new voters indebted to their party by giving unqualified citizenship to 11 million illegals. 

Of course, these may be short lived goals – there could come a time that these Democrat blocs would turn Republican.  But if the Democrats are able to seize control then they can make enough significant changes that a shift against them would make no difference.  If they do it right, the Constitutional guarantees that protect us will no longer have any force.  

And that is why this election is so very different.  The question of what kind of healthcare we will have pales against the question of whether we will have America as we know it or not.  This is why it is so important that people become educated about the true facts behind what each party seeks, and why it is so frustrating that we can no longer count on the media to inform us. 

Yet every voter must find a way to look beyond the surface beauty of the Democrat narrative to see the real and sometimes not so pretty consequences that lie beneath.  Some may prefer the Democrat narrative and be able to ignore the inconvenient facts that the Democrats and the media are not disclosing.   They may eagerly await a dismantled and different country.  

Personally, I love America with all its warts and blemishes.  I love its Constitution and its form of government, its rule of law.  It is a place where we can truly become the full individual that we are meant to be.  This is the America that I want my descendants to experience.

It is essential that people recognize the two different Americas that are on the ballot and truly know and understand for what they are voting.    This election is different because we are not voting about which way we will get to the same place, but rather to which place we are going. 

I ended yesterday’s post with a personal statement about my vote this year.  I repeat it here:

As I have said before, I am not a member of any political party and have voted for both Republican and Democrat candidates in the past.  But this year I believe that America’s future is fully dependent on our vote.  Because I believe in our Constitution and our Democratic Republic, because I value our democracy and how it allows every individual to determine his or her own beliefs and values and allows each of us to speak freely those beliefs while requiring tolerance of those who hold different views, because I believe that Democrat policies will truly weaken if not destroy many of the crucial foundations of our society, for those reasons and more I am voting Republican this year, and I urge everyone who holds America dear to do the same.

Lies and Deceit Are Not a Debate

 Now that the Oct. 15 debate has been cancelled, the Commission on Presidential Debates and we the people have a little more time to think before the next debate format is finalized.

What we should have learned from the first presidential and the only vice-presidential debate begins with wondering why even bother to hold debates when:

•  No one answers questions, in part because
•  Two minutes is not enough time to even begin to answer questions about complex issues;
•  The answers of one side, consistent with their campaign techniques, are based on lies, half-truths, misstatements, and deceit;
•  The objectivity of the moderator is at best questionable.

Let’s unpack some of the above.  First, it is rare to get a clear answer to a question.  Now there are several reasons for this.  One is that the candidates don’t want to turn off any potential voters.  Another is that they don’t want the voters to know the answer (for example, Biden/Harris refusing to answer questions about their intent to pack the Supreme Court). 

But, even if they wanted to give a clear answer, it is hard to do so within the time structures of the debates.  You can’t just answer a complex social or international issue “yes” or “no”.  Such answers require complex explanations underlying the yes or no.  It is impossible to give such explanations in two minutes or less and if one tries to do so it is more than likely that the incomplete explanation will be used against them by the media and/or their opponents.

The limited rebuttal time does not really allow a candidate to challenge his or her opponent when that opponent bases an answer on falsehoods.  If there is a limited (usually 1 minute or less ) time for rebuttal, that is insufficient to explain why the answers of the opponent are deceitful and to cite the necessary facts and authority that prove the deceit. 

It is very frustrating, not to mention unfair, to see an opponent be allowed to base an entire answer on a lie and then see the other participant be left unable to rebut.  This sometimes leads to interruptions (yes, all 4 candidates have interrupted their opponent) as the one faced with the lies tries to set the record straight.

Because of the lack of time to actually address and explain issues, the candidates are left to repeat tired campaign slogans and party lies.  How many times do we have to hear the thoroughly debunked assertion that Trump has not condemned white supremacist groups?  Or the tired out of context and proven lie from Charlottesville asserting that he said the KKK were good people? 

Wouldn’t we all like to hear positions on issues instead?  But the debate format makes that nearly impossible.

And let’s not forget that this is a media event.  The media likes show.  I thought the absolute best comment about the presidential debate came from Sen. Ted Cruz who said that the “raucous debate” reminded him of Detroit Pistons Basketball when the team was known as the “Bad Boys.”  He said, "It kind of reminded me of the Detroit Pistons basketball in the 90s where there were a lot of hard fouls, there were a lot of missed shots. But at the end of the day, I doubt the debate changed the election in any fundamental way."  That’s a pretty good summary of what was a worthless debate, but a pretty good show.

We also must think about the moderator.  It seems that it is the moderator who determines the topics and writes the questions.  These moderators are TV personalities, journalists, etc.  They are people with strong political opinions.  And those opinions, their biases, are clearly apparent in the questions themselves and in the behavior of the moderator. 

The bias seems to have become clearly apparent in the behavior of the moderator who would have hosted the Oct. 15 debate – prior support for Biden and tweets about the upcoming debate with a staunch Trump critic (tweets that he conveniently claims were the result of a hack). 

In the first presidential debate, the moderator effectively became a participant when he took it upon himself to argue with the President.  The moderator’s job is to ask the questions, let the candidates answer, and let the people make their own judgements.

Lack of necessary fairness can be more subtle.  In the VP debate it appeared that Pence ran over his time far more than did Harris.  But, those who actually timed the debate noted that the moderator asserted “time up” to Pence at exactly the 2 min. mark while regularly allow Harris to run over for 15 or more seconds before telling her that her time was up.

So, the committee has more time than it thought until the next debate.  Perhaps they could actually do something to turn the apparently final debate into something meaningful for the voters.  What might they do:

•  Change the structure entirely so that the debate is about issues.  If the debate is 90 minutes, give 30 minutes each to 3 issues.  Treat those three issues like a real debate.  For example, if the issue is going to be healthcare, the opening question might be:  Explain the extent to which you believe the government should be involved in providing health care, why you believe that is the best policy, and how your position/plan would actually affect the citizenry.  Give each candidate an opening of 6 minutes to give a basic answer, then each has a 3 minute rebuttal, then each can ask the other a question for which there are 2 minutes allowed for response, another set of 2 minute questions, and then each gets a 1 minute conclusion.

• With the above structure, the moderator’s primary function would be to keep time and keep it fairly.  Aside from stating the opening question, the moderator should not be asking questions or arguing with the candidates.

• The debate Commission should be the one to come up with the topics and the opening question and it should be objective and even handed so as not to give either candidate an advantage or disadvantage.  I would suggest that the questions should be drafted and/or reviewed by individuals with leanings to both the Left and the Right.

• This should be a stand-up debate.  The candidates should be told in advance the general nature of the topics.

A debate following the above structure might be less exciting than a debate with a lot of fireworks, less exciting than a Pistons game in the 90s, but it would be far more informative for the voters who are electing a President and not a point guard.

Just a thought.