Controversies have a way of motivating voters. I wondered how those surrounding the municipal and school board budgets, and the cruise-ship-free Saturday proposition would affect turnout in this week’s municipal election. When all the votes are counted it will likely range from 40 to 45 percent.
Those aren’t bad numbers for a local election. But it would be pathetically low for a presidential election.
Which makes me wonder how many people who didn’t bother to vote watched the televised vice-presidential debate on Tuesday. It was more or less a congenial affair. Then near the end the biggest political controversary during my lifetime was discussed.
Unlike our local controversies, that’s not about how elected officials conduct the people’s business. It’s about an election that was held four years ago and the one presidential candidate in American history who refused to accept defeat.
That’s the main reason why Democrats and Republicans with integrity believe Donald Trump is a threat to American Democracy. For two solid months after the 2020 election, he made countless unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud. It culminated in a violent insurrection that almost prevented Congress from certifying the official election results.
According to Republican vice-presential candidate J.D. Vance, that never happened. Near the end of the debate on Tuesday, he claimed Trump “peacefully gave over power on January the 20th, as we have done for 250 years in this country.”
In responding to that bold-faced revision of well-documented history, Democratic vice-presential candidate Tim Walz asked Vance if he believed Trump lost the election. Although he couldn’t bring himself acknowledge that he did lose, by refusing to repeat any of Trump’s never-ending stream of lies, Vance did reveal a red line between truth and fiction he won’t cross.
Long ago, much of the Republican Party, including Sen. Dan Sullivan and Gov. Mike Dunleavy, adopted that denial strategy. It’s why so many Republican voters still believe the election was stolen. Had they been honest with voters it would have been a peaceful transfer of power.
The day after the VP debate, Special Counsel Jack Smith added to the public evidence that Trump knew he lost. His 165-page brief was submitted in response to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in July that presidents are immune from prosecution for criminal acts arising out of their official duties. Smith contends that as a candidate for reelection and while contesting the election results, Trump was acting as a private citizen. It’s worth noting here that even Trump recognized that fact in a 2020 election brief he filed with the Supreme Court.
Smith’s brief includes statements from 70 individuals that support the prosecution’s case. One example is an email written by one of Trump’s close advisors at the time. It stated their “research and campaign legal team can’t back up any of the claims” they were making, adding “it’s all just conspiracy s—- beamed down from the mothership.”
As usual, Trump responded to the entire brief by trying to enrage his supporters. Via social media, he screamed that it was “falsehood-ridden, Unconstitutional” and “another obvious attempt by the Harris-Biden regime to undermine and Weaponize American Democracy, and INTERFERE IN THE 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.”
As I predicted last summer, instead of exercising his constitutional right to defend himself in a speedy trial, he’s done everything possible to delay his day in court. That’s because the evidence of widespread fraud he’s claimed to have doesn’t exist.
If it did he would have been fully exonerated long ago. And he’d be cruising to a landslide victory next month.
That would probably be true if he took the honest path in 2020 and graciously conceded defeat.
Like President George H.W. Bush and President Jimmy Carter did after losing their reelection bids.
After Sen. John McCain lost in 2008, he joked about it. “I slept like a baby,” he said. “Sleep two hours, wake up and cry.”
Almost every candidate, from Hillary Clinton who conceded to Trump in 2016, all the way down to the also-rans in our municipal elections, find ways to cope with losing and move on with their lives.
Let’s hope we get the chance to witness Trump do it right this time.
• Rich Moniak is a Juneau resident and retired civil engineer with more than 25 years of experience working in the public sector. Columns, My Turns and Letters to the Editor represent the view of the author, not the view of the Juneau Empire. Have something to say? Here’s how to submit a My Turn or letter.
