Politics As a Poorly Played Chess Match
Anyone who has ever been a student in any of my “All Politics All the Time” courses at Florida International University (now beginning their 23rd year), knows that I liken big-league, big-time politics not to a game of Texas Hold-em Poker, but rather to a chess match. Why? Because the former, as I understand it, is pretty freewheeling, while in chess, participants, in the main, have two different possible strategies by which to play: either ascertain your opponent’s next 4, 5, or 6 moves (in an effort to get you to play their game), or to force your opponent to unknowingly play your game. Either plan can lead to victory . . . or defeat. To my way of thinking, that’s the essence of hard-core politics . . . if played with intelligence, foresight and a first-rate crystal ball. My preference is to get my opponent to play my game . . . to fall into my trap.
The same goes with politics. Played correctly, few things happen accidentally or out of sheer luck. That’s probably why world-class campaign managers and political strategists are in such high demand; they know what they’re doing. Or at least that‘s the way things are supposed to go. In the age of Donald Trump - where the candidate/incumbent is also his own master strategist and chief political bottle-washer, things can be unbelievably confusing and tending to suffer from high levels of incomprehensible anomie (a term invented by Emile Durkheim, the French father of Sociology meaning “a condition of instability resulting from a breakdown of standards and values or from a lack of purpose or ideals”. Unlike with previous presidents and presidential candidates, Boss Tweet listens to almost no one but himself, rejects and dismisses those who disagree, and only uses the narcissist’s pronoun: the first person singular.
Well before the November 3, 2020 election, Donald Trump was already telling his favorite entertainers at Fox, News Max and One America News that the only thing that could keep him from being reelected would be a massive act of fraud. More than 2 months after his defeat at the hands of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., and California Senator Kamala Harris, he is still performing from the same script. Whether or not he and his pigeon-hearted acolytes (whether on Capitol Hill, Fox News, or out in the American hinterlands) really, truly believe there was a massive conspiratorial fraud which led to his defeat is absolutely irrelevant. Each group has its reason for continuing to back his lunacy. For those in office, there is the constant dread that to oppose him - to call him out - would be tantamount to political suicide. Take Texas Senator Ted Cruz as but one example. I mean, here is a guy who, despite his Harvard law degree and the fact that then-presidential candidate Trump accused his father, Rafael Cruz of being part of the conspiracy to assassinate JFK in 1963 and referred to his wife Heidi as “ugly,” is nonetheless at the forefront of those looking to overthrow the Electoral College come January 6. Then there’s Missouri Senator Josh Hawley who, despite his Yale Law School degree, was the first member of the Upper Chamber to support what The Atlantic’s Eric Wehner called “an act of civil vandalism.”
As of today (Monday, January 4, 2021) along with Cruz and Hawley, there are an additional 10 Republican Senators who will support overturning the Electoral College: Sens. Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.), Mike Braun (Ind.), Steve Daines (Mont.), Ron Johnson (Wis.), John Kennedy (La.) and James Lankford (Okla.), as well four who were just sworn in yesterday (Sens. Bill Hagerty (Tenn.), Cynthia Lummis (Wyo.), Roger Marshall (Kan.) and Tommy Tuberville (Ala.). Over on the House side, there are close to 12 dozen Republicans who have declared themselves in favor of overriding the already certified electoral votes from upwards of 6 different states. In other words, when faced with a choice between supporting Donald Trump’s quixotic quest for what at best would be a pyrrhic victory and protecting the Constitution (specifically Amendment 12) which each of them has sworn to “preserve, protect and defend,” they are bigger fans of Mussolini than James Madison.
Back in the late 1920s, Will Rogers - vaudevillian, movie star, essayist, humorist and honorary mayor of Beverly Hills - wrote “I am not a member of any organized political party; I am a Democrat.” Had he an ounce of wit about him, I’ve got to believe that the (hopefully soon-to-be former) Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell might turn Rogers’ bon mot on its head and sadly proclaim “I am not a member of any organized political party; I am a Republican.” And he might be correct. For indeed, over the past couple of years, the G.O.P has begun splintering like a piece of old weather-worn balsa. The issues which have brought about this disorganization are not about their leader’s inability to lead, tell the truth, or show concern for anyone but himself; no, they are more strategic . . . like spending every waking hour bellyaching about the vast conspiracy which denied him reelection, or threatening those who do not bow before him with political annihilation. Indeed, as I finish writing this paragraph, it has just been reported that ‘45 has targeted Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) a day after the senator said he would not join Wednesday’s effort to object to the certification of Electoral College votes affirming Joe Biden as the next president.
"How can you certify an election when the numbers being certified are verifiably WRONG,” Trump tweeted, suggesting he would falsely claim during his rally in Georgia later this evening that he was a true winner of the election despite multiple audits and court cases confirming Biden had won and that Trump claims lacked standing. At one point, the deeply conservative 43 year old Cotton (who is a graduate of both Harvard and Harvard Law) was thought to be a possible presidential candidate in either 2024 or 2028. Through his tweets, Donald Trump has done his best to put an end to Cotton’s presidential aspirations: "@SenTomCotton” Republicans have pluses & minuses, but one thing is sure, THEY NEVER FORGET!”
But the balsa is beginning to creak.
Just the other day, the Republican-controlled Senate handed ‘45 the first veto override of his presidency. More and more GOP institutionalists (including Leader McConnell, Utah’s Mitt Romney, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski and Nebraska’s Ben Sasse [who called those who refused to override the veto “institutional arsonists”]) have admitted that Joe Biden did win the 2020 election. Now under normal circumstances this would be neither especially newsworthy nor a brilliant bit of political strategy. But these are not normal times. It’s not just one election that is being called into question. The endgame here is not so much the reelection of Donald Trump (which no one - and I mean no one) believes for one second is going to happen. Rather, it is the trashing and ultimate destruction of our representative democracy; it is the willful replacing of Trump with Putin and small-d democracy with capital-A autocracy.
Just yesterday, ‘45 began his endgame. The strategy? Engaging in an hour-long phone conversation with Georgia’s Secretary of State in which he told the Republican Brad Raffensperger "All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state." The phone call featured Trump, just days before he is set to leave office, pleading with Raffensperger to alter the vote total and launching into a barrage of discredited conspiracy theories about the election. He even suggested that Raffensperger may face criminal consequences should he refuse to intervene in accordance with Trump's wishes. During the conversation, Trump floated fragments of several baseless conspiracy theories that were primarily pushed by QAnon followers over the last two months, including a widely debunked theory about voting machines from Dominion Voting Systems. Once a printed transcript of the phone call (accompanied by a full audio file) of what Trump had said became available, Reps. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Kathleen Rice (D-N.Y.) wrote a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray asking him to “open an immediate criminal investigation into the President,” citing statements from the call that suggest Trump was illegally “soliciting election fraud.”
Trump’s endgame strategy is so unbelievably warped that nobody seems to have asked themselves “Who would ever support such a fatally flawed creature again? People like Senators Cruz and Hawley and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (a graduate of Yale and Harvard Law) are clinging as tight as they can to their mentor in the hopes of becoming the G.O.P.’s 2024 nominee for POTUS. That is probably the worst opening move anyone could ever play . . . short of pulling out a gun and shooting their opponent.
Polls open in Georgia in just about 12 hours.
2 weeks and 1 day until the inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
Might I suggest beginning the match with 1e-4, the “King’s Pawn Opening?” It immediately stakes a claim in the center, and frees two pieces (the queen and the king’s bishop) for action. Try it: it’s been known to work!
Copyright©2021 Kurt F. Stone