The movie “The gang that couldn’t shoot straight” was a 1971 movie about two warring Mafia gangs in New York City. The weaker gang used a lion to blackmail the opposite gang’s “clients.” The police succeeded in stopping one of the gangs, while the other remained without the boss.
As the title suggests, this was a hilarious comedy about dis-Organized Crime. Involved in the real life situation were Donald Trump and his gang that couldn’t shoot straight. Led by Donald Trump, the cast included his three children: Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner. Donald Trump Jr. bragged that the Trumps have eight paths to victory. Let’s see how they perform.
Donald Trump began his assault back in November 2020 when he filed 57 lawsuits in multiple states where election results are tight and could ultimately determine who wins the presidential election.
The Trump campaign filed lawsuits in “Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia, laying the groundwork for contesting battleground states as he slipped behind Democrat Joe Biden in the hunt for the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House.”
“The new filings, joining existing Republican legal challenges in Pennsylvania and Nevada, demand better access for campaign observers to locations where ballots are being processed and counted, and absentee ballot concerns,” the campaign said.
Trump lost all the lawsuits except one minor one, which was of no consequence.
Having failed to win the lawsuits, Trump’s next move was to reverse the election results. He figured he’d be joined by more than half of the 211-member House Republican Caucus and at least a dozen Republican senators. Their plan was to object to the electoral votes submitted by six states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
But like most Trump plans, this is a half-baked scheme, which would surely fail. It also gives credibility to dangerous and false claims of mass voter fraud; thus, it encourages distrust in the democratic process. The voters will lose trust in future elections.
In September 2021, more than 10 months after the 2020 election, Trump was still trying to claim victory in Georgia. Trump had been tossing out debunked conspiracy theories over the election in Georgia. Trump once again attempted to have the state’s 2020 election results overturned.
He then claimed that the 2020 election was rigged and massive amounts of corruption took place during the election.
In a letter to Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Trump alleged that “large scale Voter Fraud continues to be reported in Georgia.” He requested Raffensperger to start the process of decertifying the election, or whatever the correct remedy is, and announce the true winner.” Trump failed to convince Raffensperger.
The Capitol insurrection
On January 6, 2022 Congress met in the House of Representatives for a joint session to count the 538 electoral votes submitted by the 50 states and the District of Columbia, which was specified under the 12th Amendment of and the Electoral Count Act of 1887.
Congress then officially counted the electoral votes and offered lawmakers a chance to object. Ordinarily, this was just a formality. However, Trump supporters planned to raise objections. But they didn’t have the votes and the attempt failed.
Decertification
In July 2022, Trump called Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and urged him to decertify President Joe Biden’s 2020 election win in that state. But Vos told Trump that it’s not allowed under the Constitution.
Trump probably tried to pull the same stuff with other states but failed too.
Trump believed the 2020 Election would be decertified based on the massive amount of corruption that took place during the election. “They used COVID and they used the mail-in ballots to rig the election. We won the election by a lot and they rigged it and it’s a terrible thing and I do believe they are going to decertify this election. I don’t think you can have an election that was rigged to the extent that this thing was,” he said.
He cited Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Wisconsin as states that are ready to decertify the election results. But nobody did.
Trump then turned his guns on Wisconsin Speaker Vos whom he has an axe to grind because Vos refused to decertify President Biden’s 2020 election victory simply because the Wisconsin Constitution doesn’t allow decertification. Trump dropped a “neutron bomb” into Wisconsin’s forthcoming primary election by endorsing a challenger to Vos, the most powerful Republican in the state legislature.
Trump gave his “Complete and Total Endorsement” to far-right candidate Adam Steen in his long-shot campaign against Speaker Vos. With Trump’s endorsement of Steen, it’s going to be a bare-knuckle fight. But Vos, being the seasoned and well-respected politician, has the upper hand in their match.
Trump, by turning on Vos to endorse the underfunded Steen, he is hurting – and dividing — the Republican Party in the state. But the powers behind the State GOP are getting behind Vos. There is simply no way that the party would abandon Vos at this crucial stage of his political life.
Fortunately for us, democracy is still alive since it seems that all the paths that the Trumps pursued had failed miserably. This would indicate that they simply aren’t good at forming and executing political strategies.
Perhaps, Trump should – nay, must – try another strategy at winning elections. Instead of attempting to decertify the election results, Trump should try winning more votes for a change. But then again, he needs to learn how to win votes. It takes a charismatic and friendly leader – not the obnoxious and toxic type – to win votes or they’re simply just a gang that couldn’t shoot straight.
(PerryDiaz@gmail.com)