Hacks & Legacies

The Supreme Court and the First Lady

I’m not a lawyer and I try not to play one on TV but, as a simple soul, I read the Supreme Court ruling this way: If you’re President of the United States, it’s okay to talk to your Attorney General about overthrowing the duly elected government of the United States. We are talking about the fake electors scheme—the attempt by Trump to change the election results in his favor in 2020, and steal the votes of people in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia and Arizona who voted against him. Today, the Supreme Court put some of his rights—statutory, they claim—above the rights of the voters in those states.

I’m sure that various lawyers will play codicil dodge-ball, picking nits to a fare-thee-well, but this is the bottom line: For the second time in twenty-five years, the Supreme Court has intervened in presidential politics along stark, partisan lines. (The first was the Bush v. Gore decision in 2000.) And so the Court is now tied to Trump. His record will be their legacy. If he asks Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political opponent, it will be on them. I had thought they would be mindful of their places in history, but my buddy Bo Cutter—here’s to you, Bo—insisted all along (in the comments section here) that the Trump appointees were political hacks and would do what they just did. There’s still a teeny chance that the fake electors case could still be brought. I hope it will be. But the Court has disgraced America.

The Democrats are not without responsibility here. Hillary Clinton ran a terrible campaign against Trump in 2016. The Party has relentlessly offended vast numbers of Americans because of its louche positions on social issues like crime, racial preferences, sexuality and immigration. Trump was right in the debate on this: You can’t get a Democrat to give a straight answer on whether it’s okay to abort a viable six-month old fetus with Down syndrome. You can’t find many Democrats who are willing to use the term “viable fetus” at all. That is Ostrichism of the first order. It took heaven and earth—and far too long—for Biden to acknowledge that people trying to get into this country illegally should not be allowed in. There are still too many Democrats who don’t support their local police. There are still too many Democrats who don’t understand that Diversity, Equity and Inclusion codes are just a gussied up form of reverse discrimination. They remain shocked that blacks are a disproportionate number of prisoners, even though they commit a disproportionate number of violent crimes. There are still too many Democrats who deny that there is a Culture of Poverty, caused by the breakup of families. There are still too many Democrats—I’m looking at you Washington Post and NPR—who insist on calling sex-change procedures “gender-affirming care.” The Ostrich Dems are lost in euphemisms—gender-affirming, undocumented, diversity…and over the past quarter-century, an awful lot of Americans got sick of it. That is why you have six Republican Justices on the Supreme Court, including a couple of real doozies.

And while we’re talking about legacies, there’s another at stake: that of Joe Biden. I just watched a genius on CNN—where do they get these people?— predict, “Well, at least this will move the conversation away from Biden’s debate performance.” It shouldn’t. In fact, the result should be the precise opposite. This should heighten the pressure on Biden to step aside and enjoy the grand legacy of a lifetime of service, including an excellent one-term presidency.

From all that I’ve read, there are only a few people who can change the President’s stubborn mind. At the top of every list is the First Lady, Jill Biden. She is standing athwart a legacy issue, too. Other First Ladies have played this game: Eleanor Roosevelt certainly knew how sick Franklin was—his blood pressure was Vesuvian—going into the election of 1944. Harry Truman saved the day by being a very good president, but what if FDR had kept the left-wing mystic nutter Henry Wallace on the ticket?

Worst of all was probably Edith Wilson, who governed the country surreptitiously after her husband, Woodrow, had a debilitating stroke in 1919. She hid his condition from the country and got away with it. From the Encyclopedia Brittanica:

In September 1919, as he toured the country to win support for the Treaty of Versailles (which committed the United States to join the League of Nations), Woodrow became ill, and his advisers insisted that he return immediately to Washington. There, in the White House, on October 2, he suffered a major stroke that incapacitated him for the next five months. Edith, convinced that Woodrow’s recovery depended on his retaining the presidency, kept the exact nature of his illness secret from the public and made sure that he saw only his physician and a very few trusted friends. She screened all communications to him, deciding what he should see and what could wait. When it became clear to many Americans that the president was not doing the job they had elected him to do, critics objected that Edith was running the government. One senator charged that the nation was under a “petticoat government,” and rumours spread about an “Assistant President.”

The popular view persists that Edith Wilson ran the country that winter, but historians have concluded that this exaggerates the truth. Although the nation faced many serious problems while Woodrow was incapacitated—including strikes by miners and steelworkers—the White House was notable for its lack of leadership.

I don’t think we’re facing a similar situation now. At least, I hope not. This President has a much more robust staff than Wilson did. But we do not know his true state of health.. The White House has kept it hidden. His debate performance was not just a bad night—calling it so insults the American people (which leading Democrats seem intent on doing right now). He was debilitated. He stared vacantly, mouth slack. He was confused—and yes, probably over-prepped by his too-long “longtime” advisors. (Trump was also right about that, by the way: Why hasn’t Biden fired anyone? I’ve never seen anything like the lack of turnover—which speaks to the loyalty of his staff, a wonderful thing, but also conveys a lack of vibrancy and vigor.)

It was particularly sad when, as the debate progressed, Biden began to lose his lifetime battle with stuttering. I’ve had many private conversations with the man and he was usually sharp as a stiletto. He talked a lot, but the stream of consciousness was worth heeding. I don’t remember him ever stuttering. The man on stage was not someone I recognized.

I don’t play a doctor on TV, either, but something is very wrong here. And if Jill Biden is trying to paper over a serious health condition, her legacy will be infamy.

The Supreme Court today reminded us of the stakes—though most of us didn’t need much reminding. If Trump becomes president more Trumpers will become Justices. If Trump becomes president, he will be immune, and able to do…almost anything. He has already done too much to debase our highest office. The Democrats have to put their strongest ticket forward—and if that means a ticket that doesn’t include the first black Vice President, so be it. (Though I have more faith in Kamala Harris than many, and I suspect she’ll compete very well.)

But we can’t dilly-dally. Everything that we should hold dear is at stake. I don’t want my great-great-grandchildren reading about how we squandered a spectacular national legacy in the service of pride.