PRISMATIST

Donald Trump is famous as a loser and a crybaby. (As a Republican I probably shouldn’t say that, although the rest of you may wish to adopt it as your sole way of referring to M. Petits-Doigts.) This guy keeps insisting he won the 2020 presidential election. If I were a Democrat, which I’m not, I’d let him keep insisting on that. In fact, I’d want to get him to say it under oath, maybe in one of the many pending depositions connected to his string of lawsuits and criminal investigations.  

 

You’d have to get him to say he definitely was elected, though, and leave no way for his misbegotten crew of fourth-rate attorneys to say it was just his mistaken belief. The questioning can go sort of like this, making sure to get a Yes/No answer to each question, no matter what any of his attorneys there present try to get him to say instead.  This will not be difficult, owing to the President-Eject’s lack of (a) knowledge, and (b) impulse control:

 

• Do you believe the Constitution of the United States should control the way our government operates?

• According to the Constitution of the United States, were you elected to the office of President of the United States in 2016?

• According to the Constitution of the United States, were you elected to the office of President of the United States in 2020?

• So have you been elected twice to the office of President of the United States, according to the Constitution?

• Are you planning or hoping to run for President in 2024?

 

He will say Yes to the first four and weasel a bit about the last one, but that’s okay. It’s now time to tell him he is ineligible to be elected President again. Read him the first sentence of the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. It says, “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice. . . .”

 

He will then whine about not being allowed to serve. This is true but irrelevant: The Constitution doesn’t say anything about serving terms, it just says you can’t get elected more than twice. Even if everybody in the country votes for him, he can’t be elected again.

 

This is obviously arrant nonsense—the way you get elected President is not by saying you won, but by the electoral college result announced by the President of the Senate in January.  Still, don’t let him leave the room until he says one of two things: He didn’t win in 2020, or he can’t run again because he’s already been elected twice. Whichever he says, his gormless disciples will believe him when he denies having said it, but that’s okay too.

 

Then just for the hell of it you pop around to the chief election officials in, let’s say Texas and Florida and any other state whose chief election official denies the result of the 2020 election. You file suit to keep him off the ballot. Now these Trumpeter Swains have the same two choices:  He’s a loser, or he can’t be elected again.

 

No matter which they choose, Mr. Tangerine Man will spew venom at them for the rest of their lives unless they recant. Even if they had been among his BFFs seconds before, he will never cease urging the members of his party who used to be real Republicans to cast these apostates into the outer darkness at the next available opportunity.

 

And again just for the hell of it, put in for some court orders to keep him off the ballot in a few states. Remind everybody that the majority of current Supremes pretend to be very big on adhering to the literal wording of the Constitution, which is to do exactly what the words say. Pretty much any court will nonetheless toss the case out; there is, after all, no constitutional provision that says loonies can’t run for President, and even get elected.  

 

But the objective of all this is not actually to win. It’s to have fun. Just because something is important is no reason to take it seriously.