If Trump loses in November, he will thrust the US into a legitimacy crisis

Written by Nancy LeTourneau / The Washington Monthly June 12, 20202.7K

One month ago, the polling aggregator at RealClearPolitics showed Joe Biden with a four-point lead over Donald Trump. As of Wednesday, that lead had jumped to eight points. Additionally, Gallup reports that Trump’s approval rating has dropped ten points in the last month. In other words, things aren’t looking very good for the president’s re-election….

Failing to win a second term would brand Trump as a loser, something his narcissistic ego cannot tolerate. Even more importantly, it is very possible that the president could face criminal charges once he is out of office. So he’s picked up the mantra of a rigged election once again.

This time, Trump is signaling that if he loses in November, he will create a crisis of legitimacy when it comes to our electoral process.

“Given that the president has been making unsubstantiated voter fraud comments for years, I expect that these comments will continue,” said Richard Hasen, a professor of election law at the University of California, Irvine. “The comments are very worrisome because they increase the chances that the president’s supporters would not accept the election results as legitimate should he lose in November.” BrianKlaas suggested that we need to be prepared.We don’t know whether Trump will be reelected. But, as we head toward November, you have to ask yourself: If he loses, would it be more surprising if Trump graciously accepts defeat and congratulates his opponent or if he claimed to be the victim of a rigged election and a “deep state” plot? The answer seems clear.

But how do we prepare for something like that? Some of us remember the crisis of legitimacy that happened after the 2000 presidential election. But in the end, Al Gore recognized the danger such a crisis would pose to our democracy and conceded the election to Bush. We can all debate whether or not that was the right call. But we’ll never know what kind of chaos would have been unleashed if he had refused to do so.if-trump-loses-in-november-he-will-thrust-the-u-s-into-a-legitimacy-crisis

Much as we’ve seen over the last few years, the backstop to all of the president’s destruction of norms lands in the lap of the other two branches of government: Congress and the courts. Our founding documents gave us an outline for how Congress can remove a president from office, but they don’t address what the legislative body can do if he refuses to leave. Moreover, time and time again congressional Republicans have refused to stand up to Trump. Would a crisis of legitimacy change that?It is difficult for me to imagine the Supreme Court validating an attempt by Trump to deny the results of an election. But then, I never would have expected it to stop the counting of ballots in Florida in order to hand the election to Bush. So that’s a tough call.

I’d like to believe that American institutions could withstand a test like the one we are very likely to face in about five months. But the Trump era has made me much more cynical than I used to be about that kind of thing. I see a very dark cloud out there on the horizon and the reality is that there’s not much we can do to stop the storm from coming. I honestly don’t think that Trump will win the election. But based on what we know about him, it seems clear that he will not “go gentle into that good night.” The only thing we can do to prepare for something like that is to be honest about what we see coming.

The following is a partial reblog of a posting by Diane Ravitch, linking with

Michael Tomasky JULY 2, 2020 ISSUE n.y. review of books

Bernie Sanders suspended his presidential campaign on April 8. It’s easy to forget, preoccupied as we all are now with the coronavirus and protests across the nation against police violence, what a precipitous fall this was. For a brief period after his smashing victory in the Nevada caucus on February 22, it was almost universally assumed that he would be the Democratic nominee. “Bernie Twitter” was ecstatic. Folks I know in the moderate wing of the party were beginning to make peace with the idea and preparing to support the independent Vermont senator’s bid for the White House.

Then on February 29, exactly one week after Nevada, Joe Biden crushed Sanders in South Carolina. Three days later, in the March 3 Super Tuesday primaries, Biden won ten out of fourteen contests, many by quite large margins. And that was that. I’ve been writing about Democratic primaries since the 1988 race, and I don’t recall a single one in which the apparent end result flipped so emphatically and suddenly.

It’s hard for any politician to make the mental admissions to oneself required to end a presidential campaign; for a candidate like Sanders, who called for political revolution and seemed to have victory so near that he was surely daydreaming about the list of speakers at his convention, I imagine it was particularly hard. The struggle to accept defeat extends to supporters—perhaps doubly so with some of Sanders’s strongest supporters, who vocally detest the Democratic Party, people who call themselves liberals, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Barack Obama, and basically anyone who isn’t Sanders (or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez).

But even as some of his supporters were digging in their heels, scrambling to knock Biden out, Sanders himself was suing for peace. Faiz Shakir, Sanders’s well-regarded campaign manager, told me that, as the senator ended his campaign, he made clear that cooperation would be the order of the day. “Senator Sanders asked me and [longtime adviser Jeff] Weaver to reach out to our Biden friends and see what would be available if we were to bring these worlds together,” Shakir said.

The friends in question were Ron Klain and Anita Dunn, two establishment Democrats. There are actually two lefts within the Sanders orbit. One I would call the “outside left,” the hard-shell “Bernie-or-bust” contingent referred to above: younger, more New York–centered, strident, and absolutist. The “inside left,” which includes people like Shakir, who has a Washington pedigree—he has worked for Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid—sees value in urging the moderate (and elected) figures left. This group does have respect for people like Klain, a frequent and fierce critic of Donald Trump on MSNBC who, as Obama’s Ebola response coordinator, showed the world a few short years ago that the United States of America actually knew how to contain a virus.

In fact, the lines of communication between the campaigns predated Sanders’s dropping out. As the virus descended in the first half of March, the two camps negotiated the mutual canceling of events; they agreed before the last pre-lockdown debate, on March 15, to replace a handshake with an elbow bump. Through late March, as the toll of illness rose, they generally kept each other apprised of their actions. After Sanders withdrew, the discussions between the two turned more toward substance—and the extent to which Biden would be willing to adopt pieces of the Sanders agenda. Thus were formed the six task forces that the Biden campaign unveiled on May 13. These eight-member groups cover the economy, health care, immigration, criminal justice, climate, and education, and each is co-chaired by one Biden supporter and one Sanders supporter.

The left-wing presence on many of them is remarkable. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez co-chairs the climate panel with John Kerry. Representative Pramila Jayapal of Seattle, a major Sanders backer, co-chairs the health care task force with Obama surgeon general Vivek Murthy. The economist Stephanie Kelton, a top Sanders adviser and proponent of Modern Monetary Theory, which holds that the government should pay for major new investments like the Green New Deal by printing more money, is on the economic task force. The task forces, I’m told, have a threefold mission: to publicly recommend the policy positions that Biden should run on, to guide the writing of the party platform, and to inform the transition, should Biden win the election (assuming there is an election, or an uncorrupted one). It stands to reason that some of the members of these task forces might also fill important slots in a Biden administration. READ MORE VIA LINK…

There’s Already an Alternative to Calling the Police – Mother Jones

1h ago

• Climate Desk
• George Floyd
• Health
• Police
• Police violence

This piece was originally published in High Country News and appears here as part of our Climate Desk Partnership.

As citizens across the country fill the streets to protest police killings of Black people, the violent response from law enforcement has added urgency to a national conversation about police brutality. Pressure is mounting to reform or abolish police departments. City officials in Western urban centers like Los Angeles are reducing police budgets—LA’s currently totals $1.8 billion—and reinvesting in underfunded social initiatives. The Minneapolis City Council voted in June to disband its police department entirely. As cities look for what’s next, there is already a proven system of de-escalation for the high volume of mental health calls that police respond to, which often end in violence.

Mobile, community-based crisis programs employ first responders that are not police to address disturbances where crimes are not being committed. One of the nation’s longest-running examples is CAHOOTS—Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets—in Eugene, Oregon. CAHOOTS has inspired similar programs in other cities in the region, including the Denver Alliance for Street Health Response, Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland and Portland Street Response in Oregon.

Such programs take police out of the equation when someone is going through a mental health crisis, struggling with substance abuse, or experiencing homelessness. When police show up, situations can escalate, and the use of force can be disproportionate, especially towards Black people; a 2016 study estimated that 20 percent to 50 percent of fatal encounters with law enforcement involved someone with a mental illness. Advocates say the CAHOOTS model shows those encounters aren’t inevitable: Less than one percent of the calls that CAHOOTS responds to need police assistance. The CAHOOTS system relies on trauma-informed de-escalation and harm reduction, which reduces calls to police, averts harmful arrest-release-repeat cycles, and prevents violent police encounters.

The White Bird Clinic in Eugene started CAHOOTS 31 years ago as an alternative for people who felt alienated or disenfranchised from systems that had failed them, CAHOOTS Operations Coordinator Tim Black said in an interview. “We’re there to listen, we’re there to empathize, and we’re there to really reflect on what they’re going through,” and to discuss ways to access resources to help them. CAHOOTS—a free, 24/7 community service—is funded by the city at a cost of around $2 million, or a little over 1 percent of the Eugene Police Department’s annual budget, though it is currently fundraising to expand and make up for COVID-19-related budget cuts.

Under the model, instead of police, a medic and a mental health worker are dispatched for calls such as welfare checks or potential overdoses. In 2017, such teams answered 17 percent of the Eugene Police Department’s overall call volume. This has saved the city, on average, $8.5 million each year from 2014-2017, according to the White Bird Clinic.“The patient that we’re serving is the expert in their situation. They know that we’re a voluntary resource and that we’re not going to take their rights away just because we’ve shown up on scene.”

Though CAHOOTS uses the police department’s central dispatch, it is distinct from the department. Employees do not carry guns or wear uniforms; instead, they wear casual hoodies and drive vans with a dove painted on the side. CAHOOTS’ methods are designed to prevent escalation, Black said. “If an officer enters that situation with power, with authority, with that uniform and a command presence, that situation is really likely to escalate.”

It’s a false assumption that people experiencing a mental health crisis will respond violently, Black said, and a police response is often unnecessary. CAHOOTS fielded over 24,000 calls last year; less than 1 percent of them needed assistance from police, and no one has ever been seriously injured. “That type of mentality really contributes to the othering that has permitted oppression and marginalization to persist,” Black said. “By and large, folks who are unhoused, who are experiencing behavioral health issues, are much more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators.”

CAHOOTS differs from other mental health partnerships with the police in important ways: Staff employ “unconditional positive regard,” a phrase from psychology that means complete support and acceptance for the people they encounter, and the organization is run as a “consensus collective,” rather than a hierarchy. Every employee’s voice carries equal weight.

Each crisis worker completes 500 hours of training in areas including medical care, conflict resolution and crisis counseling. Around 60 percent of CAHOOTS’ patients are homeless, and about 30 percent have severe or persistent mental illness. “The patient that we’re serving is the expert in their situation,” Black said. “They know that we’re a voluntary resource and that we’re not going to take their rights away just because we’ve shown up on scene.”

Dorothy Siemens, an artist who grew up in Eugene and still lives there, said that she, her family and her friends all call CAHOOTS, rather than the police, when they see someone in distress. The option makes her feel like a more responsible community member. When Siemens managed a downtown cafe, she used the service often. “I really don’t have the tools, and I think the police in our community also don’t have the tools” for people in crisis, she said. “There really shouldn’t be one group of people who is expected to cover all of those bases, especially a group a people who are weaponized and militarized. … Their training shows them ‘that’s something I have to respond to with force.’ “

Increasingly, community organizers are reaching out to CAHOOTS, hoping to develop similar programs. Since 2013, the city of Portland, Oregon, just a couple hours north of Eugene, has seen a 60 percent increase of “unwanted person” calls to 911, according to a Willamette Week analysis of Portland Police Bureau data. In 2017, an Oregonian analysis found that 52 percent of arrests involved homeless individuals, even though they comprise less than 3 percent of Portland’s population. 

In 2019, Portland City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty and Street Roots, a homeless advocacy publication, introduced Portland Street Response, a police alternative based on the CAHOOTS model. The pilot program, which was officially approved and funded by the city last November, focused on a southeast Portland neighborhood where 911 calls were on the rise. The program is now on hold because of the coronavirus, but Hardesty hopes to get on the ground soon. As the city considers cutting its police budget, Hardesty is pushing for $4.8 million to go towards Portland Street Response instead. “We are long overdue for investments in police alternatives, including Portland Street Response,” Hardesty, the first Black woman elected to Portland’s city council, said in a statement to High Country News. “There’s no doubt we need to reimagine what it looks like to get the right responder to the right situation at the right time.”

Nationwide protests have spurred renewed urgency for programs like these, which show a stark contrast to the typical police response. This month, the Coalition for Police Accountability in Oakland presented a final report to the city council to begin its own pilot program, MACRO, this summer. In Denver, in May, Vinnie Cervantes worked as a medic with the Denver Alliance for Street Health Response, which he also directs. It’s part of a mutual aid nexus that emerged during protests in the city over the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Cervantes and others treated protesters who were left bleeding and bruised after police fired off tear gas, rubber bullets and flash-bangs and pummeled them with batons. To Cervantes and others, it was yet another example of how quickly police resort to excessive force. “Our community stepped up to collaborate and create a network of support to solve a larger public safety crisis,” Cervantes said. “That’s something we can take beyond protest.”“There’s no doubt we need to reimagine what it looks like to get the right responder to the right situation at the right time.”

Policing and jails account for 30 percent of Denver’s overall budget. The repurposing of those funds would be a huge opportunity for collective efforts like Denver Alliance, which resembles the CAHOOTS model. But no single model will work for every city, said Cervantes. Each program needs to be adaptive and reflect its community; Eugene, after all, is much smaller and has a whiter population than Denver, Oakland or Portland. “It’s really important that it is community-based, by people that look like us and that have our shared experience,” said Cervantes, who is Latino. Otherwise, the program will only replicate the same systemic problems.

In June, Cervantes’ organization helped start a pilot program in partnership with the city of Denver, called Support Team Assisted Response. Cervantes hopes to develop a full-fledged program by 2021. But, for now, on the streets, “we’re literally seeing our own proof of concept of how we can take ownership of crisis ourselves, and have solutions,” he said. “We don’t have to view everyone as a threat.”

The alien stumbled upon a book, buried beneath the ash. He read:

REQUIEM

And it came to pass that as the day broke, the light danced all over the world revealing thousands of prayers rising like soap bubbles, then bursting, never to escape.

Words: 43

Lost my site…..Nan

What do you call a reblog of a reblog?  There must be a name for it!  This post refers you to Diane Ravitch’s blog which reblogs (or reprints or refers you to) a highly interesting history of the “Spanish Flu” in The Smithsonian.