I am not here to rain on your parade, pop all your balloons, or scrape the frosting off of your celebratory cake today, but I am here to tell you that the Supreme Court’s decision Monday night to block Donald Trump from getting his fat, little hands on our mail-in ballots was the absolute very least they could do in the face of his latest attack on America.
The fact is, Trump accomplished nearly everything he set out to during his ongoing authoritarian power-grab by sowing yet more doubt in our election process.
Be honest, despite Monday night’s ruling, who is going to feel 100-percent confident about voting by mail right now?
Once again, Trump set out to break something that was never broken, and is telling us only he can fix it. The examples of this are endless during his reign of terror, but has anybody seen his terrific, tremendous healthcare plan he promised us 10 years ago …?
I was actually relieved this morning when The New York Times tied this accompanying piece to their coverage of the Supreme Court’s decision:
“With Trump’s Plans Blocked, States Work to Restore Trust in Voting by Mail”
I can’t help you with the paywall if you aren’t a subscriber, but the story accurately depicts the trouble we are still in, despite that ruling.
(And hey, wouldn't it have been great if the NYT tackled this relentless Republican attack on our country as the national emergency it most certainly is, instead of dutifully showing up after whatever institution Trump has threatened to burn to the ground is already in flames? Sorry, but I am a dog, and the mainstream media is the bone I will never stop shaking for their absurd and inadequate coverage of the greatest threat to America since the Civil War. )
From the Times:
With the legal question now settled, election officials at the state and local levels will now shift their focus to communicating to voters that they can trust that they can securely continue to vote by mail without federal restrictions.
“We’ve actually been working all weekend to figure out the different scenarios for the outcomes of the decision,” said Francisco Aguilar, a Democrat who is Nevada’s secretary of state. “And one of them was, Hey, if we are in a position where we get a favorable ruling from the courts, what are we going to do to educate voters and to build that confidence that their ballot is going to get counted?”
“What are we going to do to educate voters and to build that confidence that their ballot is going to get counted?”
There it is.
Trump’s multi-pronged attack on America has been so effective that many Democratic officials and activists are telling people not to vote by mail, and to do everything possible to show up in person at the polls, or if you are lucky enough, to use a drop box to place your vote.
Of course, the challenge there is that Republicans have also been doing everything they can to make it as hard as possible to vote at these locations by restricting them, removing them, and threatening the people who work in these places.
Even I am inclined to suggest you get to a polling place to cast your ballot if you can, unless of course your only option is to vote by mail. By the way, voting by mail has already begun in here in North Carolina and my old state of Wisconsin, which are two crucial battleground states.
And if you are asking the obvious question as to why Trump and his Republicans are going so hard after mail-in voting, it’s simply because Democrats (37%) use this method more than Republicans (24%). I mean, aside from the fact that the convicted felon, Trump, would be only too happy if nobody ever voted again anywhere.
I am also going to pop yet another balloon by pointing out that the Supreme Court made sure to keep Trump’s fever dream of eliminating mail-in voting in play, when the perjuring Conservative justice, Brett Kavanaugh, laid in this clever concurring opinion to the 7-2 decision, writing:
"… applying the rule in the 2026 elections would be arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act because state and local election officials do not have sufficient time to reasonably implement the rule before the elections."
That sounds a lot like the Radical Right court loudly hinting it will go along with Trump’s attack on mail-in voting in 2028 because it will have allowed him sufficient time to take a nuclear-powered blowtorch to our vote by then.
Despite this, America’s 80-year-old baby was shaking his rattle and lambasting the court this afternoon, leaving this steaming pile of you-know-what on his social media feeds:
“(This is) a Court that is costing the United States Trillions of Dollars with shockingly bad rulings that are of such magnitude that it won’t be easily possible for our Country to recover or heal. It is a Court that will go down as having rendered some of the most destructive, hurtful, and damaging decisions in our Country’s history.”
For once, Baby Blowhard had something right, because this is the court that has denied women control of their bodies; has allowed unlimited dark money into our elections; and granted total immunity to him, so that he can do or say pretty much anything he wants.
I have talked to a few Democrats today, and despite Monday night’s ruling, every one of them is predicting two things about this looming election:
This is exactly how corrupt third-world countries operate. We have become one of the very countries we used to warn people about.
I don’t have to remind you that there are still troops in our capital, and they are there for one reason: to act in the event Trump declares martial law following the elections.
That is how I see it going right now. You might have other guesses for what will go down, but we can all agree that it is extremely sad, and absolutely GALLING.
Because HOW DARE THEY.
There are not enough adjectives to describe my absolute contempt for the people in America, who knowing all this, will still vote for people who will go along with another attack on our country.
Yes, the Supreme Court did the very least it could to minimize the attack, but it is up to the people of this country who truly respect the rule of law and our democracy to vote in numbers so big Nov. 3, even Trump’s bought-off court won’t dare touch them, and he is seen as nothing but a whining baby who needs a diaper change, and a long, long nap.
Lord knows, the people who truly care about our country are plenty exhausted.
D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and was an award-winning journalist at ancient places called “newspapers.” You can find all his work here.