2016 Postmortem

I hate the fact that Trump has won the presidency as much as anyone here, but articles such as this that are based on magical thinking inevitably are not well thought out.

Let's start with the author's initial premise: "if we can confirm the intelligence report's conclusion that Putin intervened with the goal of electing Trump, there must be a new election in the United States." Well, he seems to think that there is some doubt about that, even though the intelligence community has no such doubts. His solution -- an independent commission that will figure out whether the intelligence community got it right. How they're supposed to do that -- since they will not have any more information than that reviewed by the intelligence communities, is never explained.

It then turns out that despite the attention grabbing lead quoted above, the author acknowledges that figuring out whether Putin attempted to influence the outcome of the election (again, d'uh) is just the first step. Step two is to figure out if that influence (not vote tampering) affected the outcome. The intelligence agencies, he suggests, aren't capable of figuring this out. Does he say why not? Of course not. Instead he says its something that can be done by the same independent commission that could redo the intelligence community's work AND be experts in whatever one would be an expert in to figure out if the Russian attempts to influence the election outcome had a decisive impact. Does he really believe there is some group of experts out there who can figure this out as a definitive matter? The myriad things that influence how people vote vary from one person to the next. Quantifying what is essentially a subjective decision bye looking back in time and guessing what would have happened if only A, but not B through Z, is a joke of an idea and one destined never to produce the convincing outcome needed to support his solution. Stunningly, he also never gives a moment's thought to the possibility that the independent commission finds that there was an attempt to influence but that there's no way to definitively quantify the impact of that effort relative to all the other things that influence voters. Then what? The narrative becomes that Trump's election was legitimate and everyone should just shut up.

Even more absurd, his "solution" blithely assumes not only that this commission can definitively conclude that the Putin intervention in and of itself changed the outcome of the election, but also that its conclusion will be so universally accepted that the nation, heretofore as divided as it can be, will come together in a big kumbaya moment to adopt an amendment to the constitution calling for a new election. How long he thinks this whole process (during which Trump will be president) will take is never addressed. Nor does he address exactly how this special election is supposed to be conducted. Will Trump be out of office by action of this amendment even before a new election? Will he be allowed to run again? How long will the campaign last? Will there be another round of primaries? If not, how will it be determined who gets on the ballot? And how will states conduct this special election? In the end, it won't be a special one-time amendment to the Constitution, it will be a massive legislative enactment masquerading as a Constitutional amendment.

If all of that could be accomplished, why not just impeach Trump and Pence. I know that would leave Ryan as President, but in what universe are repubs going to support this nonsensical new election idea over the faster, cleaner, impeachment route that leaves them certain to still control the White House. Did the author not think of this?

Academics are often unfairly criticized for having their heads in the clouds. This guy has his head somewhere, that's for sure. I weep for his students if this is the kind of thinking they get in the classroom.