@HoustonSam
I will ask you because you have been a voice of reason since I have been reading this board and I trust you will give me an answer beyond snot-sleeved emotionalism.
I never understood how the legal team could be faring so badly in court. Wasn't the Trump team 1 for 51? If the fraud was so ubiquitous and obvious, shouldn't there have been more success in court? Were all those judges (including recently appointed Trump judges) all of a collective mind against the propagation of the Republic's founding principles and values? 74 million souls voted for Trump, surely some of those judges were amongst their number.
Thank you
@FeelNoPain for such a kind, and convicting, assessment of my contributions here. It means a lot that you would approach me with the question in the way that you have. Being susceptible to all the common failings of the human condition, I will inevitably craft an inadequate response. But perhaps you'll give me the benefit of the doubt for sincerity where my thinking is weak.
First I don't think Trump's team lost all those court cases. People who supported Trump independently filed, and independently lost, the large majority of them. I think Trump's actual legal team filed three cases, and also joined in the Paxton case. Now having said that, your question is still relevant - regardless of who filed the cases, the record suggests strongly that the fundamental legal arguments advanced by Trump, or independently by his supporters, must be weak, or else that the entire bench at both state and Federal levels is arrayed in conspiracy against him.
Now I haven't read any of the specific filings, and if I had read them my interpretation would not be trustworthy since I don't have a legal education. But I think generically the main thrust of most of the filings was fraud. I do believe there has been a lot of fraud, but it would not surprise me if that fraud were not proven sufficiently to stand up in court. State authorities, whether R or D, have every incentive to argue strenuously against the allegation of fraud because proven fraud would make them look incompetent or corrupt. And I don't know what it takes legally to prove fraud in court; I would not be surprised to learn that it takes a lot more than what we've seen.
Personally I find very compelling what we have seen, but I recognize that what is compelling to me might not meet a legal standard (and if I were on trial for fraud I would certainly want the standard of evidence to be extremely high). Where the legal standard surpasses what we can plainly see, I'm more opposed to the legal standard (which I admit I don't understand) than opposed to Trump and his allies for failing to meet that standard. So I don't believe the entire legal profession is engaged in collusion against Trump, but I do believe that profession has regularly failed us as a free people by creating an arcane and reactive interpretation of law that defies common sense and standard linguistics and that reinforces the special status and privilege of a political ruling class, and I see this as yet another example. Government with the consent of the governed is not possible when law is interpreted in flat contradiction to the plain sense of the governed, but this is the path the courts have put us on, whether the judges were appointed by R or D. It's not political collusion against Trump, it's elitist collusion against plain sense, reinforced by media collusion to render that plain sense inert.
On the other side I have argued here previously that the credulous willingness to advance piecemeal *any* allegation of fraud has been detrimental to Trump's case and, more importantly, to the case for credible elections generally. Trump and his supporters have in many instances been their own worst enemies. I am amazed that Rudy couldn't find a more effective witness in Michigan than Cyndi Lauper's stupid younger sister (and in fairness the other witnesses were more effective, but it was entirely predictable who would get the air time.)
The Paxton case, however, is not based on allegations of fraud, but of inconsistencies in election procedure that are so great as to be unconstitutional; different thinking is required to assess this one. Many of us (myself included) believe that Pennsylvania violated the Electors Clause when its Supreme Court unilaterally changed state-level election law; apparently seven SCOTUS Justices believe that "state-level" outweighs "Electors Clause." As an old-fashioned advocate of state sovereignty within the Reserved Powers, I appreciate deference in the Federal Judiciary regarding those Reserved Powers. But to me it's clear that the state legislature determines election law, not the state judiciary. And if one state does not have "standing" to challenge the Federal election procedures of another when the latter contradicts the Constitution, then the court is really telling us that the states cannot appeal to the Federal Judiciary to protect the voting integrity of their own citizens. We already know that the *Federal* government will intervene in state election laws, but apparently the court will reserve that right strictly to itself; the mere *states* have no such right to look after the integrity of the vote for their own citizens. It's another example of Federal over-reach at the expense of the states.
What's worse is that SCOTUS didn't reach this specious conclusion after hearing the case -
they refused to hear it.
The only possible defense I can think of for their decision is that the Paxton case asks for a decision about four states, but the evidence of non-legislative (hence unconstitutional) changes to election law is limited to one state of the four.
So again I don't see this as collusion or conspiracy against Trump, I see it as legal doctrine that is inadequate to maintain a Republic of free people. And I don't think this is about Trump; he's just a circumstance in this, a venial distraction from the careful consideration of Constitutional principles. And while I don't claim the courts are in conspiracy against him, I do suspect his character flaws are too great for many otherwise-fair-minded people to see beyond.
I hope that approaches something reasonable as a defense of the basic appeal to the courts, if not a defense of the specific strategy that was used in that appeal. Do not hesitate to poke holes in my thinking, or let me know where I've let you down; I'm sure my analysis can use improvement. And thanks again FeelNoPain for such a humbling and flattering reaction to my sporadic activity here at TBR.
