It is doomed to failure — but Trump’s Texas lawsuit amounts to a cold civil war

On a practical level, the objective of Trump’s digging-in seems to have been to keep the attention of supporters and forge ahead with a potential campaign in 2024

Donald Trump was mocked this week after he complained about how the country is being run, even though he runs it (Getty Images)

First, he tried frivolous lawsuits. Then, he tried to poison state legislators to overturn the will of voters in battleground states. Now, he could well try bribing electors — though given the decisive majority of Democratic electors and that faithless ones who betray the people can be punished, it seems unlikely to work.


The last-ditch effort is an odiously preposterous suit Texas has filed to disenfranchise the votes of entire states, in violation of the 11th Amendment and every basic notion of decency. If it’s not wanton incitement of civil war to bully states into submission of an authoritarian outcome, I don’t know what is.

The question really has become: What will Donald Trump not do to invade America's lawful succession of power and the sanctity of democratic norms? The answer remains unclear until Inauguration Day.

Both conservative and liberal legal experts believe the case — wherein Texas, joined by 17 other states, asks for the democratic votes of Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania to be effectively discarded — is meritless and will fail in the Supreme Court. Nevertheless, its gamesmanship is purposeful. Unchecked by Republican leaders, Trump’s fraudulent delegitimization of the 2020 election continues—a landmine designed to confuse and torture the American people until January 20.  

On a practical level, the objective of Trump’s digging-in seems to have been to keep the attention of supporters and forge ahead with fundraising for his debts and a potential campaign in 2024. In these past weeks, there hasn’t been a legitimate legal strategy, and a majority of Republican legislators, so far, have been willing to go full authoritarian—to defy the will of the voters in their states.


As he contemplates his first 100 days and quest to heal the nation amid a pandemic-ravaged cold civil war, President-elect Biden still has to get to January 20. And while the process of states certifying the results for Biden and Harris has concluded and electors will vote on Monday, the Trump campaign’s legal circus has never been just a fantasy for his most rabid loyalists but also a ploy to exploit the all-out chaos in the event Biden is not able to assume office. That continues to be our national nightmare and Trump’s ultimate wish.  

Most scenarios point to the legal succession of Harris or a DNC-appointed nominee – but there's no doubt that Trump's goal would be to smear Harris with the same birtherism he did Obama (just as he will if she is his opponent in 2024). For Trump, the racist denialism of reality never ends. It’s no surprise that the lawyer defending the Texas suit has falsely questioned Kamala Harris’s citizenship.  
There will be no accountability or reckoning with these lies until President-elect Biden and Vice-president Harris are sworn in — and maybe even then, Republican legislators will be too afraid of Trump to speak honestly about the fairly and freely elected 46th president of the United States.  


Elections are supposed to be about renewal, but Donald Trump has torched the essence of the American electoral process. After four years in office, his divisive demagoguery, bald-faced lying, and neglect of the greatest public health crisis in a century, it’s a dangerous time to be an American. And more danger lurks, as this president becomes the first in US history not only to deny election results but to campaign for them to be overturned.  

We may be fighting Covid-19 to preserve our physical being. But in terms of our democratic health, Donald Trump is the enemy of the people. The compounding reverberations of the 1918 flu and Civil War era have made 2020 about the survival of our humanity—and of our Union.