On Friday, the Supreme Court soundly rejected an attempt by the State of Texas to challenge the election results in four states. The whole thing was blatantly unconstitutional, as the U.S. Constitution lets the states run their own elections, and also hypocritical, since Texas’ position was that it has a vested interest in how other states run their elections despite the fact that the state has an abysmal record of voter disenfranchisement. Under Texas’ theory that states should be allowed to sue other states for their voting practices, its hard to imagine that Texas itself wouldn’t be in the crosshairs of, well, just about everyone.
But the court ruled as, uniformly, every reputable court watcher expected. Texas didn’t have standing to bring the case and so away the case goes. Technically, the court didn’t consider the merits of Texas’ argument, but if Texas doesn’t have standing – in other words, the right to bring the case to the court – then it follows that Texas’ argument also doesn’t have merit. That’s not always the case when a suit is dismissed for lack of standing, but in this instance it is a reasonable conclusion.
The response from Trump supporters? Not great.
Secession, of course, is a thing we’ve already gone through once. In fact, Texas itself was the heart of a Supreme Court case that determined that secession without the consent of Congress is unconstitutional. This idea of an independent Texas isn’t new and there’s been some discussion of how the Second Republic of Texas might look if it were allowed to leave, but I think you’d be hard-pressed to make a case for Texan secession in reality. Would Texas still have access to American markets? Would access to American markets require complying with American economic rules, like the European Union’s single market? Would that really be independence?
Texan secession, though, quickly took a back seat to some of the other things Trump supporters said.
There’s so much to talk about here.
First, it’s clear that a lot of Trump supporters buy into the delusion of the Trump Supremacy. This is a lite conspiracy theory that claims that Trump is so popular that virtually every American supports him. This is how Trump actually won California (if you correct for all the voter fraud), a claim that’s laughable on its face. California’s state government is solidly Democratic. But people like indicted huckster Jacob Wohl have claimed for years that these Democratic voters secretly love Donald Trump.
Second, a lot of Trump supporters love the troops and they know Trump loves the troops. Like with their love for Jesus or their love for the constitution, it’s usually more a love for mythical troops that don’t exist and a disdain for the ones that actually do. When it became clear that military members both overseas and at home were leaning towards Biden, Trump and other conservatives suggested this had to be the work of ballot fraudsters and not the actual troops, who surely loved him as much as he loved them – even though it’s been clear for months that Trump had lost the support of military personnel.
Surely, the real troops won’t take up arms against Trump supporters. They’ll rally to the side of Trump, the greatest American hero. And that’s probably true – if you think the real troops are police officers, anyway.
