Babbling Botkin: Last Leadership Memo to the President - Part One

Hello, buddies!

Does everyone have a crazy uncle? 

I do -several, really, of varying race and gender - but is that a universal niche in families that needs to be filled?   Every family is required to have an older relative who has gotten really, really into conspiracy theories - and has gotten in so deeply that the rest of the family accepts that any conversation that last longer than five minutes will reference some wacky theory involving politics or health?  

I bring this to your attention because I realize that Geoffrey Botkin has cannon-balled into this trope - and he's given us a short, but marvelous opus to crazy-unclehood in his most recent video "My Last Leadership Memo to the President. Maybe."   Even the title is nuts!

The video opens with an out-of-focus slim young man throwing something into a small stream surrounded by a dormant deciduous forest.  Next to the young man, a handsome golden lab wanders around.   We get various shots of nature scenery and the dog for the next minute and a half while Botkin does a voice-over.

Dear Mr. President,

The date is January 9th.  If you voluntarily leave office on January 20th with so many election and integrity issues unresolved, those lawsuits unresolved, your life will not become less stressful, but more stressful.[00:00:17] 

Pretty sure, Uncle Geoff, that the President can figure out the date you printed on the memo without you reading it aloud.  If not, do we really want the leader of the free world who is functionally illiterate?

Fun fact: The Constitution states the office of the President transfers to the winner of the election on the 20th of January.   Whether Trump leaves voluntarily is moot; the powers of the Presidency will be transferred to President-Elect Biden who won the Electoral College.

As a point of fact, the election issues have been put to bed.   President Trump had one successful lawsuit that affected 200 votes and 60 lawsuits that he lost.  The sixty lost cases included plenty that were summarily rejected as without merit by judges that Trump appointed as well as appointees from Presidents Bush and Obama.  The Supreme Court rejected unanimously one last-ditch effort  by the State of Texas to disenfranchise the entire State of  Pennsylvania.   There was a minor disagreement on the Supreme Court in that Justices Thomas and Alito thought the suit should have been heard by the Court before being dismissed for lack of standing while the other seven justices felt the suit could be summarily dismissed....but even Thomas and Alito agreed that the suit itself was groundless. 

The integrity issues surrounding Trump will never be ended because he has no integrity.    

Trump never seemed to be unduly stressed by being the president -he got a whole lot of golfing and glad-handing in - and I really doubt he's looking forward to less stress when he leaves.   

Possible criminal indictment - yes.  Crumbling financial straits - yes.    Restful retirement - no.

You will step into a season of grave danger for your family.  You will also miss a lawful opportunity to uphold the oath of office you took four years ago. [00:00:27] 

Trump will still have Secret Service coverage.  No former president or member of a former president's family has been assassinated in the history of the US.   

As for the Oath of Office, well, Trump's never been too serious on that one.  From what I can remember without using notes, he blabbed military secrets to a friendly nation which strained our relationship with Israel.   He handed a national security issue at Mar-Lago surrounded by non-clearanced guests.  Historians will be working out what exactly Russia had on Trump that made him fawn all over Putin at Helsinki.   He asked Russia and China to investigate his political rivals before his election and asked Ukraine to do the same after the election.   

That's just the foreign affairs.   

Domestically, he threatened to withhold federal support to states with large Democratic voting blocs during a pandemic.  He threatened all sorts of violence against Black Lives Matters (BLM) protests - despite constitutional protections for freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.

Oh, and he long-conned his way into a protest-turned-riot that was a coup attempt.  

That's NOT what the Founding Fathers had in mind.

If you think organizing an alternative party will be possible when you are a private citizen, you are mistaken. Patriots are already vacillating before the speed and the fury of leftist reprisals.  The climate of hatred towards you created by your adversaries will make any personal pursuits difficult.  You would have the stomach to fight, but the climate of fear and intimidation threatening every State Legislature will result in quarreling and then disunity.[00:00:57] 

*laughs*

I mean, now that he's banned from Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat, it'd be hard for him to organize a barbeque let alone a separate political party.

Hearing that extreme right wing insurrectionist white supremacists are frightened because the lawful government is using the absurd amount of evidence the rioters created while committing crimes to bring them to justice is the best thing I've heard all day.    To quote a friend, "Maybe don't post video of you committing a crime combined with your name, hometown, and detailed description of how much you enjoyed breaking that law unless you want to help the prosecutors in your future case."

Interestingly, Trump is excellent at making adversaries without anyone fanning the flames.  I've been opposed to him as a politician and a person since he called all Mexicans rapists - but he's insulted so many people and groups that I'm sure I'm going to forget someone.  I remember Mexicans, Muslims, Black Americans, Native Americans, and women as entire groups.

No, Captain Bone-spurs has no stomach to fight himself.   He bailed on serving in Vietnam. 

On the 6th, he gave a rousing speech encouraging violence towards the Capitol and promised he'd be right alongside the protestors.   Then, he departed and watched the chaos on TV.   

He is, in fact, the definition of a coward.

Dunno about the state where Botkin lives - but my State Capitol has had armed protestors show up for voting times and there was a plot to kidnap our governor.   The people who are actively disrupting democracy right now are violent right wingers - not left wingers.
 

This will close off the opportunity of electoral reform and seal away the chance for an honest election in 2024.  If you leave voluntarily, before certain electors are decertified, today's current 2020 lawsuits will wither away, and those which need to be opened against America's criminal conspirators within the Deep State will not be brought to the courts. [00:01:23] 

Hey now. 

We pulled off a very legal election in 2020 in spite of attempts at voter suppression by the GOP and a raging pandemic.

If Trump had focused on the Senate Election in Georgia instead of telling people to not vote while whining about the fact he totally did not lose, the GOP would be in control of the Senate from 2020-2022.   Just saying.

 Uncle Geoffrey is now in the wet-dream of conspiracy theorists.  That magical heady land where logic, rules, procedures and reality disappear.  A land where fishing stories are real - and the bigger the better!

The problem is that the fantasy land withers in the light of day.

Trump's term is done on January 20th at noon.   His acceptance of that fact matters not a whit.

We talked 'bout the lawsuits. Trump lost biggly.   

Jesus, we have Trump to thank for the word "biggly" as well.  That's really a minor thing - but biggly.

Pretty sure that we can't bring lawsuits against criminal conspirators in the Deep State.   Government officials are solidly protected against lawsuits in the course of doing their jobs.  This certainly brings problems in some respects - but it's the law and would need government support to change.   

Also, if the government officials are committing crimes, that's a criminal investigation - which can lead to jail time - which is a separate legal proceeding from a lawsuit which is a way to get redress from a civil wrong.    They are two very different things - and people should be very wary of taking any advice from someone who doesn't know the difference.   

For sane people, though, the use of "Deep State" is a cue to disregard all information from the speaker.

For non-US readers, "Deep State" is a conspiracy theory that believes that there is a secret cabal of non-elected government workers who are working to overthrow Trump, the GOP, and America.   

It's one of those theories that happens when people fall asleep in their high school government class and so never learn that most of the US federal government is made up of nonpartisan bureaucracy that exists to serve citizens while working with the current administration.   These are the departments that cover things like the military, the social safety net, collecting taxes, providing education, space research, and regulating food, drugs, businesses and environment.  The current administration can certainly promote pet projects in each of these areas and squash other projects - but there's a certain amount of inertia built into the system due to the simple size and importance of the job of keeping vital infrastructure going.

Most people see the inertia and think "Well, that's government" with a shrug.   Conspiracy theorists see the same thing and create a new cabal.

The most disappointing bit in this video section is that the cavorting doggy disappears at 1:22 to be replaced with a picture of Trump on Air Force One.  Bye, bye pup!  I will miss you!

 I laughed so loudly at this next part that my kid wanted to know what was funny.  I told him a joke to distract him, then read this to my husband who guffawed:

Please see the details that I provide in the long version of this letter which I have sent to your office.  As you read it, please consider carefully what happened to the leader of Russia back at the start of the twentieth century.[00:01:38] 

Come on, Uncle Geoffrey!  Don't hold out on us now! 

Grace us with the finer details of your inner knowledge of the Deep State!

Wait... he can't.    The Deep State KNOWS about his website.  

The only safe option is to send a paper letter to the President of the United States.   

Yup, that's fail-safe.   

The President of the United States only gets a letter or two a day and will immediately open up a letter from a random guy in middle America and pour over it. *rolls eyes*

Far more likely, the intern of an aide of an aide of an aide may read this on the 18th or 19th.   Finding that the letter contains nothing of interest, a form letter will be returned to Botkin and his deeply fascinating letter will be shredded.   

The picture of Trump on Air Force One fades to a picture of Tzar Nicholas II.  

Does Trump know who Nicholas II is?   I'd bet not; Trump's knowledge of American history has seemed exceptionally weak these last four years so I doubt he's got a good founding in Russian history.

But don't you worry, dear reader!  We've got two more posts from this video in which we get to listen to Botkin skewer Russian history!