The Henchman Dilemma

One more tripwire between us and 1984.

Photo by Katherine Bowers

NOTE: Within this text, wherever gender is not key to the explanation, I am using the Elverson ey/em construction of the Spivak Pronouns.

Well, we’re getting Trump and there’s nothing we can do about it. Was the election stolen? Is Trump forbidden to hold office by the 14th Amendment? Were many of the electors in the Electoral College unqualified per that same amendment? It doesn’t matter. There is literally no Constitutional thing we can do because the U.S. Constitution is missing a few very important clauses.

In the same way that Al Gore actually won the 2000 election (once the Florida votes were finally counted) but could not assume office, this fundamental deficiency in our Constitution has caused trouble before and will probably cause more trouble in the future: There are no do-overs! Yes, our Constitution, for all of its enlightened language and its bold attempt to merge the best of both ancient Sparta and ancient Athens, provides no mechanism for dealing with an electoral error. We’re stuck with four years of — at the very least — buffoonery, and at worst an authoritarian take-over of our government complete with only-for-show elections and severe penalties for disagreement with our Dear Leader. Fortunately, there is a problem standing in the way of that worst possible outcome: the…