AFTERMATHS: What might the fallout turn out to be...

TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2024

...from all those guilty verdicts? We awoke today to a Brave New World—perhaps to a type of New Morning.

The verdicts were gone from the Times front page. In their place, President Biden has a new border plan.

We had already read this post. In the post, Kevin Drum says that Biden's plan will most likely be killed in the courts. 

For all we know, that assessment may be accurate. But as we read the start of the Times report, we thought we felt "the dark encroachment of that old catastrophe:"

Biden Is Expected to Sign Order Letting Him Seal Border With Mexico

President Biden is expected to sign an executive order on Tuesday allowing him to temporarily seal the U.S. border with Mexico to migrants when crossings surge, a move that would suspend longtime protections for asylum seekers in the United States.

Mr. Biden’s senior aides have told members of Congress in recent days to expect him to sign the order at the White House alongside mayors from South Texas, according to several people familiar with the plans.

The restrictions would kick in once the number of illegal crossings exceeds 2,500 in a day, according to several people who have been briefed on the order. Daily totals already exceed that number, which means that Mr. Biden’s executive order could go into effect immediately.

The border would re-open to asylum seekers if the number of crossings stays below 1,500 for a certain period of time, the people said. They asked for anonymity because the executive order has not been officially announced.

("On Sunday, border agents apprehended more than 3,500 people crossing without authorization, in line with the trends of recent weeks," the Times report said later on.)

So begins the Times report about President Biden's plan. In all candor, we have to admit that we, perhaps like most Times subscribers, don't understand what that passage says.

According to the Times report, President Biden will be able to shut the border "once the number of illegal crossings exceeds 2,500 in a day."  The border "would re-open to asylum seekers if the number of crossings stays below 1,500 for a certain period of time."

Our questions go like this:

Once President Biden has shut the border, how would there be any such "crossings" at all? If the border has been shut, why would there be any crossings?

Also this:

Are "asylum seekers" included in the number of "illegal crossings?" Also, just as a point of curiosity, how many "illegal crossings" occur on a daily basis which the Border Patrol doesn't know about at all? 

We'll guess that very few readers of the Times could answer such basic questions. The "old catastrophe" to which we refer is the catastrophe of incomprehension—a catastrophe which has now jumped from attempts to explain the nature of Donald J. Trump's 34 felonies to attempts to explain the nature of President Biden's new proposal.

The catastrophe in question is very old—it stretches back to the shores of the Aegean, when Plato created the gobbledegook which is still taken as the basis for modern "western philosophy."

It's the old catastrophe of incomprehension—more specifically, of incomprehension which goes unapprehended. In the steady stream of such events, we don't understand what we're talking about—and we don't understand that we don't!

This very morning, at 5 a.m., Way Too Early began MSNBC's broadcast day with this new proposal by President Biden as its number-one topic. And so it went on the front page of the New York Times. 

Elsewhere in today's New York Times, Collins and Stephens were assessing the possible political  fallout of those 34 guilty verdicts. 

At the start of their weekly Conversation, Stephens imagined a gloomy aftermath. We have no idea if he could perhaps be right:

Time Flies When You’re Being Convicted

Gail: Bret, since we last conversed, Donald Trump was convicted on 34 felony charges. Time sure flies. Any thoughts?

Bret: Gail, I yield to nobody in my loathing for La Panza Naranja ["The Orange Panza"], particularly since he stole my grand old party from me. But this conviction, from a flimsy and convoluted case that should never have been brought and may ultimately be reversed on appeal, probably improves his chances of winning in November.

Now tell me I’m totally wrong.

In the view of the gloomy Stephens, the 34 verdicts have probably improved Candidate Trump's chances of winning in November. When Collins lightly disagreed, he went into a bit more detail

Gail: ...So I’d argue that maybe you’re not totally right.

Bret: You might be right that it moved [the mushy middle], but in the wrong direction.

He instantly raised close to $35 million off the verdict. And I doubt that anyone previously inclined to vote for him will now be swayed to vote for President Biden because Trump fiddled with the books seven years ago to cover up a tawdry affair from more than a decade earlier and got convicted in a case brought by a progressive prosecutor in a liberal jurisdiction through an obscure law. The verdict plays to Trump’s argument that the system is out to get him. And it sets a precedent that will come back to haunt Democrats when partisan Republican prosecutors return the favor, as I’m sure they will.

By the way, do you think he should go to prison for this?

Gail: My emotional side would love it, but first offenders in their late 70s charged with a nonviolent offense just don’t go there...

Stephens shares our general view, in which we wish that this particular case had never been brought. (In our view, the prosecutor's decision to bring this case aims to discourage the wrong kind of undesirable conduct.)

At any rate, Stephens thinks the verdicts may help Candidate Trump! We can't swear that that's wrong.

As for Collins, she'd love to see him go to jail. In our view, that too is part of an "old catastrophe" afflicting our human race.

How will the 34 verdicts affect November's election—what might that aftermath look like? We have no earthly idea—and almost surely, neither does anyone else.

That said, the location of the front in our Red / Blue political war has somewhat quickly moved on. With that in mind, we were stunned by something Tim O'Brien said last Friday night. 

O'Brien broke through the mandated tribal claptrap on Stephanie Ruhle's 11th Hour. Believe it or croak, this is what he said:

O'BRIEN (5/31/24): I think a lot of voters have trepidations about whether President Biden can make it through a second term and so they tune out these other things...

I think we should watch for the first debate. I think the reason we're having this first debate early is Joe Biden wants to put that [concern] to rest. I think if he gets embarrassed in that  debate, then there's going to be a lot of pressure on him, from the party, to release his [convention] delegates in August.

[...]

I think it's a calculated risk by the Biden White House to show that he can go physically, verbally, mentally toe to toe [with Candidate Trump].

[...]

I think it is a really pivotal moment for Biden, and I think the White House thought long and hard about it, because he has to overcome this issue that he's feeble and that he lacks the energy to see his presidency through a full second term...I think it is an important thing and I am looking forward to seeing both how the debate proceeds and its impact on the race.

O'Brien is wondering about the possible fallout from the June 27 debate! Is O'Brien allowed to say that?

(To watch tape of the bulk of O'Brien's remarks, you can start by clicking here.)

Faithful servants kept rushing to interject rebuttals to these departures from script. That said, we tend to agree with O'Brien's assessment—with the suggestion that President Biden could imaginably have a hard time making it through that debate with Candidate Trump later this month.

We were quite surprised when the Biden campaign agreed to that debate. Like O'Brien, we can imagine the possibility that the debate will go quite poorly.

That would create a new type of aftermath, an aftermath our scripted cheerleaders from Blue America aren't supposed to imagine, at least not on the air.

Ruhle's producers seemed to have assembled the standard panel of message-mouthers for Friday's "Nightcap" program. Inexplicably, O'Brien broke from mandated tribal wisdom in the remarks we've featured.

On Blue America's "cable news" channel, we're being told that the 34 verdicts have served our electoral interests quite well. That may well turn out to be right.

That said, our tribe's thought leaders have been wrong in virtually all such past assessments concerning Candidate Trump, starting perhaps with his surprising remarks, back in 2015, about former POW John McCain.

They've been wrong again and again and again, but they just keep offering more of their trademark tribal reassurance. O'Brien's behavior was very unusual—and, in our view, it was highly constructive.

What will the fallout be from those 34 guilty verdicts? What will the aftermath turn out to be like?

At this point, we have no real idea. Based on past performance, neither do the well-intentioned hounds from Hell who continue to script our well-intentioned if flailing Blue tribe.