DL Open Thread: Thursday, June 30, 2022

Coup Attempt Failed Due To The Laziness Of Its Poopetrator:

Coup leaders usually fail visibly, definitively, unambiguously. You don’t need committees to verify who led a coup when the plotters declare their seditious intent, as Hitler did in the beer hall, by punctuating it with a gunshot into the ceiling. I hope it does not sound like I am diminishing the gravity of January 6 when I say that it was among the dumbest coup attempts in history—not because it was destined to fail but because of the trivial reason it was destined to fail. That reason is Trump’s incredible laziness and complete aversion to personal risk. I struggle to think of another putsch that was doomed in quite this way. A whole party prostrated itself before its leader. Lawyers confected idiotic, barely-even-trying justifications. And thousands of people stood ready in the streets to escalate the violence and stop legitimate politics from proceeding. But Trump himself, the one plotter whose vigorous participation was absolutely necessary, seems to have spent most of that day watching TV and ignoring texts.

I suspect that Trump committed serious crimes in the days or weeks after the election, and that no one would call those crimes sedition were it not for what came later. What came later was January 6, a real coup attempt, and on that day Trump outsourced all overt criminality. He avoided firing his own gun at the ceiling. He had bullied allies and enemies and made bad-faith arguments, and now welcomed the murder of the vice president. According to Hutchinson, he asked the Secret Service to remove obstacles to a coup. Does this act amount to insurrection? The Department of Justice, busily investigating Trump’s associates, seems to think the answer is maybe. The House committee has so far declined, wisely, to say either way.

Some people confront these facts and see a stone-cold political criminal. I see a lazy bastard who could not believe his luck—that he had yet again managed to get others to do what he dared not do himself. Maybe Trump will be charged, and maybe those charges will stick. My worry is that what saved American government from existential disaster was not its political institutions (which nearly collapsed) or the honor of its people (who were as nutty and bestial as any). It was the lassitude and cowardice of a single orange-tinted individual who spent most of the coup doing … nothing. The next bastard might not be quite as gutless.

AG Jennings Wins One.  Chancery Court rules that Seaford can’t enact ‘fetal remains’ ordinance:

The Attorney General’s Office was celebrating a win Wednesday over its challenge of a Seaford ordinance which would have forced anyone in the town having a surgical abortion or who had a miscarriage to have the fetal tissue interred or cremated at their own expense.

On June 29, 2022, Delaware Court of Chancery Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster ruled that the city of Seaford, a “junior sovereign,” cannot enact a law directly conflicting with law established by the “senior sovereign,” the state of Delaware.

“The U.S. Supreme Court has unleashed a wave of extremist, draconian laws across our country. That wave stops here,” said Attorney General Kathy Jennings. “This ruling firmly rejects a clearly illegal and harmful attempt to nullify State law and to use dark money to return us to the Dark Ages. It protects residents and visitors of Seaford from a cruel and frankly hateful policy. And it makes clear that Delaware remains a safe haven for choice and reproductive freedom exactly when those sanctuaries are needed most. I am grateful to the Court for its wisdom and to our team for their quick response and tireless work on this case.”

What do you want to talk about?