I don't know if it exists anymore, but Cedarburg High School's Social Studies Department used to teach a course in basic law called The Law and You. The purpose was to introduce the kids to legal processes and thinking.
Part of the course was to introduce them to the jury system and what that meant. We showed them a film called 12 Angry Men, starring Henry Fonda and Lee J. Cobb, and including some actors who would make their marks later, such as Jack Warden, Jack Klugman and Martin Balsam. I wrote an introduction to the film, highlighting each of the 12 men on the jury (something which, I'm guessing, would never be allowed now; there would be several women on it for sure, but this was from the 1950s, when that kind of awareness didn't yet emerge: no blacks, either, hard to imagine in a large urban area).
Each had his prejudices and their sensitivities. The film was adapted from an award-winning Broadway play, in which the facts, the stubborn facts, eventually entered the minds of each of the jurors, and equipped with that, a near-unanimous verdict against a young man was slowly brought into question, and then reversed.
The trial takes place in the summer, as a front moves through the city. The jury room is hot and uncomfortable. The ceiling fan doesn't seem to work. Tempers flare. Personalities reveal characters that aren't necessarily the greatest, but jury selection doesn't allow for this. It isn't supposed to.
The most dramatic moment came at the end, when the angriest man (Cobb) had to admit, finally, that he was wrong and had to agree that the boy was not guilty. In the film, the foreman of the jury (Balsam) is not the real leader. The real leader of the jury (Fonda), after ten others come to their a-ha moments, turns to what has become the sole holdout and says calmly, "You're all alone."
Now the lone wolf, he rants and raves one more time--he has done so the entire movie, insulting those who have changed their minds as weak (the favorite insult of 45); "What's the matter with you?" he shouts more than once--revealing not only his prejudice against "kids these days," but the pain of realizing that he has estranged himself from his own son. He breaks down and then mutters "not guilty."
Inside the White House, we may have reached that moment. Attorney General William Barr, as much of a sycophant than this president could ever have, inventor of a theory of government that goes as far to protect a rogue than could ever be concocted, has just told the Associated Press that he didn't see any election fraud that could possibly turn the results around and allow 45 to win another term as president.
If he has concluded that, the lights are now going out. I'm guessing that a new group of Republican politicians, and some at the periphery, will now come out and say what they've been thinking for at least three weeks: that this game is over and we should get on with transferring the government to Joe Biden and his associates.
This moment can't be unseen. Just about everyone has turned on 45 now. He's already complained that the Department of Justice has been noticeably absent from any of this bogus inquiry; that's for obvious reasons. Not long ago, Barr did say that he would be using his resources to determine if anything corrupt had been going on, probably as much to mollify 45 as anything. He's reached the obvious conclusion, the one the rest of us have known for weeks: No.
For all we know, he's asking to be fired. We'll see. But someone has to tell him, as in the movie, what the jury leader needed to tell the sole holdout of the new verdict: You're all alone.
Most likely, too, it will preclude any validity to a Supreme Court review (though he could still try). With the chief law enforcement officer of the country concluding that all of the state elections are valid, and each of the secretaries of state and governors of the states he asked to have recounts signing off on them, I highly doubt that the Supreme Court would agree to listen to the case. It takes four justices for certiorari, or review, and I just don't see that happening now. If approached, the Court could simply refuse to consider without comment. I hope it would do just that.
From angry, as the movie began, it's getting very sad. So it has become sad now, that 45 may be the only one who doesn't get it. But then, he hasn't gotten it from the start--that with accurate information easily available, he could have made better decisions, however objectionable; with a basic caring about common people, not mere rhetoric, he could have taken decisive steps far sooner to deal with the pandemic and won over those who wanted to still vote for him, but couldn't; with some thought to common humanity, he could have cared far more for those seeking asylum at the border while tightening restrictions.
But he didn't. He thought that he was the center of the universe, and with all that power and no experience and no perspective, that may have occurred to him at the start. But sooner or later, it usually occurs to anyone with more power than they're used to that they'd better watch what they're doing, that the appearances of power are often far more effective than their blatant use. He ignored that, and the power he believed he had absolutely slowly seeped away.
Now he's faced with losing it altogether, like every president who has gone before him, and one of his most trusted people is about to tell him that that can't be reversed. Maybe he'll absorb it today, this afternoon, and come out tweeting a firestorm tomorrow. That will be even more pathetic, but not beyond him.
There are, reportedly, a few members of Congress determined to question the official tabulation of Electoral College votes when the matter comes before it soon. But that is very likely to be token, a final sop thrown to constituents, no more than an annoyance.
Whatever 45 does now to dissemble government and sabotage the incoming administration can and probably will be reversed by Joe Biden, if Congress hasn't already passed it. He will watch it being undone. That's what happens when you seek to destroy; someone comes along and rebuilds it, if it's not meant to happen and if consensus follows and allows.
80 million people say that that is exactly the case. William Barr is losing something too; he thought that this was his chance to remove all corruption from the country and set it on its far more appropriate path, with a tighter grasp of morality applied, while the president could do pretty much what he wanted, and he to personally protect him from legal consequences (a dichotomy I'd like to hear him explain someday). He's being robbed of another four years of trying.
But he has also watched the reins being passed to a different political party, too, and the republic has survived. He would do well to tell that to 45, a paranoid, narcissistic fool who clings to his position with no class or style, as the clock ticks to its conclusion. After all, he's all alone.
Be well. Be careful. Wear a mask. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
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