Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024 | 2 a.m.
Many individuals believed within the Valencia issue the best way others banked on horoscopes and Ouija boards.
For these unfamiliar with the time period, the Valencia issue was the statement that each winner of the presidency since 1952 had carried Valencia County, N.M. That was the longest streak of any county in America accurately selecting the president.
For seven many years, Valencia had the heart beat of the nation, although not essentially any perception on who was the extra competent or honorable candidate.
Clear-eyed voters in 2020 lastly ended Valencia County’s standing because the bellwether of presidential elections. Trump carried Valencia by 3,101 votes, however New Mexico and the nation elected Joe Biden by vast margins.
All streaks finish someday. I’d wish to assume the demise of the Valencia issue was a mandate on character counting. I wish to consider it’s a great signal for what’s forward this week, however I would as properly discover a Ouija board for assurance.
America’s 235-year streak of electing solely males as president would screech to a cease if character counted. As a substitute, polls paint the race between Kamala Harris and Trump as a toss-up.
Harris was a prosecutor. Trump is a convicted felon, 34 counts in all. A jury this yr discovered Trump maneuvered to illegally affect the 2016 election by paying hush cash to a pornographic actor who stated she had intercourse with him.
Trump browbeat Georgia election officers in a recorded telephone name, saying they must flip hundreds of votes handy him a win in a state whose election already had been counted, recounted and licensed in Biden’s favor.
A broader try at election thievery got here in a scheme concocted for Trump by John Eastman, then a licensed lawyer. The concept was for Trump’s vice chairman, Mike Pence, to maneuver his boss into the winner’s circle whereas presiding over certification of electoral votes within the Senate.
The Structure says the vice chairman is accountable just for opening the envelopes containing electoral votes. There’s not a phrase concerning the vice chairman being empowered to dam the legit winner to anoint his boss as a substitute.
In Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021, speech exhorting a mob of his supporters to march to the Capitol, he provided a rambling, inaccurate rendition of Pence’s constitutional authority. It was primarily based on Eastman’s selective and shoddy analysis.
“If Mike Pence does the appropriate factor, we win the election,” Trump stated. He then instructed his zealots to “struggle like hell.”
Violence adopted as they stormed the Capitol whereas Trump retreated to the protection of the White Home. He watched the try to overthrow the federal government on tv.
Rioters dedicated to doing Trump’s soiled work assaulted 140 cops. In Trump’s revisionist historical past, these criminals had been patriots and Jan. 6 was “a day of affection.”
Trump lastly made a late-breaking assertion on video to his vigilantes. “We now have to have peace. So go house. We love you. You’re very particular.”
Particular they weren’t. Jan. 6 was all about dishonesty, cruelty and anarchy.
Right now’s election ought to be a straightforward determination for anybody who claims to assist the rule of regulation.
Milan Simonich is a columnist for The Santa Fe New Mexican.
