20 October—At the risk of jinxing the upcoming midterm election in favor of Trumpublicans, largely thanks to the snowballing unpopularity, monumental corruption, ineluctable ego, and sheer incompetence of Donald Trump, it doesn’t appear unlikely (note the double negative to emphasize pragmatic uncertainty) that Democrats will regain majorities in both houses of Congress. Good people who aren’t particularly fond of Democrats hope so, anyway.

With that distinct possibility, then, Trump, Trumpublicans, and Trump-fearing-and-weary Republicans must already have strategies and tactics to prevent the Democrats doing to them what they’ve been doing to the Democrats since they’ve had majorities in both houses. For better or worse, that’s the way of the political world.

A trifecta—regardless of which party controls both legislative houses and the executive—is bad news, so we’d never want the presidency to be in control of the same party that has both houses. But that still leaves Trump reigning in terror for another two years.

And you’d better believe that the poorest sport (as confirmed by his reputation as a notorious golf cheat), sorest loser (as confirmed by his unending scandalous efforts to discredit and even overthrow the 2020 election result), and most maliciously spiteful (as confirmed by all the ad hoc weaponized departments of his corrupt administration) president America has ever suffered, Donald Trump and his coterie of self-dealing kakokleptocratic oligarchs have been plotting among themselves to retain as much illegitimate power as possible.

One way to do that would be to keep the Supreme Court from going liberal. And with a Democrat-majority Senate not unlikely to be seated in 2027, as well as a Democrat president inaugurated in 2029 (although a Democrat trifecta is to be eschewed, of course), the obvious thing to do in the circumstance is keep SCOTUS conservative.

And the easiest way to accomplish that is for the two oldest justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, to retire right after the election this year so that Trump and his lame-duck Trumpublican Senate can install two new corrupt justices before the newly elected Democrat Senate convenes on 3 January 2027.

But neither Thomas nor Alito has indicated willingness to retire under any circumstances—or, of course, die—in the near future. So they’ve got to be motivated. And that’s where Trump’s kakokleptocratic oligarchs come in. While justices’ $274,000 pensions and income from investments, books, and speaking are nothing to sneeze at, several million here and a billion there can certainly sweeten retirement security.

Not that Clarence or Sam would even consider accepting a buyout bonus or any other supernumerary retirement emolument, to be sure. But would anybody put it past Trump and his corrupt pals to try to buy off the justices or anyone else—just as Trump has tried to buy off voters?

In all events, if the Democrats should win the Senate on 3 November, don’t be surprised . . .