The most petulant 46 minutes in American history
By
Dec. 2, 2020 at 9:17 p.m. EST
It was
four weeks distilled to less than an hour.
Over
the length of a 46-minute video posted to social media Wednesday, President
Trump read and riffed on a prepared script lambasting those who had the
audacity to suggest that receiving fewer votes than his opponent meant he
shouldn’t serve a second consecutive term in office. It was the functional
equivalent of one of his beloved campaign rallies, both in the sense that it
offered the same meandering range and, quite obviously, the same relief for his
frustrations. It was also clearly no small undertaking; the numerous cuts in
the final product suggested that what was offered to the country was a subset
of what Trump had to say to the camera. This was a project. Good
thing Trump rarely has any official duties on his calendar anymore.
What
the video wasn’t was a compelling argument for the idea that
the 2020 presidential contest was somehow marred by fraud. It was, almost
literally, a distillation of the past four weeks of rants, allegations and
accusations, including countless examples of claims which have already been
soundly debunked. That sudden surge of votes seen in Wisconsin, something so
compelling in Trump’s eyes that he brought a visual aid to demonstrate it?
We dispatched that on Nov. 11: It was just
the county of Milwaukee reporting its results. Whether it’s more worrisome if
Trump knew it had been debunked or if he didn’t is up to you to determine.
Since
polls closed Nov. 3, Trump’s public response to his loss has been one of
exasperation, the spoiled child suddenly told that he can’t do something he
wants to do. Some part of this is political, an effort to lash out at
President-elect Joe Biden and to impose an emotional cost on Democrats broadly.
But there’s obviously something deeper and more psychological at play, a darker
shadow of refusal and frustration and fury that can’t as easily be countered
with simple rationality.
For all
of the reporting about how Trump understands that he lost the race and is
discussing a potential run in 2024, the speech released Wednesday did not
convey any calculated assessment of the situation. It was a cri de
coeur that, given the season, begs comparisons to the Festivus airing
of grievances from George Costanza’s father on “Seinfeld” — another older
Queens man unable to gracefully accept the nature of the world around him.
Introducing
that comparison, though, risks diminishing the danger of Trump’s commentary.
Again,
there wasn’t anything new to it. It was a pastiche of so much that we’ve heard
so often. It presented no coherent case for the existence of fraud, instead
substituting a volume of accusations for an abundance of proof. Having hundreds
of people make unfounded allegations isn’t proof of wrongdoing, as any review
of those sheaves of affidavits collected by Trump’s campaign from various
supporters makes clear. Having one person make hundreds of unfounded
allegations isn’t proof either — but Trump’s goal isn’t proving each point.
It’s getting Americans to accept maybe just one or two, so that they’re
receptive to his broader point: Something Must Be Done.
That
something isn’t clear. At first it was to block the counting of ballots that
were showing he lost key states such as Pennsylvania. Then it was to block the
certification of votes in states such as Michigan. Then it was to try to get
state legislatures to appoint new, Trump-friendly electors to the electoral
college. Then it was to get a case to the Supreme Court where something magical
would slice through the Gordian knot tied by American voters.
In the
speech, Trump made vague demands that someone — anyone — intervene.
“This
election was rigged. Everybody knows it,” he said. “I don’t mind if I lose an
election, but I want to lose an election fair and square. What I don’t want to
do is have it stolen from the American people. That’s what we’re fighting for,
and we have no choice to be doing that.”
“We
already have the proof. We already have the evidence, and it’s very clear,” he
continued. “Many people in the media — and even judges — so far have refused to
accept it. They know it’s true. They know it’s there. They know who won the
election, but they refuse to say you’re right. Our country needs somebody to
say, ‘You’re right.’ ”
He’s
not right. His purported evidence is nothing more than a dusting of allegations
from motivated parties claiming that something unprovably wrong occurred. The
media does know who won the election: Joe Biden. But, for whatever reason,
Trump cannot bring himself to say that.
There’s
a new burbling among Trump’s supporters that follows his claims to their
logical endpoint. His former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and his former attorney have
endorsed the idea that Trump should somehow try to step outside the boundaries
of the Constitution to force some sort of re-vote supervised by the military:
an overt coup to supplant Trump’s lazier attempt. Trump didn’t endorse that
idea in his speech, but, given what he’s already endorsed, we shouldn’t assume
the thought hasn’t crossed his mind.
The
essential question of the moment is how far Trump wants to go. Was this his way
of sulking? Was the speech a lengthy vent, an airing of grievances without peer
in American history? Or was it a sign Trump will continue to want to push the
understood boundaries of what our electoral system allows?
The
second most important question is whether his enthusiastic base of supporters
will recognize the difference between those two motivations.
Philip Bump is a correspondent for The
Washington Post based in New York. Before joining The Post in 2014, he led
politics coverage for the Atlantic Wire.Follow
