Trump, the Absolute Worst Loser
He has
spent his life gaming the system, so it’s no surprise that he can’t accept
defeat.
Opinion
Columnist
- Nov. 15, 2020, 7:00 p.m. ET
Donald Trump lost the election. He
knows it. But he won’t admit it.
He still hopes and believes that there
is a way for the courts to erase enough votes to tip the election in his favor.
This will not happen.
His legal challenges in swing states
across the country are largely being met with defeat and setback. In court, you
have to provide evidence. Lies, accusations and conspiracy theory don’t cut it.
Trump has spent his life gaming the system. It is unfathomable to him that this
system can’t be gamed.
In the end, Trump hopes to push his
case to the Supreme Court, where he has seated three conservative justices.
That is also not likely to be a winning strategy.
Trump believes he can
use the judiciary as a weapon against the American people. The judiciary is not
likely to allow itself to be used.
Barring that, he is committed to
destroying faith in the electoral process itself. If he didn’t win, he insists
he must have been cheated because, in his mind, failure is not a possibility.
Like he has done for the entirety of
his presidency, he is lying, concocting a narrative detached from reality.
His Twitter feed since the election —
he has made precious few appearances or official statements during this time —
has been an unprecedented attack on election integrity and the voting franchise
as a whole.
He keeps complaining that the election
was rigged, that it was stolen from him, that computer software switched
millions of votes from him to Joe Biden.
On Sunday, in
reference to Biden, he tweeted: “He only
won in the eyes of the FAKE NEWS MEDIA. I concede NOTHING! We have a long way
to go. This was a RIGGED ELECTION!”
But Trump has gone further, appearing
to attack the voters who cast their ballots for Biden. He retweeted a post by a
Richmond, Va. television station that read: “Virginia Wesleyan University
business professor and dean Paul Ewell wrote that anyone who chose Biden for
president is ‘ignorant, anti-American and anti-Christian.’ ” To that
tweet, Trump appended, “Progress!”
Donald Trump will no longer be
president on Jan. 20. That is a hard fact, an unmovable date. Biden will be
sworn in and will become the president.
But Trump is not going to allow this
transition to be smooth. He rose in spectacle and he will flame out in it. We
should put nothing beyond him. He will do everything he can do not to assume the
posture of the defeated. He will do everything to secure a future for himself
and his family that is comfortable and secure. He will do everything with the
last bits of power from his presidency.
His attack on the election system is
doing damage to our democracy. So is his refusal to concede. So is his sulking.
But, of course, Trump doesn’t care about our democracy. He doesn’t care about
democracy, period. He cares about money and power. He cares about managing the
mob. He cares about adoration.
But the problem here is bigger than
Trump. Republicans in Congress are indulging Trump’s delusion, which has the
effect of granting his derangement credence in the eyes of his loyal followers.
Trump became president in part because
the Russians interfered with our election to help him in 2016. That was a fact.
Trump repeatedly called the investigation into that interference a hoax.
Election officials have deemed this election “the most secure in American
history.” That is a fact. Trump keeps claiming it was wracked with corruption.
Trump is depressingly
predictable: constantly lying and denying, constructing a world in which he is
the winner and hero.
We know why Trump does what he does. He
is depraved. Republicans in Congress, by going along with this nonsense, are
proving once again that they are so cowardly and craven that they will join
Trump in his depravity.
They underscore that the Republican
Party is a thing that now exists in name only. This is Trump’s party, bought
and paid for.
In other years, the rising stars of the
party would emerge in this period offering a post-loss vision for an alteration
that would ensure victory the next time out. Not this year. They are all too
afraid to tell the loser that he lost.
And, if Trump declares soon that he
will run again in 2024, as some have speculated, it will further cow other 2024
contenders. Any suggestion that they would run would put them immediately in a
fight with the man who just received a record number of Republican votes.
After Republicans lost in 2012, they
produced an autopsy report designed to grow the party. With Trump, they threw
that out and doubled down on being the party of white grievance. This year’s
election and Trump’s reaction to it is not likely to produce an autopsy but
induce a séance.
The Republican Party is dead. Trump
killed it. MAGA is dancing on the grave. The way to remember that party is in
spirit.
