Trump's Republican allies are going to help him burn it all down
Quote:The entire premise of Donald Trump’s life is that he has never once been defeated. His project, and that of those around him, then, has been to maintain that illusion. This hasn’t always succeeded. He’s lost plenty of things—money, court cases. But never before has he faced the kind of public humiliation he seems poised to as Joe Biden’s victory becomes inevitable. How does someone who delights in calling others “losers” react to becoming a loser himself, in the most concrete sense of the word? How does the most vainglorious man in America bring himself to accept defeat and concede?
The answer, of course, is that he doesn’t. Unable to face the reality of his circumstances, he is doubling down on his delusions—that the world is conspiring against him; that he’s the big, strong winner he’s always claimed to be. He wants to convince his supporters, the courts, and himself that he is both victim and victor and has made clear that he’ll burn everything to the ground to do so. This is unsurprising. If his decades of public life have taught us anything, it’s that he simply can’t help himself. But the aides and allies who have enabled him these past four years are not bound by his paranoias and neuroses. They’re making a choice. And while some who have stood by him now seem to be taking tentative steps backward, others are sticking, enabling him still as he tries to take a blowtorch to the foundation of democracy.
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That the president reportedly has no plans to concede is predictable. That anyone is going along with him still is shameful, particularly given Graham and McCarthy won reelection this week in the very process the president is decrying as fraudulent. It begs the question: Why stay loyal to him? Any cynical self-preservation instincts that may have contributed to their sycophancy, and that of the Republicans still queasy about fully denouncing him, are falling into the widening gap between Biden and Trump in the vote count.
Moreover, in their continuing deference to Trump, they’re helping to animate the most dangerous elements of Trumpism. Already we’ve seen Trump supporters, some of them armed, descend on ballot processing centers in states like Arizona and Michigan, and on Thursday authorities in Philadelphia thwarted a potential attack on the Pennsylvania Convention Center, where votes were being tabulated. Since he came into power, Trump has turned the country into a tinderbox. Now that it seems he’s about to lose it, he’s trying to set it ablaze. Democrats can try to cool tensions, and responsible Americans can put out some of the smaller fires. But it’s only the people in his administration and his party who can knock the matches out of his hand. So far, they haven’t.
"Never trust a fox. Looks like a dog, behaves like a cat."
~ Erin Hunter
~ Erin Hunter