Again I point out that his personal theme song, his power song, which he danced to at the ball at the *start* of his term of office, begins "And now the end is near, and so I face the final curtain."
Ultimately what he seeks is not victory, because no victory is ever final.
Ultimately what he seeks is not victory, because no victory is ever final.
When I say he doesn't seek victory I don't mean he doesn't want to win... he *did* want to win the presidential election, or at least, he didn't want to lose it, because losing is the worst thing in the world.
But psychologically he fears he's a loser and intellectually he knows everybody loses sooner or later. His defense mechanism is to blame everybody else for failure, when he can't deny it or push it onto someone else completely.
So what he has long felt his life MUST lead to is some great pinnacle from which he can fall, but which it won't be his fault... "I did it my way," no regrets, the dice were loaded and the deck was stacked against him, no one else could have come so far against such odds.
Because when that happens? When that happens, it's over. The tension is over. The suspense is over. The pressure to perform is over. He doesn't know how to walk away for good without feeling like a loser, but he imagines himself facing the firing squad with dignity.
I also point out that he said to Hillary Clinton in debate, and a few other times to other people connected to or in reference to the Obama administration: "You should have stopped me."
Because he won't stop himself and he knows it.
Because he won't stop himself and he knows it.
And I need to point out that none of this is to say "Oh, poor him." and none of this is to suggest he's going to sabotage himself in a way that equals an easier, less bloody victory against him.
This is the same impulse that has brought him here.
This is the same impulse that has brought him here.
People back in 2016 were catching some hint of this and going, "Wow, I think he doesn't even want to win. He's not running a real campaign. He's trying to lose." and look what happened.
His impulse, his instinct, his go-to move when he *should* be quitting or retreating is to double-down and make the other side *make* him stop or else get out of the way.
And the answer is "get out of the way" often enough for him to win.
And the answer is "get out of the way" often enough for him to win.
How did Access Hollywood not end his campaign? Because he refused to end it over it. He declined to resign in shame, and so everybody who was hoping for a Republican president, everybody who really didn't want Clinton in office, had to figure out how to justify or ignore it.
If he cancels the election, if he ignores the results, if he refuses to leave in January 2021... everybody else involved in settling that will have priorities that include "not shooting people if we can help it", "not contributing to apparent coups", "not destroying the country".
Whereas his priority will be: hold onto power until someone takes it from him.
If you don't think our whole military, law enforcement, and political system can't shrug off a presidential election as a matter of opinion and go "Well he has his opinion and we have ours, but if he wants it that badly it's not worth fighting over"... I mean, look.
Look at what everything else we've treated in this country like it's a matter of opinion or a policy dispute. Look at all the times we've set the Constitution and its provisions aside in the name of convenience.
Is it a foregone conclusion that he'll be able to ignore the election? No. And if we assume it is and behave accordingly by not bothering to vote, then he and a lot of downballot Republicans win by default.
And it's not a foregone conclusion that The Other Powers That Be will shrug and move on rather than fighting him if it comes down to an actual fight. I'd say the events of the past weeks have decreased the odds of a shrug.
But if you look at the history of Trump and his psychology, the kind of all-or-nothing "if this fails everything falls apart but ooh if it doesn't" gambit that would be represented by ignoring an election and term of office and just powering through ahead... his bread and butter.
Read this story about him showing up at a star-studded charity event he didn't contribute to, refusing to be turned away, taking the guest of honor's seat, reaping the accolades and photo op, then leaving, and still not donating anything. washingtonpost.com/politics/trump…
And you might be looking at that and going, "That was a local charity benefit. This is the presidency of the United States of America." and what you mean is - no one would try that with the presidency.
Yeah?
Who would try it with a children's AIDS charity?
Yeah?
Who would try it with a children's AIDS charity?
There is no way, no tool we have in our toolkit to stop it, except by voting for his opponent in overwhelming numbers. If you don't want to or can't I can't do anything about that so there's no point telling me about it. It's still the only way to stop him.
He definitely won't leave the White House if he wins - we're all past the point of thinking he might resign, or be removed by the Senate, or the 25th Amendment, right? Nobody thinks Mueller or anyone is coming to save us anymore, right?
The only way to get him out of office is to beat his presidency to death at the ballot box. Pick up the handiest politician and use that politician's candidacy as a blunt object to save in the skull of Trump's re-election campaign.
I don't care if we call for the resignation of Biden as soon as Trump is gone, as long as Trump is gone. Heck, one difference between the two is that there is a point at which Biden would feel he's lost enough public trust that he would have to resign.
Biden could spend his whole term in office saying he's not in favor of defunding the police but he wouldn't be RTing conspiracy theories about protesters while at a municipal and state level people are getting on with the work of defunding them.
"When do we get to do the right thing?" The right thing is getting Trump out of office. If we can switch a fast-burning fuse to a slow-burning one so we have more time to work on disarming the bomb, that's the right thing to do.
Anyway. This is getting far afield of the point, which is that you can't count on Trump to recognize and respect any limitation on his behavior that is not backed up with iron and force. Absolutely cannot.
We're all better off if he loses and loses by a wide margin, because the more unmistakable the loss is, the harder it will be for his allies to play it off and the "neutral parties" to pretend like they can't tell what's going on if he insists he won or was cheated.
