I've been warning you for a long time that once Trump lost, he'd be focused entirely on trying to avoid prison, and he might try to scare us into giving him an immunity deal. He'll only pull it off if we fall for his bluff. I'm not inclined to gullibly make Trump's life easier.
How do I know he's bluffing? Because he's Donald Trump. He's a bullshitter. He's always bluffing. He loudly threatens to do Impossible Evil Thing A, to scare us and distract us from the fact that he's quietly doing Evil Thing B. It only works if we fall for the impossible threat.
Trump spent 2018 loudly threatening to pardon his co-conspirators, which he couldn't even do, due to legal complications. But we were so scared by it, it took us way too long to notice that Trump was secretly locking immigrant kids in cages. The imaginary pardons were distraction
I could give dozens of other examples. Trump threatens to do Imaginary Evil Thing A, to distract us from Quietly Evil Thing B. The only way we've stopped him is when we've realized Thing A is impossible, looked past it, and spotted Thing B in time.
Right now Trump is trying to scare us into believing he can magically overturn the election. I've spent thousands of words explaining why all of these scenarios are imaginary. I won't rehash them again. But it's crucial, because his plan requires us to believe he can pull it off.
While we're busy fretting over him magically flipping a legislature or the electoral college or whatever, we'll pay no attention to the pardons he's drawing up behind the scenes. Those pardons wouldn't have been viable for him in 2018. They're viable now that he's lost anyway.
While we're fretting over the imaginary, Trump will quietly find ways to extract more money from the Treasury and give it to himself. He'll quietly cut more corrupt government deals for his friends, who will give him kickbacks after he's gone from office.
This is why fretting over imaginary doomsday scenarios doesn't make you "vigilant." It makes you gullible. It makes sure you get taken advantage of by bullshitters like Trump. He's counting on you gullibly falling for his every imaginary threat.
After everyone can see that Trump isn't going to magically overturn the election, he'll threaten to shut down some crucial social program, or threaten to start a war. He's hinting at those things already. And those will be bluffs too.
How do I know? Because Trump doesn't want to lose. Even he knows that if he actually shoots the proverbial hostage, his leverage will be gone, and he'll end up with the worst possible outcome for himself – which is not what a narcissist like him wants.
Trump has very little leverage at this point. He's threatening to do things that are either A) impossible, or B) would guarantee the worst possible outcome for himself. His plan relies entirely on us not understanding that, and caving to the bluffs he's making.
The only way Trump will gain any real leverage over us at this point is if we gullibly choose to give it to him, by falling for his threats that he knows he can't pull off. I beg you not to give him that leverage. We already beat him. Let's not be suckers to him now.
Palmer Report has been saying all of the above for a year. It's more true than ever. Actor and activist Edward Norton posted one hell of a thread this morning, which touches on a lot of the same concepts. I would urge you to read it as well:
https://twitter.com/EdwardNorton/status/1329728889296355328
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