Trump pointing blame at media (top) and image of flag under Trump shown in multiple media (TIME, FT etc) under 'American Reality'. A divided nation we better get back.
"The question before us is: If the lawful election process goes forward, will the president's supporters accept the lawful result even if he is encouraging them not to." - Jon Meacham, presidential historical author
"The American people have fired the most corrupt, incompetent, indecent and lethal president in American history. We will now have a decent man at the top and he will work tirelessly to bring this nation together. We will finally see the institutional vandalism come to a fast end." Steve Schmidt, former Republican strategist, on MSNBC Saturday
"The peaceful transition of government between presidents, and particularly between presidents of opposing parties, is the most critical underpinning of our republic—it’s what holds us together as a nation, however bitterly fought elections might be. And right now, they’re about as bitter as they’ve been since the Civil War. Every day in which two-time popular vote-losing impeached lame duck Donald Trump refuses to acknowledge his loss, and every day in which a Republican Party now led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell allows him to keep up this fraudulent fight, is a day that’s more dangerous to the country as a whole." - Joan McCarter, Daily Kos
"Most still-rational Americans, watching Donald Trump's atrocity of a press conference on Thursday night, had two simultaneous reactions: Wow, that man really is the worst living American, and also, yeah, this is all over except for the paperwork.
It was an odd mix of emotions. There was the disgust of watching the actual president of the actual United States demand that legal votes be thrown out insinuating that millions of American voters were somehow fakes. But there was also the relief of seeing Trump's facade of bravado collapsing, exposing the loser that was always hiding behind that wall of bluster." - Amanda Marcotte, 'Hey, FOX News Go Home! It's Time To Admit The Trump Party's Over'
The header of this post is not merely rhetorical. There were 70.4 million fellow Americans that voted for this 'Lord of Misrule' and Hitler wannabe for one reason or another. The 2nd biggest block of voters in American history for one election. These people aren't going away, and the question - despite the millions in the street celebrating the Biden victory - is what becomes of them? Specifically: Will they become constructive citizens to enable our nation to recover from its Trumpian depredations? Or will they become a bitter, aggrieved fifth column out to undermine the critical Biden presidency? The answer may well determine whether this nation prospers or sinks and disintegrates as other democracies have done.
Sen. Dick Durbin, perhaps overcome by the joy of the moment, told the Washington Post:
“The national nightmare of President Donald J. Trump ends in eleven weeks."
But Mike Littwin, writing in the Colorado Springs Independent ('The Nightmare Will Continue') warns: "Whatever happens next Trump will retain a hold on the American psyche."
To be sure this will be a negative hold and indeed, toxic, given we already see how his enablers are destroying any faith this election was legitimate - and hence that President-elect Joe Biden is legitimate. This will give Trump's followers license to act as an inimical force causing much turmoil and possibly years of civil unrest. I already indicated in my previous post how Trump himself has taken a flame thrower to our electoral system, e.g.
This is despite even the Murdoch media orbit now unifying to tell Trump to try to display a note of dignity and grace. But the man is incapable of it, tuned only to vengeance, fear and hate. We also knew from the get go Donald Trump, the primping slimeball poseur, would never concede if he lost. Most sensible citizens who voted to take this nation back from the brink of an authoritarian nightmare, knew this. However, Donald Trump understood he could not let down his 88 million Twitter followers- who hang on his every garbled word - in the midst of the Biden win catastrophe. (The first time in nearly three decades an incumbent has been kicked out of office after one term. )
But not so fast. Even as I write this, Trump's legal team has vowed to go to the mat, and one saw Jonathan Turley on FOX news Saturday night blabbing that: "There have been affidavits that have come forward suggesting episodic errors such as poll workers ignoring dates. But the much more serious question is whether systemic errors occurred such as ballots not being authenticated properly. That would affect all the ballots".
Implying that if this applied in Pennsylvania then all the counted ballots might be thrown out, hence Turley's mock regret that "I feel like a wedding crasher at a wedding reception."
But it was encouraging to read in The Denver Post Saturday (p. 1A):
But none of the dozen or so lawsuits they had brought in battleground states appeared to be gaining any traction in the courts. And in any case, none seemed likely to give Trump the edge he would need in vote counts in the states that will determine the outcome.
In seeking to foment widespread doubt about the legitimacy of the election, Trump and his surrogates seemed less focused on substantive legal arguments that could hold up in court than on bolstering the president’s political narrative, unsupported by the facts, that he was somehow being robbed of a second term.
Thus, it is indeed all merely political theater waged by a desperate punk who knows he will soon be a private citizen and subject to the full force of the law for his sundry crimes in office. But never mind, this political theater is intended to have a deleterious effect: to reinforce the conspiracy ideations of Trump's 70 million -plus voters so they never have to accept the incoming administration. Thereby kneecapping Joe Biden in his quest for healing the nation (and moving beyond demonization) from the very outset.
So let's assume Trump's desperate legal team fails in its bid to scotch the election this morning, as they've been failing with other efforts. The question remains of whether his mentally twisted groupies and cult followers will ever get back to reality and accept his loss. The answers thus far aren't sanguine. Interviews with assorted Trump supporters, voters in the Sunday Denver Post showed how much in denial they remain about any Trump loss. According to one diehard Trump supporter, Jake Angeli:
"Trump always looks like he's going to lose and then he wins."
Another South Dakota farmer and Trump voter, Scott Vamder Wal insisted Trump could still contest the results and "find a path to victory", adding: "I wouldn't say it's totally over until all the legal avenues are exhausted."
In effect, all these Trumpers are kept hoping inside their detached rabbit holes as long as Trump keeps fighting, and pursuing specious court cases- none of which have worked and amount to something like a "primal scream" according to one MSNBC legal analyst. The gimmick - which many Repuke stalwarts continue to support- keeps the Plebes hopeful but also denying reality - and worse, accepting the election has really been stolen. This is not a recipe for comity or peaceful transition - but perhaps it is the political warfare that the Reeps want. If so, both sides need to collaborate to stop it. In the words of one Denver Post opinion writer (Doug Friednash) today:
"We voters need to let the representatives we've elected know that the partisan blood sport is over. We now expect them to do the governing we expect them to do."
As an article in the WaPo noted after Biden's victory speech Saturday night:
"The president has greeted the prospect of defeat with obstinance and disbelief, whipping up his loyalists with a fusillade of lies to believe the election was stolen. The legal battles will continue, and Trump’s rhetoric aims to make Biden an illegitimate president in the eyes of Trump Nation, even before the president-elect is sworn in."
As the near final tally for both candidates shows, support for Trump is completely unprecedented in our lifetime. Over 70 million votes thus far, or nearly 7 million more than he got in 2016. That is how many of our countrymen were prepared to risk driving this nation off an authoritarian cliff with attendant loss of whatever democracy we have left - after Trump has ripped it to shreds. As a piece in The Toronto Star asked on Saturday: 'What the hell is wrong with Americans"?' Well, the short answer is that this orange Orang posing as a man has bamboozled them.
That plus their willingly stepping into and indulging in the fever swamps of wild, unhinged conspiracy ideations. For example, QAnon, which accepts without a scintilla of evidence that the Democrats are a pack of pedophiles who worship Satan and drink the blood of children. Exaggeration? I refer to the same Toronto Star piece where one read about the travails of a Biden supporter in the midst of one band of Trumpies:
"Anger broke out when one man, who identified himself as Ron Russ, walked slowly through the crowd carrying a Biden-Harris sign. Speaking briefly to media, he said he did it to give voice to the Biden supporters in the state, unrepresented in the crowd of hundreds of Trump supporters. As for the latter, they immediately shouted "Pedophile!" and "Communist!" at Russ."
Pedophile? Where the hell did these blithering numskulls get that? Well, again, from the QAnon fantasy conspiracy playbook. See also:
The same mental quagmire is where these deadheads got the 'Communist" epithet. Well, indirectly. They likely heard the word "socialism" bandied about as a threat attached to Biden and Harris, with the subtext that "AOC" would seek to rule them. And so they conflated socialism with communism - and ended up calling Mr. Russ a commie. Well, what do you expect of semi-educated bird brains?
All of this is the result of a balkanized social media system that encourages uncritical conflation and is a major ongoing mind fuck of more than half the country. Back to the Toronto Star piece we run into one Phoenix woman named Chloe Castleberry, who held up a sign reading: Smells like Voter Fraud - and babbled to the Canuck reporter:
"People adore him. We need to see where the fake ballots are coming in at!"
According to the same piece, "there is no way, given what she has seen of support for Trump, that the vote count favouring Biden is legitimate".
And:
"Trump supporters like Castleberry cite right-wing “whistleblowers” who have been making allegations of vote tampering and dumping, as evidence that America’s democracy is under attack."
Further on we read about "one group of four women from L.A. who drove six hours to Phoenix for the (Maricopa, AZ) rally. They said they believe Biden and the democrats are trying to steal the election, and are furious that Facebook and Twitter have taken steps to remove or correct posts claiming election fraud is taking place."
No, you cannot make this screwy shit up, or the extent of brain fucks these women manifest. Or when one (a Janelle Riviera) expounds thus:
“These are very important things and for it to be censored, it’s ridiculous. Our democracy is on the line. Our freedom is on the line.”
Good grief, woman! Your freedom and our democracy were on the line with Trump's authoritarianism! Didn't you see what he did in Lafayette Square in D.C. this past summer?
As I observed in my November 6th post: These pathetic creatures can in some way be given a limited dispensation, probably with condition they seek therapy or some mental help. After all, their brains have been gutted by the lies spewed from their orange master, Dotard. As my psychology post doc niece put it: "They could each use about 1,000 hours of online therapy along with some good anti-psychotic meds - when it sinks in that Trump is not going to be around for a second term."
Sadly, these Trumpers are convinced they've been screwed by the election system itself (and the majority voting side) as opposed to Trump who's played his biggest con on them: Accepting that one of the better functioning election systems in the world is their enemy. And that - following Trump and the wishes of the Russians - it is better to destroy it and those who voted in it (to supersede their pro-Trump votes) than accept it and move on.
Joe Biden's appeal to national healing is noble and welcome, but as I wrote in my post of October 13: "As a consequentialist (and atheist) this is also my position, that the world can only be better in the future with Trump out of it. No more rage tweeting, sowing political discord or conspiracy mongering - especially if a President Biden is trying to get the nation back to normality and functionality. If Trump were to be taken down by the virus this better world would manifest. It is true his zombies would remain and still be full of "piss and vinegar" - likely their grievances spilling into the streets (especially if the election is close) but there would be no more insane tweets to feed their froth, and fuel their bigotry."
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