Trump's Endgame is to Sow Distrust & Damage What He Can on the Way Out the Door

For those Trumpsters still in denial, the President knows he lost "bigly", and the magnitude of his defeat increases by the hour. President-elect Joe Biden's lead in the popular vote is now over 6 million and will approach 7 million once every last vote is tallied and every recount is completed. Moreover, with just a handful of votes still in dispute, Biden's leads in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Georgia, Michigan, and Arizona are insurmountable and he won a comfortable electoral college victory, 306 to 232. It's over and, ironically, Trump's election challenges are actually cementing Biden's victory.

Axios: "President Trump's frantic post-election challenges are having the opposite effect of what he intended: He's documenting his demise through a series of court fights and recounts showing Joe Biden's victory to be all the more obvious and unassailable."

So, what is Trump up to, hidden away in his bunker? First, the President wants to sow some doubt among his most faithful followers, those folks who believe Sean Hannity is a journalist, that wearing a mask impinges on their freedom, that Obama is a closet Muslim born in Africa, that QAnon really cares about children. The President has come to like being the Pied Piper of the "deplorables" and he will wield them like a sword to keep his name in the headlines and Republicans in line.

Trump will leave office in January still claiming the election was stolen from him by the shadowy forces of the deep state. That will be his rallying cry as he travels the country whipping up opposition to Biden's presidency and preparing for his restoration in 2024.

The President also wants the GOP establishment to keep in mind that he isn't leaving the political stage and that disloyalty will result in punishment. Trump fired the administration's top cybersecurity official, Christopher Krebs, on Tuesday because Krebs issued a statement that the 2020 election had been the most secure in history, a message that undercut Trump’s claims about a “rigged” election. And, demonstrating that he has a long memory, he "terminated" Defense Secretary Mark Esper for disagreeing with him last spring about the use of active-duty troops to quash protests in some American cities.

Additionally, Trump intends to make life difficult for his successor. How else can you explain his decision to prevent Biden from working with the administration's health experts on the pandemic or blocking the President-elect's access to regular updates from the nation's intelligence services? Trump wants Biden to fail, even if that puts American lives at risk.

And, while blocking an orderly transition and tweeting lunacy about the election, don't expect the President to be bothered to do his job. He has no plan to battle the pandemic's surge across America and can't be bothered to even attend a coronavirus task force meeting. On the day that Joe Biden is inaugurated we could be nearing 400,000 fatalities and Donald Trump will still be congratulating himself for doing a "great job."

The Atlantic: "The nation cries out for leadership, yet amid one of the worst crises to face the country in decades, President Donald Trump is nowhere to be found. He is hunkered down in the White House, not giving interviews or speaking to the public except through his Twitter account, where he is mostly spreading disinformation about the election."

Trump also intends to start some fires as he departs Washington. His decision Tuesday to pull American troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan is meant as a time bomb for Biden. It will hasten the Taliban's victory and allow ISIS some breathing room to regroup in both Afghanistan and Iraq. A few months after Trump has returned to Mar-a-Lago, Biden will probably face a choice between reinserting American forces or allowing terrorists free rein in those nations.

CNN: "these moves are plunging the U.S. into tricky territory right before President-elect Joe Biden takes office — and that just may be the point. As one administration official tells CNN, the administration is aiming to "set so many fires that it will be hard for the Biden administration to put them all out."

All of this, every irresponsible, vindictive bit of it, was easily predictable. It's who Donald Trump is; it's what 47% of the electorate voted for. And with two months left, it's just the beginning of his revenge on the Americans who rejected him.

#Trump #2020election

By: Don Lam & Curated Content