Trump won't go away

Despite his bluster about winning, he's already preparing to lose - and to whine about it.

Yesterday, JVL wrote about what he saw as the best-case scenario if Donald Trump is returned to the White House for four more years.

The phrase “four more years” is doing a lot of work here.

…barring another pandemic, or a global financial crisis, maybe we make it through four more years of Trump with liberal democracy battered and broken, but not destroyed.

The problem is: What happens after four years?

I have troubling seeing a world in which Trump leaves the White House voluntarily.

He will commit crimes during his next administration, because that is what he does. It’s like breathing. So leaving office means exposing himself to legal jeopardy. Meaning that any hope of getting Trump to go involves giving him amnesty/immunity.

But also, Trump has a deep psychological need to be the world’s main character. What’s he going to do? Retire to Mar-a-Lago and paint portraits?

I am not convinced that Trump would unilaterally decline a third term.

What is the argument against it? Norms? A constitutional amendment? AYFKM?

Prior to Trump, presidents released their tax returns. Presidents were not found legally guilty of sexual assault. Presidents did not face felony indictments. Presidents did not meet with the leader of North Korea. Presidents did not dine with white nationalists. Presidents did not openly side with Russian dictators against the American intelligence community. Presidents did not call for physical violence against peaceful protesters. Presidents did not claim to have won elections they lost. Presidents did not summon armed mobs. Presidents did not suggest that their vice presidents should be lynched. Presidents did not ask secretaries of state to “find” votes. Presidents did not say that they wanted to be dictators. Presidents did not try to overturn lawful election results. Presidents did not attempt coups.

Trump broke all of those norms and now you want to tell me that he’ll just meekly accept the Twenty-second Amendment because it’s, uh, in the Constitution or something?

I’m not buying.

Keep in mind that this is the best-case scenario.

And, right on cue, Reuters reports that the Trump team is already preparing the inevitable legal and extra-legal challenges to any election results showing him losing (and very possibly election results showing him winning, but not by enough to satisfy his Hindenburg-sized ego).

Donald Trump and his allies are laying the groundwork to contest a potential loss in November, stoking doubts about the election's legitimacy even as opinion polls show the Republican presidential candidate leading in battleground states.

In recent interviews, Trump has refused to commit to accepting the election results. At his rallies, he has portrayed Democrats as cheaters, called mail-in ballots corrupt and urged supporters to vote in such large numbers to render the election "too big to rig."

He also backed a new Republican-sponsored bill aimed at keeping foreigners from voting, seeking to link his false election fraud claims with the issue of illegal immigration, even though voting by non-citizens is already unlawful and studies show it is exceedingly rare.

Trump's tactics are an intensified version of the strategy he used during the 2020 election, when his baseless voter fraud claims inspired his supporters to assault the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an attempt to overturn his election defeat.

Rather than being cowed by looming criminal trials over his conduct in the wake of the 2020 election, Trump is repeating the falsehoods that polls show resonate with his supporters while readying the legal firepower needed to launch a similar challenge to the validity of the vote this year.

His critics worry he is setting the stage for another turbulent post-election period by conditioning his supporters to once again believe the system is rigged against him. Trump has refused to rule out the potential for violence after November's election, telling Time magazine in April in response to a question about that prospect: "If we don't win, you know, it depends."

Trump has instructed the Republican National Committee, now led by his daughter-in-law and a close ally, to prioritize building out a team of poll watchers and lawyers to monitor the vote and litigate potential post-election challenges, according to a person familiar with the matter. As part of that effort, the RNC announced in April that it will recruit 100,000 volunteers and attorneys - double the figure promised during the 2020 cycle. It called the effort "the most extensive and monumental election integrity program in the nation's history."

RNC lawyers already have filed dozens of lawsuits since last year aimed at limiting the window for counting mail-in ballots and other voting rules seen as giving Democrats an advantage.

"We are working around the clock to ensure it is easy to vote and hard to cheat," an RNC spokesperson said.

Democrats have criticized the recruitment plan as unrealistic and an attempt to intimidate voters, while also building up a legal team.

[…]

Some of Trump's most prominent allies are helping plant seeds of doubt about the election in the minds of his supporters.

Congress's top Republican, House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson, last week unveiled the bill aimed at prohibiting noncitizens from voting in federal elections. The legislation, likely to be dead on arrival in the Democratic-led Senate, was a clear attempt to aid the Trump campaign, which has falsely claimed Democrats are allowing migrants into the country to boost their electoral support.

Earlier this month, two of Trump's potential running mates – Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum – declined in TV interviews to commit to accepting the results in November.

Another, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, said in an interview with CNN on Sunday that he would honor the outcome if the election was "free and fair" but said Republicans should be ready to pursue any problems.

Trump accepting election results and going away is as likely as Lucy not pulling away the football when Charlie Brown tries to kick it.

Actually, less likely. In 1979, there was a Peanuts story arc wherein ol’ Chuck was in the hospital and Lucy promised to hold the football for him once he got out. It didn’t end well for her.

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Team MAGA’s efforts to discredit the 2024 election could have disastrous consequences for liberal democracy in the United States and beyond.

And yet…by concentrating so much on mostly fictional “election fraud,” Trump and the RNC - already facing a massive fundraising deficit compared to Biden and the Democrats - might be ensuring their own defeat: