Today on Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough wondered why President Trump is continuing his hopeless fight to prove the election was rife with fraud. Paraphrasing a bit, he asked, "Why does the President prolong a story that only makes him look worse with every passing day? He wakes up every morning to a TV screen showing that his numbers either haven't changed or have gotten worse. If he would simply move on, we would do the same and another news story would be our lead."
It's a good question: What is Trump's goal in all this? Is it simply to prove to himself and his base that he is not a loser? That they were right to support him? If so, in the end, it does nothing of the kind. Poor losers are the worst kind of losers. Is it to hold his base together for a potential run again in 2024? In that time, his reputation will only be in further tatters. He will surely face criminal and civil charges in state and federal courts...and even if he wins or those charges are dismissed, his name and brand will be eternally tarnished. No matter how big his base, will the Republican Party be dumb enough to nominate a candidate with those kind of black marks? The negative ads write themselves.
Quite frankly, I don't understand it.
I do understand why the GOP has, as a rule, not abandoned him to his fate. They hope to hold his base together long enough, at least, to win the two run-off Senatorial elections in Georgia, so that they can maintain at least a slim majority in the upper house. But that can't really be Trump's goal--if he's not going to be in the White House (and he's not), why should he give a damn who controls the Senate?
There's one other possibility, of course. Maybe he's like the ex-lover who kills his former mate: "If I can't have her, nobody will!" In this case, "If I can't be in charge, I'll destroy the country instead."
No comments:
Post a Comment