Trump Trumps Trump
First rule of show business: know when to get off the stage.
One would think President Trump’s Hollywood experience could have clued him in.
I never credited President Trump as an intellectual. At best, he possesses a cunning that enables the occasional business deal. Certainly, he lacks the focus, the discipline to truly grasp the complex issues that any president will inevitably encounter.
Proof of this was never more evident than his post-election performance dating from November 3, 2020. Many, many essays have sought to explore the reasons why he behaved the way he did. One of the very best (and most eloquent) can be found here: Infamy and Mythology.
Had Trump been able to develop a post-election strategy, he could have finished his administration in the strongest position of any one-term president since Teddy Roosevelt.
Back in 1992, when George HW Bush lost to Bill Clinton, there was no expectation that he would challenge again for the presidency, despite having 6 years of eligibility remaining. Bush had no core constituency that would have propelled him back to the top – nor did he seek one.
But, like Roosevelt, a one-term Trump could have remained at the center of Republican party politics. Or he could have emulated Roosevelt and Ross Perot with a dynamic third-party movement. Instead, he lurched from one increasingly outlandish claim to another.
Contesting electoral outcomes in the courts was a perfectly reasonable step. Hardly unprecedented, there have been multiple attempts in recent years, most famously 2000’s Bush v. Gore. And to be sure, there are anomalies in the 2020 elections that still call for resolution, such as Pennsylvania’s 200K delta between county vs state vote totals.
But by mid-December, it was plainly evident that provable electoral fraud would not reach the critical mass required for reversing the results. If Trump had conceded (while leaving room for qualifications), he would have spared himself and the country the ghastly spectacle of January 6.
Trump could have followed the 2016 model of Hillary Clinton, who offered a prompt concession, yet maintained her personal opinion that the election was fraudulent nonetheless. This allowed for an orderly transition, while still motivating her supporters for the rallies to come.
Instead, Trump was reduced to claiming that the entire US government had betrayed the American people. Even his own putative allies: Georgia’s Governor Kemp, Vice President Pence and all three of his appointees to the Supreme Court were not spared. From this nadir, there was no possibility of recovery.
Not only will the imagery of January 6 haunt us for years to come, but the inevitable reactions and counter-reactions will empower authoritarians far and wide, left and right.
Mr. President: this time, you fired yourself.