As Rachel was reading the newly unsealed testimony from the former, fired US Attorney for Georgia, and portions of the Democratic Senate Judiciary committee midterm report on Trump’s attempts to use the Department of Justice to overturn the results of the 2020 election, I realized something. Trump was always doomed for failure. By his personal mental chemistry, and he is taking the current iteration of the GOP right on down with him.
If there are two things that are well know about Donald Trump, it is that he is totally transactional, and he is chronically obsessive. But the problem is that both of those traits are incredibly short sighted, seeking instant gratification. And therein lies the fatal flaw of Trump’s ill fated coup attempt.
The testimony that Rachel read tonight showed that right from the get go, Trump was obsessed by the state of Georgia. Georgia was a personal insult to Trump on purely political reasons. After all, Georgia hasn’t voted for a Democrat for President since Noah took up shipbuilding. I believe the last Democrat to win in Georgia was home town boy Jimmy Carter in 1976. But losing Georgia was a deeply personal insult to Trump, and he took it personally.
The statements that Rachel read off tonight showed just how obsessed Trump was with Georgia. Two different witnesses testified as to how Trump couldn’t even talk about anything other than Georgia. His every machination was geared towards overturning the outcome in Georgia. His infamous phone call to the Secretary of State in Georgia, making him a criminal person of interest in Fulton county, having South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham call Georgia officials to put on additional pressure, his aborted attempt to have the DOJ send a letter to the Georgia Legislature alleging rampant voter fraud, and telling them to call a special session to overturn the popular vote and install Trump electors, everything was geared to reversing his loss in Georgia.
Here’s the thing. It really didn’t fucking matter! Even if Trump had managed to engineer some kind of a coup in Georgia, he got started so late, and there was so much resistance, that even if he succeeded, there would not be enough time to send those DOJ letters to the legislatures of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona before the vote certification on January 6th. And besides, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin all have Democratic Governors who would have blocked any such attempt. Changing the results of the Georgia election would not have been enough to overcome Biden’s lead.
And the Klown Kar circus continues. As much as the GOP wants to pivot to 2022, and start throwing shade on the Democrats for their efforts since 2020, Trump has signaled that he will continue to campaign on the 2020 stop The Steal message he can’t separate himself from. Which means that the national GOP will continue to live in the past. Meanwhile, 70% of the country has moved on to paying the mortgage, making a living, and seeing what the Democrats are doing for them. Not a winning combination.
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My favorite joke from Neil Gaiman’s novel American Gods: “How do we know the CIA wasn’t involved in the Kennedy assassination?…He’s dead, isn’t he?” In a similar vein, we always know when Trump is in charge of a GQP political scheme because it always fails.
There are still a lot of people – some of them even in Congress – who bought that lie about 2020 and refuse to give up.
My answer is that you can only be elected president twice, so if the former guy won in 2020, he ain’t eligible to run in 2024 – that’s in the 22nd Amendment. He needs to admit he lost in order to run again.
It would be sad if it weren’t so dangerous. All those in Congress who bought the lie paid for it with their integrity and they only bought it because they’re willing to blow up the constitution to further their political careers and keep their well paid seats. They’re pathetic. The rest of the “believers” are just plain too stupid to see reality when it smacks them in the face.
Wait a minute. One can’t use the word integrity when one is talking about Republicans, lying pieces of cat feces, yes, integrity, no.
That’s an insult to cat feces.
All I can say to that is: do you think they even care what the constitution says about how many times a prez can be elected? The G.Q.P. left the constitution in the dust as far back as when Yertle denied President Obama his rightful supreme court pick-denied even the nomination process.
The devil went down to Georgia, he was lookin’ for votes to steal
He was in a bind ’cause he was way behind
And he was willin’ to make a deal
“I believe the last Democrat to win in Georgia was home town boy Jimmy Carter in 1976.”
Come forward a few more elections. Georgia went to the Democrats again in 1980 (because of “favorite son” Carter) and would be one of the four “Old Confederacy” states to vote for Clinton/Gore in 1992 (in addition to the candidates’ home states of Arkansas and Tennessee, Louisiana also went to the Democrats). (Kind of interestingly, in 1996, Clinton/Gore took those three additional states but swapped Florida for Georgia.)
It’s absolutely true Trump is the michael Jordan of morons. All of us were front line witnesses to his criminality for years, yet the system protects its own, i.e., the rich & connected. Contrary to popular opinion, if there’s a ‘civil war’,(a contradiction of terms), it will be a class war not a racial one. When we poor folks get together & VOTE, they will be resigned to the dustbin of history. Indifference will lead us squarely into fascism. Fascism married to narcissists. Once fascism takes control & mass murder through anti-science & profit motives occur, then all hell WILL break loose. Piles of dead children will do that. Trumps already has killed hundreds of children, 125 of them 5-11, with 130,000 children having lost their caregiver, setting this pandemic upon us, & STILL working against its resolution, while being the recipient of every vaccine & treatment. Judgement is upon us. The evidence piles up moment by moment. The earth will not tolerate toxic stupidity. As Springsteen said, ” tramps like us, baby, we were born to run”. A true narcissist will burn the house down to avoid ANY responsibility. Haven’t we seen enough??? Time to put on psychic armor & go to battle by voting, voicing our concerns to all representatives, & NOT cowering to these evil bastards. Truth matters. As Dylan sang, ” you didn’t know it, u didn’t believe it could be done, but in the end, he won the war after losing every battle”.
Well said.
“If there are two things that are well know about Donald Trump, it is that he is totally transactional, and he is chronically obsessive.” Well said, but I think there’s a third factor that is related to his being obsessive: a total lack of reflection. When something bothers him, he always goes in a straight line towards the easiest solution for him personally, with no regard for consequences. Law, ethics, decency, mean literally nothing to him. That’s why he will try to get around anything in his way. Nothing seems to faze him; as far as he is concerned, everything he does is “perfect.” He has no shame and it is simply inconceivable to him that he might be making a mistake. If enough people he needs refuse to go along, then he will probably stop, not because he realizes they are right, but simply because he sees it won’t work if they don’t go along. But he may then try something even more reckless, without telling them. He f-ks up again and again, but in his own mind he is never wrong, always a winner. This has been his greatest strength, but it’s also his greatest liability. You wonder how he can do it, but the secret is, he has no off switch. He will not stop, he can only be stopped. That is not easy, but there is no alternative.
“He will not stop, he can only be stopped. That is not easy, but there is no alternative.”
You nailed it. If the GOP had enabled him, protected and coddled him, he’d be nothing.