Does Donald Trump really believe that he will be "reinstated" as president by August? Charles Cooke confirms that the original reporting about this was correct:
I can attest, from speaking to an array of different sources, that Donald Trump does indeed believe quite genuinely that he — along with former senators David Perdue and Martha McSally — will be “reinstated” to office this summer after “audits” of the 2020 elections in Arizona, Georgia, and a handful of other states have been completed. I can attest, too, that Trump is trying hard to recruit journalists, politicians, and other influential figures to promulgate this belief — not as a fundraising tool or an infantile bit of trolling or a trial balloon, but as a fact.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the hero of the Republican Party, the man that everyone fears to cross. And the fact that he's obviously delusional? Apparently that just doesn't matter much.
Kevin, I think you should have spotted this:
"The fact that he is obviously delusional" is a conclusion based on confidence in the ability of one Charles Cooke to avoid being hoodwinked by the champion hustler of our time.
Possibility #1--Donald Trump is truly delusional.
Possibility #2--Donald Trump is simply continuing his con, probably with great enjoyment.
I have no idea which way to bet, and the claim that Mr. Cooke can tell the difference is, to me, a poor reflection on Mr. Cooke's good sense.
Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns and Money has a pretty take on it:
Trump is reportedly more obsessed than ever with the idea that the election was stolen from him. Asking whether he really believes that is a category mistake: Donald Trump doesn’t have “beliefs” about those sorts of things in anything like the normal sense of the word. He just says whatever he wants to say with literally no regard for truth, evidence, plausibility, or anything else.
The whole post is pretty good, you have to evaluate the Republican party in Pro Wrestling terms
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/06/are-the-republican-audits-sic-of-the-2020-vote-works-or-shoots
Yep, I think Campos is spot on.
I think this is essentially a correct reading of the Republican Party. The only additional point that I would emphasize is it’s not delusional for Trump or the MAGA crowd to things moving forward to the goal of “winning” the next two elections by hook or by crook thereby restoring Trump and cementing their power and impunity.
Look at Michigan and Wisconsin, for example. Two states that are so radically gerrymandered that the Republicans continue to hold power even though they regularly receive far fewer votes than the Democrats. Only the Democrats in Congress and the White House can change that and if they can’t bring themselves to do so, they’re finished. Perhaps deservedly so.
Possibility #1
I used to think Trump was a savvy conman simply playing the marks like a pro.
But all evidence that escapes from Trumpworld always points to coo coo for Cocoa Puffs. Trump is a cornered dog facing serious criminal investigations who is inserting his preferred reality in place of actual reality. He’ll still gladly take stupid peoples’ money along the way (old habits die hard), but this is about his ego/ god complex.
"Believe" is doing a LOT of work here. The Orange Shitgibbon is just a grifter with a huge (though smaller than previously) megaphone. Everything coming out of his mouth is situational -- does it advance my interest?
Asking him whether he truly believes anything coming out of his mouth is like asking your dog about its position on the Infield Fly Rule. It's not only completely irrelevant, it wouldn't even make sense to him.
Fortunately, his megaphone is greatly reduced. At least until facebook & insta reinstate him.
Yes! Language for Donald Trump is entirely instrumental, as with two-year-olds — all that matters is, Does it get me what I want this moment? What he wants above all is to be the center of attention, to confirm his sense of being The Most Important Person.
I don’t understand the logic of this post. At best it’s Panglossian and at worst it demonstrates a lack of historical appreciation of revolutions and coups d’état. Trump and his supporters view him as either an “Avignon Presidency” or as a sort of “presidency in exile” in which Trump is the legitimate president but is unable to exercise legal power.
Clearly, Trump and his supporters are seeking to foment revolutionary change much as did Lenin, Castro, Trotsky, Bolivar, and Zapata (to name but a few). What Kevin views as “delusional” is highly rational in the current politically unstable environment. And it fits perfectly with the very active measures being taken by the most powerful political party in the country and its armed paramilitaries to disrupt the ability of Democrats to pass their political agenda or even to compete in future elections.
It’s regrettable that Kevin (and so many others) vacillates between justified alarm at the Republican Party’s antidemocratic efforts (including a failed insurrection aimed at preventing a Democratic president from being seated) and a regrettably Panglossian assumption that normalcy must eventually prevail. The rest of us shouldn’t be so complacent.
Hitler wasn’t taken seriously and so many in the world suffered for that mistake. We shouldn’t make the same mistake twice. It’s happening here and it’s happening now.
whether trump is nuts has nothing to do with the danger he poses or whether we should take him seriously. the events of jan. 6 proved that.
it does, however, tell us a lot about the state of the republican party that's sold whatever was left of its soul to a man-boy who is flat out nuts. that's truly dangerous, and a threat to our democracy.
I tend to agree with you but I would go further in saying that the focus on Trump's childish antics and extreme narcissism as a way of discounting the seriousness of the threat he poses is a serious, perhaps fatal mistake.
I think it’s widely agreed by most non-MAGA people that Donald Trump suffers from serious mental health issues that make it difficult for him to do certain things or to carry out complicated tasks. This is partly why the January 6th insurrection failed. Nevertheless, the focus on his mental health problems and their manifestations can all too easily obscure the fact that he is very serious about being restored to power—and for very sensible reasons.
It is probably not the case that Trump actually believes that the “audits,” perhaps combined with a military coup d’état or an effort by Republican controlled states to simply overturn the previous election, will restore him to power. But it’s is probably true that he understands what Kevin does not, namely, that each shift of the narrative, each nudge of his party towards overthrowing the government and restoring him to power is a positive step in the right direction. This is something that all successful revolutionaries understand and it’s evidently something that the “soft center” is frequently incapable of understanding until it is too late.
It's become increasingly clear that Trump is intent on finding another way to stage a coup. Just like the last one, he's confused about the exact means that will be employed; he leaves that to others to work out. He has faith that if the will is strong enough, ways will be found. As indeed they have been in countless other changes of government in history.
It's hard to know whether to laugh or cry at earnest arguments that there's no provision in the constitution for reinstatement. Of course there isn't. Trump doesn't care about the constitution. He cares about generating such a disruptive national campaign to "right the injustice of the stolen election" that the Deep State will find a way to restore him to his rightful position. I don't believe he'll get his wish, but I do believe his supporters could create so much civil strife it's impossible to know where it would lead.
I agree with you in this. There’s been a sort of “end of Weimar” vibe that’s gotten stronger all through Trump’s presidency and is really intense now. But there’s no desire among the chattering class to oppose attempts that probably will fail or to impose consequences for failed attempts so, from a Republican perspective, there’s no harm in trying until they eventually succeed.
Good analysis. About the unpredictability of chaotic situations — Yeltsin’s actions to put down a poorly planned coup against Gorbachev eventually led to Yeltsin replacing Gorbachev.
Talk about vacillation. I seem to recall Kevin last fall saying that there’s nothing to worry about because the majority gets what it wants most of the time in a democracy.
I think this is very well put.
There's been blowback on the criticism of Habberman for "breaking" this story, along the lines that it's important news to know how "delusional" the former president is about being reinstated via extra-democratic means. It's not her responsibility to filter the beliefs of a very relevant political entity! It's news that he is crazy!
But the original criticism of her news laundering on this is just what you state: he very likely doesn't literally believe anything, and is using this conduit to send an insurrectionist signal that forwards his goals.
Yes, I think that’s right. The Republicans are obviously following Lenin’s devise « probe with bayonets. If you encounter mush, proceed. If you encounter steel, withdraw ». The question is simply what are the Democrats going to do about it? So far the response has been smug complacency which the Republicans have taken as a signal to proceed.
I guess his lawyers think NYC indictments will be coming around that time.
I'm not sure. From my experience, prosecutors faced with "heater" or controversial cases that they don't really want to prosecute sometimes use grand juries as a way of weaseling out of having to do so by giving broad hints to the members of the grand jury that they really shouldn't indict. This gives the prosecutor political cover for not pursuing the case.
That seems particularly likely in Donald Trump's case. He has a lot of money to hire lawyers and judges. And, more importantly, he has legions of heavily armed, very violent supporters and that makes prosecuting him basically like prosecuting organized crime in Mexico or Colombia instead of in the traditional US setting which Dutch Schultz was killed so that he wouldn't murder prosecutor Thomas Dewey. There's an extremely high likelihood that anyone prosecuting Donald Trump would be signing his own death warrant.
Plus, it looks like at least some of the key witnesses have been immunized by the SDNY so that they won't be available. It's possible that the SDNY may act to relieve the pressure now being applied to some potential cooperators by extending that immunity to family members.
Does he have a lot of money?
He can't even make his plane travelworthy
this is nuts. there is the ny grand jury and the fulton county grand jury. cy vance went to the supremes twice to get trump's and the trump organization's tax records. why do that very publicly if he wanted to let this die a quiet death in the hands of the grand jury? why hire mark pomerantz as part of the team investigating trump — another very public move — if vance wanted to dodge this? throw in the state ag joining the case for good measure.
again, in fulton county, the prosecutor in one of her first acts after assuming office very publicly announced that a grand jury would be convened to investigate trump and election interference. in both instances, these are cases that the respective prosecutors sought out rather than ones that inconveniently fell in their laps.
btw i don't think whatever sdny has done in extending immunity to potential cooperators would in any way affect state prosecutors in state court charging state crimes.
Yes, and having expending all that effort and all those resources, the question for Vance is whether he wants to pull the trigger. Considering the possible consequences for him personally and for others in his office, it's entirely possible that he would seriously prefer not to actually have to prosecute Trump. This is a not uncommon situation for prosecutors in high-profile cases and passing the buck to the grand jury is a not uncommon way to avoid having to take a risk of going to court with a case you don't want to prosecute.
As for the NY attorney general, her office famously announces investigations but rarely delivers. You'll remember that she settled the last case against the Trump Family for a paltry handful of cash even though she could have pursued vastly harsher civil penalties and even very winnable criminal cases against Trump, various family members, and his underboss. So the results have simply never matched the press releases.
As for Fulton County, this is now June of 2021. The investigation requires limited testimony from a handful of witnesses (none of whom seem to have been called before the grand jury), a handful of targets (none of whom seem to have been invited to testify) and obtaining a handful of documents and electronic records (again, no know SDT or search warrants). So, again, it's just a press release, which is not a prosecution or even a commitment to seriously investigate.
As to the immunity question, Allen Weisselberg's immunity very likely extends to state crimes involving the same fact pattern which will make it difficult to go after him directly—which I think explains why the pressure is centering on his family. I don't think it was sloppiness that made the SDNY immunize Weisselberg even as it was becoming absolutely clear that his testimony agains Cohen was totally unnecessary. Given that background, it wouldn't surprise me if there turned out to be some peripheral case for which his family members could receive immunity.
Basically, I'll believe that these people are going to prosecute Trump when they actually prosecute him.
Indeed. It might not be for everybody, but the idea of being the *first ever* prosecutor to convict a former U.S. president is definitely going to be appealing to a certain number of prosecutors.
Maybe not all--or even most--attorneys get into the prosecutor game because they relish the idea of taking on big fights with big bads, but some of them do.
It might well be appealing to some prosecutor, somewhere. But it's evidently not that appealing to the ones that are in a position to actually do so (with Vance being the conceivable exception, particularly since he's taken steps beyond the grand jury to pave the way for a prosecution). What we have had is mostly press releases and posturing.
The two offices that are in a position to investigate the most serious allegations against Trump (Vance and SDNY refusing to investigate money laundering) have consistently declined to do so in spite of really huge amounts of evidence regarding both the actual money laundering and also his significant connections with organized crime. And, in terms of organized crime and RICO prosecutions, this would seem to be very low hanging fruit since the cases can probably be made using only documents and no witnesses.
The Fulton County case was basically already made. It required being able to authenticate tapes and documents but that's about it. Maybe dragging some witnesses before the grand jury and giving targets the opportunity to testify but the election fraud and tampering cases were pretty simple under Georgia law (under federal law, too) but, as I said, it's June of 2021 so if something was going to happen it should have already happened.
Not exactly delusional. He's a salesman trying to sell his supporters on his aspirational hopes. While his aspirations are delusional, we live in a bifurcated media and information environment that have made the delusion a world in and of itself a reality to those stuck inside of it.
The dangers, of course, is that there is spillover of that separated world into the real world, with real consequences -- eg Jan 6 -- that can easily and rapidly devolve into a larger conflagration of political violence across the nation.
Glad to see that Rachel Maddow made the same points, tonight. I think a lot of you are delusional if you think, "this could not happen here". Democracy depends on a lot of people doing the hard work of maintaining and defending it; it's not automatic.
I think it's more significant that he shut down his blog because no one was reading it (and also, I imagine, because he refused to pay his lawyers to spend their time vetting it, as I'm sure they demanded to do, given all the investigations he's facing). In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this "reinstatement" stuff is just the usual Trumpian distraction effort from his obvious decline to total irrelevance. I would imagine he'll need more distraction when the infrastructure bill passes, as his whole appeal was that he was a real estate guy who would Build the Wall and help out blue collar guys. Trump has problems.
Exactly. 'Look to actions, not words' applies to this Jasper. In spades.
I assumed he was moving the goalposts, yet another time, to keep the marks on the hook until the 2022 election cycle gets into full swing and he's back on the campaign trail handing out endorsements and shovelling up the dough.
Trump will be arrested in the next 6-12 months. He knows it. The real question is whether he flips and tells of his foreign dealings since 1995 for immunity or not. If he flips, the whole con dies. Much will be learned how Putin and the Soviet, errr I mean Russian military picked the winning Oligarchs after the 93-99 war on Soviet remains in Russia. How they joined with organized syndicates to pump up illegal trafficking of bodies for labor, sex, drugs, other contraband into "Western shores". Its financial backing of the Republican party(which Trump cares nothing about) and its con "white nationalist" and CRT schemes. Inner working of the Saudi government will be exposed as well, especially with molesting and raping of underage girls. The Lukud faction, heavily exposed and in many respects much of the money that travels to Russia for "cleaning" starts there.
Its all part of why Trump kept refusing to admit he "lost" and has continued the games well past the Thanksgiving due date his children expected him to stop playing the game, instead angling for 2024. Now he has a mess on his hands, of his own creation. Not only did it hurt him internally in federal law enforcement when he had supporters, it makes a arrest a matter of fact.
" If he flips, the whole con dies."
Actually, if Putin thinks that Trump is going to flip on him, it's going to look like the end of "Casino" .
"Why take a chance?"
https://youtu.be/m4NUFTwAlQc
This is not "clinically delusional."
General Flynn will lead an army division in an attack on DC and have Air Force support from right wing Christian officers. It could happen here. Bring it on.
exactly what division does gen. flynn (retired) lead?
Space Force.
Not the public Space Force, the secret Space Force.
Oath keepers, 3 percentage… they are everywhere. The whole US military has been infected.
I am in general agreement with Mitch Guthman on this...but I also find all of it terribly depressing. I am a political junkie, but who wants to read the news any more?
The state of my psyche seems wholly dependent on the ending of democracy in America as I know it.
Changing times...we can only hope that the center holds.
Best Wishes, Traveller
Oh, it's not the end of democracy. Just the Republican party. And -- true to form -- they're determined to draw their final spasms out as long as possible, no matter the cost to others. Or for their own dignity, for that matter.
Trump is not delusional, never has been. But because he declared the election to be fraudulent, he's stuck with that story line. Doesn't matter if it's a lie. What will be interesting is what he has to say at his upcoming rallies. Bringing up 2020 election fraud will only inspire the media to remind people that Bill Barr, Chris Wray and Christopher Krebs, all his guys, found no widespread voter fraud, that Republican election officials in Georgia found no evidence of fraud, that a Republican governor in Arizona certified their election, and that all his court cases failed. If he mentions fraudulent voting machines, Dominion will sue his ass for 2 billion dollars. His crowds will still cheer him, but he'll really sound like the sour-grapes loser that he is.
Kinda reminds me of the end-of-the-world (film at 11) death cults.
" If he flips, the whole con dies."
Actually, if Putin thinks that Trump is going to flip on him, it's going to look like the end of "Casino" .
"Why take a chance?"
https://youtu.be/m4NUFTwAlQc