Trumpled (Alternative Leading)

[LP]

While I'm hopeful the crooks will be exposed, I suspect there will be a re-writing of history by the main stream media, primarily as a face saving exercise, and also to preserve their pay cheques. So I expect it to mostly fade away with a whimper.

I'm not sure Trump's creditors will go so quietly into the night, they are already leaking to the media and I suspect the only thing stopping a full on media onslaught is the ever so increasingly remote chance Trump finds a winning gambit in the election farce!

[PaulP]

.............................. I wonder how the 74 million who voted for him will feel then?  And how could anyone possibly ever believe a word he (or Rudy) says ever again?

Those supporters are well past the point of no return. They will go to the grave believing a gross injustice has occurred and Trump was robbed. 

[LP]

Those supporters are well past the point of no return. They will go to the grave believing a gross injustice has occurred and Trump was robbed.

I suspect the truth will only be revealed and accepted as the wheels of a Trump bus roll over them, I can't help but feel sorry for them, it's an emotion that is Shakespearean in nature!

[Lods]

In a strange way what's happening with the  delay in conceding, and the dubious legal challenges being mounted are probably for the best.

It puts some distance between election day and a declared result..that allows some of the feelings of loss Republicans may be feeling to dissipate.
The extremists may yet cause some strife but the more reasonable Trump voters will move on.
As each day passes more and more folks accept the fact that it is indeed 'over'
As each new legal challenge is mounted and quickly rejected it confirms that there is really very little of substance in these challenges, and that is important.
The process is seen to be played out with every opportunity for the Trump folk to present their case...and fail to provide evidence of widespread wrong doing.

Trump's given up...he's more concerned with his golf game at the moment.
And the Republican support from senior figures will drop off fairly quickly in the coming weeks.
The thinking there will be 'lets see him off ASAP' so we can get our party back.
Apart from family, Trump really has very little around him that will 'stick fat'...self interest will come in a wave and the minions will be off faster than rats on a sinking ship, to distance themselves from him.
The only concern will be how to do that without alienating his strong base...they'll need them next time around.

There's a lot of untapped vote out there and another major election is only a few years away.
Lots of work to be done on both sides.
You see, even though they've turned out in unprecedented numbers....the real winner of the election is still  'couldn't care less, didn't vote'.

Total  number of Americans of voting age -253,768,092 (as at 2019)

Biden 79,787,724
Trump 73,767,408
Other 2,854,973
Don't really care/didn't vote 97,357,987

[Mav]

The Republican Party really has the tiger by the tail. It seems pretty obvious now that Mitch McConnell had hoped to keep Trump engaged in the Georgia runoff elections by humouring Trump’s claims that he won the election. No doubt he anticipated that Trump’s recounts & legal challenges would fail and Trump would then retaliate by calling on his voters to make sure Biden faces a hostile Senate. McConnell probably salivated at the prospect of Trump holding multiple rallies every day in Georgia right up to 5 January. Trump could have energised his supporters by telling them he’d run again in 2024 and the Georgia runoffs would be the 1st step in this run.

This may still happen, but I’m sure McConnell is worried. His Senators are starting to speak up against Trump’s attempts to strong arm State Republican lawmakers and officials into ignoring the vote in their States. Senator Pat Toomey from Pennsylvania defended the judge who threw out Rudy’s case, called on Trump to concede and congratulated Biden on his election to the Presidency. Trump has gone to war against the Georgia Secretary of State Raffensperger, a Trump supporter, for dismissing his complaints about election fraud and that has led to death threats directed at his family and him. If his attempts to enlist State lawmakers in Michigan come to nothing, he’ll probably blame them for his loss too.

There’s every chance Trump will end up blaming Republicans in Georgia and elsewhere for deserting him. In that case, McConnell will probably have to forget about Trump helping Loeffler and Purdue. He’d just have to hope Trump doesn’t call on his supporters to vote against them. Continual tirades on Twitter would be a real problem for the GOP.

Already, Trump’s claims of electoral fraud are creating problems down in Georgia. There’s a new MAGA-friendly social media network Parler and there are reports of angry conservatives saying that there’s no point voting as the Dominion electoral software will change the votes. Some are calling for voters to boycott the runoff elections. This is on top of Trump’s attacks on mail-in voting which Raffensperger blamed for depressing the GOP vote in Georgia.

Remember that some Trump voters aren’t committed Republicans. With Trump off the ballot, they may not bother to vote, And the more traditional Republican voters may not be impressed by Trump’s banana republic manoeuvres.

[LP]

The problem is Trump does this by pandering to the lowest common denominators as a side effect.

I appreciate the underlying mechanism might be the result of Republican Governors taking a utilitarian approach to Trump's public claims, but the risk are the nutters in the community!

[Mav]

That’s not a risk as far as Trump is concerned: it’s a feature. He knows if he targets someone on Twitter, his followers will take up the attack using all methods fair or foul. And he loves it. I’d imagine that he would experience almost orgiastic pleasure on hearing that his latest punching bag is receiving death threats.

The thing that makes him dangerous for his fellow Republicans is that he expects them to act like they’re on his Secret Service detail. They have to be prepared to take a bullet for him, at least metaphorically-speaking. Instead of laying down their lives, they have to surrender their principles, their political futures and perhaps their liberty. For instance, the Georgia Governor, Brian Kemp, has been one of his most sycophantic supporters, right up there with Florida Governor, Ron De Santis. But Kemp’s certification of the Georgia vote has earned him vilification. Trumpsters are claiming without any basis that he was bribed by Dominion to use its software, thus opening up the big steal. Trump expects his supporters to break the law for him or else he’ll extract payback.

PS: Sidney Powell made the above claim about Kemp as part of Trump’s campaign legal team, threatening a Biblical lawsuit. But it appears the GOP has finally had enough. She has been dumped without explanation. Wonder what Trump thinks about that.

[Mav]

So, does the sacking of Sidney Powell signal that the GOP has given Trump an ultimatum: stop attacking Republicans, particularly in Georgia, and dial down the crazy or Republicans will be free to recognise Biden’s win and call out Trump’s election manipulations?

I doubt if she was sacked simply for airing baseless conspiracy theories. They’re Trump’s MO and they play well to his base. I can’t believe a polite request from the GOP would have worked. Trump only cares about himself and not the Senate.

[LP]

It looks like many of the alleged contested locations are sick of wasting money on futile attempts anyway!

The Powell event is an interesting one, not sure what to make of that, .......... mixed messages? :o

Trump only cares about himself and not the Senate.

This is where the chaos comes from, it's clear the Trump argy bargy is damaging the GOP in many sectors. It would be interesting to see a poll now, what the outcome might be after recent events!

[Mav]

The Trump campaign is trying to sell the idea that Sidney Powell was never part of its legal team. 

Pity Trump announced a week ago on Twitter that she was on the team and she spoke alongside Rudy Guiliani and Jenna Ellis at the bizarre press conference at which Rudy had his celebrated hair dye fail.

Imagine if he needs one day to throw Ivanka under the bus: “That blonde girl, I’ve never even met her. Maybe she got me a coffee a few times. What did you say her name was?”