Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), whose lengthy political career will wrap up in a few weeks, yesterday reflected on what he’d like to see Donald Trump do next. “I hope that he puts the country first,” the retiring senator said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
The problem, of course, is that the outgoing president has never put the country’s interests above his own, and he’s not about to start now.
In reality, when Joe Biden was declared the president-elect, it was over. When Trump’s legal team, lost an embarrassing number of court cases, it was really over. When the recounts didn’t change the results, it was really over. When every state certified their respective election results, it was extremely over. When the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the anti-democracy case that Trump had described as “the big one,” it was you’ve-got-to-kidding-me over.
And today, members of the electoral college will make Biden’s victory official, at which point it will become can-we-please-stop-talking-about-this over.
And yet, Trump doesn’t quite see it that way.
President Trump told Fox [and] Friends that his attempts to overturn the vote will continue. Said Trump: “No, it’s not over. We keep going. And we’re going to continue to go forward. We have numerous local cases.”
In the same interview, the outgoing president insisted “we caught them” engaging in election fraud — it wasn’t clear who “we” and “them” referred to — before listing a number of states he lost, which the Republican claimed to have won “big.”
Trump added, “This wasn’t like a close election,” which was largely true, but not in the way he meant.
On Twitter, the outgoing president published some related missives, one of which said, “WE HAVE JUST BEGUN TO FIGHT!!!” while another added, “I WON THE ELECTION IN A LANDSLIDE!”
As a practical matter, Trump’s incredulity toward reality is inconsequential. He doesn’t have to accept defeat for his defeat to be real.
But his weekend tantrums served as a reminder that Americans should expect more of this on Jan. 20 and beyond. Trump will almost certainly continue to pretend he won the election he lost, especially while pleading with his followers to keep sending him money.
