If you'd held out some kind of hope against hope that the VSG was going to do some growing up between Saturday night and last night, that maybe reaction to the phone call to Raffensperger was going to have some kind of upside-the-head effect, and that maybe if he wanted to salvage some kind of positive legacy while he still has an opportunity, it was dashed in Dalton:
The first words out of his mouth at the rally in Dalton were: "There's no way we lost Georgia. That was a rigged election."
Trump went on to bash Kemp and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, claim they were not real Republicans and vow to campaign against both men when they stand for reelection in 2022.
The president also falsely claimed that he had won reelection "in a landslide" and suggested that he expects Vice President Mike Pence to make it so when he fulfills his constitutional duty to preside over Wednesday's joint session of Congress, even though the vice president does not actually have the power to overturn the results.
"I hope Mike Pence comes through for us, I have to tell you," Trump told the applauding Georgia crowd. "Of course, if he doesn't come through, I won't like him quite as much."
GOP strategists say Trump's infatuation with personal grievances and false claims of a "rigged" and "stolen" election in November could depress their party's turnout Tuesday, dooming Republicans David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler.
Georgia's voting systems manager, Gabriel Sterling, refuted Trump's voter fraud claims point by point at a news conference Monday in Atlanta. "This is all easily, provably false, yet the president persists," Sterling said. "We have claim after claim after claim, with zero proof. Zero."
Trump has been uninterested in governing or managing the pandemic - or even burnishing his legacy - and is almost entirely focused on the election, spending considerable time talking about it with White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Johnny McEntee, the presidential personnel director, officials said.
To those who have attended these rallies, in full MAGA regalia, who have participated in Trump Train parades through their communities, who have defended this pathetic figure vociferously in social media comment threads, focusing on the few laudable policy moves - judicial appointments, deregulation, pulling out of the Paris climate accord and the JCPOA, moving the embassy to Jerusalem - which are moves we could have had with an actual conservative grownup* - while dismissing his glaring unfitness, you still may not be able to hear this, but it bears repeating: Donald Trump does not love America. He has no understanding of the foundations of this country, such as the Constitution and free-market economics. He doesn't care about you as a voter or a citizen. All that crap about bringing jobs and robust economic activity back to your communities was utter hooey. He was blowing smoke. You've been useful to him only because of your slavish loyalty.
He's on the way out now. Give up that loyalty. He hasn't earned it. Take a square look at how you've been used and betrayed. Get reacquainted with the conservative impulses that motivated you to give him a look in the first place. And then resolve to never squander your devotion on such a solipsistic man-child again.
*I still speak of "actual conservatives" among the 2016 Republican presidential candidates, but perhaps I, too, am harboring an unfounded hope. Most have since showed themselves to be all too willing to jettison their supposed principles out of fear that the VSG had so thoroughly made the GOP his own that they had to cast their lot with him. I remain convinced - why I'm not sure - that conservatives who cannot be subsumed by a movement like Trumpism are out there. Adam Kinzinger and Ben Sasse continue to impress me, as does Larry Hogan. I am greatly relieved to see that Tom Cotton in not going to join this plan to disrupt electoral-vote-counting day.
No comments:
Post a Comment