Post postmortem

 

                             Post Mortem

 

        Even when he’s caving in, he’s lying. Below are three snippets from a WaPo article. They are not Op-Ed, but rather quotes from Trump’s “canned,” flat affect, video speech of Tuesday night. My comments are below each item  

“President Trump promised a smooth transition in a video message posted on Twitter Thursday night, saying that his supporters had “pursued post-election challenges in good faith, but “now tempers must be cooled, and calm restored.”

        Any actions which might be called “good faith” were nullified by the decidedly mob violence aspect of the assault on the Capitol by what seemed, in large part, more like a drunken, meth fueled, weekend at Sturgis than any sort of orderly protest. It resembled the worst costumed amateur production of Les Mis ever staged. The “good faith” remark undoubtedly refers to Trump’s continued delusion (strike that, he doesn’t believe it either)…continued blatantly false claim that the most rigorously examined election in our History was somehow hijacked so cleverly that 50 separate federal judges, some appointed by Trump, himself, were all duped into denying every single phony suit brought by his sycophants.

“Trump claimed he immediately deployed the National Guard to help secure the building and expel the intruders. Other officials have disputed that account. Trump also claimed his attempts to overturn the election results were simply his efforts to “ensure the integrity of the vote.”

        As stated above, the integrity of the vote has been affirmed ad nauseum. Vague claims have failed to reveal any irregularities on a scale such as Trump has claimed. In fact, in one district in Michigan where Giuliani had vaguely claimed “illegal voting” it turns out he was right, there had been three verified instances of illegal voting but, (wait for it) all three cases involved registered Republicans. Every single such allegation has failed to stand the smell test, the data test and the truth test. And no, he didn’t call out the guard. The DC mayor asked, and the Army Secretary responded. "Yesterday was a horrible and shameful day here in the capital, and the nation at large," Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said on the call. "The Mayor of the District of Columbia asked the Army for help, and our National Guard responded. No other requests were made."

 “Trump released a statement pledging “an orderly transition,” even as he continued to falsely claim the election was riddled with fraud. The statement was tweeted by White House social media director Dan Scavino as Trump remained locked out of his account. “Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out, nevertheless there will be an orderly transition on January 20th,” Trump said.”

        Of course, he disagrees. Not because he knows anything we all don’t, but because, as a man who has played with a stacked deck all his business life and even then, failed six times, he simply cannot allow himself to admit that he is the problem. His toxic narcissism simply won’t allow it. Sadly, three of his four adult children are cast from that same mold. There are no, repeat no “Facts which bear me (him) out.” In the classic “big lie” tactic he apparently has convinced himself that the big lie, told often enough with sufficient vitriol in the delivery, will become fact in the minds of those preconditioned to believe it. It’s difficult to evaluate which is more pitiful – the failed narcissist, driven by failure to get his own way and going to extreme lengths to avoid confronting it, or the numbers of equally deluded unhappy conspiracy theorists ever ready to blame others for their own personal failures. Either is pathetic. Both are dangerous.