On Tuesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave a jarring response to a question about whether State Department employees would be cooperating with Joe Biden’s transition team. It’s an important question because communications between the transition team and foreign leaders is usually brokered through embassies and managed in close cooperation with ambassadors and other staff on the ground who are, after all, the first affected by any change in the international relationship.
Instead of explaining any of that, Pompeo instead said, "There will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration." It was an outrageous statement, and for the next six hours national media did what national media does when handed a fresh outrage from the Trump White House—pretend it was all just an inconsequential joke. Then Pompeo went on Fox News to make it clear that he hadn’t delivered some off-the-cuff remark, or been misunderstood, or intended his statement to be accompanied by a rim shot. It’s certainly disturbing. It’s damaging to the nation. It represents a fundamental disdain for the most basic institutions of the country. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that a coup is at hand.
Yes, Donald Trump is a fascist bastard who would enjoy nothing more than to keep doing endless mini-Nuremberg rallies at which people fawn over him and he gets to tell imaginary stories in which people always call him “sir.” If the entire election hung on a single state, as it did in 2000, there might be a serious chance that the Trump appointee-laden Supreme Court would find some way to twist things around, redefine winning, and hand a set of electoral votes to Dear Leader. Or maybe Georgia will just decide to stop counting and send Ivanka and Jared to represent their electoral votes. It will not matter.
Donald Trump lost the election. Failing to acknowledge that fact has a lot more to do with the fact that Trump is a con man, who does con man things, for the traditional con man reason: parting the suckers from their money.
The odds that Trump, or any of his top Trumplings, will ever acknowledge Biden’s victory is low. That’s because by failing to ever make that admission of reality, Trump leaves office as the deposed king, kicked off his thrown by an evil usurper. He can continue to barnstorm around the nation for the next four years, emptying pockets hither and yon, as he gathers up All The Dollars that are assuredly necessary to contest with black knight Biden. “I never really lost, they cheated me,” is going to be a theme song. Trump will find someway to fit it onto a hat.
But just over one month from now, the Electoral College is going to meet. And the Electoral College is going to cast more than 300 votes for Joe Biden. It will not matter if there are a few faithless electors, or if an entire state hijacks its delegation. Biden is still going to win that vote. There is not one single state where a recount is actually going to affect the outcome between now and then. To gain an electoral college win, Trump would have to engage in genuine skullduggery in at least three states. Which is so unlikely, there are about 20 other things that should be much higher on your worry list. Either the United States completely falls apart and no longer honors the rule of law, or Biden wins. It’s as simple as that.
But that doesn’t mean Trump is going away.
Somewhere back around Election Day 2016, Republicans made a fundamental bargain. Until that point, many of them had not just resisted accepting Trump as the party’s nominee, they had been profoundly, deeply, and repeatedly scornful of Trump. One election victory was all it took to get them all wearing red caps, and to make Lindsey Graham a political proctologist. Guys like Ted Cruz, fresh off of having Trump insult his wife’s looks and his father’s patriotism, rolled over for Trump faster than a love-starved puppy. And every one of those Republicans had to be thinking, “We wait this guy out for just a few years, and then we inherit his base.”
That’s not happening. Trump may surrender his corner-free room at the White House, but he is never, ever giving back the Republican Party. It’s his now. He’s going to keep it.
Donald Trump has no interest in going off to clear brush, ride horses, or paint pictures in his bathroom. It is his ultimate fantasy to stand in front of adoring crowds and threaten people. Adoration and threats. It’s the peanut butter and chocolate of his existence, and he intends to just keep mixing them forever. From now on until infinity, the only definition of Republican that matters is “someone who serves Trump or his designated heir.”
Right now, Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly “The Loud” Guilfoyle are engaged in a process to take over the RNC. They’re not doing that for the current fight. They’re doing it for the future. The long, indefinite future, of Trump ‘24, Ivanka ‘28, Name Your Trump ‘32. The GOP is becoming not a partner of the Trump Organization, but a wholly owned subsidiary.
Republicans from Mitch McConnell on down expected that the good thing to come out of 2020 would be getting rid of Trump. They’d finally be able to cash in on all that bootlicking equity they’ve put into the last four years. That’s not going to happen. And the best thing about Republican willingness to harm the nation by refusing to rein Trump in is that they’re all going to be trembling, powerless, junior associates, forever.