They say denial and anger are the first two stages of grief. Don’t expect Donald Trump ever to move much beyond those. Trump is refusing to concede to Joe Biden, but he’s been doing the denial and anger thing since the vote counts started to turn against him. As far as Trump is concerned, the only way he could lose is the election being “stolen from him.” And that’s his view as he loses the popular vote by millions for a second time.
Team Trump is furious at Fox News for having called Arizona for Biden early Wednesday morning and refusing to reverse the call, despite pressure from Trump. When that call was made, The Washington Post reports, Trump asked aides to “get that result changed.” The Fox News decision desk resisted that pressure, though, and, Jonathan Swan wrote, “The incandescent anger at Fox within Trumpworld is hard to overstate.”
The groundwork had been set for Trump’s denial as his leads in Election Day voting gave way to large numbers of mail votes heavily favoring Biden in key states—aides had tried to get him to understand how this was going to go, but still he was “genuinely taken aback” when it happened. Because the man couldn’t internalize the facts ahead of time.
Trump is sitting around watching television coverage of the election, fuming, and rage-tweeting basically. His advisers are reportedly trying to keep him from going out on television and saying more stuff so false and dangerous that it forces Republicans to distance themselves from him, however gingerly. But Thursday night showed how successful they are at that. (They’re not.)
Expect the Trump Rage Show to go on. But it’s the flailing rage of a loser trying to deny that he’s a loser. And that’s a sweet thing to watch because it’s so well deserved.