Have we learned nothing about Trump? He is a has no ideology, he is constantly self-justifying, he’s self-deceptive and arrogant, he is lazy, he’s a coward, he’s a bully, he absolutely hates being President except that the Presidency keeps him and his crime family from jail.
Why is Trump talking about refusing leave office after he loses? Because he knows he’s going to lose, and he’s afraid of going to jail. He’s terrified.
This is the predictable strategy of hardball negotiators who understand that winning has nothing to do with merit, or honor, it has entirely to do with “I have something you want, you have something I want, we trade.” Trump’s history on negotiating has this twist “I will kill what you love, unless you give me what I love. And oh, I may kill it anyway.”
Trump knows he’s losing. He knows his base has failed him. They didn’t love him enough. He bet on running against Bernie, but got Joe, instead. Joe doesn’t frighten all the people Trump was sure Bernie would scare.
Trump only had two things left of any value, and like Trump, he’s made a miscalculation on appointing a conservative to Ginsburg’s seat. He has gotten a promise of loyalty from each of his nominees, but they are lying to him. They have lifetime appointments, they are SCOTUS, they don’t need him once they are confirmed. He has no value to them once confirmed, he has no leverage. For maximal destruction to democracy he should hold confirmation until after the election, forcing a theoretical 4/4 split, and allowing GOP Senate weasels a pass before their elections.
This leaves a final card, and that is the threat to invalidate the election and hold power by destroying democracy. He correctly sees that this is the one thing that his opponents hold dearest, a democratic United States that respects elections and transfers power without bloodshed since George Washington.
So he is holding a bloody knife up to the neck of America, and he has state Republicans happily holding bloody knives — it’s a threat. He assumes he can control Republican state electors, which I believe he can, and that this will go to the Supreme Court. He wrongly assumes he will win there. He thinks Supreme Court Justices he appoints are his employees. They are not. But it’s the bloody knife to the throat of America that he plans to bargain with. For a full and complete pardon for himself and his family for all past and future acts.
Call his f-ing bluff by voting in record numbers.
Here’s my demand: Let Democratic states secede from a fake Trump States of America. Let Trump become President of Mississippi. They need us more than we need them. If they want to enable and threaten to tear apart our democracy, this destruction is entirely on them.