The Jan. 6 hearings have given us a treasure trove of new revelations, and even those of us who’ve closely followed Donald Trump’s increasingly flailing attempts to pound a big, square loser peg into a round non-jerk-face hole have learned some things.
On Monday, we heard one Trump insider after another testify that they tried to disabuse him of the stream of election lies that displaced the rivulets of nougat that coursed through his brain during the rancid ham salad days of 2020.
Even former Attorney General Bill Barr, whose nose turned every shade of brown in the Pantone catalog during his tenure as Trump’s chief consigliere, said Trump had presumably become “detached from reality.” Which—I mean, come on. He might as well say Trump became detached from his groundbreaking research on quantum entanglement. Trump and reality have never shared the same ZIP code.
Of course, lying about his election loss was always Trump’s plan. He telegraphed his coup attempt months in advance. In fact, two days before the election, Axios’ Jonathan Swan reported that Trump was planning to do exactly what he ended up doing: declare victory on election night if it looked like he was winning—which pretty much anyone with any sense of how elections worked knew would be the case.
But now we have even further evidence that Trump’s camp knew Biden was on a glide path to victory: these glum faces. 👇👇👇
ABC News:
The photos capture the apparently pained expressions on the faces of Trump's inner circle.
According to a source who is shown in at least one of the photos, they were taken as the campaign's analysts, who had been more confident early in the evening, became concerned Trump could lose.
(There are even more photos in the above-linked ABC News story, in case those tweets aren’t quite schadenfreudtastic enough for you.)
So what does one do when one feels one’s electoral prospects inexorably slipping away? One declares premature victory, of course! Duh.
Guess this is why Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien decided Trump’s nonsense speech on election night wasn’t such a great idea.
In videotaped testimony released Monday by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, Stepien said Trump was "increasingly unhappy" on election night as votes were counted and he started to lose.
So not only did Trump not know he’d won the election when he said, “Frankly, we did win this election,” he had every reason to believe he was on his way to the dustbin radioactive waste storage facility of history. J6 committee testimony has amply proved that, as do these photos.
You never have to speculate as to Trump’s “state of mind.” It’s nothing but a bramble bush full of lies, sick vendettas, and ‘80s Penthouse Forum letters. The Big Lie is simply the cherry on top of the bullshit sundae.
Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.