Why DID Trump spend the last months of the campaign insisting it was rigged?
by digby
Remember when he said this on the day after the final debate when he refused to promise to accept the results of the election?
“I would like to promise and pledge to all of my voters and supporters and to all of the people of the United States that I will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election — if I win.”
I’ve always thought it was weird for Trump to suggest that the vote was rigged before the votes were even cast. It’s come back to bite him since he’s the one now fighting the charge that his victory was tainted.
Everyone says that he just assumed he would lose. If that’s the case, this “rigging” talk would all make more sense if he knew that the Russians were doing everything they could to taint Clinton’s victory. Had he lost under those circumstances he would have been in a perfect position to capitalize on this “rigged” narrative and make tons of cash in the process since he’d become the most famous Clinton hater on the planet. Imagine how he would have monetized MAGA as a private citizen.
I guess he didn’t need to technically conspire to see how to take advantage of this situation. But I can’t help but recall the famous scene in the Robert Redford movie “The Candidate”:
After managing an unsuccessful senatorial campaign in the Midwest, Marvin Lucas flies to California to convince legal aid activist Bill McKay to run for the senate against the “unbeatable” Republican incumbent, Crocker Jarmon. Lucas, who enjoys the money and perks that come with managing a political campaign, drives to San Diego to meet Bill, the handsome, privileged son of former California governor John J. McKay. Estranged from his father, Bill proclaims that he hates politics and is not interested in running for anything, but his wife Nancy enthusiastically suggests that Bill has both the looks and the power to be a successful candidate.
Lucas assures the skeptical Bill that he will have the perfect platform to get out his social and political message without encumbrance and writes his guarantee on the inside cover of a matchbook, “You lose.”
By the time of the election, Bill has turned into a slick candidate, even making a political deal to gain support from an old crony of his father, union boss Starkey. Preparing for bed the night before the election, Bill wistfully looks at the matchbook on which Lucas wrote “You lose.”
On election day, Bill and Nancy vote early in the morning, smiling before the cameras, just as a worried Jarmon and his wife do the same. All day, Bill’s young, eager campaign volunteers work to get the vote out, despite the constant rain, and that night, as election returns show that Bill is starting to take the lead, his San Francisco campaign headquarters becomes the scene of a jubilant party. When television newscasters finally announce that Bill has been elected, he feels isolated and pleads with the elated Lucas for a moment alone.
While Nancy, Klein and others talk about the success of the campaign and living in Washington, Bill has only a few moments alone with Lucas to ask, “Marvin, what do we do now?” before a crowd of joyous supporters swarm into the room.
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