The Bulwark offers a helpful taxonomy of the new Trump Trutherism. These people are so … exhausting:
This belief that the election was stolen has become the new Trutherism, and it will be the basis of Trumpism (and perhaps a litmus test for the right) from this day onward.
So a quick Taxonomy of the phenomenon is in order. There is some overlap and the lines, as usual in the age of Trump, are often blurred.
I. Insanity.This includes the pure, undiluted bat shit crazy theories about hidden servers, and communist-Hugo Chavez-from-the-grave, vote-switching machines, and deep state plots. In other words Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani stuff.
(Make sure you read Mike Dunford’s piece in this morning’s Bulwark: on the latest ‘Kraken” lawsuit filing. It’s even dumber and crazier than you suspected. “This complaint reads like it was drafted at the afterparty for a three-day QAnon convention.”)
II. Stupidity/Gullibility.
Some of the election denialism is pure idiocracy, which we have written about here and here. But some folks are simply ignorant about the way elections are run and votes are counted. (Are you offended? I’d refer you the doctrine that “Facts don’t care about your feelings.”)
So you get stupid stuff like this, which is easily refuted here and here.
And this:
III. Cowardice
Hello, darkness, our old friend. As usual, one of the reasons that Trump thinks he can get away with his firehose of falsehoods is that he knows that most Republicans will cravenly remain in a fetal crouch.
The vast, vast majority of elected Republicans know that Joe Biden was elected. They know that there was no systematic fraud or massive mysterious dumps. They know all this, and could affirm the integrity of our democratic process, but they don’t want to make the Truthers mad.
Missouri Senator Roy Blunt, for example, is not a stupid man. He simply lacks a spine. He fits well in the modern GOP.
IV. Mendacity/Cynicism
If Rudy and Sidney are somewhat lonely in defining the deranged end of the spectrum, the other end is crowded by many of the usual figures of Republican mendacity: Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Rand Paul, Matt Gaetz, Rush Limbaugh, Maria Bartiromo, Mark Levin, Matt Schlapp, and the publications associated with Ben Domenech.
These folks are neither crazy or dumb. But they are willing to play along to con the rubes and set themselves up for what comes next. They may not be Truthers themselves, but they are willing to wink at it, and even traffic in it. Like this, which seems to assume the stupidity of the base:
Relying on gullibility has become a business model for some of the media on the right . Via the NYT: “The King of Trump TV Thinks You’re Dumb Enough to Buy It.”
All successful TV programmers have some mercenary in them, of course, but even by those standards, Mr. Ruddy is extreme. He has turned Newsmax into a pure vehicle for Trumpism, attacking Fox News from the right for including occasional dissenting voices. And when Trumpism turned this month from an electoral strategy into a hallucinatory attempt to overturn the election, Mr. Ruddy saw opportunity: Newsmax, available on cable in most American households and streaming online, became the home of alternate reality.
So, where does Trump himself fall on this scale? Does he believe the insane conspiracy theories of hidden servers and communist plots? Or is he counting on his base to be stupid/gullible enough to buy his whining?
Is he genuinely nuts or is this all just a ploy to avoid being seen as a loser? Or are his attacks on the election a marketing gambit to launch his Next Big Grift as he tries to monetize his grievances and perhaps launch a comeback bid.