Trump’s voters think he’s all about them. Lol:
Two people familiar with the matter say that in recent days, Trump has told advisers and close associates that he wants to keep fighting in court past Jan. 6 if members of Congress, as expected, end up certifying the electoral college results.
“The way he sees it is: Why should I ever let this go?… How would that benefit me?” said one of the sources, who’s spoken to Trump at length about the post-election activities to nullify his Democratic opponent’s decisive victory.
I’m pretty sure he thinks this will benefit him:
Trump diehards from across the country have organized their travel to Washington on “The Donald” forum. One of the hottest topics on the site is how protesters can bring guns to D.C., which would count as a local crime in nearly all circumstances under Washington’s strict gun laws. Others have talked about breaking into federal buildings or committing violence against law enforcement officers who try to stop them from storming Congress.
“I’m thinking it will be literal war on that day,” one popular comment posted last Wednesday read. “Where we’ll storm offices and physically remove and even kill all the D.C. traitors and reclaim the country.”
Both the November and December rallies in Washington saw violence, especially after nightfall. And that seems likely to be the case this coming rally too.Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio claimed in a post on conservative social media network Parler that some Proud Boys would dress in black to disguise themselves as left-wing “antifa” protesters.
“Watch out, January 6 — you ain’t gonna know who the fuck it is standing beside you,” prominent Proud Boy Joe Biggs said in a video posted to Parler.
Rally supporters did, however, suffer a setback on Monday when the Hotel Harrington, a budget hotel in the nation’s capital, revealed that it would be closed during the protest. The hotel and its bar, Harry’s, have become hubs for MAGA activity in the city, even after the bar was fined for violating COVID-19 restrictions after being packed with Trump supporters. But both the hotel and the bar announced plans to close around the rally, a few weeks after four people were stabbed near the bar after a Dec. 12 pro-Trump event.
In response, Trump supporters fumed online and came up with unorthodox plans to find other sleeping arrangements, claiming they would instead camp in parks around the city despite the wintry weather.
“May God have his vengeance on the Hotel Harrington,” Ali Alexander, a lead organizer of Wednesday’s rally, said in a Twitter video Monday.
They seem nice.
Emptywheel had some interesting thoughts on this:
That may exert political pressure on Republican elected officials. It will surely foster [more] violence among Trump’s followers.
That leaves the United States with a twofold task if it will be successful at stepping back from the brink of authoritarianism it faced on November 3: first, in the middle of a pandemic and a time of escalating inequality, to prove that democracy can still provide tangible benefits to Americans. That will require that President Biden not only choose to pursue policies to address the malaise that made Trump possible, but that he’ll succeed in implementing such policies. With limited exceptions, that will first require convincing a sufficient number of Republicans to act to benefit the US rather than just the party, or at the very least, to understand benefit to the GOP to be something other than lockstep loyalty to Trump. It requires doing so at a time when much of the GOP believes (Trump’s underperformance compared to down ballot races notwithstanding) that they need Trump’s support to get reelected in 2022, one stated reason why some Republican Senators may join Josh Hawley’s cynical support for Trump’s challenge on Wednesday.
But the vote on Jan. 6 to certify Biden’s win is viewed within the GOP as a painful litmus test. Republicans either risk blowback or a primary challenge by approving Biden’s win amid Trump’s baseless claims of widespread fraud, or they can align themselves with Trump’s attempt to subvert the election results.
Trump has already shown little regard for those who are criticizing the efforts in the House and Senate to block Biden’s win. The president attacked Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) for the second time this week after Thune said Trump’s efforts to overturn Biden’s win will go down like a “shot dog” in the upper chamber.
The president urged Gov. Kristi Noem (R-S.D.) to run against Thune, though Noem has already said she will not run against Thune. Trump in a tweet called Thune a “RINO” on Friday — a Republican In Name Only.
In short, something will need to break — or at least chip away at — the spell of authoritarian sycophancy that Trump has over the GOP.
We know now that a dozen (at least) will join. Frankly, I’m not sure why all but the mushy Romney and maybe Collins wouldn’t do it. They all voted to acquit him of his grotesque abuse of power to sabotage his opponent, after all.
Marcy continues:
Some of this may come of its own accord. For example, if Democrats manage to win the Georgia run-offs, Trump may try to claim that Republicans lost only because he had no reason to boost turnout. Still, if the GOP does lose the Senate after Trump spent months denigrating elections in Georgia, ultimately Senators will put some blame on Trump.
Trump’s luster may fade of his own doing. After all, a key part of his mystique comes from a belief that he has had any more success as a businessman that any other rich heir would be with the same money. Trump Organization is badly underwater, even absent the legal troubles facing the company in New York State. The pandemic will continue to suppress business travel at least for another four months. The private bankers at Deutsche Bank who’ve kept Trump afloat in recent years resigned some weeks ago. While Trump, personally, is entertaining offers for some media venture, it’s not clear any of then will provide a way to bail out his family company.
And increasingly, Trump will be deplatformed. While a significant swath of political journalists will continue air his grievances (it’s more fun than covering the kind of substantive policy debates that will return to DC), starting in three weeks Twitter no longer has a commitment to label, rather than delete, his tweets that violate Twitter policy. Rupert Murdoch has (at least temporarily) lost patience with Trump. Trump appears to be banking on sustainably being more important to the MAGAt base than Fox News; he believes he can take his followers with him to OANN or a Newsmax channel. And he’ll succeed, at least at first, to a point. But deplatforming of other right wing icons has shown that a significant portion of followers won’t make the effort to move off mainstream platforms (say, from Twitter to Parler). Without the same ability to juice the central conflicts of the day, Trump won’t have the same ability to remain one pole in a deliberately stoked polarization.
We’ll see how that works out. Trump is the frontrunner. And I have a suspicion that he’ll announce his intention to run sooner rather than later which means that he’ll get plenty of media attention whether we like it or not.
Nonetheless, it’s always possible that his cult will finally tire of his antics and he’ll fade in the polls which will indicate to the media and political establishment that his day is done. But I will just remind everyone that the one thing Trump is good at is getting attention. Just wait until he decides to embark on a world tour and meet with every authoritarian dictator on the planet. Whatever would they talk about?