Post by Odysseus on Jul 31, 2020 17:55:02 GMT
With three question marks, two words in all caps and one incendiary tweet, Donald Trump on Thursday morning unleashed one of his most hostile sallies on democracy yet. The corrosive missive, smearing the November election as “INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT” before the first vote has been cast and floating the notion of delaying the date, was probably shocking not so much because of its content as by the reaction it swiftly elicited. People who habitually do not respond to the president’s tweets responded to this one—a point-blank and bipartisan repudiation that included a roster of important Republicans.
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At least on Thursday, though, the response on Capitol Hill and around the political world seemed to suggest that Election Day—which the Constitution empowers Congress to set and therefore can be changed only by Congress—is one pillar of democracy this norm-eviscerating president won’t be able to gut. He’d been “edging” toward the idea of postponing or poisoning this fall’s election, biographer Gwenda Blair told me, “but now he’s going full speed ahead.” Republicans, from Mitch McConnell on down, however, said in essence stop right there.
But the people who’ve known and watched Trump—not for five years but parts of five decades—say one thing is for sure. He will not. As predictable as Tuesday’s tweet might have been given his patterns of behavior in the past, it also could and should be seen, they said, as a preview of what’s to come these next 96 days and for who knows how long after that.
But the people who’ve known and watched Trump—not for five years but parts of five decades—say one thing is for sure. He will not. As predictable as Tuesday’s tweet might have been given his patterns of behavior in the past, it also could and should be seen, they said, as a preview of what’s to come these next 96 days and for who knows how long after that.
“He’s going to keep the rhetoric up,” former Trump casino executive Jack O’Donnell told me. “He’s going to do it for the next three months, and he’s going to talk about this ‘rigged’ election and this ‘fraudulent’ election. Because he can’t lose in his mind. And this is how he’s going to cover in case he does.”
