There is one side in American politics publicly asserting that the election results were fraudulent. The winner.
Is Trump crazy? Crazy like a fox.
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| 56 seconds of smiles and bowed heads |
Donald Trump has made "official truth" and Trump-truth equal in status.
Donald Trump, yesterday and in the Oval Office, told Congressional leaders that the recent election that put him in office had deeply fraudulent vote counts and that in fact he won the popular vote. He said some 3 to 5 million votes were cast for Hillary Clinton fraudulently.
No election official in any state or jurisdiction agrees with this assertion, but Trump made it multiple times, firmly and with intention.
Meanwhile, Democrats have accepted reluctantly the results of the election. They assert, with the backing of CIA and FBI information, that the Russians intentionally hacked and selectively leaked information intended to hurt Hillary Clinton and help Trump. It is very unclear whether it actually changed the election results, but in any case Democrats with national standing are accepting that the votes of those voters, deluded by Trump's charm or bad stories on Facebook or true emails leaked from the DNC or for whatever reason, voted for Trump. So, Trump won the electoral vote and is president.
The effort to audit the results in Michigan and Wisconsin do not challenge the integrity and legitimacy of the win. An audit does not de-legitimize the fact, it re-checks and verifies them. The audit showed the un-happy result for Democrats: it was very, very close but Trump won. And audit isn't being a sore loser or denying reality. It is being a careful loser and checking reality.
Democratic efforts to note that Trump lost the popular vote is not an effort to delegitimize his election, only his mandate. Democrats admit he is president. They don't like it but they accept it. What they don't accept is that he is president who represents the landslide will of the people. He won with a minority of the votes. That, too, is not being a sore loser. It is the simple truth and intended to weaken Trump's mandate, not take away his office.
The odd thing is that Trump is saying the election is fraudulent. The simple and straightforward reason for this is that it bothers Trump to lose at anything--a weakness of his--and he recognizes that his informal influence and credibility would be stronger if he had won both the popular vote and electoral vote. Then he could say he speaks for a majority.
So he pretends he does, and delegitimizes his own election, saying that he "really" won, when you take away the fraudulent votes supposedly won by Hillary. Now he has a "mandate from the people".
But there is one other reason, deeper and more important. Trump is de-legitimizing alternative sources of power and credibility. Trump's ability to define what is believable requires that alternative sources of information and reality be delegitimized. Some sources of alternative reality are easy to delegitimize. Congress has some 13% approval rate. The "political establishment" in Washington has bi-partisan opposition, evidenced by the Sanders and Trump vote. The media lies, he says. Experts and economists and academics of all kinds thought globalism was sound policy and Trump said they were wrong; the Brexit vote and the Trump election show that a great many people agree.
There was one other source of credibility: election officials in the fifty states, with their own independent count. They are wrong, Trump says. My count is right and I "really" won. Now election results are not matter-of-fact. They are matters of opinion. The Trump media machine backs him up.
Trump is not crazy. He is crafty and his strategy is successful. He has made the election result a question of partisan opinion. People who are inclined to believe Trump are free to do so. Trump is held up to ridicule by the mainstream media for asserting something demonstrably inaccurate, but in fact Trump is winning the big war by doing so. The more the media is forced to argue and persuade people to see the election results as credible the more they demonstrate that the election results are a matter of controversy, therefore a matter of opinion, therefore not a accepted reality. Making Trump-truth equivalent to "official-truth" is a giant elevation in status for Trump.
The effort to audit the results in Michigan and Wisconsin do not challenge the integrity and legitimacy of the win. An audit does not de-legitimize the fact, it re-checks and verifies them. The audit showed the un-happy result for Democrats: it was very, very close but Trump won. And audit isn't being a sore loser or denying reality. It is being a careful loser and checking reality.
Democratic efforts to note that Trump lost the popular vote is not an effort to delegitimize his election, only his mandate. Democrats admit he is president. They don't like it but they accept it. What they don't accept is that he is president who represents the landslide will of the people. He won with a minority of the votes. That, too, is not being a sore loser. It is the simple truth and intended to weaken Trump's mandate, not take away his office.
The odd thing is that Trump is saying the election is fraudulent. The simple and straightforward reason for this is that it bothers Trump to lose at anything--a weakness of his--and he recognizes that his informal influence and credibility would be stronger if he had won both the popular vote and electoral vote. Then he could say he speaks for a majority.
So he pretends he does, and delegitimizes his own election, saying that he "really" won, when you take away the fraudulent votes supposedly won by Hillary. Now he has a "mandate from the people".
But there is one other reason, deeper and more important. Trump is de-legitimizing alternative sources of power and credibility. Trump's ability to define what is believable requires that alternative sources of information and reality be delegitimized. Some sources of alternative reality are easy to delegitimize. Congress has some 13% approval rate. The "political establishment" in Washington has bi-partisan opposition, evidenced by the Sanders and Trump vote. The media lies, he says. Experts and economists and academics of all kinds thought globalism was sound policy and Trump said they were wrong; the Brexit vote and the Trump election show that a great many people agree.
There was one other source of credibility: election officials in the fifty states, with their own independent count. They are wrong, Trump says. My count is right and I "really" won. Now election results are not matter-of-fact. They are matters of opinion. The Trump media machine backs him up.
Trump is not crazy. He is crafty and his strategy is successful. He has made the election result a question of partisan opinion. People who are inclined to believe Trump are free to do so. Trump is held up to ridicule by the mainstream media for asserting something demonstrably inaccurate, but in fact Trump is winning the big war by doing so. The more the media is forced to argue and persuade people to see the election results as credible the more they demonstrate that the election results are a matter of controversy, therefore a matter of opinion, therefore not a accepted reality. Making Trump-truth equivalent to "official-truth" is a giant elevation in status for Trump.
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