Donald Trump, the Mob Boss Wannabe.
His latest efforts to subvert the results of the election could almost be considered comical.
As I’m sure many of us have already heard, Donald Trump’s escalating efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 election were recently caught on tape. It was reported that Donald Trump was recorded pressuring Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger to find the number of votes necessary in order to overturn the results of the election in their state.
Andy Sullivan and Michael Martina with Reuters write:
Trump’s call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, came as some of Trump’s allies in the U.S. Congress plan to object to the formal certification of Biden’s victory on Wednesday. The former vice president won by a margin of 306–232 in the state-by-state Electoral College, and by more than 7 million votes overall.
On the call, which was released by the Washington Post, Trump repeatedly pressures Raffensperger to declare that Trump has won more votes than Biden.
“All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump says, according to audio of the call. “There’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, that you’ve recalculated.”
Not only that, but the call also contained some thinly veiled threats about the “risk” posed to Raffensperger if he refused to report what he “knew” the Democrats did.
On the phone, he can be heard saying:
“You know what they did and you’re not reporting it. That’s a criminal, that’s a criminal offense. And you can’t let that happen. That’s a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer. And that’s a big risk…You know, I mean, I’m notifying you that you’re letting it happen. So look, all I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state.”
Always nice, isn’t it, when the President of the United States is spending his last days in office — as a pandemic rages and millions struggle to afford food — on the phone sounding like a mob boss wannabe?
Since it became clear that Donald Trump lost, I always assumed that his desperate attempts to overturn the results of the election had a lot to do with a desire to stay in power purely to avoid having to pay the debts he owes. While I’m sure that’s part of it, it seems to grow increasingly clear that his relentless assertions that he won are more than an attempt to take money from his base one more time before he leaves office. This is a man who genuinely thinks he won.
It might seem a bit ridiculous at first to think of the President focusing so much attention on a state whose electoral votes would not be enough to overturn the results of the election anyways. But, when one takes a moment to consider how Trump’s mind works, it makes all the sense in the world if we consider that he probably thinks Governor Kemp, and every Republican working for him owe their careers to Trump himself. After all, Kemp was elected in 2018, and it seems only fitting that Trump would feel any Republican elected during his tenure in office owes him personally for their victory, and must prove their loyalty however he sees fit regardless of the legality.
The thing is, Trump’s mind never left the office at Trump Tower. He is used to being able to get whatever he wanted through a few threatening phone calls and not having pesky things such as election laws or people who see no benefit in breaking them getting in his way. Though unfortunately, he might be right on one count: there will be no consequences for his actions.
