One of the most important attributes of a democracy is the peaceful transfer of power from one president to the next. Until 2020, the winning candidate took office a few months after the election. By then, the losing candidate had long since conceded.
Trump Believes He Won In 2020
But in the weeks after the 2020 election, President Donald Trump refused to concede to Joe Biden, even though the latter had a substantial winning margin – seventy-four electoral votes. And to this day, Trump maintains that he – and not Biden — had actually won the election.
OK, if the guy wants to be a sore-loser, sobeit! The only problem is that Trump has been charged by the U.S. Department of Justice with willfully obstructing the peaceful transfer of power. His only defense is that he continues to actually believe that he had won the election.
This may be the most important question for jurors to decide in his upcoming trial early next year in Washington. D. C. brought by Federal Special Prosecutor Jack Smith. If Former President Donald Trump can convince at least one or two of the jurors that he truly believed his own lies that the election was stolen from him, then he could escape going to prison.
Let us stipulate that Trump is a life-long world-class serial liar. Indeed, during his single four-year term as president, he arguably told more lies than all forty-four of his predecessors combined.
Trump has an amazingly long rap sheet which includes cheating on his income taxes, cheating his business associates, cheating his lawyers and cheating on his wives. And then lying about it.
Back in 2016, he won a clearcut victory over Hillary Clinton, garnering 304 electoral votes to her 227. But he just couldn’t leave it at that! Although Clinton beat him by three million in the popular vote, Trump made the utterly ridiculous claim that three to five million illegal immigrants voted for Clinton, so that in actuality, he had won the popular vote as well. Who makes up shit like that?
He never offered any proof of this, and it would not have affected the outcome of the election since it’s determined solely by electoral vote totals. Obviously, he just made this up himself. Is he that demented that he believed his own made-up story?
Was The Election Stolen?
Now, let’s shift gears and return to the question: Does Trump really believe the lies he’s constantly repeating that he won the 2020 presidential election, and that the election was stolen from him?
First, let’s look at the election results. Democrat Joe Biden won 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232. Biden also won the popular vote by over seven million. It looks as though the illegal immigrant vote doubled since 2016.
Months before the election, Trump claimed that the only way he could lose would be if it were stolen from him. OK, he lost. So, therefore it must have been stolen.
But where was the proof he promised to produce? By far, his followers’ most impressive effort to find evidence of voter fraud was the massive recount of votes in Arizona. Trump’s supporters paid for the recount. Their findings: Joe Biden got a few more votes than he had had in the official count after Election Day.
Several of Trump’s closest advisors reported that he had clearly lost the election. Most notably, his attorney general, Bill Barr, who told Trump that his allegations of electoral fraud were “bullshit.” Even more significantly, his White House aide, Alyssa Farah Griffin reported that while Trump was watching Joe Biden on TV not long after Election Day, Trump called out, “Can you believe I lost to that guy?”
Now, consider last year’s testimony by Cassidy Hutchinson to the January 6th House Select Committee. Hutchinson was the assistant to Mark Meadows, who had been Trump’s last Chief of Staff. Hutchinson recalled Trump telling Meadows that “we don’t want people to know that we lost.”
Now, two and three-quarters years since Election Day of 2020, Trump’s minions have been unable to find any evidence of vote tampering that might have changed the result of the 2020 presidential election.
The Insurrection On January 6
Why is Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him so important? Because his only possible defense against the charges of insurrection leveled at him by the United States Justice Department would be that that he planned and abetted an insurrection on January 6, 2021, because he truly believed the election had been stolen from him, and that he – and not Joe Biden – was the lawful winner.
If Trump can convince one or two jurors that he truly believes he had won the 2020 election, then he will get off Scot-free. All it would take, then, is one or two ardent Trump supporters who believed his lies.
It is amazing that tens of millions of Trump’s supporters believe he won in 2020 without being provided with even a shred of proof. But it is far more amazing that Trump himself, will be trying to convince a jury that even he believes his own lie.
It is beyond dispute that Trump is a world-class liar. But does he actually believe any of his lies? If he does not, then Trump clearly does not think he actually won the 2020 presidential election.
But what if he does believe his own lie that he won that year? Then clearly, he’s far too insane to serve as our president.
