3/6/19
Even as the 2020 race begins in earnest, President Donald Trump is already suggesting that Democrats cannot beat him fairly -- raising the specter that if he loses next November, he will suggest that the election was not legitimate. "The Democrats in Congress yesterday were vicious and totally showed their cards for everyone to see," Trump tweeted Tuesday, referring to House Democrats' launching of a broad-scale investigation into him. All of that rhetoric fits into a very clear pattern: Convince the Trump base that it is not possible for him to lose a fair and legitimate election in 2020. Thus, if he loses, it must be, by definition, illegitimate. None of this should be surprising, given Trump's oft-stated view of the 2016 election -- in which he won the Electoral College but lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by nearly 3 million votes. Less than three weeks after winning the White House in 2016, Trump sent out this tweet: "In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally." Neither Trump nor anyone in his administration has ever provided any evidence of his claims of widespread illegality. A commission formed by Trump -- and chaired by failed Kansas gubernatorial candidate Kris Kobach -- was disbanded after less than a year. And study after study has shown that widespread voter fraud -- of the sort alleged by Trump -- simply does not exist.
So, yeah. This is straight from the Trump blueprint -- and not just in politics, either. In his past life as a businessman, Trump would regularly declare victory on a deal loudly and publicly -- even when the facts didn't bear out his bluster. Hell, he somehow spun three bankruptcies as wins for him! It's not just that Trump doesn't like losing. (No one likes losing.) It's that he is unwilling to accept any sort of loss for fear that defeat might take some of the shine off of his all-I-do-is-win persona. In the business world, that approach was mostly harmless. Trump could say whatever he wanted but, at the end of the day, it was pretty clear who won and who lost a deal. Money, usually, changed hands. And while lots of people Trump dealt with rolled their eyes about his massive exaggerations, they usually just ignored them. In politics, Trump's inability to accept that he could lose fair and square is far, far more dangerous. Michael Cohen, Trump's former longtime fixer, said as much during his congressional testimony in front of the House Oversight Committee last month. "Given my experience working for Mr. Trump, I fear that if he loses the election in 2020, that there will never be a peaceful transition of power," said Cohen. Sit with that for a minute. And realize what it would mean if the sitting incumbent President of the United States simply refuses to concede he has lost in 2020.
