The Worst Still isn't Here but it Sure Feels Like it.

I know I said the worst was yet to come, I just didn’t realize how long it would take to find out if the worst is yet to come. Because apparently a bunch of state legislatures decided allowing absentee ballots to be counted before polls closed would be bad, for some reason... 2020 really is just Hostel in year form.

Full disclosure: I haven't seen Hostel and don't know the context of this scene.
Best Guess? This probably isn't from the movie.

President Trump has completed his entirely predictable course of challenging the validity of the election, making unsubstantiated claims of fraud and claiming victory on the basis of dibs. You didn’t have to be Nostradamus to see this coming. Trump has been laying the groundwork for this for months. This is the reason he spent so much time and effort calling the validity of absentee ballots into questions and speculating about widespread fraud. Not because there was any evidence of these things, but, to quote myself “so that his base would be primed to reject the outcome.” He even said he hoped the case would end up "before the highest court in the land" because he's put three judges on the bench and his team hopes they'll remember it when deliberating the case. 

Donald Trump is exactly the wannabe demagogue many of us thought he was. His unhinged speech at the White House and his ranting on Twitter, demanding votes be simultaneous counted and not counted depending on whether they would help him win, reveals him to be exactly as dangerous to the future of the republic as feared. This is a man who does not respect the democratic process as established by the constitution and the various states. This is a man who only cares about himself. Luckily, Donald Trump is also just as stupid as many of us thought he was too. He poses a threat despite himself. A smart man would have the ability to shut up long enough to let his opposition lose focus and momentum. Donald Trump’s pathological need to make everything about Donald Trump ensured that his opposition never forgot what was at stake. When he should have been quiet and bid his time for a narrow electoral victory, Trump grabbed a bullhorn and proudly announced his intention to abuse the system as much as possible.

This won’t change the minds of most Trump supporters though. When Tucker Carlson decried mainstream media calling states based on polling and available data (as they’ve done in many elections), they likely nodded in agreement, ignoring that Trump had claimed victory Wednesday morning while millions of votes were still being tallied and was trailing Joe Biden in several key states. When Trump’s campaign manager went on Sean Hannity and spoke about being denied access to vote tallying in Philadelphia, they got angry, never asking if this claim was true. It wasn’t, GOP observers have had access the entire time. They don’t think there’s any issue with Trump’s surrogates (namely his children) loudly call for “Total war” against the election fraud, which again there is no evidence of. If you think this sort of rhetoric has no impact, you probably missed the Philadelphia police stopping a plot to attack the vote counting center, and other states having to beef up security due to threats made by Trump supporters.

I wonder if there will ever be a time when these people admit they were wrong. In 10 or 20 years will they be able to look back and admit that Donald Trump really was as dangerous as we said? Probably not. It’s hard to admit when you’re wrong, especially when you devote so much time and energy defending your position. It’s hard to cut your losses when you’ve sunk so much personal collateral into an issue. As much as people hate being wrong, you’d think they’d be more committed to seeking out good information and evidence and trusting the judgement of experts when they reach a consensus. It’s more work than burying your head in the sand, but it also saves you from looking like little more than an ass to everyone who passes by.