One of the principal GOP criticisms against House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo. is that she’s been preoccupied with telling the truth about the 2020 presidential election. It’s a foolish argument for a variety of reasons, but it’s nevertheless at the heart of the effort to purge Cheney from her leadership post.
It was against this backdrop that Donald Trump — the one many congressional Republicans are desperate to impress and satisfy — published this item last night to his weird new blog.
“The major Michigan Election Fraud case has just filed a bombshell pleading claiming votes were intentionally switched from President Trump to Joe Biden. The number of votes is MASSIVE and determinative. This will prove true in numerous other States. All Republicans must UNIFY and not let this happen. If a thief robs a jewelry store of all of its diamonds (the 2020 Presidential Election), the diamonds must be returned.”
From there, the former president whined a bit about U.S. news organizations that “refuse” to buy into his conspiracy theories about his 2020 defeat.
As a rule, trying to make sense of Trump’s ramblings is both difficult and exasperating. In this case, his reference to “the major Michigan Election Fraud case” probably refers to an obscure lawsuit in a small county in northern Michigan. The fact that the former president would even be aware of such a case is emblematic of his unhealthy fixation.
Indeed, for all the complaints about Cheney looking backwards, the fact remains that Trump is obsessed with the details of his defeat, and he keeps making subtle suggestions about how he expects the made-up controversy to be resolved.
During a recent appearance at Mar-a-Lago, for example, the former president said, in reference to the Cyber Ninjas’ bonkers audit, “Watch Arizona, some very interesting things are happening in Arizona. Let’s see what they find, I wouldn’t be surprised if they found thousands and thousands and thousands of votes.”
Moments later, Trump reflected on the road ahead, telling his audience, “So we’re going to watch that very close to the end after that we’ll watch Pennsylvania and you watch Georgia and you’re going to watch Michigan and Wisconsin and you’re watching New Hampshire, they found a lot of votes up in New Hampshire, a lot of votes up in New Hampshire just now, you saw that?”
The Washington Post’s Philip Bump asked soon after, “This appears to be Trump at Mar-a-Lago telling his customers that the bizarre Arizona recount will be the first domino to fall in apparently somehow undoing the election?”
This need not be seen as a rhetorical question. Soon after, a New York Times reporter noted that Trump has told people he believes the Arizona audit “could undo” the 2020 presidential election.
And that’s what stood out for me about his online item last night. Consider his choice of analogy again: “If a thief robs a jewelry store of all of its diamonds (the 2020 Presidential Election), the diamonds must be returned.”
As far as the former president is concerned, power was taken from him, so power must be returned to him. That’s wildly at odds with reality, and it’s entirely based on ridiculous lies, but it offers a pretty big hint as to where Trump thinks this circus is headed.
