TRUMP THE LOSER

THEY WASHED THEIR HANDS OF HIM

The story out of today’s hearing that rang my bell was when they replayed testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson from back in June.

According to Hutchinson, after Trump ran out of options to overturn the 2020 election through the courts, he was furious.

On December 11, 2020, Hutchinson and Mark Meadows were were walking together through the White House on their way to a Christmas party. As Hutchinson put it, they came across Trump, who was in a “rage” that the Supreme Court had rejected a suit that sought to overturn the election result. He demanded to know why Meadows hadn’t “called more people,” and repeatedly said, “I don’t want people to know we lost.”

To me, that was the “money quote”of money quotes. The definition of Donald John Trump.

I’ve been reading “The Divider,” the account of Trump as president by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser - and discovering that as obsessive as I was in keeping score over those four years, I, you and all of us missed a lot, which fortunately Baker and Glasser didn’t. I also got Maggie Haverman’s “Confidence Man,” which I initially resisted until several people who I generally agree with about Haberman said that they were finding things they hadn’t known. So I sat down and read the first chapter when Amazon delivered it this morning and that alone paid the freight. “I don’t want people to know we lost” should be the title of both books - the quote completely betrays the toxic mix of insecurity and unreality that is the core of Donald Trump.

For Trump, what was important was not whether he actually won or lost the election; it was people knowing he lost, the humiliation that came with being seen as a loser. Not the actual fact of really being one.

This is at the core of every action taken, every event in the White House as President, as Baker and Glasser recount. Haberman’s book is more concerned with the 45 years before he ran for president, and details how this twisted everything about him. That deep fragility fused with an inability to see the world for what it was, that everyone around Trump knew he lost the election, knew he was a loser. As much as I think of him as one of the sickest, most pathological individuals in history (and as an historian, I think I can come up with some fair comparisons, but he still outruns them), the reality of that Grand Canyon of neediness is truly astounding. It’s hard to comprehend its enormity.

No wonder he lives in a bubble populated by the only ones who think otherwise: his die-hard supporters and the people who get their news from MAGA outlets. No wonder he is willing to play the Qanon card to get their undying support.

This incident, as recalled by Hutchinson, unfolded only after Trump and his election-denying allies had lost dozens of court cases brought before Trump-appointed judges.

That same insecurity in Trump’s psyche emerged in other points presented in the panel’s hearing. It came out in the account of how senior DOJ officials were only able to prevent him installing Jeffrey Clark as attorney general by convincing him such a move would involve the prospect of his personal humiliation, that installing Clark would result in “a huge personnel blowout within hours, because you’re going to have all kinds of problems with resignations and other issues - and that’s not going to be in anyone’s interest,” all those people making him look bad that persuaded him to relent.

Once you understand the depths of his pathology over being seen as a loser, everything he does, everything he attempts, makes sense. It’s like looking through the lens of a camera and finally getting perfect focus - everything sharp and clear.

One can only wonder at what is going on in his psyche now, with the decision announced today by the Supreme Court.

They didn’t even think his argument was worthy of comment or dissent. It wasn’t worthy of their signatures.

His judges! His! Judges!

“The application to vacate the stay entered by the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit on Sept. 21, 2022, presented to Justice Thomas and by him referred to the court is denied.”

They washed their hands of him. They dismissed him. Donald Trump! 45th President of the United States!

Denied.

His judges! His!

We’re fortunate this happened after he was out of the White House. This is the kind of humiliation, of being seen around the world as the loser he knows in his deepest being that he has been since the day he was born, that would lead him if he was still President to launch a full-scale nuclear war and destroy the planet to avoid.

That’s how sick he is.

And that’s how important this decision is. Put it on top of the decision in New York City on Tuesday denying him more delay about being deposed in the defamation suit brought by E. Jean Carroll, in which the judge dismissed his argument saying “you had your bite at the apple.”

Trump knows everything Baker and Glasser, and Haberman, know and write about. He knows it all better than they do.

He knows what’s coming.

Today was the day the cracks in the dam started spreading.

And there’s nothing he can do about it.

He doesn’t pack the arenas like he did in 2016. Or even 2020.

Remember the look on his face when he arrived back at the White House the night of the Tulsa Rally on June 21, 2020?

Multiply that by a million and you have him tonight.

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