We saw a hint of this in the runup to the 2016 presidential election when then candidate Trump hinted that he might not accept the election results - unless they went his way. Thanks to a perverse electoral system, Hillary won the popular vote by a 3 million margin but Trump won where it mattered, the Electoral College.
It was a bizarre period back then. Donald Trump, his kids and the rest of his team had no expectation of winning. They didn't even bother filling in the mandatory disclosure statements in anything but the most cursory manner, reluctant to reveal the truth for a campaign they felt sure to lose. Some, like Kushner, spent months "amending" information dozens of times. Not one was prosecuted for what was, essentially, perjury.
For a while it seemed that, if he lost, Trump might stir up unrest among his base, the radical right. The menace certainly dripped from his words.
The Electoral College handed Trump the White House, the Democrats dutifully fell into line, and the astonishingly ill-prepared* Donald Trump was inaugurated the 45th president of the United States of America.
* Just a few weeks before taking over, Trump met with Obama in the White House. Trump indicated he thought he inherited the lot - even the staff. Obama had to tell Trump he had to find his own staff. After all why would a Republican want a staff of devoted Democrats? Trump didn't have applicants being screened, people lined up to undergo the transition.
Much has transpired over the past four years, a lot of it sordid, perhaps even criminal. At times it seems Trump's main focus has been on successfully corrupting the Department of Justice which he achieved by the appointment of William Barr, as partisan an attorney general as any in recent memory.
But Trump's main focus was on the office of the US attorney for the southern district of New York, the DoJ office where Trump's dealings are/were under investigation. He got rid of two "meddlesome priests" who seemed to be doing their job not to his liking.
Why does any of this matter to the current election campaign? Easy. The best defence Trump has against prosecution is his presidential tenure. That new inner wall he had built around the White House reinforces his Festung Trump mentality. He is conveying the message, true or not, that he'll defend his turf.
Once Trump is out of office, once he is stripped of the protection of a corrupt attorney-general, once he reverts to "citizen Trump" he, his family, and the Trump Organization are easy meat for state and federal prosecutors and he becomes just another Ferdinand Marcos on the run.
A former Trump administration insider, ex-DHS chief of staff, Miles Taylor, warns that Trump will go to almost any lengths to cling to power even if he loses.
Taylor's warning is consistent with Trump's efforts to delegitimize the November vote. His cudgel of the moment is his completely unsubstantiated claim that mail-in votes will be rigged against him. Trump has also been rallying the radical rightwing groups, even QAnon included, to his side against what he presents as a Democratic coup. These groups - the Boogaloo Bois, the Klan, QAnon and the remaining gaggle of rightwing lunatics are heavily armed and susceptible to Trump's incitements. They hear his apocalyptic vision of war in the streets.
This is unprecedented but what makes it vastly worse is the Republican Party's refusal to stand against it. There is no opposition, in the party, in the Congressional caucus, at the convention, to Trump's incendiary menace. What for so long undeservedly called itself the "party of Lincoln" now offers fealty to Trump. They are his vassals. They see in Donald Trump their best, perhaps last, hope.
What Trump is doing is waging a campaign of psy-ops on the American people.
Psychological operations are operations to convey selected information and indicators to audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of governments, organizations, groups, and individuals.It appears to be working.
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