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Washington – the president Donald Trump he left numerous clear clues that he would try to destroy everything before leaving the White House. The clues are in a lifetime in which he has refused to admit defeat. They encompass a presidency marred by crude, furious rhetoric, conspiracy theories, and a kind of camaraderie with “patriots” from the ranks of right-wing extremists. The clues increased at the speed of light when Trump lost the election and refused to admit it.
The culmination came on Wednesday, when Trump supporters, urged by the president himself to go to the Capitol and “fight passionately” against a “stolen” election, occupied the building in a violent confrontation that left a police officer dead. ‘Capitol and others to four people.
The mob came so encouraged by Trump’s rhetoric that many participants used live video platforms to show up destroying the site. They thought Trump was going to support them. After all, it was a president who, in reacting to a far-right plan to kidnap the Democratic governor of Michigan last year, responded, “Maybe it was a problem, maybe not.”
Throughout his presidency and his life, demonstrated by his own words and actions, Trump hated losing and did not admit it when that happened. He presented bankruptcies as successes, stumbled into office as great successes, the stain of a political trial as the act of heroism of a martyr.
Then came the biggest defeat: the election and, with it, desperate machinations that many politicians compared to the practices of “banana republics” or the “Third World,” but which were entirely American at sunset. of the Trump presidency.
Often with a wink or a nod in the last four years, sometimes more directly – “we want them,” he told the crowd at the Capitol – Trump made common cause with marginal elements eager to provide support in exchange for receiving their respects.
This formed a fuel mixture at the time when more was at stake. The elements had been adding up in full view, often in messages via Twitter. Friday, Twitter canceled Trump’s account, Denying the president his favorite megaphone, “given the risk of further incitement to violence.”
“I wish I could say we couldn’t catch a glimpse,” the president-elect said Joe Biden of the attack on the Capitol. “But it’s not true. We were able to glimpse.”
Mary Trump saw it from her unique advantage as Trump’s psychologist and niece.
“It’s a very old emotion he’s never been able to process since he was a small child: terrified of being in a losing position, terrified of being held accountable for his actions for the first time in his life,” Mary Trump said. on PBS 1 week after the election.
“He’s in a position to be a loser, which in my family certainly … was the worst possible,” he said. “So he feels trapped, desperate … getting more and more furious.”
Post-election problems were predictable because Trump had basically said what would happen if he lost.
Months before the first vote was cast, Trump said the system was manipulated and plans for mailings were fraudulent, attacking the process so incessantly that it could have harmed its own chances by discouraging its supporters. to vote by mail. Trump declined to guarantee the country he would respect the outcome, something other presidents have not even been asked to do.
There was no pre-election evidence that would be manipulated or evidence after an alleged mass fraud or huge mistakes that Trump and his legal team argued in numerous lawsuits that judges, appointed by Republicans, Democrats or Trump himself, were reject it systematically, often calling it absurd. The Supreme Court, with three judges placed by Trump, also rejected the argument.
But even that did not deter him.
“I hate defeat,” he said in a video in 2011. “I can’t stand defeat.”
But in the end the election result left him with no more resources, except for his fan base, which could not stand defeat either.
Trump’s long history of supporting false and often racist conspiracy theories rooted in the far right is long.
He has supported supporters of QAnon, a convoluted conspiracy theory in favor of Trump, saying he didn’t know much about his promoters, “other than that I understand they love me a lot” and that “he’s gaining popularity.”
QAnon focuses on an alleged high-ranking anonymous civil servant in the government known as “Q” who shares information about an alleged “deep state”. The FBI has warned that extremists driven by conspiracy theories, such as QAnon, are terrorist threats.
In 2017, Trump blamed “both sides” for the fatal violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, the site of a clash between groups of white supremacists and those protesting against them. He said there were “good people” on both sides.
In a debate with Biden, Trump refused to criticize neo-fascists Proud Boys. Instead, Trump said the group should “stay away and be prepared.” That comment caused a storm and a day later, Trump tried to back down.
Trump also did not condemn the actions of a young man accused of shooting two people and injuring a third during protests on the streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin, in the summer. Kyle Rittehouse pleaded not guilty to the charges.
In October, the president decided not to criticize people who planned to kidnap Michigan Gov. Democrat Gretchen Whitmer.
“When our leaders meet, encourage, or fraternize with national terrorists, they legitimize their actions and are complicit,” Whitmer opined. “When they encourage and contribute to hate speech, they are complicit.”
For Mary Trump, the form of her uncle’s defeat helped set the stage for the toxicity she said in November would happen.
Republicans in contests for the Senate and House of Representatives performed better than him, making the minority in the lower house bigger and retaining a majority in the Senate, until the second round for the two seats in Georgia tipped the scales. towards the Democrats.
His defeat on November 3 was solely his, not the party’s. “So you can’t blame anyone else,” his niece said. “I think he’s probably in a position that no one can help get out of emotionally and psychologically, which is going to make things worse for the rest of us.”
And the worst came.
Pray Segal, vice president of the Center for Extremism of the Anti-Defamation League, described Wednesday’s attack as “the logical conclusion of uncontrolled extremism and hatred” during the Trump presidency.
“If it surprises you, then you haven’t paid attention,” said Amy Spitalnick of Integrity First, a civil rights group involved in lawsuits for violence in Charlottesville.
Thursday night, Trump appeared to be attempting a unifying message, after months of provocations, saying in a video, “This moment requires reconciliation.”
But on Friday, the outgoing president was again dealing with his “great American patriots” and demanding that they be treated fairly. He also said he will not attend Biden’s inauguration.
He admitted that his presidency was coming to an end, but he did not admit – or could not admit – his defeat.
Of all the insulting nicknames he has uttered against his political rivals — sleepy, weeping, corrupt, mad, brainless, strange, pencil-necked, watermelon-headed, deranged — none had any intention of harming more than “loser.” And nothing, it seems, hurts him more than when the loser is him.