So what will Donald Trump do now? On Tuesday (AEDT) he will begin his promised series of court actions to allege electoral fraud and challenge the results of the presidential election.
We will see what this turns up and what sort of case the Trump team will make. But on the basis of what we know at this moment, Trump’s legal campaign to allege fraud and overturn this election is looking like a fizzer.
We have seen no evidence that would lead a court to turn the tide of a presidential election.
As such, this legal campaign does not appear to be a serious attempt to change the election result, despite what Trump might be saying.
It looks more to be about ensuring that Trump leaves office in the eyes of his supporters as an aggrieved martyr, done over by the Swamp. This sets his narrative for a possible run for president in 2024, or a role as ongoing king-maker in conservative politics.
He would be seen by his loyal fans as the monarch who was wrongly overthrown in a palace coup. They would see him as a winner who was never defeated fairly in battle. Forever young. But the downside for Trump is that his opponents, and the majority of Americans, would view him as a sore loser who could not accept the outcome of a democratic election. But that may not worry him, so long as he continues to appeal to his support base.
If the legal challenges go nowhere, Trump will come under growing pressure to concede, even if he continues to claim that he was robbed.
Even First Lady Melania is among those who have reportedly urged the President to concede the election.
As Trump said last week “winning is easy, losing is never easy”.
Trump will be hurting, having watched world leaders legitimise Joe Biden’s victory.
But for him to continue to claim he was robbed means that American politics will enter a bizarre twilight zone — a place where Trump remains the president while claiming to all and sundry that he is being ejected from the White House by an illegal election result. It is an unprecedented position for the US, but then Trump has delivered a few of those over the past four years.
With his current mindset, how will Trump act until he leaves office on January 20? Trump may surprise people and act with restraint. Or he may rule the country as a wounded bull. He is technically in caretaker mode but he is a President who is fearless to do the unexpected and the unpopular.
Even Barack Obama tested the limits of caretaker norms by striking the controversial refugee deal with Malcolm Turnbull while he was in caretaker mode.
So while the election may be all over bar the shouting, Trump still has more than two months left in the Oval Office. And he is unshackled by the need to please anyone. Buckle up.
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