No. I am not talking about the final election outcome. Joe Biden won and will be our next president on January 20, 2021.

I’m talking about the nearly 74 million votes supposedly cast for Donald Trump.

I keep asking myself how is it possible Trump could get so many votes when his approval rating during his four years in office can best be described as dismal?

I keep asking myself how could Trump command such support when over 230,000 lives have been lost under his watch due to incompetence and/or political calculation?

I keep asking myself how someone who presided over the most sudden, and devastating, downturn since the Great Depression could get a pass on such a failure?

I keep asking myself how a man without a shred of human decency could come so close to winning?

I keep asking myself how a person who has made a mockery of the rule of law, and our Constitution, could get the second largest presidential vote total in American history? 

I keep asking myself how could so many people believe a man who has made over 20,000 false or misleading statements while in office?

I keep asking myself how could so many Republicans reject a centrist Democrat like Biden who simply wanted to return things to normal?

I seriously have to question whether all those votes for Trump are legit.

So, in that regard, I have to believe the election was rigged … otherwise I have to face the grim possibility that nearly half the country has given up on democracy.

It’s sad to think the Founding Fathers worst fear may have finally come to pass 244 years after the founding of this great nation.

You have “a republic, if you can keep it”  – Ben Franklin

Photo | barrons.com

Donald Trump hates losers. Unfortunately, thanks to the record number of voters (76 million and counting) that rejected his reelection bid, Trump has joined a select group of presidential losers.

Trump now has teamed up with nine other presidents who were rejected by the American voters they had led for four years.

The group includes John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, Franklin Pierce, Benjamin Harrison, William Howard Taft, Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush.

It is safe to say none of the other losing presidents were the kind of sore losers as Donald Trump. None labeled their electoral loss fraudulent and rigged. None refused to accept defeat and concede.

According to Mary Trump, the president’s niece, “… he’s not going to engage in the normal activities that guarantee a peaceful transition. All he’s got now is breaking stuff, and he’s going to do that with a vengeance.”

“He’ll be having meltdowns upon meltdowns right now,” Mary Trump added. “He has never been in a situation like this before. What’s interesting is that Donald has never won anything legitimately in his entire life, but because he has been so enabled by people along the way, he has never lost anything either. He’s the kind of person who thinks that even if you steal and cheat to win, you deserve to win.”

It didn’t take long after Trump was declared a loser for him to strike out. He fired his Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, an act many are calling a national security risk.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman, Adam Smith, warned, the firing “is a destabilizing move that will only embolden our adversaries and put our country at greater risk.” He went on to say, “President Trump’s decision to fire Secretary Esper out of spite is not just childish, it’s also reckless.” Esper, if you recall, had the temerity of not being totally loyal to Trump.

But does Trump care about national security? Has he ever cared about anything but himself? Of course not!  All he knows is that he has just 70 days to create chaos and settle old scores.

So, what can we expect during Trump’s lame-duck period? More firings, for sure, and a bunch of pardons meant to incense the libs. There will be some controversial executive orders. There will be no dealing with the coronavirus. There will be no smooth transition of power. And, no doubt, Trump will find ways, for the last time, to enrich himself at the public’s expense as he heads out the door.

As Eric Lutz of Vanity Fair put it so well, “Unable to face the reality of his circumstances, he is doubling down on his delusions—that the world is conspiring against him; that he’s the big, strong winner he’s always claimed to be. He wants to convince his supporters, the courts, and himself that he is both victim and victor and has made clear that he’ll burn everything to the ground to do so.”

Buckle up for a dangerous ride.

Photo | enewspf.com

If you Google “Teflon Don,” you’ll get many photos of John Gotti, the notorious New York Mafia boss who earned the name by beating criminal charges for years … until he didn’t (courtesy of that rat, “Sammy The Bull” Gravano!)

You’ll get link after link to articles about the stylish gangster whose love of expensive clothing also earned him the nickname, “Dapper Don.”

You will have to go through many pages before you get to any mention of the real “Teflon Don,” Donald Trump.

Yes, Gotti, the Mafia “Don” escaped many criminal prosecutions, but that’s small potatoes compared to what Trump has dodged.

Admit it, you thought Trump’s bid for the White House was over when you saw that Access Hollywood tape on which he brags to Billy Bush about grabbing women “by the pussy.”

But, of course, Trump went on to “win” the election, and after committing numerous crimes while in office, he is still occupying the White House. Nothing … no scandal or outrage… ever seems to stick to Trump. Hell, he even beat an open-and-shut case of bribery and abuse of power thanks to a group of feckless Republican senators!

And now comes what some are calling Trump’s greatest pubic embarrassment since the Access Hollywood tape … his disparaging remarks about the military.

This latest scandal is so bad even Fox News accurately reported that Trump’s mocking remarks, calling our veterans and military members “losers” and “suckers,” had been verified.

In any sane world, Trump’s derogatory remarks about the troops he commands would be the end of his reelection bid.

But if history is any guide, Trump’s base will stick with him. They’ll either believe it’s all “fake news” or simply turn the page.

Yes, there might be one or two brave Republican members of Congress who find the nerve to chastise Trump. 

There may even be a handful of lukewarm Trump supporters who will see these latest disgusting remarks as disqualifying for a man who wants to remain commander-in-chief.

If Trump somehow wins reelection, even after this latest dishonoring of the office he holds, Google will have no choice but to change its algorithms to bring up photos and articles of Donald J. Trump when someone searches “Teflon Don.”

Photo | slate.com

By now, it should come as no surprise to anyone that the man currently occupying the White House is a liar and a cheat. As his niece, Mary Trump, aptly observes in her blistering tell-all memoir, “Too Much And Never Enough,” Donald Trump long ago embraced “cheating as a way of life.”

So, it comes as no great shock that Trump would attempt anything and everything to win reelection. Or more precisely, to steal another election.

Once Trump and his coterie of criminals realized that Democrats would be more likely to vote by mail this November, it was a simple and obvious choice to try and sabotage the Postal Service. With slow moving mail, many ballots might not be received on time, arriving too late to be counted. And if slowing down the mail isn’t enough on its own, simply creating a perception of problems with mail delivery could be enough to discourage some Americans from voting by mail.

While Trump’s wanting to muddle the November election by actively “kneecapping” the Post Office (Obama’s words) comes as no surprise, the fact that he has so totally messed up such a boneheaded move comes as no wonderment either.

Trump’s narcissism makes it difficult for him to understand the consequences of his actions. Yes, while slowing the mail would most likely disenfranchise many voters (more Democrats), it can’t be done without also screwing over veterans, rural communities, people waiting for their medications and social security checks, etc.

Surprisingly, yet predictively, Trump thinks voters, many in his own camp, will only notice the toll this political stunt will have on mail-in balloting!

Trump is not a thinker. He undoubtedly is not a chess player. He is a man innately bereft of the ability to see the big picture. He is notably unaware of the obvious, direct effects of a policy choice.

The smart move would have been for Trump to start his dismantling of the Post Office much later on, say in October.

Now everyone is wise to his game. And the push back has been fierce, not only from Democrats and some Republicans, but from your average Joe. Things will only get worse for Trump as his scheme unravels. 

As Joshua Holland, of Rawstory.com, puts it, “The most likely scenario is that the backlash forces Trump to back down. If not, this is the kind of thing that might eventually penetrate the media bubble Trump’s die-hard supporters inhabit. When important mail stops showing up in a timely fashion like it used to, it’s hard not to notice.”

The real scary thought in all this is what if we someday have a president as corrupt as Trump, but with at least half a brain … someone better able to pull off his crimes?

Photo | forbes.com