Unprecedented in American political history, Donald Trump’s questioning of the results of the presidential election raises a central question: what is his objective?
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For some, the Republican billionaire is nothing more or less than fomenting an attack against the American democratic institution.
For others, the president, determined but frustrated at having to leave the stage, takes out his hat. showman all the ingredients of chaos in order to keep the spotlight on him at all costs.
And, in this golden age of conspiracy, everyone has plenty of time to forge their own truth.
Seen from a certain angle, Donald Trump is only exercising a legitimate right to demand verified results in an election where he found himself neck-and-neck with Joe Biden in a few crucial states, where he claims cheating electoral events occurred. “Election rigged!” He tweeted again on Thursday.
Incomprehensible
In fact, the media-judicial crusade in which the president has embarked on seems incomprehensible.
The history of the United States is marked by elections concluded by closer results than the 2020 edition, without this translating into the confrontation which the world attends dumbfounded.
Almost 10 days after the poll, the Trump camp is still unable to produce a single concrete evidence of the existence of large-scale fraud.
So what is Mr. Trump trying to do?
For supporters of the coup theory, the former business mogul has thrown off the mask and now unashamedly follows an autocratic strategy.
Logical, they say, for someone who has never hidden his admiration for Vladimir Putin and other strong leaders, not really known for their defense of democratic rules.
Their theory is supported by the fact that the impetuous septuagenarian sacked his Defense Minister Mark Esper on Monday, with ideas deemed to diverge too much from the presidential line.
Why these dismissals?
Other senior Pentagon officials have been fired in Mr. Esper’s wake. “Why?” Tweeted Alexander Vindman, a military officer and former executive adviser, fired from the White House for testifying against the president during his impeachment proceedings.
Among the other alarm bells cited in support of this theory is the green light given on Monday by the American Minister of Justice, Bill Barr, to the opening of inquiries into possible irregularities during the presidential election.
An unprecedented position which triggered the resignation of Richard Pilger, responsible for the question of the elections to the ministry.
Mr. Barr “authorizes the ministry to be instrumentalised in order to annul the results of the election,” denounced two lawyers, Ryan Goodman and Andrew Weissmann, in the Washington Post daily.
According to an even more extreme and catastrophic scenario, Donald Trump would work for an underground takeover of the electoral college, the body bringing together the major voters responsible for officially appointing the president in December, according to the rules of the American indirect ballot.
Such a hypothesis, which would suppose that the Republican states succeed in wringing the arm of a large number of large voters, however seems unrealistic. But it illustrates the tension currently reigning in the country.
And the statement Tuesday by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who spoke, against all odds, of a transition to a “second” term for Donald Trump, did not help calm the spirits.
Burnt earth?
The alternative theory which currently agitates Washington is that of a Trump who would have decided to withdraw, but by displaying the behavior contrary to the humility of a vanquished and the decency of an outgoing one.
Between a scorched earth policy and a more interested search for funding, the president could continue to refuse to concede his defeat and remain faithful to his macho image of “fighter” and “winner”, he who has always publicly said he loathes the “losers”. “.
Even if he finished second in the race for the White House, he knows that for this he can rely on his electoral base as solid as it is loyal, and a respectable record of more than 72 million votes.
The time for reconversion having sounded, we suppose he is again tempted by the small screen, especially after having deplored the refocusing of Fox News, not Trumpist enough for his taste.
Occupying the media at all costs or continuing to bombard American citizens with requests for financial participation in its “Official Election Defense Fund” can only serve its desire to remain at the forefront, even under a Biden presidency.
And the chaos it sowed would provide the perfect backdrop for the first episode of a new reality TV series starring the septuagenarian as a super star.