Prepare for the most dangerous 73 days of Trump’s presidency

• Trump’s political invincibility is shattered and, with it, his presidential immunity from criminal investigations. He has nothing more to lose, so expect him to break things on his way out of the White House.
• A lame duck Trump is a Trump with all the power and no responsibility.
• Expect him to forgive his criminal allies, make political appointments of career officials, and issue a host of executive orders.
• He can leave a noticeable gash on the country as a parting gift, as Trump has no ambition other than to win and revenge.
• This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.
• Visit the Business Insider homepage for more stories.

Hide the good silverware, Donald Trump is getting kicked out of the people’s house.

The media on Saturday morning called Pennsylvania and the presidency of former vice president and now president-elect Joe Biden – which, not for nothing, the insider and ruling office seat did more than 24 hours earlier – and thus began the daily countdown until Trump leaves. the White House.

In 73 days (as of Sunday), both a blink of an eye and an eternity, Trump will once again be a private citizen, a former public servant and the nominal administrator of several debt-strangled companies.

But until then, he’s still the most powerful man in the world and a bad tenant.

Trump’s political invincibility is shattered, and with it, his presidential immunity from criminal investigations will soon end. He has nothing more to lose.

“All he has now is smash stuff, and he’s going to do it with a vengeance,” Trump’s niece Mary wrote in an op-ed for The Observer over the weekend.

Beware of the petulant lame duck

Joe Biden is on the verge of roughly doubling Hillary Clinton’s popular vote margin on Trump, but as any Trumpist will tell you, that’s a meaningless statistic. At the Electoral College – the only metric that matters – it looks like Trump will lose either near or exactly the same margin by which he won in 2016.

But Trump is still the GOP. And the GOP is Trump.

Although he was the first incumbent president to vote in nearly three decades – or a “loser” in Trump’s parlance – he will almost certainly remain the influential Republican for years to come.

The GOP he hijacked in 2016 lacks a coalition of principled lawmakers who opposed his big government, trade protectionist, alliances-destroying administration. They all sold themselves to Dear Orange Man as job security to keep their precious seats, and he’s still more popular with the Republican base – he won more votes in 2020 than any Republican candidate in one. election – than they are.

Trump will not be a nicer loser than he has been as a winner. Thus, there is no incentive not to burn all remaining democratic standards by leaving office.

Instead of graciously accepting that he lost – which even Trump’s sycophant and Fox News host Laura Ingraham advised him to do – Trump is going to fight tooth and nail to prove a baseless conspiracy theory on multi-state electoral fraud and narrative collusion of mass media.

He won’t win any lawsuits proving something doesn’t exist, but thanks to his Twitter feed and right-wing media, he will succeed in planting the brainworm that the “deep state” stole from him the election and the handed “Grandpa Antifa”, or something so absurd.

For good measure, he will continue to separate willful dupes from their money, like Bill Stepian, Trump campaign manager on Saturday, asked donors for money to “support rallies and other things we support.”

At the same time, the Trump campaign will not commit to paying their share for a recount in Wisconsin. That, as they say in poker, is saying. When the aggressive bettor across the table suddenly stops raising, you know they are bluffing.

He lost. He’s a loser. He’s fired.

But he’s still the most powerful person in the world for a little longer than the next two months.

So expect him to continue tapping the office and the American people for every available resource.

Expect him to forgive his criminal allies – just like Democrats have done in the past – and maybe he will even try to forgive himself preemptively. Many of its elected politicians can miraculously end up in career government positions.

It is very possible that he could once again break the precedent of previous US presidents and allow scandal-draped Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make yet another land grab. And two months is a long time to issue executive orders on just about anything – something he’s done more frequently than any president since his colleague an attorney Jimmy Carter.

Trump doesn’t care which country he soon won’t rule, and he won’t even have the grace and decency to wish his successor good luck – a mark of American democracy.

His most staunch supporters will bow down to his ability to upset people and continue to say that any loser who breaks standards and hurts is right and good.

A lame duck Trump is a Trump with all the power and no responsibility.

He can – and probably will leave – a noticeable gash on the country as a farewell gift. Because Trump has no other ambition than to win and get revenge.

Trump is for Trump, as he always has and always will be. Prepare for a few more months of garbage can fire.