Read on Twitter
So, remember how pre-election there was a lot of pooh-poohing of the idea that Trump would not accept the results of the election? That is *happening* now, the goalposts now have moved to "he doesn't really mean it" or "he can't do it"
"he doesn't really mean it" is, of course, something that takes us back to https://twitter.com/Aelkus/status/1326163784319324162
I'm not going to rehash all of what I said earlier about the entire can of worms this dredges up so I'll just note that we have, in fact, been through this drill over and over again for years https://twitter.com/IRHotTakes/status/1326349670025670656
As to "he can't really do it", well, what do you think he is trying to *do* in the first place? Stay past January? Extract concessions in a "pacted transition" scenario a la the tweet linked below? Build buzz for his post-presidency life? https://twitter.com/vasabjit_b/status/1325232924858470402
The conversation I had earlier today with @marwood_lennox reminds me that up until recently few people presented a convincing explanation for why the Iraq War happened. Did GWB and co really believe there was WMD? If not that, what was the motive?
The simplest explanation with the information we have now is that there were a variety of different interests in or around the GWB administration, and what they all had in common was a need for a decisive military engagement in the Middle East. Which 9/11 suddenly opened door to
I find "does he mean it" and "what is he trying to do" to be interesting intellectual puzzles. But obviously we're not interested in puzzle-solving. We were told it was alarmist to expect X to happen. X is happening.
X happening, which was not supposed to happen, then triggers demands that critics engage in puzzle-solving. https://twitter.com/Aelkus/status/1326362299423219713
we have roughly 70 days until the big day in late January. this is, in the grand scheme of things, not a lot of time. subjectively, well, you all know how many nutty things can now happen in a single 24-hour news cycle
as this notes, you don't necessarily need the hard assumption of a goal https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1326370036835971072
you just have observed behavior, which is normatively not acceptable, and which was not supposed to have occurred. this behavior may or may not be successful on its own terms (providing you can explain what those terms are), but it is damaging all the same.
the endgame of the Trump administration is little different from how it began. Because its just an endless series of events like this.
one day it will be material for some kind of Essence of Decision-like book (Essence of Indecision?) in which someone pokes fun at dominant political science theories of behavior (realism vs...surrealism?)
for now we have to make it through the next few months while the pandemic goes into overdrive and the thing that was not supposed to happen moves to some kind of kludged resolution.
