Donald Quixote

Piers Morgan recently sat down with Donald Trump, for a 20 minute interview that ran 70 minutes. Apparently, prior to the interview, Morgan was handed a sheet of paper that had a long list of unflattering things he had said or written about Trump across the years - a list that Trump was also given before the interview. Compiled, it is surmised, by one of Morgan's competitors.

Trump was not amused. In fact, per Morgan at least, he vented a lot of rage over it all, and in doing so revealed two major red flags.

1 - that he not only persists in believing the election was stolen from him, but that it's at the fore of his thinking even now.

2 - that anyone who doesn't side with him and promulgate the stolen-election assertion is an enemy, no matter past allegiance and alliance. Mitch McConnell: "stupid." Mike Pence: "foolish and weak."

Afterward, Trump engaged in his own spin, with a statement that included:

The good news is that the interview was taped by us as a means of keeping him honest. The interview was actually very strong on the 2020 Election Fraud, with me calling him 'a fool' if he truly believed those results.

This is the hill Trump is apparently choosing to die on, and I'd be shocked if he elects not to run for the Presidency in 2024, if only to vindicate a claim he failed to prove anywhere that mattered. Trump could* stop with this and move on. Just as he could* have talked down the January 6th rioters. Just as he could* have displayed a measured and mellow mien ahead of the 2020 election.

Leopards don't change their spots, and scorpions don't change their nature. It would be bad, for the GOP and for the country, if he ran again and won the Republican primary. Someone this obsessed with something for which real evidence simply doesn't exist isn't going to turn into a benevolent and even-tempered Solomon in a second White House term, and even if he gets some policies right (as he did his first go-round), I figure there'll be even more chaos therein than before, with Trump fixated on proving he 'wuz robbed' the first time above all else, and with everyone under him having to pass a 'loyalty test' in affirming that claim.

If I were the Democrats, rather than trying to disqualify him, as some are, I'd be doing everything I could to encourage Trump to run again, and to make it clear from now. It's their best bet at surviving their own terrible policies, mistakes, and Biden-disaster. Policy-wise, Trumpism is a mixed bag for me, but it'll sell very well to the public, especially after Biden and the Democrats' leftward lurch. But, if his obsession persists through to election season, he'll be opening the door for four more years of a Democrat in the White House.

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Peter.