He didn’t know he knew he knew

Jun 12th, 2022 | By Ophelia Benson
Category: Notes and Comment Blog

Raskin says he knew.

Jamie Raskin on CNN says he thinks the January 6 committee can prove that Trump knew he lost the 2020 election while he was lying about it and trying to overturn the result pic.twitter.com/eeZG1q7r8n

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 12, 2022

I don’t disagree with any of that, it’s just that I think Trump is peculiarly skilled at going on believing what he already believes no matter what other people are telling him – skilled at not listening, in short. He simply pays no attention to things people say that are inconvenient to him, apart from blasting them with dragon breath. He ignores them, in short. That is not a legal defense, I’m pretty sure.

“Barr told you it was bullshit.”

“Barr was full of shit, he was disloyal, he was wrong.”

“Nobody cares. You committed crimes. Put your hands against the wall.”

4 Responses to “He didn’t know he knew he knew”

#1
Holms
June 12, 2022 at 6:42 pm

At the most basic level, we know he knew he lost from the simple fact that the votes were in and certified and he acted to defy that.
#2
GW
June 12, 2022 at 7:55 pm

As Alexandra Petri put it, in the concession speech that she drafted for Trump (which, I think, is not far from what actually goes on inside his mind):

Well, people are saying they don’t want me to be president anymore. And they are saying it very strongly, with their ballots. Did you know they can do that? I didn’t know that.

So I am not going to be the president anymore. Not anymore! I thought Article II said that if you’re the president, they let you do it as long as you want to! But they have an Article I and an Article III, folks! I and III. Maybe even IV or V! Could be VI. I said, where are they finding all these articles? And they said, the Constitution.

So at first, I said, they’re stealing the election. Look at what they’re doing! They have gotten all these millions and millions of people to fill out little pieces of paper, and they’re trying to give the presidency away to whoever has the most little pieces of paper with their name on it, whether that’s me or Kanye or Joe Biden!

Even though I’ve only had it four years and it’s like new. I’ve barely touched it. And they’re saying I have to give it away just because fewer of the little pieces of paper have my name on them, in certain, specific states? That doesn’t seem fair.

(You can google the rest if you’re interesting; I’m truncating it here.)
#3
Rob
June 12, 2022 at 9:59 pm

I’m sorry GW, but that really is too coherent for Trump. That’s written by an educated coherent person, trying to imagine what Trump would say. Nowhere near disjointed enough and lacks repetition and self aggrandising asides that take up 90% of the space. I mean, it doesn’t say he was the greatest president ever once. Not once! And no one has called him Sir!
#4
guest
June 13, 2022 at 3:31 am

@3 ‘And no one has called him Sir!’ haha that is literally the next line in the speech.