Unit2Sucks said:
I have been thinking that there is an urgency/acceleration to Barr's activities and Trump's all-in on the messaging to the gun-toting base that one of three things is happening:
1) Trump (actually Miller and Trump's inner circle) is trying to compress as much criming and cover of up of criming to these summer months, so that he can resign in time for Pence to still pardon him and put together a last-minute campaign built on the entire GOP suddenly distancing themselves from Trump and praising God's will and Christian forgiveness and still getting their SCOTUS nominations (while at the same time playing the victim card that their beloved leader was forced out by the mean and corrupt liberals and fake media). That poor Trump's noble nature could no longer function in a dirty world. In this scenario, the GOP tries to quickly rebrand themselves, while Trump gets to walk away keeping his business interests in place and with no criminal liability at the federal level. Some percentage of racist white America will still deify him so he will still have his ego strokes whenever he wants them and he will join OANN or start Trump TV and play the role of gadfly, media personality (or leave America). The SDNY activity is part of the attempts to squash the ongoing investigations that could lead to Trump's indictment/arrest after leaving office. That is Barr's job one right now.
2) Trump is all in on election interference. The GOP is going to do everything they can to suppress the vote and Russia (maybe China and SA too) will up their social media propaganda, and he believes that like 2016 despite the polling they have a path to a narrow Electoral College win. So he is going to make no pretense of fair or right leadership, it's just going to be how much more shocking and polarizing can I be to keep the base angry and unwilling to look at the facts or consider alternatives. Use the shiny object of racism and controversy to keep spotlight on me. If we do a good job of cheating and catering to America's worst; and if posters on BI keep normalizing, defending, and whatabouting my behavior; and if we can avoid responsibility for virus long enough; and get any heartbeat of good economic news that we can pretend to take credit for; we can still win this and then I can I can pack the courts and DOJ so that I never am held to criminal account for the crimes I am now committing to stay in office.
3) Trump knows he is going to lose and is all in on stoking outrage and anger so that he can at least attempt to ignore the results or declare them fraudulent and tie it up in courts while he sits out statute of limitations and tries to get Barr and SCOTUS to find the legal path for him to stay in office as long as possible. Angry gun toting white supremacists are his courted militia and if he could guarantee a civil war in the streets, and knew he'd have the army on his side (which I think he now questions), that he would actually opt for this third option. I think he'd love to roll the dice on a hostile takeover and a new authoritarian form of government. I just doubt that his inner circle believe they can pull this off, but they would if they could. Fine Americans.
The truth is probably some half-assed exploration of all three.
An interesting scenario is what if Trump DOES squeak out a victory, but loses Senate majority? He would be impeached and removed at just the first foray into criminality or obstruction. Knowing how vulnerable he would be to removal may be a major driver in GOP/Trump strategy and make "resign and pardon" the best path forward. It's incredible to speculate that the president of our country and his party may be thinking in terms like this which are completely ethically bankrupt, and have NOTHING to do with running the country and doing the job they are paid to do. Even worse, this kind of speculation isn't even fantastical or implausible. That's how bad it is under this regime.
