Let the schadenfreude roll
By 
Guten morgen fellow LGMers! It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood:
(1) A truly delightful aspect of the denouement to The Never Ending Story is that Donald Trump is a very stupid man, who doesn’t understand even the simplest mathematical concepts. Therefore, while everybody else was well aware by Wednesday morning that, despite a real scare Tuesday night, Trump was overwhelmingly likely to lose the election after all, one person who very much did not understand that was Donald J, Trump, Very Stable Genius. [ETA: I should have mentioned that he also honestly cannot comprehend why “his” SCOTUS justices, especially that ungrateful bitch that he never should have picked, aren’t stepping in to stop the election from being stolen from him]. We’ve enjoyed and very much continue to enjoy watching his ongoing inability to grasp that he has indeed lost, and is a loser, just like Daddy always said.
It’s a mistake to ask if Trump believes his totally baseless claims about election fraud. Belief has nothing to do with it: Trump is such a hopelessly narcissistic bullshitter that the whole concept of truth is meaningless to him: All he knows and all he needs to know is that he isn’t getting what he wants, and that he’s being humiliated before everyone because he isn’t getting it, and this is the worst thing that has ever happened to anyone.
When the election is called sometime in the next few hours, his reaction is going to be memory that we can always treasure, although we can be pretty sure it will be accompanied by what is rapidly becoming the sentence that sums up this entire political age: “Some or all of the content shared in this tweet might be misleading about an election or other civic processes.”
(2) If you had any questions about whether the Republican party was going to deTrumpifiy itself any time soon, the answer can be viewed below:
Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) supported a number of President Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud and election corruption on Fox News’ “Hannity” on Wednesday night.
Why it matters: A number of Republicans, including top Trump adviser Chris Christie, have rebuked the president for failing to provide evidence for his claims that Democrats are “stealing” the election. Graham and Cruz, two of the most prominent Republicans in the Senate, are sticking by Trump.
Fact check: Both Cruz and Graham claimed that partisan election observers in Philadelphia were being denied access to observe the counting of ballots there, though that was not the Trump campaign’s original complaint.
The campaign complained that its observers could not get close enough to see whether mail-in ballot envelopes had signatures along with eligible voters’ names and addresses, according to AP.
On Wednesday, a Philadelphia lower court ruled that both Republican and Democratic poll watchers would both be allowed within six feet of ballot-counting at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, rather than the previous 20-foot perimeter, according to a CBS affiliate in the city.
The big picture: Graham, who just won re-election Tuesday in what was expected to be one of the most competitive races of his Senate career, told Hannity that “everything should be on the table” when asked whether the Pennsylvania State Legislature should invalidate the delegates that the states’ voters selected.
He added that he is donating $500,000 to the president’s defense team to support Trump’s pledge to continue fighting to have ballots thrown out in court.
Cruz, meanwhile, said that the Justice Department, state legislatures and possibly the Supreme Court could get involved in the election if voting laws are not followed.
The courtiers are more than happy to watch the leader they loathe die a slow painful political death in public, but their glee will remain carefully disguised as they maneuver to either supplant him themselves, or attach remora-like to whatever aspiring fascist manages to take his place (Of course there remains the distinct possibility that Trump himself will return ghoulishly to the electoral scene, and that he starts running for president again at about 12:01 PM on January 20th, 2021).
(3) Speaking of ghouls:
Tragically for St. Ralph, the right to speak does not include the right to be listened to, ever again, about anything.
(4) Trump’s post-presidency, which as a functional matter starts today unless presidenting includes stealing everything that isn’t nailed down or can’t be pried loose, is going to be a fascinating experiment in what happens to the world’s biggest narcissist after he’s so rudely forced off the world’s biggest stage. The last four years have been, for Trump, the equivalent of shoving a huge bowl of cocaine every single morning and night in front of the worst pig junkie you’ve ever seen. Now that’s going to change, and his demands for constant attention and praise and worship are going to be something to behold.
He will be getting plenty of attention from both law enforcement and suddenly impatient creditors from several jurisdictions, and that too will create an ongoing spectacle.
Speaking of which, where’s William Barr these days? That’s one rat that I especially don’t want to manage to scuttle away in all the chaos.
(5) Which reminds me: You can put five Trumpers in prison. Who are they?
My carefully curated list:
Donald Trump Sr.
William Barr
Donald Trump Jr.
Jared Kushner
Stephen Miller
Believe me, the last cuts I had to make to this particular roster were really painful, and I sincerely hope Biden and his AG (Doug Jones?) are big fans of roster expansion.
. . AND BIDEN TAKES THE LEAD IN PENNSYLVANIA
Time to pull the plug!
. . . and Scene.
