The blow off
As some people have been saying for a long time now the Trump “campaign” has always had a lot of the hallmarks of a publicity stunt/straight-up grift that spun out of control, and ended up being far more successful than the original scam business plan envisioned.
This morning’s opening of an already-open future Chapter 11 asset, which Trump attended 13 days before the election, is just a particularly striking piece of evidence for this theory.
Brian Beutler speculates that it’s not out of the realm of reasonable possibilities that this 73-car pile-up/Everest-sized tire fire ends with Trump simply announcing that the election is fixed so he’s boycotting it altogether. Normally I would say nah that’s just crazy talk, but given that on one level the whole Trump phenomenon is nothing but non-stop crazy talk made temporarily semi-respectable, I don’t think the possibility can be dismissed (although as Beutler emphasizes it remains unlikely).
It would also be the perfect ending to this seventh-rate political satire in which we’re still stuck.