News anchors, pundits, and other Trump critics are obsessed with the question: Will he refuse to leave the White House if he loses the election? Countless hours on news outlets have been spent pondering this worry.
Trump himself sounded the alarm on July 19th in an interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News. He told Wallace that he could only lose if there were fraud and a rigged election, in which case he might not accept the results.
Democrats panicked.
In believing this intimidation, Democrats and others fearful of Trump's authoritarianism have fallen victim to the con man's playbook: "Throw them the bait. If they bite you've got them." His outrageous threat grabs everyone's attention while his destructive acts escape notice. It's a trick of distraction well known to magicians.
Will he do it? Will he declare himself the winner regardless of the official vote count? Will he then hunker down and proclaim permanent residency in the White House?
I doubt it.
Donald Trump is a bully and a bluffer. He has bullied and bluffed his way through life and is continuing that strategy in the White House. In 1982 he conned Forbes into listing him on their "400 list" of the wealthiest Americans, when he didn't qualify, reports Jonathan Greenberg who compiled the list.
He's also bluffed his way with major banks, although his tactics have not always worked. By 1990 Trump owed $4 billion to more than 70 banks, according to Reuters. Alarmed that he was on the verge of bankruptcy, lenders called him in for restructuring on their terms in a desperate effort to salvage some of their loans. Any wonder that in the 1990s Wall Street bankers caught on to his financial house of cards and turned off the money spigot? That's when he turned to foreign "vulture lenders" to whom he may still be beholden.
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