There is a long tradition in the United States of former presidents building libraries to contain the history of their presidencies. Donald Trump, Karen Tumulty writes, is doing something entirely different -- he's building an alternate reality:
When other presidents leave office, they build libraries to house their records and honor their achievements.
President Trump is constructing something far more ambitious: an entire alternate reality.
The hour-and-40-minute diatribe of lies and grievance that he delivered Saturday night on a tarmac in Valdosta, Ga., was remarkable in that regard.
In his first big public appearance after losing the election to Democrat Joe Biden, Trump made only a glancing mention of the coronavirus pandemic that is spiking and taking the lives of record numbers of Americans on a daily basis. There were few masks apparent in the crowd.
The lame-duck president ostensibly was there to make the case for the two Republican candidates in next month’s runoff election, which will determine control of the Senate.
But as is typically the case with Trump, the event was really all about himself. His rant was a live-action version of his Twitter feed, spewing evidence-free claims that the election was stolen.
What is truly frightening is that so many people flock ecstatically to Trump's universe, ripping off their masks as they do so. And the Republican Party is all in:
When 25 of my colleagues at The Post surveyed the offices of all 249 Republicans in the House and Senate late last week, they found only 27 of them acknowledging the reality that Biden won the election. Two members claimed, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that Trump came out on top. The remaining 220 lawmakers declined to say who won an election that took place more than a month ago and that wasn’t all that close.
What makes all of this more dangerous is the fact that the delusion being fueled by Trump has taken hold among his party’s rank and file. Polls are showing upward of 60 percent of Republicans believe the election was rigged. And that has consequences for our democracy that have the potential to linger long after Trump has left office.
It seems to matter not a whit to them that Trump’s baseless claims of massive election fraud are being thrown out of courts across the country.
COVID kills people. Insanity turns people into zombies who -- unfortunately -- survive.
nbcnews.com
