The possibility looms that the Kraken will not save us. Nor that anything biblical will save President Trump. It is looking more likely by the hour that the dream of four more years is gravely imperiled.
This is not Trump-adverse defeatism. This is not about the boldface hatred some on the RINO-right hold for the president. It is anticipatory pragmatism on the part of some Trump true believers, a resigned acceptance—the fifth stage of grief– that the hand resting on the electoral scale might prove too heavy to overcome.
Keep fighting, but…
Out here in the hinterlands, all that is known is what citizens are willing to dig to learn, and what they see, hear, and read in the media. As Jack Nicholson’s Jack Torrance quipped in response to his stepson’s Donner Party cannibalism comment on the drive to the Overlook Hotel in The Shining, “See, it’s okay, he saw it on the television.”
But it is not okay. What Trump Nation is learning, hearing, and seeing from media and from their elected representatives is leaving them stranded like a constituent Donner Party, trapped in a slow ever-broadening, ever-confusing, false-prophet cluster of news cycle death.
Who the hell, and what, to believe? The inside money is now on Bill O’Reilly’s foregone conclusion that Joe Biden “is fairly inevitable at this point.” But over at Newsmax, War Room host Steve Bannon says with equal confidence, to paraphrase, “They cheated and got caught, President Trump will serve a second term.” Former ratings champ Fox News, its macabre election night dance now three weeks into history, waits to see if those could who not abide the mere mention of “President-elect Biden” will find their way home.
Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis are breathing fire and brimstone in their lawyerly way, and it’s hard to imagine they don’t have actionable evidence. But it becomes more plausible with each 24-hour period that they are probably fighting now for future election integrity, and to cast the onus of illegitimacy on Harris/Biden, not to secure a Trump second term. If that election integrity is not forthcoming very quickly, before the Georgia run-offs, the Democratic Party’s national power nexus, illegitimate or not, could become complete.
Whether it is revealed that Joe Biden is the beneficiary of the biggest rip-off in American history or won fair and square, unless their man is still in the Oval Office on January 21, 2021, still-processing Trump supporters are in for a brutal confrontation with the five stages of grief. Losing is hard enough when the contest has been fair. But from Little League to the NFL, the team that comes up short shakes hands with and congratulates the winner. If, however, there is a concrete perception, not to mention concrete evidence of cheating, that handshake becomes a disagreeable, dirty task.
Therein lies another crisis point that the Kraken might have delivered Trump’s 70+ million from. Assuming evidence mounts of widespread and substantive Democrat election fraud, is it in the best civic interest to certify a sham election on the grounds that it is better to “move on” from the divided turmoil besetting the nation? If grand theft electoral is proven, and Biden is certified in the interest of some convoluted “best interest” schematic, his will forever be tantamount to a Third World administration. If a stolen election shall pass for expediency’s sake, the aftershock will run deep, and the intractable ill-will and cynicism engendered by such a betrayal will indeed be biblical.
Nor will a Trump Party breakaway from the Republican Party save the United States; it could irreparably divide and seal the deal for Democratic Socialism. Increased Republican representation in the House, an imperative GOP Senate, and the potential verification of Giuliani’s allegations about massive election fraud all add up to one undeniable positive: America has rejected and will continue to reject the destructive Democrat agenda.
With chaos all around us, the concept of unity a snuffed candle in a COVID-emptied church, and no resolution in sight, we review the stages of grief from the standpoint of Trump Nation:
Denial: For people who are not unhinged, there is disappointment in losing an election perceived to be fair, but not denial. It hurt when McCain lost to Obama, and a bit worse when Romney did, because we knew more about Obama’s “transformative” vision. But there was no getting over the fact that Obama got more votes. Same is true for Trump 2016; though there was some unhinged denial, President Trump irrefutably got more electoral votes.
The denial here is that Biden legitimately won. And we simply don’t know for sure yet.
Anger: similarly, no legitimate anger if Biden is shown to have truly won. But If he is installed after (or before, the clock is ticking) a Big Cheat is incontrovertibly proven, there is no telling how Trump-aligned anger will play out—because there is no precedent for anything like it. Conversely, no one doubts how Leftist anger will play out in still-boarded up streets if Trump’s legal team is successful in securing him a second term.
Bargaining: Bargains will be hard to come by if the Deep State prevails. If threats by some Georgia Trump supporters to boycott the senatorial run-offs come to fruition, no mythical beast nor Good Book will save the GOP. If Trump Nation places all bets on the Supreme Court and the justices fumble a ruling on a clear case of widespread fraud, go back to stage one.
Depression: No. This is not in the Trump base DNA. Depression is for the screaming, hectoring, anti-Trump women wearing you-know-what hats. Trump’s troops don’t get depressed, they form a new and resolute resistance. Don’t count Donald Trump out for 2024—the Kraken lives.
Acceptance: Check back later.
Mark Ellis is Associate Editor at the Northwest Connection, Portland, Oregon’s only conservative web/print publication. He is the author of A Death on the Horizon, a finalist in the 14th annual National Indie Excellence Awards in the category of General Fiction. Follow Mark on Twitter.
