Why Would Even Trump Want Four More Years of This?

What is the Trump’s ‘endgame’ here? Is he running for reelection to prove he’s popular (he’s not)? To ‘own the libs’ a little more? Is he doing it to not look like a loser,(well, too late for that) a dreaded one-termer?

Seriously? Why? He doesn’t seem to like the job, he didn’t even want it in the first place. According to insiders in the campaign, Trump was running to call attention to his ‘brand’, (basically, his name) as a substitute for the failing ratings of his shelf-worn reality show ‘The Apprentice’. He was shocked when he won, after working for weeks to set up that ‘voter fraud, stolen election’ excuse he’d honed to a fine point. He had reams of sucker lists now from the campaign, he’d be able to move all those Trump Steaks and Trump Vodka he had left over. He was good!

Then he won. And found out he had no idea how to run a government. So, he didn’t really bother doing so. Even after he won, after he took office, he still did dozens of campaign rallies, because that was the part of the job he actually liked, calling in to Fox News to ramble on from segment to segment while the hosts awkwardly smiled and nodded like people at a party stuck with the world’s biggest boor. Tweet odd, racist, or just dumb crap on Twitter at all hours of the night, and golf on someone’s else’s dime? Yeah! THAT was the good stuff, the fun stuff.  

But, the job is work. The job is details, the job is decisive decision making, the job is leadership. It’s not sitting at a desk, barking a few orders, then wandering off to the residence to hate watch CNN. He was miserable, he looked miserable. The stress was getting to him, he was rambling even more, and in public, he wanders off like he just walked into a room and can’t remember why he’s there.

He looks and acts unwell.

And people attack his poor little self, all the time. Like the hated Obama:

“I did hope, for the sake of our country, that Donald Trump might show some interest in taking the job seriously; that he might come to feel the weight of the office and discover some reverence for the democracy that had been placed in his care.” Obama went on. “But he never did. For close to four years now, he’s shown no interest in putting in the work; no interest in finding common ground; no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends; no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves.” 

Obama kinda nailed that. Trump did his tired all-caps push back “HE SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN” (no, he didn’t). he’s not really interested in the job anymore, if that interest ever went far beyond the trappings and the worldwide platform the spew from. People being mean, popularity never over 50%, staffers going to jail. Melania sure looks like she’s done with the whole thing. Seen he smile recently? But he wants to stick around for four more years… of this?

Why?

The clue, I think, is in that phrase ‘staffers going to jail’. Yep. Here’s my best guess why he’s trying to hold by any cheating means necessary. He doesn’t want to go to jail. That simple. His own misdeeds, ones that he was able to hide, (or at least better excuse outside the Oval) are waiting for him on the doorstep come January. Biden and Harris might have to step over a pile of subpoenas on the way in the door of the White House. The AG of the SDNY, Cyrus Vance, is waiting for him, Senate investigators are waiting for him, I bet federal fraud investigators are waiting for him, maybe even the United States Postal Inspectors are waiting for him.

Yes, I am amused by that thought.

Steve Bannon is arrested, and it doesn’t look good for him, Paul Manafort is in jail, Roger Cohen is in jail, Roger Stone should be, as should Michael Flynn. How many in Trump’s orbit has been indicted, jailed, waiting to be jailed, or still unsure where they stand legally, especially if Trump loses reelection and the power to manipulate/obstruct justice?

So, he fights like hell; keeping his taxes secret (but he promised!), pardoning, or commuting the sentences of those that stay loyal, demanding his subordinates not answer legal subpoenas, suing to stop books by those that know the crap he’s pulled, treading legal water hoping to figure out a way to stay in power. We’ve already seen that he will do anything to keep power; what’s rigging and election or questioning its legitimacy if someone else dares to claim to be the winner? He’s fighting to stay alive, to stay out of jail, to keep that power while using to erode the case against him.  

And if he wins? We’ve already seen in the aftermath of impeachment: the wholesale cleaning of everyone and anymore trump thinks is an enemy, a dismantling of any rules or legal apparatus that had been/might be used against him. He’s a cornered rat, being poked with the sharpest of sticks, and he’ll fight back, claw and bite just to stay where he is.

In power.

He has to.

Jail awaits.