Kylie Rancor
Everyone has their own ideas as to why President Trump is refusing to concede the election to Joe Biden and is instead pumping out claims of widespread voter fraud and election rigging without providing any credible evidence supporting his conspiracy theories. Some think he’s just a sore loser, while others believe he’s setting the stage to stay relevant after he’s dragged out of the White House.
Actor Edward Norton, whose father was a federal prosecutor, shared his own two cents on the matter last week, suggesting Trump’s refusal to step aside and accept the will of American voters has more nefarious reasoning behind it.
“I do not think Trump is trying to ‘make his base happy’ or ‘laying the groundwork for his own network’ or that ‘chaos is what he loves,’” Norton wrote at the start of a Twitter thread. “The core of it is that he knows he’s in deep, multi-dimensional legal jeopardy & this defines his every action.”
Norton went on to suggest that Trump’s refusal to let Biden’s team have access to the funds and information necessary to begin the transition is to “buy time for coverup & evidence suppression” with an ultimate goal of cutting a deal for himself and his family in exchange for eventually conceding.
“But he doesn’t have the cards,” Norton asserted. “His bluff after ‘the flop’ has been called in court…His ‘turn card’ bluff will be an escalation & his ‘River card’ bluff could be really ugly. But they have to be called. We cannot let this mobster bully the USA into a deal to save his ass by threatening our democracy. THAT is his play. But he’s got junk in his hand. So call him.”
Norton isn’t the first to express concern that this is all a massive tantrum intended to cause so much instability in the United States that the only way to get Trump to go quietly would be to offer him a deal, nor is he the first to suggest that would be a bad idea.
While some are calling on Biden to pardon the Trump family for any crimes that may be discovered and/or prosecutable after leaving office as a gesture of goodwill towards the MAGA crowd, others have suggested this would set a bad precedent, and send politicians the message that anything is excusable if you obtain enough power — even threatening the core of our democracy.
But though Norton believes Trump has shady intentions with this post-election outburst, he also wanted to make it clear that it doesn’t change the fact that our president is “also a whiny, sulky, petulant, Grinchy, vindictive little 10-ply-super-soft bitch who no doubt is just throwing a wicked pout fest & trying to give a tiny-hand middle finger to the whole country for pure spite, without a single though for the dead & dying.”
“He’s leaving, gracelessly & in infamy,” he added. “But if we trade for it, give him some brokered settlement, we’ll be vulnerable to his return. We can’t flinch.”
Norton’s words resonated with folks who agreed this all certainly tracks as a possible Trump play.
Knowing why something might be happening, in this case, isn’t necessarily comforting, and we may not have any tangible insight into Trump’s endgame here for some time. But Norton’s thread makes a lot of sense, and seeing him call the president a “10-ply-super-soft bitch” isn’t something that will soon be forgotten.