He's Attached to Reality, All Right

 

Former Attorney General Bill Barr on Pres. Trump pushing baseless conspiracy about Dominion voting machines: "I thought, boy, if he really believes this stuff, he has lost contact with — he's become detached from reality." https://t.co/NRwraEI6rO pic.twitter.com/Mx6vQUR9Xq

— ABC News (@ABC) June 13, 2022

 Not everyone is the hero of their own story when they tell it, but very few people make themselves out to be the villain. Bill Barr might have seen through the conspiracy theories that Trump claimed showed that he won, but he helped in his way with creating the illusion that maybe there was something to the voter fraud issue all the same. And if he thought that Trump was actually not in his right mind (as it is possible that Mike Pompeo and Steve Mnuchin considered as well) then he could have just said so.

It clears Trump to claim he was detached from reality, in a way. Poor old Trump, not knowing how to handle a loss, unable to accept it in the gilded frame of reference of his towering ego.  What's a belief to someone like Trump though? He believes he's worth TEN BILLION DOLLARS, give or take. Some people believe Trump is a Christian, but I think he'd be a Hare Krishna if there was any juice to it. It's like telling him something is good or bad, legal or illegal. Believing makes it so, if you have lived an utterly unaccountable existence. 

But two things happened with the curious belief.  He had the presence of mind to try and keep contesting the election on the basis of it, and to fundraise. He's still doing the latter. There's a whole "Trump Won" grift industry out there. It's a fable, but it's profitable. Even if entirely untrue, Trump will hold onto the claims until he's wrung the last iota of value out of it. 

Barr commented that Trump started making these claims directly after the election was called, before those claims could remotely be investigated. This is because he was always going to make those claims. He laughed when referencing D'Souza's "2000 Mules" nonsense. It should be embarrassing for the GOP that people can still make money off of this bullshit, but man, they still do. It's funny that people exist to be fleeced, and it's also very much not. 

How many elected officials and party hacks have also profited off the voter fraud fable? How many people were threatened or materially harmed? It gets less and less funny. Trump is not detached from reality, but even if he was--is the party that has been his support system and cover-up team all, also, detached from reality? Not quite right in the head? 

No. They are completely sane and fully knowledgeable that the claims about Chinese thermostats and Italian satellites and Venezuelan voting machines and North Korean ballots are bullshit, but they have lied right in their voters' faces and took their money and asked for their votes. 

Let me repeat that: they are completely sane and lied right in their voters' faces and took their money and asked for their votes. 

Is it any wonder they would rather people not watch these hearings, and that they want to discredit them?  They saw who these people they have been lying to can be on 1/6 and what they are capable of if their ire is roused. And I wonder if they ever thought what would happen if those voters realized they were being used as sheep--sometimes merely used for fleecing, and sometimes served up as mutton? 

They didn't just let Trump lie in people's faces and take their money. They helped. Even when people were getting death threats. When their families were being threatened. When the violence broke out 1/6 and subsequently people died. 

Get attached to that reality. It's not even about what Trump believed. What they fuck did his little friends think?