To be US President again in August and to send short messages to millions of people: A dream would come true for Donald Trump. A dream that he has been following very intensively for a few weeks.
First, the public learned of his plan to start his own blog – after he was banned from major social media for inciting to storm the Capitol and claiming that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen from him. He had more than 80 million subscribers on Twitter alone.
Instead, a blog on his homepage with the title “From Donald J. Trump’s desk”. The structure was very similar to that of Twitter, only nobody really wanted to read his posts. Launched at the beginning of May, the blog is history four weeks later. This was confirmed by Trump’s employee Jason Miller on Twitter.
However, Trump is said to have planned to set up his own large online platform that he can use to inform his followers. After all, it looks like there could be more newsworthy items from his point of view again.
The public found out about Trump’s latest plan in early June. A plan that he has not yet openly expressed, but which several media outlets are now reporting on, citing reputable sources: Trump plans to overturn the election by reviewing ballot papers and to be reinstated as US president as early as August.
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Maggie Haberman, a journalist for the New York Times, was the first to unearth what sounds like a bad joke. “Trump has told a number of people that he will be reinstated by August,” wrote Haberman on June 1 on Twitter. In addition, she linked a video from CNN, on which Trump supporters propose a coup like in Myanmar.
But how does Trump come to the fact that it only takes a few weeks before the elected US President Joe Biden has to give him the Oval Office in the White House again? First, nothing has changed in his opinion that his election defeat can only be based on fraud. Second, the fact that he only picks up people who encourage him in the conspiracies has also changed little.
There are advisors to Trump who want to save him from further legal action because the election is long lost even if he should still find evidence of irregularities. But Trump has hired a company called “Cyber Ninjas” through the Republican administration to check ballot papers in Arizona. More precisely: in Maricopa County.
In other constituencies, such as Fulton County, Georgia, the company is at least allowed to check absentee ballots. Arizona and Georgia are at the heart of his plan because he expects the most from them. And Trump obviously believes Maricopa and Fulton Counties are the first dominoes to fall – and many others with them after that. This is how the Washington Post describes it.
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The really astonishing thing is not even Trump’s plan, but the result of a CNN poll of Republican voters: Even half a year after the election, 70 percent believe that Joe Biden did not legitimately win it.
Admittedly, Trump’s advisors also report to the Washington Post that they have the impression that Trump’s plans to return to the Oval Office are unprepared daydreams. But Trump has even assembled a small team behind him to help him along the way.
It is not surprising that the One America News Network (OAN) is also playing a role again. The TV broadcaster, including the Internet platform, is something like the successor to “Fox News” as Trump’s house broadcaster. Only OAN is much less important and more inflammatory. A presenter who has her own show on OAN, Christina Bobb, is considered one of the main supporters of Trump in his endeavors. Even a Republican senator, Doug Mastriano from Pennsylvania, is offensively behind Trump.
Trump: “The left are afraid of what might be found”
Last Monday, Trump publicly commented at least on checking the ballot papers. “There is a lot of work being done to bring the electoral fraud in the 2020 presidential election to light,” said the ex-president of the Washington Post in North Carolina. “The left talk about the security of elections, but don’t keep what they promise because they’re afraid of what might be found.”
His advisors report that Trump has read everything relating to the review of the ballot papers in the past few days and weeks. It has not been communicated whether he also hears voices that take the wind out of his sails.
A Republican official from Trump’s most hopeful Arizona constituency, Maricopa County, recently said that the state’s Republican leaders appear to know the fraud allegations are “ridiculous.” “We can no longer tolerate these crazy lies. As a party. As a state. As a country, ”tweeted Stephen Richer.
The President of the Senate in Arizona, Republican Karen Fann, even said that the recount is not about wanting to undo Biden’s victory. It is about finding ways in which the state’s electoral laws could be improved.
As of June 1, 1.2 million of the 2.1 million ballots in Maricopa County had been re-counted by hand. The mission has been running since April. The review will take until the end of June, announced the “Cyber Ninjas”.
It is not yet known when the company will publish its results on possible irregularities in the vote count in November. So Trump will have to wait until July. And then he has less than four weeks left before the preparations for the second term as US President have to begin – not to mention setting up the new online platform.
