Alina Polyakova, president of the Center for European Policy Analysis and a scholar from Russia, said Trump reminded her of President Vladimir V. Putin, who recently has largely withdrawn from view due to public discontent in the late stages of an aging regime have.
“Both also seem to live in alternate realities, surrounded only by those who confirm those realities,” she said. “But while one incubator will survive a slow and long decline, the other will increasingly face rapid decline and will endeavor to do everything possible to save his family and loyalists – and himself, of course.”
Students of the American presidency, however, could not imagine a new parallel. “On my way to Inauguration Day, I thought almost every day of a remark attributed to Henry Adams:” I expected the worst and it was worse than I expected, “said Patricia O’Toole, a biographer of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson and Adams.
Unlike his modern predecessors, Mr Trump did not call his victorious opponent, let alone invite him to the traditional post-election visit to the White House. Mr Trump has indicated that he may not attend Mr Biden’s inauguration, which would make him the first sitting president since 1869 to refuse to participate in the most important ritual of peaceful transfer of power.
He was empowered by Republican leaders who were unwilling to stand against him, even though many privately wish he would leave sooner rather than later. After 75 Pennsylvania Republican lawmakers were called “Profiles in Cowardice” by an ally of the President on Friday, they turned down their own elections and called on Congress to turn down the state’s voters for Mr. Biden. Only 27 of the 249 Republican Congressmen polled by the Washington Post publicly endorsed Mr Biden’s victory. Mr Trump condemned them on Saturday as “RINOS”, which means Republicans only in their name.
“He was really on the grassroots level,” said Christopher Ruddy, a friend of the president and chief executive officer of Newsmax, part of the conservative news media megaphone that reinforced Mr. Trump’s claims. “You voted for him and voted for the second time in his mind. And they are strong for this recount and they want him to continue. In his mind he does this not only for himself, but also for his supporters and for the country. He is on a mission and will not be easy to influence. “
Mr. Trump’s Twitter feed is a fire hose of rejection. “In no case did we lose this election,” he wrote once in the last few days. “We won Michigan a lot!” He was writing in another state that he had lost by more than 154,000 votes. He published a message in which he wanted to delegitimize Mr. Biden: “If he is initiated under these circumstances, he cannot be considered a” President “but is called a” President “.”
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