You still wondering if Trump will declare a national emergency to  delay the election or, barring that, to declare himself ruler for life.  OF COURSE HE WILL!

Trump has only one move left on the board and it is an obvious one.  He has to declare a national emergency even if the declaration is tied up in the courts for years.  Even if it is overturned.  Barring this, he and his coterie will have to leave the White House in the dead of night to seek asylum in Russia or Saudi Arabia or Turkey or the Ecuadorian embassy in London.   

Here’s why.  Trump’s only chance of staying out of jail and going down in history as the most despised citizen in the history of our country is to rally his base.  Indeed, he must do more than just rally them.  He must whip them up into a gnashing fury.  This is the only way to tighten his loosening grip on the Republican Party.  He must instill in the GOP an even deeper fear of his MAGA-hat wearing base.  

 Because Republicans in Congress are eyeing the door.  They will make a run for it the moment they think the consequences of continuing to protect Trump outweigh the consequences of abandoning him to his fate.  They know he has been compromised.  They know he is guilty of a multitude of high crimes both before and after the election.  They know he’s responsible for tens of thousands of CoVID deaths.  They have known these things for a very, very long time.  None of that matters to them.  If he is re-elected, they reason, the GOP could capture the White House  in reinvent itself by 2024.  But as the evidence mounts it is looking more and more like Trump, exposed as a criminal and perhaps a traitor, will not be re-elected.  The only thing keeping them in the room is the fear of the mauling they will get from Trump’s base just on the other side of the door.

Add to this that Trump has outlived his usefulness to Putin.  Exposing Trump will serve Russia’s interest even when he himself cannot.  Trump used his office to serve Russia’s interest faithfully,   But the drip, drip, drip of evidence that he is a Russian asset is turning into a raging river so that Trump’s ability to continue to do so is rapidly diminishing.  When Trump is making foreign policy decisions that serve Russia instead of America, Putin may conclude that exposing Trump is better for Russia than a no-longer-useful asset who is no longer in the White House.  Why not expose Trump as a Russian asset, as a criminal or as an active partner in Russian interference in our elections?  Proxies as rogue actors could be “the Russians” in the case of  the latter two so Putin could make (another) tongue-in-cheek denial of State involvement.  The effect, the same:  a big, middle finger in the face of democratic nations and the EU and a national crisis on top of the Pandemic from which we will not soon recover.  And Putin goes down in history as a genius who did in 3 years what Lenin, Stalin, Krushev, etc. could not do in 50 years of a Cold War.  

Trump will declare a national emergency to stay in office because he must.