We’ve still got 3 days before the election to have fun speculating about stuff.
Part of the fun recently has involved questions of what will Trump do when he loses.
My contribution to the game is to ask something related: what will his supporters do?
Specifically, what will his supporters do if Trump flees from America?
He has mentioned the possibility, although in a semi-joking way.But the fact that he even said it out loud means that he has considered it as a realistic option.
So let’s run with the scenario:
Trump loses on Tuesday night. He hangs on for a couple months, but a week before Biden’s inauguration, Trump realizes that he is about to be arrested. So he makes one more official trip to visit his friend Putin. He calls a special press conference, announcing that vital issues must be discussed-climate change, nuclear missiles, etc.
Foxnews proudly declares that Trump is displaying the greatest statesmanship in American history, keeping America strong, no hesitating to make decisive decisions to protect America’s place in the world,etc …while Biden and Harris are still in their basements, planning to destroy America by locking down the economy, defunding all the police forces, opening all the borders, etc,etc
The next day Trump takes Air Force One to Moscow. Then sends the plane and pilot back to Washington, while he stays in Russia. Permanently.
How will Fox news report the dry facts of this? And how will they spin their commentary?
ps: I didn’t say this scenario is realistic, I’m just trying to join the fun speculating, while there’s still time.
Pretty much this. They’ll treat him like they do George W. Bush nowadays - in other words pretend he never existed. Sure, there might be some short-lived outrage on the network about the dastardly Democrats forcing a good, patriotic American to flee his own country. But, they’ll quickly move on, and a year or two from now, if you mention the Orange One’s name to a room full of conservative pundits, you’ll likely hear a chorus of “Donald who?”
Trump doesn’t have many options of countries without extradition treaties to the US, yet large and powerful enough to a branch of the military from doing a rendition. Russia and China seem to be the only two realistic ones. We know he’s got bank accounts in China and Vlad would probably put him up in a remote Dacha without twitter access, and then trot him out occasionally like a trained be monkey. A fitting end to have The Donald playing Bubbles to Vlad…
I can imagine a scenario where the Orange Fuckwit is unwittingly enticed to join his Russian partner-in-crime for an exile to one of their most opulent labor camps where repaying the half $Bil owed to Putin becomes a lifelong pursuit.
The least realistic part of the scenario is that Trump would send the plane back. He’d want to keep it as a toy.
Of course, what would really happen is that Putin would keep it as a trophy/intelligence boon. Being able to gut AF1 for its technology and secrets would be a huge win for Putin.
I rather doubt he could just jump on board for a last minute trip, those things are planned along with all the support planes that accompany AF1. Would Trump’s order to take off without support, flight plan, etc. be an illegal order the pilot could refuse to obey?