Maybe this is his pivot towards resignation?

[ecstatic]

How many of his ex friends and associates have said that trump will resign when he's sure he can't win reelection?

The Pentagon said no to his dictatorship idea. His plan to use the proud boys has fallen apart.

The best thing he can do now is try to make as much money as possible through our tax dollars, stock market manipulation, and shady foreign deals.

[Doodley]

1. This is his best opportunity to (in his mind) save himself from a humiliating defeat by

using Covid as an excuse and if he has a mild case, claiming symptoms are worse than they are.

[Lucinda]

2. Quite possibly. Whether by accident or by design - it could provide him an exit

❤️ ~✿~❧~🌿~❧~✿~ ❤️

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

3. No. He is not going to resign.

Don't ever forget that he is a narcissist. Nothing outside of him is real. He will stay to the (bitter) end.

And can you be specific about which friends and associates have said he will resign when he's sure he can't win reelection?

[Earthshine2]

6. He will not stay to the bitter end if he sees a bad end as inevitable.

This is a captain who will not go down with the ship. He'll jump to a lifeboat leaving his cohorts and perhaps his family to drown.

"Nothing outside of him is real." -- That's actually called solipsism, and this is a description that fits due to his extreme egocentrism and lack of basic empathy.

But, it only fits him sometimes. In actuality, what people think of him is important to him.

His mental maladies are not easily categorized because they are layered.

So to speak, when "shit gets real," he'll switch to a narcissistic survival mode.

If he thinks he'll lose this election in an inarguable landslide, I predict he will use COVID symptoms as a reason to step down rather than face the humiliation of being a loser.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

7. I disagree. I think there is no way he will step down,

but I really do appreciate your insight. Thank you.

[Earthshine2]

8. I didn't say "step down." I meant step out of the election.

Resigning as President would be a blow to the ego.

He won't resign unless he wants to do a "squeeze play" where Pence becomes president for a few weeks -- just long enough to pardon Trump.

He's not a total narcissist, or total solipsist, or even total psycho. He's all of these things in flux.

Ultimately, he is a survivor. In the face of failure, he'll drop his various megalomanias if he can live to grift and graft another day.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

11. Okay. I understand what you are saying.

But I don't think he will step out of the election. His ego is far to tightly tied up in being President. He will not willingly let go of that.

For some years now people here have been predicting he'd resign. They've all been wrong. And anyone who thinks he'll step down in any way is likewise wrong. As are those who claim he's trying to lose the election. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

He is a complete and total narcissist, which is the most important thing to understand about him. To Donald Trump, no one else outside of himself is real. No one. Ponder that for a moment.

Okay, are you done pondering, are you back with me? Moving on. For him, no one else is real. The world only exists within his head. So anything he says is reality. Which is why he will say one thing, and then the complete opposite a sentence or two later. Because at the time, at the very time he's saying it, it's true. And what he says two sentences later is also true. Because he lives in the moment, there is, for him, no contradiction.

It might help to watch the movie Memento. While there is no political intent in the movie, the underlying reality of living in the moment, or in this case some 7 or so minutes, is helpful to think about Trump.

And that's also why he says things like the polls show he won the debate. In what most of us would call the real world, he didn't. In fact he lost the debate by double digits. But for Trump, what he says is the truth. And it's not ever influenced by outside reality.

[OneBlueSky]

4. Resigning would enable Pence to issue an all-encompassing pardon . . .

like Ford did for Nixon . . . could he/they be that conniving? . . .

[Tarheel_Dem]

5. I'll admit I didn't think about resignation, but the cynic in me thought this was a convenient.....

time to ditch the next couple of debates. He hated being on that stage the other night, and according to the polls, he's fallen further behind Biden than before the debate. This WH has lied so much that I don't believe anything they say. I don't put anything past a guy who hates to lose as much as Herr Trumpf, so you may be absolutely correct.

[rockfordfile]

9. I think he's thankful that it gets him out of the debates.

[Sunsky]

10. The narcissist is going nowhere

He will not resign.