Douglas Murray Douglas Murray

Donald Trump won’t leave me alone

[Getty Images]

Ever since I saw him in Pensacola, Florida the other week, Donald J. Trump will not leave me alone. Each morning I wake up, turn on my phone and find more messages sent overnight. On just one morning this week I rolled over to find emails from him titled ‘Chaos’, ‘Rigged’ and ‘We’re gaining momentum.’ Another said ‘The left hates you, Douglas.’ He doesn’t know the half of it.

Clearly my email address has been shared. Because in just one morning I also got emails from Mike Pence (‘We’re closer than ever’), Eric Trump and bewilderingly — for I cannot see what fresh constituency she brings — Eric’s wife, Lara. Perhaps I shouldn’t have handed over my details when signing up for the Pensacola rally. I feel like one of those early users of the internet who actually responded to the Nigerian emailers offering part-ownership in a diamond mine.

Anyhow, even if you don’t receive his emails, you might have guessed by the desperation that Trump has lost the election. ‘Let’s finish this thing’ is one of this morning’s emails. Yet it seems to me that the thing is finished already, with America now having to pull off the most difficult imaginable set of juggling tricks.

The problem in America now is that people see the same events but disagree on what they have just seen

The first thing to juggle is the fact that there is plenty of evidence of electoral fraud. In the US, as in the UK (witness Tower Hamlets), the public are right to fear that mail-in ballots in particular are a positive invitation to electoral malpractice. Of course right now no Democrat in America will concede that there is, or ever has been, any fraud in the US electoral system. The fact that these same people spent the past four years claiming that the Russians rigged the 2016 election — while never providing any proof for their claim — makes this an especially tricky juggle.

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