‘Stop the madness’: New York Post slaps Donald Trump

One of Donald Trump’s favorite newspapers, The New York Post, has implored him to “stop the madness” and move on with his electoral defeat in a forceful editorial.

The Post is one of the four largest newspapers in New York, where the president has spent most of his life; the others are The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The New York Daily News.

It was one of the few high-profile posts to endorse Trump over Joe Biden before the Nov. 3 election, arguing that four more years of the Trump administration would be “the best option” for the country.

That was a while ago.

Almost two months have passed since the elections. Dozens of lawsuits challenging the result have been dismissed. And the electoral college has voted, officially confirming Biden’s victory.

Still, the president has not accepted his loss. He continues to post unsubstantiated claims about widespread fraud on social media and insists he could remain in office after inauguration day on January 20.

In its editorial today, The New York Post editorial board spoke directly to Trump. He urged him to cease his efforts to overturn the result and instead focus on the upcoming Senate elections in Georgia, which will have significant ramifications for the next two years.

This was the unmistakable front page of the newspaper.

“Mr. President, it is time to end this dark charade,” the editorial committee said.

“We are one week away from an enormously important moment for our country’s next four years. On January 5, two tiebreaker races in Georgia will determine which party will control the Senate, if Joe Biden will have a stamp of much – He needed to check his schedule “.

The two second-round elections are necessary because no Senate candidate in Georgia received a majority of the vote on November 3.

Incumbent Republicans David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler are trying to fend off challenges from Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock.

As it stands, Republicans have 50 confirmed senators heading into the next Congress, while Democrats have 48. Republicans only need one of their incumbents to win and maintain control of the chamber.

However, if both Democrats win on January 5, the Senate will split 50-50. In that scenario, incoming Vice President Kamala Harris will conduct the runoff vote for the first two years of Biden’s tenure, until the midterm elections.

“Unfortunately, you are obsessed with the next day, January 6, when Congress, in a pro forma action, certifies the electoral college vote,” The Post continued.

“You’ve tweeted that as long as Republicans have ‘guts,’ they can override the results and give you four more years in office.

“In other words, you are encouraging an undemocratic coup.”

Some more context is needed here.

On January 6, Congress will hold a joint session to formally count the electoral votes.

Trump has been pressuring Republicans in Congress to object to voters in key states he lost, in an attempt to replace them with pro-Trump alternative voters and reverse the results.

Some Republicans agree with this plan, so you can expect it to unfold. But they lack the numbers to be successful.

Here’s a quick rundown of the process. Any objection must be made in writing, by at least one person from each chamber of Congress. The joint session is then put into recess, giving the House and Senate an opportunity to debate the objection separately.

After that, the two houses hold separate votes to accept the objection. For a state’s results to be thrown out, both houses must vote yes.

Hence the hopelessness of the situation for Trump. Democrats control a majority in the House and will never vote to invalidate Biden’s victory.

On top of that, the Republican majority in the Senate is currently 52-48, and it is already clear that enough Republicans would vote against an objection to deny it.

Any effort to give Trump a second term is going nowhere.

The Post also addressed the merits of the president’s claims of fraud, berating him for receiving outlandish advice from conspiracy theorist lawyer Sidney Powell and former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

“You had every right to investigate the elections. But let’s be clear. Those efforts have found nothing,” he wrote.

“Sidney Powell is a madman. Michael Flynn suggests that martial law equates to treason. It’s a shame.

“We understand, Mr. President, that you are angry that you lost. But continuing down this path is ruinous. We offer it as a newspaper that endorsed it, supported it: if you want to cement your influence, even set the stage for a future comeback, you must channel your anger into something more productive.

“Stop thinking about January 6. Start thinking about January 5.

“You came out of nowhere to win the presidency. Not an elected official, not a lawyer, not indebted to any particular faction of the swamp. You stood up to elites and the media who had lost contact with average working people. politics, which is something few in the history of the United States can say.

“If Georgia falls, all of that is threatened. You will put your party out of power, you are less likely to listen to what you have to say or take advantage of your successes.”

“Democrats will try to dismiss it as a single-term aberration, and frankly, you are helping them do so. King Lear of Mar-a-Lago, ranting about the corruption of the world.

“If you insist on spending your last days in office threatening to burn everything down, they will remember you that way. Not as a revolutionary, but as the anarchist who supports the party.”