Trump supporters at war with each other over whether the president should concede: report
On Saturday, The Washington Post profiled several Trump supporters in the aftermath of the president’s election loss, and found a growing split in them on whether to continue denying the legitimacy of the election results, or admit Joe Biden is the winner and move on to fight another day.
“Many Trump voters say it would seem out of character for the president to make a concession speech. As of Friday, bettors on PredictIt, an online prediction market, put the chance that Trump would concede anytime soon at just 9 percent,” reported Marc Fisher, Christine Spolar, and Hannah Knowles. “Still, some Trump supporters believe he is hurting the country by making false claims about fraud.”
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Some Trump supporters like Lansing, Michigan college student Aidan Pung, is convinced the election was plagued with irregularities and said, “I don’t see how Michigan could vote blue after everything that’s happened to us. It doesn’t make sense to me.” And in Arizona, audio engineer Steven Carroll insists the election isn’t over, but many of his social media contacts do not agree: “I get people all over my social media saying, ‘Oh, quit crying, snowflake,’” he said.
On the other hand, retired Pennsylvania football coach Sam LoFaso said, “Is [Trump] a sore loser? Yes. It’s not in his DNA to lose. But I think, behind closed doors, the Republicans should tell him, for the betterment of the country, move on. The game isn’t over until the whistle blows. But the whistle has blown on him.”
There is still an overwhelming feeling in the Republican Party that they were cheated.
“A majority of Republican voters — 70 percent — say the election was unfair, according to a Politico/Morning Consult poll conducted last weekend; 90 percent of Democrats, meanwhile, said they believe the vote was free and fair,” said the report. “There always have been people who refuse to admit defeat. But in a society that puts a growing premium on self-regard and empathy for long-excluded groups, sore losers can be redefined as unfairly maligned victims, according to psychologists and political scientists who study changing attitudes toward losing.”
The Trump campaign is still involved in several lawsuits trying to dispute election results and throw out ballots, but most of these challenges have ended in failure.
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