Think back to mid-November 2020. Do you recall Donald Trump taking his election loss well? That he seemed of sound mind and body? That he was not going to shred whatever last ounce of dignity he had in an absurd effort to hold on to power? No, of course you don’t. The man was acting crazier than he had at any point in the last four years, which is obviously saying something, given that the last four years had seen him advise people to inject bleach into their veins. He had, quite clearly, completely lost it, and if you need any more convincing, perhaps a new anecdote about him thinking he could stop Joe Biden from becoming president by simply refusing to vacate the White House will do it.

Yes, in her forthcoming Trump tome, set for release on October 4, New York Times scribe Maggie Haberman reports Trump spent the days following his loss telling aides that, despite a long-respected custom to do otherwise, he would not be leaving the White House on January 20. “I’m just not going to leave,” Trump told one aide, according to Haberman. “We’re never leaving,” the then president told another person. “How can you leave when you won an election?” If you’re wondering whether there’s some kind of precedent for a POTUS losing an election and then crossing his arms and telling people, “I’m not going,” Haberman informs us in her book, Confidence Man, that there is not. The closest historical parallel, she reports, would probably be when Mary Todd Lincoln refused to leave the White House for almost a month after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. (Incidentally, Todd Lincoln was subsequently declared insane and committed to a mental institution.) ...