(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Like the little boy haunted by ghosts in the horror movie “The Sixth Sense,” President Donald Trump sees dead people everywhere. He thinks at least 5,000 of them voted in Georgia during the presidential election and were part of a broader conspiracy that deprived him of a victory in the state.
In an unhinged, extraordinary phone call Saturday with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, and Ryan Germany, Raffensperger’s general counsel, Trump tried to strong-arm them into conceding that President-elect Joe Biden hadn’t really secured 11,779 more votes than he did. And he encouraged them to find ways to invalidate those votes, according to a recording of the conversation obtained by the Washington Post (which broke the story) and Bloomberg News.
“So what are we going to do here folks?” Trump asked during the one-hour call. “I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes.” Trump, who oversees the Justice Department for 16 more days, also threatened both men, warning that they could be charged with a crime if they failed to support his voting fraud fairytales.
The phone call memorialized what corruption and a desire to orchestrate a political coup sound like and, happily, Raffensperger and Germany were unswayed. “The challenge that you have is the data you have is wrong,” Raffensperger told Trump, who continued trying to steamroll him anyway. “What we’re seeing is not at all what you’re describing,” said Germany.
Trump has been at this for decades, so there’s nothing surprising here. He spent years trying to bully, buy off or corrupt regulators, politicians, law enforcement officials and others he encountered as a developer, casino operator, media fixture and politician. He was impeached for trying to convince Ukraine’s president during a phone call to find dirt on Biden that would undermine his presidential candidacy.
But it is surprising how easily Trump continues to corrupt so many around him. Too few in his party are willing to tell the president, as Germany did, that reality doesn’t comport with his lies. Cowed by Trump’s political traction or eager to jump on his gravy train, too few are willing to abandon him publicly so voters’ faith in the electoral process, democracy and the rule of law isn’t permanently undercut.
Instead, we’re treated to some of Trump’s more cartoonish and dangerous enablers getting in on the act. His chief of staff, Mark Meadows, encouraged Georgia’s officials on the call to look at the election results “more fully” and, “in the spirit of cooperation,” to “find a path forward” outside of the court system (which has already roundly rejected Trump’s fraud claims). On Saturday night, Meadows took to Twitter to encourage members of Congress to object to certification of the presidential election Jan. 6. “It’s time to fight back,” he advised.