Edition · December 15, 2020

The Daily Fuckup — December 15, 2020

3 verified reports published on December 15, 2020.

This edition is the complete daily record. Reports remain separate so readers can see each claim, source set, correction, and update without one article being mislabeled as the entire edition.

Closing take

By December 15, the pattern was unmistakable: Trump and his allies were not uncovering a stolen election, they were manufacturing an ever-more embarrassing record of failed attempts to overturn one. The legal and political cost of that choice kept compounding, and the gap between the rhetoric and the evidence was getting harder to cover with anything except louder lies.

Support the work

Help support this site

If this nightly edition saves you time, reader donations help pay for hosting, archives, publishing, email, and AI costs.

Donate

Ranked by how bad the fuckup was

5 stars means maximum fallout. 1 star means a smaller self-own.

Story

Trump’s election-fraud court push kept collapsing, and the record was getting uglier by the day

★★★★☆Fuckup rating 4/5 Serious fuckup

On December 15, 2020, Trump’s post-election legal campaign was still trying to live on momentum that the courts had already been stripping away. The underlying problem was simple: the campaign and its allies kept filing, pressuring, and repeating allegations that were not surviving contact with judges, affidavits, or basic election administration records. The day was another reminder that this wasn’t a serious litigation strategy so much as a political ritual of denial.

Open story + comments

Story

The fake-elector pressure campaign was already turning into a paper trail problem

★★★★☆Fuckup rating 4/5 Serious fuckup

On December 15, Trump-world’s efforts to keep alternate-elector schemes and election-overturn pressure alive were becoming a bigger legal and ethical liability. Official and quasi-official records show the operation moving through Republican officials and outside allies even as the normal certification process kept advancing. The problem was not only the false premise, but the fact that the premise was now producing documentary evidence of coordinated attempts to subvert the vote.

Open story + comments

Story

Trump’s pardon world was already telegraphing how transactional the lame duck had become

★★★☆☆Fuckup rating 3/5 Major mess

By December 15, the Trump orbit was deep into the kind of clemency politics that made the presidency look more like a protection racket than a governing institution. The pardon chatter and lobbying environment reflected a White House where proximity, loyalty, and personal ties mattered more than principle. Even before the final holiday wave of pardons, the smell test was already bad.

Open story + comments