For Donald Trump, this is what losing looks like

| 11:02 pm EDT June 23, 2018
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Donald Trump is in the most vulnerable position that any U.S. President has been in since Richard Nixon in 1974. In fact the latest polls say that as many Americans want Trump ousted right now, as wanted Nixon ousted shortly before he was ousted. Trump is now trying some desperately and recklessly aggressive tactics to try to shake up the board and fend off his administration’s demise. But let’s not mistake any of this for winning. For Trump, this is simply what losing looks like.

When Nixon figured out that Watergate was likely to take him down, he used every trick he could think of. He tried putting one bizarrely dishonest spin after another on the Watergate narrative. He tried one random distraction after another. Then, once he realized he was definitely going to soon be ousted, he decided to resign gracefully, if only in the hope that the history books would show him some mercy. Donald Trump, of course, is a different animal.

Trump has been stealing one page after another out of Nixon’s Watergate coverup playbook, perhaps not having read far enough ahead to know that none of it worked for Nixon in the end. Now that Trump’s attempts at spinning the Russia scandal in his favor have failed, he’s putting all his chips down on one last huge and uniquely deranged distraction. It’s as if he said to himself, “What can I do that’s so God-awful, it’ll distract people from the fact that I committed treason?”

So here we are, with Donald Trump having taken thousands of immigrant children hostage, and having no idea what to do with them. First he backed down with an executive order, then he changed his mind, and now no one seems to know what he’s doing – least of all him. Trump is now the criminal who has failed to evade the authorities, and seeing no other way out, has decided to take hostages. Has there ever been a scenario where that’s worked out well for the criminal? Trump has always been a deranged person, so now that he’s backed into a corner and about to lose everything, maybe it shouldn’t be surprising that his endgame is every bit as deranged as ever. But make no mistake: he is losing, and he’s now accelerating his own ouster.