Someone should tell Donald Trump it’s over
Donald Trump is polling so badly against every viable opponent in the 2020 election, it’s clear that he’s lost people who voted for him last time around – and it’s equally clear that he can’t win again unless he somehow gains some new supporters who have never liked him. That’s a tough sell, considering he’s never found a way to expand his support base by even an inch.
I only bring this up because it’s becoming more obvious by the day that Donald Trump has no 2020 strategy. Nor for that matter does he have any strategy for fending off whatever dirt about him might end up arising from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, beyond the childlike strategy of claiming that the Clintons did it, which landed like a lead balloon. Nor does Trump have any strategy for fending off the New York State criminal charges that we all know are coming. Or for how to deal with the impeachment process. Or how to stop his tax returns from being turned over to Congress.
Maybe Trump is so far gone that he doesn’t know he’s supposed to be fighting these battles. Maybe Trump is well aware that he’s on a path to eventually losing on all fronts, so he doesn’t see a point in trying. Either way, the entirety of Trump’s “presidency” now consists of starting petty feuds with people who are irrelevant to his fate, and “winning” these feuds by out-tweeting these pointless adversaries.
Donald Trump has spent the past twelve hours ranting incoherently about CNN and its host Chris Cuomo. Trump spent the previous twenty-four hours ranting idiotically about Anthony Scaramucci, a guy he fired two years ago, and is no threat to him. This kind of crap isn’t how you win an election. It’s how you lose – or it’s how you take our your frustrations when you’ve already concluded you’re going to lose.
None of this is an excuse for the Resistance to begin slacking when it comes to 2020. Donald Trump faces the ugliest reelection odds of any U.S. presidential incumbent since, well, ever – but everyone from Russian hackers to GOP vote suppressors will feebly try to rig it for him. The Resistance has to approach 2020 like Trump is ten points ahead, even if he’s ten points behind the entire time.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report