Donald Trump isn’t even trying to win anymore – and that makes him even more dangerous
This week a few different op-ed articles went viral after they predicted Donald Trump is either magically going to win no matter what, or that Trump is going to lose and then just magically remain in office. These articles painted absurdly unrealistic pictures in the hope of scaring you into reading them – making them the definition of clickbait. These kinds of articles are harmful, both because they set false expectations and because they leave some activists too paralyzed with fear and fatalism to put in the work required to win. But the real problem is that these articles miss what actually makes Trump so dangerous right now.
Donald Trump’s Independence Day speech last night helped to confirm a pattern that’s become increasingly clear of late: Trump isn’t trying to win. Instead of trying to gain new supporters, or even win back the people he’s lost, he’s taking his rhetoric in an even more extremist direction – which is all but guaranteed to leave his current numbers the same or drive them lower. When you’re this far behind at this stage of the race, this is not a strategy that gives you a chance to win.
With Trump’s health and cognitive abilities further deteriorating nearly every time he appears in public, it’s not clear if he’s still coherent enough to know he’s not trying to win. For all we know, his advisers have given up any hope of him winning, and so they’re just trying to carry out their own personal agendas for the remainder of his term, and they’ve snowed him into believing that these pet agendas are somehow going to help him win.
The bottom line is that Donald Trump isn’t even trying to win. That doesn’t mean we’re off the hook. Not even close. He could still win due to another last minute fluke like the Comey letter, and of course the GOP operatives will use every cheating tool in their bag to try to nudge Trump’s numbers upward a bit. So we have to work as hard as ever to defeat him, when it comes to things like voter registration and voter suppression.
But the reality is that the further Donald Trump falls behind, and the less likely he is to win, in some ways he’ll become even more dangerous. Until recently we’ve been working under the presumption that Trump knew he had to keep himself reeled in just enough to give himself a chance at reelection, because if he loses, he’ll spend the rest of his life trying to fend off state and federal criminal charges. But if Trump concludes he’s going to lose no matter what, or if his advisers decide to truly go for broke in terms of pushing their election-losing ideological agendas on him, his behavior between now and the end of his term could grow even more deranged and damaging.
No, Donald Trump can’t just pull a magic lever on his desk and change the election results. No, Trump can’t just wave a magic wand and remain in office after he loses; Biden would be sworn in with or without Trump’s blessing, and if Trump then refuses to leave the White House, law enforcement will drag him out by his heels. The people writing this doomsday nonsense know that it’s nonsense, and they’re just trying to get easy page views out of you. If you fall for it, you’re putting Trump in position to make the empty threat of refusing to leave office, and then negotiate a more favorable plea deal.
Don’t even take the bait. Don’t mistake vigilance for gullible paranoia. As Donald Trump falls further behind, it doesn’t somehow put him in a better position to win. But having little or no chance to win just may free him up to decide he wants to lose his way, which could make for a truly devastating few months before he’s gone. That’s the part we have to truly be vigilant about.
