When it rains it pours
Despite the prevailing media narrative this month that Donald Trump is now somehow magically on his way to reelection, the reality is that he’s not on any such trajectory. Some corners of the media have even gone so far as to play up an outlier poll making it look like his approval rating has suddenly spiked when it hasn’t. But the reality is that Trump desperately has to do something to broaden his support before November if he wants any shot at winning.
Trump is now at a point where the clock is ticking, every remaining opportunity is crucial for him, and every missed opportunity by definition a loss for him. Yet as this week has gone on and Trump has tried seizing various moments, he just keeps getting drowned out. What’s remarkable is just how little it’s taken for Trump’s opportunity to go wasted, sometimes by the design of his adversaries, and sometimes by his own hand.
It all started, really, when he ran a very expensive Super Bowl commercial dishonestly touting his record in office. The ad was obviously supposed to drum up positive media coverage for him. But after the game he idiotically congratulated the state of Kansas and not the state of Missouri, even though the winning team plays in Kansas City, Missouri. The next day, that was the big story instead of his multimillion dollar ad. Then things got worse for him.
Trump’s State of the Union speech was a semi-coherent disaster, but we presume he was at least trying to use the speech to broaden his support. Then Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi ripped up her copy of his speech, and that ended up being the prevailing narrative instead of the media parroting Trump’s lies from his speech. By the way, that’s why Pelosi did it. Even if she hadn’t, his refusal to shake her hand before the speech probably would have been the prevailing narrative anyway. Another opportunity blown.
Then on Wednesday, in the best single piece of news that Donald Trump is probably going to get between now and November, he was acquitted in his sham impeachment trial. But Republican Senator Mitt Romney voted to convict and remove Trump. And so that became the prevailing narrative, instead of the fact that Trump was acquitted. Each time Trump has tried to seize the moment this week, its gotten drowned out. He desperately needs wins in the perception department, and he’s just not landing them.
