It’s official: Donald Trump is running for the mayor of Crazy Town

| 9:09 am EDT July 6, 2020
Dear Palmer Report readers, we all understand the difficult era we're heading into. Major media outlets are caving to Trump already. Even the internet itself and publishing platforms may be at risk. But Palmer Report is nonetheless going to lead the fight. We're funding our 2025 operating expenses now, so we can keep publishing no matter what happens. I'm asking you to contribute if you can, because the stakes are just so high. You can donate here.

Donald Trump is no longer running for President. It’s up for debate as to whether he knows he’s not running for President. But there’s no doubt that Trump’s actions, behavior and strategy are not consistent with someone who’s actually running – at least not for President, anyway.

Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign strategy was a lousy one, completely ineffective, and it cost him the election – only to be bailed out by the last minute Comey letter. But at least there was a strategy last time: promote racism in a manner that would appeal to vaguely racist people and explicitly racist people alike. This time around, Trump’s gameplan consists of alienating as many people as possible and reducing the number of people who vote for him. Trump isn’t running for President; he’s running for mayor of Crazy Town.

That’s not to say that Donald Trump is doing this intentionally. While he’s clearly in cognitive decline, we don’t know how many or few marbles are left in his head. We don’t know if Trump has concluded he’s going to lose anyway and he’s just trying to burn it all down out of spite, or if Trump is genuinely trying to win but he’s too senile to understand that his advisers are giving him intentionally bad advice aimed at burning it all down.

Either way, this isn’t a campaign for President. It’s something much darker, uglier, more ominous, and more confusing. When you no longer care about winning, you can afford to do all kinds of deranged things during the remainder of the race. And if your mind is too far gone to understand that you’re not trying to win, that speaks for itself.

Donald Trump could still win. But if he does, it’ll be because of another fluke, or because the other side gets lax and fails to put in the work that’s required to win any election. It’s more important than ever to focus on things like voter registration and voter turnout. But let’s not pretend Trump is running some kind of actual campaign. At this point it’s like he’s trying to lose.

Dear Palmer Report readers, we all understand the difficult era we're heading into. Major media outlets are caving to Trump already. Even the internet itself and publishing platforms may be at risk. But Palmer Report is nonetheless going to lead the fight. We're funding our 2025 operating expenses now, so we can keep publishing no matter what happens. I'm asking you to contribute if you can, because the stakes are just so high. You can donate here.