This is what you do when you’re losing

| 6:01 pm EDT October 13, 2020
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If you didn’t understand anything about football, and you saw one team aggressively slinging the ball around the field in the fourth quarter, you might mistake that aggression for winning. But in reality, when a team is being that reckless late in the game, it’s because they’re losing – and they have to take big risks, even when those risks are likely to backfire.

This brings us to Donald Trump’s recent decision to begin using the ever nonpartisan Dr. Anthony Fauci, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, in his campaign TV ads without permission. Fauci has begun loudly pushing back against this in TV interviews, and General Milley is now leaking his dissatisfaction.

So now Trump has created a mess in which two guys in his administration, both with solid reputations, both of whom have been hesitant to criticize Donald Trump publicly, are now both loudly criticizing him and his campaign for pulling this stunt. In other words, it’s already backfiring on Trump, and is more likely to cost him votes than gain him votes.

We could have told you going in that this would be the result, and Donald Trump and his campaign probably understood this as well. But when you’re losing as badly as he is, and you’re this deep into the fourth quarter of the game, these are the risky and reckless low-percentage desperation moves you end up trying. Sure, it’s likely to blow up in your face. But if you’re on track to lose anyway, what’s the difference?