Stop trying to figure out Donald Trump’s evil strategy

| 9:03 pm EDT September 6, 2017
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Each time Donald Trump does something unexpected or inexplicable, pundits on both sides rush in to try to decipher the hidden strategy in his latest gambit. I’ll give you a hint: there isn’t one. There is no strategy, no thought, and no evil genius plan when it comes to Trump’s words and deeds – and I can prove it.

Presidents each have their priorities. Some just want to be popular and beloved, so they play the short game. But if this is Trump’s goal then he’s failing at it, because he has a 35% approval rating. Some presidents couldn’t care less about popularity, and instead they play the long game on accomplishing as much as possible, ultimately allowing history to judge their legacy. But if this is Trump’s goal then he’s also failing, because he has no major accomplishments or legislation. Then there are the least ambitious presidents, who simply look to keep their head down and avoid controversy and survive. If this is Trump’s goal then he’s once again failing, because he’s being eaten alive by his own scandals, which he’s made worse by managing them poorly.

If Trump does have a priority, then he’s too inept at that priority for anyone to even be able to figure out what it is. I’ve considered the scenario where Trump is too smart for the rest of us, and we can’t understand his moves because we’re all too dumb. But if that were the case, he’d be winning at something. We’d all be staring at him in confusion as he rage-tweeted his way to a high approval rating and a series of legislative victories while having made his Russia scandal disappear. No, this is just a guy who has no idea what he’s doing. But hey, he was enough of an evil genius to win the election, right? Wrong.

For Donald Trump, the cold hard reality is this: he had the Russian government rigging the election in his favor all along, he had a free pass from the media, and he even had the FBI releasing a letter eleven days before election day which falsely suggested his opponent was newly under criminal investigation. Despite all of this, Trump still lost by three million votes. There was no brilliant evil strategy on his part during the election. His campaign decisions all failed so badly that even with an army of thumbs on the scale in his favor, he still got blown out. Without all the rigging, he’d have lost by ten million votes.

So no, there’s never been any viable strategy on the part of Donald Trump. There was none during the election, and there is none now. He’s failing on all fronts, he has no achievements to hang his hat on, his popularity is historically low, and his scandals are getting worse for him by the day. Now, this is not a reason to not take him seriously. He is a serious threat because he’s deranged and has no sense of boundaries. This may get even more worrisome as he becomes more unhinged and vengeful on his way down the drain. But this guy has no strategy. There’s nothing to decipher. That’s not the part we have to worry about.