Donald Trump’s increasingly weird endgame

| 10:49 pm EST December 7, 2017
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Now we’re seeing that Donald Trump is going out not with a bang, but with… whatever the hell this is. There’s no ferocity, no real fight, just a bunch of flailing around and increasingly weird things happening. It’s not even so much politically weird, as just plain weird. We know he’s near the end. We know that he knows he’s near the end, or at least his people do, although it’s no longer clear that he knows anything. This is the most bizarre endgame of all time.

Consider that Donald Trump basically quit Twitter on Monday. Based on timing and phrasing, the few tweets that have popped up on his account since then have not been posted by him (and they haven’t been posted by his lawyer, either). During that time, Trump has given a speech in which he sounded like he’s had – in all seriousness – a minor stroke. No one can even figure out if he really has suffered from something, or if he’s faking his slurring as a pretext for resigning over supposed health issues.

Meanwhile Trump’s Press Secretary has announced out of the blue that Trump will take a physical early next year, which is a great way to get everyone focused on his health scandal. Jared Kushner has gotten Trump to abruptly announce that the U.S. is moving its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, something Trump couldn’t care less about, but Kushner seems to see as his last hurrah. Donald Trump Jr is now making jokes on Instagram about his father’s hair, because really, these people have all given up trying.

Michael Flynn’s plea deal was the ballgame, and this is Donald Trump’s endgame. We don’t know why he’s quit Twitter. We don’t know if he’s suffered a debilitating medical problem or if he’s faking it. We can’t figure out why his handlers are tepidly making it all even worse for him. Trump’s illegitimate presidency has been the most incoherent chapter in American history, so perhaps it’s fitting that its endgame is turning out to be unintelligible.