This has been implicit in various points I’ve made in recent Editors’ Blog posts. I want to make it more explicit. What’s occupying Donald Trump’s time right now? The big items are the Ballroom, the Deserving Fascists Slush Fund, the revenge tour against merely 95% loyal members of Congress. We could add Trump’s Iran War which is keeping gas prices sky high and creating other shortages. But that’s kind of baked in from a decision Trump made more than two months ago. It’s damaging him but it’s a tar pit he’s already stuck in. The things he’s most focused on, the obsessions are things that are either irrelevant to the midterm elections or are playing central roles driving down his public support. The plane is losing altitude fast but he’s in the cockpit grabbing the controls and trying to steepen the descent.
The latest polls from this week suggest Trump’s public support continues to fall. Quinnipiac 34% approval; Fox 39%; NYT and AP both 37%. Yet there’s still very little connecting the dots. Yes, he’s unpopular. Yes, he’s getting more unpopular. But he is also spending most of his time and most digging in on the things that are making him even more unpopular. This requires an explanation. The best explanation is an illustration of personalist rule. The government is being driven entirely by Donald Trump’s whims and drives. Which is to say it’s being driven by his self-soothing over his plummeting support, his need to act out and find areas where he can dominate (Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, bespoke triumphalist construction projects in the backyard) to compensate for losing power and public support. Whether or not that theory makes sense to you it is objectively true he’s totally focused pushing harder on the things making him unpopular. That has to be at the center of the story to have any grasp on what is happening in the country or about to happen.
