Trump Unhinged

As the election nears, the pandemic rages, the economy stutters (again), and his approval numbers continue to slip, President Trump appears incapable of correcting the course that has brought him to this perilous state.  He’s even doubled-down on some of the very tactics that caused the most damage.  His decisions have worsened the pandemic, destabilized the economy, and decreased his chances for re-election almost to zero, yet he seems committed to them.  We have reached the point where a new question is necessary: Is the President emotionally and intellectually capable of responding to the reality that is destroying his chances for re-election.  Does he have the capacity to recognize his plight?  Is he becoming unhinged?

Superficially, this is not new behavior.  It is consistent with the first 3½ years of his presidency, during which time he evoked deep mistrust of the press, denied science to the point of rolling back desperately needed climate-change policies and pulling out of the Paris climate accords, asked for election help from foreign nations and much else.  What is different now is that his irrational actions are no longer effective in propping up his political support.  Even Republicans are recognizing the political damage and beginning to think about the exits. 

The President seems to believe he has truly magical powers to repeat his upset in 2016 and is depending on a strategy that worked then but which is now sabotaging his chances for re-election.  He cannot see what should be obvious: the social, political, and economic landscapes have changed dramatically. 

There is recklessness about it, especially as the President pushes for school openings in the face of public fear, hesitation from members of his own staff, and nervousness from politicians in the Republican Party.  His behavior has moved into the bizarre as he retweets medical advice from a fringe physician who belittles the use of face masks believes that having sex with demons can lead to gynecological illness.

Over the past several months, the President seems to have given up any semblance of paying attention to his impact on the public.

• He seemed at first to backtrack from his disastrous decisions to downplay the Covid-19 crisis, acknowledging now that it will get worse before it gets better, recommending wearing a mask and even wearing one in public (although to date only three times total, more often  still also appearing in public without a mask), canceling his Jacksonville convention, and recommending social distancing.  Nevertheless,
  

• He continued to downplay the virus, by claiming it will just disappear. 
• He has continued to demand that all schools open completely (threatening to cut off federal funding to those who do not) in the face of  the universal medical opinion against complete re-opening, announcements by large school systems that they will not open for face-to-face classes and clear evidence that the public (including the parents who must decide whether they will send their children back to school and teachers who are considering resignation) does not support him.  Although he has acknowledged that districts in some virus hot spots “may need to delay reopening for a few weeks,” he has intervened to push the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to rewrite guidelines so they emphasize the educational risks of staying closed and de-emphasize the public health risk of opening. 
• Notwithstanding the shortages in testing supplies that will be necessary for any control of the pandemic, Trump has continued to refuse to develop a national policy for containment of the virus. 

• He escalated his law-and-order stance by using unidentified federal law enforcement officers to clear out lawful, peaceful protestors from Lafayette Square across from the White House so he could walk across the park for bizarre photo op, for which he was subsequently rebuffed by his Defense Secretary and the military’s chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff.  Uninvited by local political leaders, the President subsequently dispatched more federal officers to Portland, Oregon, to quell protests there and threatened to do the same to other (Democratically-controlled) cities despite unanimous objections from leaders there and concern that the federal presence was worsening the Portland situation.  Again, indications from polls are that the public strongly disapproves of his “law-and-order” approach.   
• Despite widespread public agreement that black people are disproportionately affected by police violence, popular support for the Black Lives Matter movement and the ongoing protests following the death of George Floyd and others, the President has continued to minimize the problem of police violence. He has, unsurprisingly, denied his own role in perpetuating it, responding with the half-truth that more white people are killed than blacks.  (Due to their smaller population, African Americans are killed more than twice the rate of whites).  The civic unrest and the public’s deeper understanding of racism have revealed a President who is increasingly out of touch with his public and who slides into violent authoritarianism when he is frustrated.  Two-thirds of Americans feel that the President has increased racial tensions.
• Perhaps most dangerously, the President is preparing his constituency for election fraud, as he did in 2016, continually refusing to promise that he will accept the results of the election.  He has said bluntly, without evidence, that mail-in ballots are prone to fraud, once again damaging confidence in our electoral process with unknown consequences.  Because of the pandemic this year, millions more people will be voting by mail, which will very likely delay vote-counting by as much as a week.  His recent donor-turned-appointee to head the Post Office has instituted "efficiency reforms" that will slow down delivery.  The President’s implied threat to refuse to accept the results could have severe, if difficult to predict, consequences.  Most recently he floated the idea of postponing the November elections almost before Republican leaders could reject it.

The signs that more and more individuals and institutions are standing up to him are everywhere:

• In spite of Trump's earlier fuming about players taking a knee during the playing of the national anthem, both teams in the opening game of the baseball season did so.
• NASCAR has banned the Confederate flag.
• In defiance of the President, the Senate — with overwhelming Republican support — passed a defense authorization bill that required the renaming of military installations that Confederate generals.
• Republican states are moving forward with vote-by-mail.
• Military officials have defied Trump on the use of the Insurrection Act.
• Defense Secretary Esper expressed concern about the over-militarized federal crackdown in Portland.
  

Up until recently, President Trump’s irrational behavior has been largely protected from criticism by the fact that it didn’t seem to affect his political standing.  But in the face of his crumbling political support, his actions and rhetoric seem not only irrational but even unbalanced.

Too many pundits and too much of the public have been intimidated by Trump's surprise victory in 2016 to notice the differences between then and now.  President Trump is doing overwhelming damage to himself this time around.  Barring some extraordinary “October surprise,” he has destroyed his chances for reelection and, almost as likely, taken the Republican majority in the Senate with him.