Just because it’s in Politico doesn’t make it untrue. The story that it ran Sunday about President Trump finally acknowledging that he’s on track to lose reelection sounds very, very true.
“The president has privately come to that grim realization in recent days,” the article said, adding that “behind the scenes, Trump and his team are taking steps to correct course.”
You don’t say.
The story is anonymously sourced to “multiple people close” to Trump, and when asked about it, the president will undoubtedly dismiss it as “fake news.” But if it’s fake news that he’s privately admitting he’s cruising toward a colossal loss in November, it’s not fake news that he really is perfectly positioned to fail in his reelection run.
I don’t put a ton of faith in “the polls,” but when they show Trump losing in key states, especially with white voters, across the board, they’re probably not too off the mark.
And those unnamed sources aren’t out to get Trump. They’re trying to help him.
Fortunately for the president, he still has four months, and his opponent, Joe Biden, looks a mess every time he’s exhumed.
Biden right now is benefiting from the national media hyping up both the pandemic and racial tensions, but come time for the political conventions in August, he’ll no longer be able to hide.
But that opportunity will be easily wasted if Trump continues to be everything that the media say he is: a barely literate dingbat sociopath.
His little photo-op in front of the church made him look like a fool. His unfathomably late action on the riots had every one of his supporters wondering, “Hey, what happened to the ‘law and order’ president?”
His inability to give consistent, useful information on the spread of the coronavirus has made him look like a panicky little man.
In short, Trump, in the last two months, has been unforgivably weak.
But here’s an idea: He can get back to doing the things he said he would do and stop reacting on Twitter to every niggling thing journalists say about him.
Progress on the southern border “wall” is slow, but he can continue working on it, ramp it up when possible, and rightfully tout it as an achievement. The administration has also had success with its executive orders to keep migrants from slipping into the United States by requiring them to wait in a separate country before claiming asylum and by limiting legal entry to people who won’t need to immediately hop on welfare.
Trump can get serious on pressuring governors and mayors to restore order to their states and cities amid the Black Lives Matter chaos. He won with the “law and order” message in 2016, and there’s no reason to believe it’s lost any of its potency.
He can also get realistic about the coronavirus. It’s spreading, and, at this point, there’s no stopping it. Yes, the number of infections will go up, but we’re in a far better position than we were three months ago when we had no idea how to treat it or even the effect that it had on the body. He can stop offering false hope that it’s going to “go away and disappear” at any moment and simply tell the truth. And the truth is that new viruses run their course and that the best we can do now is manage its spread while we develop new vaccines and treatments.
These aren’t especially difficult things to do, and yet Trump is running scared.
That’s why he’ll lose.
