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WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump is down in the polls, running out of time and facing a resurgence of the coronavirus in the United States. Yet, seemingly headed for defeat, he is doing nothing to change course.
Proud of his status as a non-politician who won the White House on his first chance, Trump ignores the polls before November 3 and prefers nostalgic reminiscences over his surprise in 2016.
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There is no doubt that he still has the raw energy on stage from the candidate who surprised everyone by beating Hillary Clinton.
A harsh cycle of protests began this week, the first since he recovered from hospitalization for Covid-19 in early October.
In Florida on Monday and in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, he entertained enthusiastic crowds.
He even did a little boogie on stage to the beat of the Village People song “YMCA”, perhaps encouraged by the lyrics to “I told you, young man, get up off the ground.”
On Tuesday, in Johnstown, a small Pennsylvania town, he delivered his now familiar speech in the cold autumn air, apocalyptically warning that the Democrats are turning the United States into a “large-scale version of Venezuela.”
Just as he used to taunt and insult Clinton, he taunted and insulted challenger Joe Biden.
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“He has no idea what he’s saying! How the hell do you lose to a guy like this?” I ask.
“They shot him,” Trump said. “In his prime, he was considered a dumb guy.”
The biggest problem of the day, Covid-19 and its more than 215,000 victims in the United States, was largely ignored by typical Trump optimism.
He had overcome the virus himself, he said, and “the vaccines are coming soon.”
About his plans for a new four-year term, there was almost nothing but the vague and patriotic climax of his stump speech that the crowd now knows almost by heart.
“The best is yet to come,” he intoned. “We are going to keep fighting and we are going to keep winning, winning, winning.”
– Political suicide? –
Trump often contrasts his rousing events with the quieter and much smaller versions of Biden’s election campaign. But polls show that Biden is more popular and the Democrat has chosen a low-key campaign in keeping with his message of responsibility during the pandemic.
When he’s not on stage, Trump is likely on Twitter, openly expressing his frustration at the situation.
Often blaming “fake” media and polls for his image, he even increasingly lashes out at Fox News, although the network provides him with a frequent platform with its friendly star anchors.
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When he’s not attacking journalists, he often delves into right-wing conspiracy theories, largely directed at his predecessor Barack Obama or Clinton. Complicated and false accusations arrive in such volume that they are often almost ignored.
David Axelrod, a former Obama adviser, wondered on Twitter if Trump “turned his own political suicide into a surreal reality show.”
With 20 days to go, there could still be game-changing surprises, like there were in 2016. But right now, Republicans are increasingly concerned that Biden will lead a Democratic wave, or even a tsunami.
Republicans in the House and Senate are showing signs of trying to stay away from the president, even if he still wields tremendous influence over the party’s activist right.
When faced with Covid-19, there was talk that perhaps now he would seize the unique opportunity to become a more inclusive president. After months of ruling out the virus, would you switch to a show of empathy for the pain ordinary Americans feel?
That did not happen. Instead, it ended up demonstrating the gap between regular voters and the elite when it comes to medical care and the ability to cope with the life-threatening illness.
“A great thing about being president, if you don’t feel 100 percent, you have more doctors than you thought existed in the world. I was surrounded by 14 of them,” he said at Tuesday’s rally.
