In yet another week from hell, one in which a new book by his niece suggests Donald Trump is operating with less than a full deck, the desperate President switched election campaign managers.
The 11th-hour change saw Brad Parscale replaced by the scandal-scarred Bill Stepien. Much sarcastic social media commentary followed, with wags comparing the move to the rearranging of deck chairs on a certain doomed ocean liner.
Mr. Stepien has a pedigree that might well appeal to this President. He was a key figure in “Bridgegate,” the 2013 New Jersey scandal in which Governor Chris Christie’s office engaged in a revenge plot against Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, shutting down lanes on a city bridge to create massive gridlock – this for Mr. Sokolich’s sin of not endorsing Mr. Christie’s re-election. Mr. Christie publicly singled out Mr. Stepien, a top aide, and cut ties with him.
Upon getting the nod from Mr. Trump, Mr. Stepien expressed nothing but confidence that a Republican victory was at hand: “We have a better team, better voter information, a better ground game, better fundraising and, most importantly, a better candidate with a better record.”
What is he smoking, you might ask? Fine question. The reality is that the odds of Mr. Stepien aiding a winning candidate are paltry. The United States has never, in the words of esteemed conservative commentator George F. Will, been reduced to a more pitiable state than it has under this President. He could have added pitiful. If, given the frightful circumstances, the Democrats don’t win in November, it will be their biggest embarrassment ever.
The week saw the country setting more daily records for coronavirus cases – this at a point Mr. Trump predicted the virus would be pretty much gone. Americans are pinning much of the blame on his management of the crisis. A Washington Post-ABC News poll Friday shows only 38 per cent of Americans approve of his handling of the pandemic. It’s among the reasons, as Gallup reported, that “since January, Americans’ party preferences have shifted dramatically in the Democratic Party’s direction.”
The resurgence of the pandemic is shutting down commerce in large parts of the country, making any Republican dreams of a quick economic recovery dubious at best. More than 17 million U.S. workers were claiming unemployment insurance as this month began. Several relief programs propping up the unemployed are set to expire soon.
The last thing Mr. Trump needed, with his character being the subject of so much derision, was the release of a book by his niece, Mary Trump, titled Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man.
The scathing account by a family member (and clinical psychologist) casts serious doubts on Mr. Trump’s mental health, heavily hinting at psychological disorders as well as giving vent to charges that he is a racist. In subsequent interviews, Ms. Trump said she has heard the President use the N-word and anti-Semitic slurs. The book has already sold more than a million copies.
On the heels of its release, Mr. Trump gave a garbled, disjointed, falsehood-filled news conference in the White House Rose Garden, which only fuelled suspicions raised by the book as to his instability.
It followed the publication of another blockbuster, John Bolton’s The Room Where It Happened, which details the impulse-driven incompetence the former national security adviser was witness to in his time working for this President.
The week also saw Mr. Trump condemned for committing a travesty of justice in commuting the prison sentence of confidant and former campaign operative Roger Stone, who was to serve more than three years behind bars for seven felonies.
There was more. In the wake of mass national protests over the death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, in police custody, Mr. Trump continued to inflame tensions by defending the Confederate flag, which is a symbol of slavery and racism to many Americans. Incredibly, he denied that Black Americans suffer from police brutality more than white Americans. He is losing ground in public opinion for his response to the racial crisis, as well as the pandemic.
There are 3½ months remaining until election day. But there is little or no chance that the rearranging of deck chairs on Mr. Trump’s ship of doom will lead to a change of course before then.
He is set in his wayward ways, ensconced in an alternative reality that has brought the country to its knees and has fellow Republicans, fearing a wipeout, shaking their heads in despair.
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Lawrence Martin