How Much Damage Can This Man Do In Six Months?

Donald Trump Is Embattled, Weak And Losing, And That’s A Very Dangerous Situation

A few months after Donald Trump took office as president, I started a new career in real estate. Starting out, I had the opportunity to meet a New York City real estate big wig and we got to talking about Trump, whom she knew pretty well (and wasn’t a fan of).

She said she that while she thought he had some skills that could translate well into governing, she was most concerned about him in a crisis, and most concerned about what happened if he loses reelection or becomes unpopular.

“He doesn’t know how to handle the world ‘no,'” she said. “If it looks like he’s going to lose a deal, and he can’t save it, he’ll do whatever he can to destroy everyone involved out of pettiness and spite.”

And those words keep churning in my head as we count down to 100 days until the election, and 180 until the next inauguration, which, if current trends continue, will not be of him.

Donald Trump’s decision to send federal law enforcement into Portland, Oregon and other major cities (disguised, for some reason, as soldiers), may be more shocking than it is surprising. Anyone could have seen it coming. Until the pandemic, Trump may have been a slight underdog for reelection, but he had one, no pun intended, trump card – the economy. When unemployment was under 4 percent and the economy was growing at a stable rate, he could always point to that as an example of his success, to ease any concerns about his other more unpopular stances and attributes.

But then came the pandemic, his pathetic, hapless response and the economic calamity it caused. The spring epidemic was quelled and there was hope the pandemic would pass and Trump could get his “good economy” back on track. Democratic governors – and a few Republican ones like Charlie Baker of Massachusetts – bailed his ass out.

Then the resurgence happened.

Now there is no hope of a bettering economy before November 3, and no hope COVID-19 will go away as an issue. He has never been more unpopular. He is trailing Joe Biden by double digits in some polls. Texas, whose electoral votes alone are more tan those of Michigan and Pennsylvania combined, is in play. What is Donald Trump supposed to do now?

He is, as that real estate scion told me, running out of options to “save the deal.” He has to pull a Hail Mary, and if that fails, he will to take out his anger and vengeance on everyone spurning him; the Democrats, the Republicans who have turned on him, and most of all, the voters.

His Hail Mary pass: Do what Republicans have been doing since Richard Nixon – he will try to play on people’s fears. Law and order, a tried and true message for the GOP, is this new attempt to salvage his career – and perhaps his freedom.

The protests over the death of George Floyd in May gave way to some rioting and looting in June, and since then Republicans have been trying to sell the narrative that Americans cities (read: Biden strongholds) are in chaos. Fox News’s “Violence Rages In US Cities” chyron has been having its moment, showing up in nearly every still photo from the network.

Trump is losing, who does he decide to hurt or kill so he can try to come out looking like a winner?

But almost six weeks after rioting and looting in major cities forced Democratic mayors and governors to issue curfews, things have begun to calm down and Biden is still holds a commanding lead in polls. Though many cities are seeing spikes in some crimes, the idea that cities are descending into chaos is just not true. That there is some crime and unrest during a global pandemic with double-digit unemployment (20 percent in NYC) shouldn’t surprise us.

Meanwhile 70,000+ new COVID-19 cases are being reported each day. More than 1,000 have died each of the previous three days, the first time we’ve reached that number since May.

Trump is desperate and afraid. His unable, or unwilling, to handle the pandemic effectively, and the story from late May about hiding in the White House bunker while protestors gathered outside, has clearly gotten to his head. This scares me. What does a man with nothing left to lose, and still holding tremendous power, do? What happens as it become increasingly clear he’s losing the “deal” for another term to Joe Biden? How does he spend his last 80 or so days in office after losing the election in the heat of a pandemic, and an economic and social crisis? Trump is losing, who does he decide to hurt or kill so he can try to come out looking like a winner?

I have this really sinking and anxiety-ridden feeling that he will kill people before January 20. Like, not just ignore a virus while it kills people, but actually fire on protestors and kill them. Whether his desperation leads him to believe murdering “libtards” will win him enough votes to win the election, or whether he’s written the election off and decides to take revenge on a nation that spurned him, I have a bad feeling it will happen. The American people may become the next broker whose HIV diagnosis he leaks because he was outbid on a property (he did this), or the next landlord whose son’s drug problem he will make public (he did this too), because neither would accept his terms for a deal. We may be the next people whose lives he ruins – or ends – to save his reputation and legacy, so that he goes out looking strong in a blaze of glory and not weak; decisive and not feckless; powerful and not hiding in a bunker.