DONALD TRUMP IS A LOSER

David Kurtz has it right in today’s Talking Points Memo morning newsletter:

“Look, Donald Trump wouldn’t resort to the name-calling, the prickly attacks on judges and prosecutors, the self-defeating effort to appeal to his base even when it hurts him in court if – and I can’t emphasize this enough – he weren’t losing.

“It’s a losing man’s bet to gamble that instead of winning in court you’re going to win at the polls on Election Day and make this all go away.

“It’s a loser’s play to chide, ridicule, and threaten the judge who is hearing the big fraud case against you.

“It’s a desperate man’s Hail Mary to ignore the overwhelming evidence against you and play to the cameras and friendly audiences.

“You step back and look at the Trump arc since 2017 and I’m only being partly glib when I offer this summation of the Trump message to the base: “I’m a loser just like you.”

Yes, it is absolutely terrifying to consider what a second time in office for Trump would be like.

It’s even more completely absolutely terrifying to think what it would be like, when you read something like the “2025 Project,” or articles in the New York Times about how his acolytes are looking for lawyers to put into such a second Trump administration who would have been better suited to appear in the Nazis “People’s Courts” 85 years ago.

It’s totally completely absolutely terrifying to read an article in the Washington Post about how he wants to prosecute John Kelly, William Barr and General Milley for “treason” to him personally, a crime - treason to the sovereign - that hasn’t existed in American law since we were thirteen colonies ruled by George III.

What all of that is, is the Big Bad Wolf saying “I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house down!” And yes, he can blow down houses made of sticks and such, but he fails completely against a well-built house made of bricks.

Do we really believe this country is made of sticks and twigs?

Every time Trump is in court, every time he goes directly at the system he opposes, he loses.

Every. Single. Time.

Trump University? Loser.

Trump Foundation? Loser.

Muslim ban? Loser.

Family separation at the border? Loser.

Sixty lawsuits over voter fraud in 2020? Loser, loser, loser, loser.... loser. All 60. Every single one.

Go back further.

Trump the great businessman? Hah!

Every single investment in anything he has invested in over the past 40 years has gone belly up. Three times bankrupt. Loser.

Bankrupting a casino???? BIG LOSER. Nobody else has ever done that in the entire recorded history of gambling.

He’s such a loser he took the money he inherited from his father and turned it into LESS MONEY. Had he put the $400 million or so into a Fidelity Investment Fund the day he got it, and left it alone and gone golfing every day since, he would very likely actually be as rich as he claims he is.

He. Is. A. Loser.

Two times at bat for President. Lost by 3 million votes the first time and 11 million (or so) the second time.

LOSER!!!

Those stories about killing the Federal civil service, and prosecuting people who wouldn’t do what he wanted, and all the rest, are terrifying.

To everyone who reads them, outside the collection of Fellow Losers. Fear and Anger are great energy sources.

One commenter on the presidential poll published Sunday in the NYT pointed out a significant fact: Trump’s numbers are no higher in that poll than they have ever been in any presidential poll, popularity poll, or actual poll result.

Trump has bamboozled as many people as he is ever going to bamboozle, and because they listened to him, there are more of them dying needlessly than there are of us. His base is shrinking due to permanent termination.

Because they are losers.

All of the above is a fact. But all that history of losing doesn’t mean that we don’t have a fight on our hands.

In World War II, Hitler made the wrong decision at just about every important decision point.

After achieving victory in June 1940, he ordered that all technology projects that would take longer than 12 months to accomplish were to be canceled. Then events forced him to change that a year later - after losing 12 months of progress. The result of this was that while the Luftwaffe did operate jet fighters, they never had more than 100 of them in service at one time, and there wasn’t fuel for most of them. Their effect on the war was negligible. Yes, they did indeed scare the hell out of the Allied air forces’ leadership - not to mention the crews who confronted them - but there were never enough of them to make a real difference.

Because Hitler was not only a moron, he was a persistent moron. After delaying the development of these aircraft with the idiot order that had to be revised a year later, he then made the moron decision that the Me-262 should become a bomber, so that even as few that got made as there were didn’t all get put to proper use.

There was a book I remember reading about 60 years ago, in which the German generals were interviewed about the war, and every single one of them - men who had obtained the positions they had from demonstrated ability - listed several decisions made by Hitler that made it impossible for them to achieve success; many of Hitler’s decisions led directly to making whatever the situation was, worse.

And still it took six years of all-out mobilization by the Allies to defeat a moron who led a government in which there was only one non-moron: Albert Speer. And he was actually a moron for joining in with Hitler in the first place - as he later acknowledged.

My point is this: the enemy may have looked dangerous; the enemy may have been capable of doing deadly dangerous things at the operational level. But since there was no one at the strategy and command level capable of making effective decisions, all the operational capability in the world did not change the fact that they ultimately were losers.

The fatal flaw of MAGA is that Trump is their leader.

Just like the fatal flaw of the Nazis was their leader was Hitler; like the fatal flaw of the Fascists was they were led by Mussolini.

Losers.

Fish rot from the head, and so has every far right movement ever.

The Sunday poll in the NYT also pointed out that if by Election Day 2024, Trump has been convicted in one or more of the trials he faces in the next 12 months, the electoral result changes as follows:

Arizona: Trump +5 to Biden +5 (10 pt shift)

Georgia: Trump +6 to Biden +12 (18 pt shift)

Michigan: Trump +5 to Biden +12 (17 pt shift)

Nevada: Trump +11 to Biden +12 (23 pt shift)

Pennsylvania: Trump +4 to Biden +4 (8 pt shift)

Wisconsin: Biden +2 to Biden +14 (12 pt shift)

Also, the yougov poll released today, polling 2,000 voters - a similar number to those polled in the Sunday poll - has it Biden: 48, Trump: 44. Which shows that you don’t need to freak out at polls a year out. They’re like the Colorado weather: wait a minute, it’ll change.

But do pay attention to the fact that in every poll taken this year where voters had a negative view of President Biden’s accomplishments, when they were provided more information about what those accomplishments were, what programs were advanced, in nearly every case those polled changed their minds from a negative view to a positive view. That means getting out there and working, will work.

There is not going to be any positive news for Donald Trump in the next 12 months. He is right now at the top of his game and has little to no chance of increasing his support. He has “maxed out” his credit cards. Those court cases are going to matter, because he’s not going to win them.

That is unlikely to be Biden’s future.

In fact, as the programs that have been put in place have an effect, as the union victories like that of the UAW - which led to Toyota giving more to their non-union workers as a result, in hopes of preventing a unionization drive in their factory - bear fruit in the increased size of paychecks, which will lead to increased sales in the businesses in their communities, which will lead to growth of paychecks in other industries, those Americans who now think they had better times under Trump than they do under Biden will change their minds.

That does not mean that the next 12 months are a cakewalk.

It took everything the Allies had to defeat the morons 80 years ago and it will take everything we have to defeat the morons today.

I once asked Dick Best how he and the rest got through the period from Pearl Harbor to Midway, when it seemed there was nothing but bad news. He replied, “We didn’t think about the bad news. We did our jobs. Because the alternative was unthinkable.” Or, as an old Navy Chief who had “been there” once told me: “When you’re so scared that you’ve pissed your pants and shit your drawers, and your brain is so frozen you can’t think, and you still do your job - that’s being a hero.”

That was good advice then; it’s good advice now. And you’re not even being shot at when you follow it.

I’ll conclude with an old rule one finds in the stories we humans have told ourselves through the millenia; it’s the main point of all those stories:

Nothing of value ever comes easily. That’s why it has value.

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