Just Keep Talking & Tweeting Donald!

Practically every time Trump speaks out in an unscripted setting or tweets he continues to dig his own (and to some extent his party’s) political grave with his mouth, and fortunately for the resistance he shows no indication whatsoever of constraining himself on either front. This along with other events including his recent smallness during the memorial period for John McCain, the just released devastating Bob Woodward book Fear and recent New York Times anonymous op-ed appear to be taking more of a toll on Trump’s already bad approval rating, especially among independents and even including a small decrease among Republicans (although that remains extremely high at over 80%)! The latest examples are his pathetically empty short tweet about the 9/11 anniversary and ludicrous effusive praise to reporters of his administration‘s handling of hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico last year, which he touted as “incredibly successful” despite all the obvious facts to the contrary. There seems to be a cumulative fatigue effect to all the lies, chaos, corruption and confusion that constantly emanate from Trump and his White House, which we hope will be strongly expressed in the upcoming midterm election. If Trump were a normal person with normal impulse control instead of the totally narcissistic sociopath that he is, and was able to take the advice of his staff and lawyers and just shut up and stop tweeting, he would be so far ahead of where he is, particularly given the robust economy. Of course everyone will be watching to see how the feds handle the oncoming catastrophe of hurricane Florence, and if that goes poorly, that will be an additional political liability for Trump et al.  At this point, the polls in many key races show a virtual tie, so it could be a real nail-biter in November, entirely dependent on voter turnout. Democratic voter overconfidence and complacency are thus major risks in such a critical election.