Donald Trump has reportedly taken stock of the current state of his reelection bid and, according to the AP, knows just what it needs—a heck of a lot more Trump magic, if you will.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, America, but there's just no escaping him. Trump not only revived the White House task force briefings, he sidelined all the actual experts so the klieg lights would be on him and him alone.
And after the White House brought in a new press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, to breathe some life back into the press briefings, Trump has decided to upstage her, often giving his own briefings on the same days that make hers practically irrelevant.
Trump also took no part in the negotiations over the latest coronavirus relief package, leaving Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to quibble over the details and then letting intellectual lightweight and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows blow it up.
But once the White House had thoroughly destroyed the opportunity to shore up American workers, the economy, and the nation's most vulnerable, Trump swooped in to sign a bunch of empty executive orders and then congratulate himself on his own success.
None of this means that Trump has any real agenda or strategy. In fact, in consecutive questions over the past few months, Trump has proven entirely unable to provide a vision for his second term, name any policy goals, and/or offer any strategy whatsoever for the agenda he can neither name nor envision.
But as bad as the idea of more, more, more Trump sounds, the good news is: It's an absolute political loser for him. His approvals started on their downward trajectory in March after America got an up close and personal look at him during the coronavirus briefings, and the ratings have never recovered.
In fact, as noted in my column last weekend, one GOP strategist watched women who voted for Trump in 2016 turn against him in real time during those March briefings. Sarah Longwell, a Trump critic, has been conducting regular focus groups with these female voters for several years and they were completely repelled by Trump's conduct in those briefings.
So while more Trump is sure to be psychologically toxic, it will also work against him at the polls. The more people see of Trump, the less they like him. He's impossibly horrid, especially in bulk.