Listen To This Story

“What I did not understand, as I walked down Fifth Avenue that afternoon, was how a world that had seemed so dark could, in a few minutes, become so sweet. The sidewalks seemed to shine and, going home on the train, I beamed at those foolish girls who advertise girdles on the signboards in the Bronx.” — John Cheever, “The Housebreaker of Shady Hill”

Just as the whole world got millions of lumens brighter for you (I trust) and me on July 21 — and continued brightening in the days and weeks since — it’s a cinch that it must have gotten correspondingly that much darker for Donald John Trump.

In the year 2024, that’s just the way it goes: just about absolute mathematical reciprocality of fortune. Good for us, bad for him; good for him, bad for us. Black and white. I’m a big enough fan of nuance to recognize its utter absence.

What this means is that it’s possible to plot the graph of Trump’s psyche just by looking at my own and plotting the opposite. On July 20, I was in the darkest corner of the pit of despair, and I had hundreds of millions of Trump-loathing earthlings for company. You remember, right?

The former president was measuring drapes for the Oval Office, so cocksure of victory over his frail opponent that, accepting the GOP/MAGA nomination, he didn’t even bother sticking to the “unity” script that would have sealed the deal. Instead — after showing off his ear patch, extensive medical knowledge, and sincere helmet-kissing prowess — he went off into a bilious hour-long coda featuring the “late, great” Hannibal Lecter and a rambling assortment of other insults, lies, and inanities. And of course, tapped the “weird” ultra-MAGA convert JD Vance as his running mate, because why not? Who cares? It’s in the bag! Cue the balloons and Project 2025!

And You Were There!

Then President Joe Biden, whom I regard as the best president since I was old enough to measure, withdrew as a candidate and — I wish I could think of a better way of putting this — brightened up the room spectacularly by leaving it. 

And then the Democrats managed somehow to pull off a minor miracle of cooperation, lining up behind the candidacy of Vice President Kamala Harris with hardly a peep of dissent, with an avalanche of large and small donations, and with what e.e. cummings might have called “a much of a which of a wind” — wild, unadulterated enthusiasm. Even better, to all appearances the wave of support came from the bottom up, with top leaders like Nancy Pelosi and the Obamas following the grassroots and the DNC delegates.

The timing was — deliberately or fortuitously, Pelosily or serendipitously — impeccable. Trump had played his RNC cards — badly — and his campaign seemed caught completely off guard. Which was strange because they had been attacking Biden as unfit and forecasting his replacement for months. They just apparently went with the assumption that Democrats can never do anything right (not an unreasonable assumption, generally speaking, but tremendously risky in these circumstances), and, when the rug was pulled out, could only, in their best Ralph Kramden, go “homina homina homina homina.” Which they still seem to be going, with no sign of letting up.

The Bigger They Come…?

Light and darkness are relative, so just as the long preceding gloom has enhanced Harris’s glow, the reverse is true for Trump, who went in a flash from cruisin’ to losin’. He sees what’s happening in the polls; he sees movement of a magnitude few thought possible given the tribal polarization of the electorate and the long imperviousness of the horse race to all events and developments. He sees the election slipping away. 

It may finally have begun to dawn on him that he and his whole act have not just jumped the shark but re-jumped the shark — and they keep finding more sharks to jump. Trump’s show, Crappy Days, is well on its way to setting an Olympic record for shark jumping. 

Because there are growing signs that the voters he needs to win have had enough of the anger and bile, the sneers, the fears, the grim, black, miserable portrait of an America breathing its last. Have had enough of Donald Trump.

Captive of, or even adjacent to, such musings, he has plunged into a dark night of the soul, faced with the very real prospect that, in place of his shoo-in triumph and the vengeance tour to follow, he will lose and quite possibly land in jail. 

And I suspect that of those two calamities, the losing lodges in his psyche as the more dreadful, especially since the Supreme Court’s generously tailored presidential immunity decision has significantly reduced, if not quite eliminated, his prospects of doing hard time.

Facing Life as an (Incarcerated?) Loser

As one who suffers from a relatively mild case of impostor syndrome, I can testify to how haunting is the fear that one’s true worthlessness will be exposed, indeed deserves to be exposed.

Trump has exhibited just about no capacity for self-reflection but, oddly enough, this deficit is no bar to a fulminant case of impostor syndrome, and a virtually bottomless terror of exposure as a fraud. Call me an armchair John Bradshaw but life experience has taught me that the deepest wounds and fears of one’s “inner child” — unheard, untended, unhealed — are what drive our worst, most aggressive actions, and the acting out of the world’s worst villains and monsters. It is not necessary to haul out the DSM-5 and diagnose Trump as a malignant narcissist — or, contrarily, as a psychopath — to recognize the workings of his inner pain and fear on his terrible life trajectory.

Never much disciplined, Trump knew how to be a winner, how to keep the balls in the air, the plates spinning; he knew how to work the con, on a scale few ever dream of. He has no idea how to be a loser. He hates losers most of all things in the world — and most of all losers, the loser in himself. 

Now, for someone who has, one way or another, gotten away with everything, someone who has always “won,” or told himself that he has won, facing the ultimate in defeat and humiliation — facing himself incontrovertibly as a loser — is intolerable. Facing real consequences, being brought finally to heel, is intolerable. Going from cruel overlord to supplicant underling is intolerable.

All this suddenly exploded in Donald Trump’s brain and we’re seeing the consequence: panic. Progressively more unhinged postings. Wilder and wilder false accusations. Two batshit crazy press conferences. Lashing out at friends and foes alike.

Never much disciplined, Trump knew how to be a winner, how to keep the balls in the air, the plates spinning; he knew how to work the con, on a scale few ever dream of. 

He has no idea how to be a loser. He hates losers most of all things in the world — and most of all losers, the loser in himself.

Growing up means learning that you don’t always win, that no one should always win. It means making friends with the loser within. Trump has never grown up. And it certainly seems it’s too late now.

What does this mean for him, our country, the world?

Whatever It Is, It Won’t Be Normal

I could end right there because I really don’t know and I doubt anyone does. But in my reading of the chicken bones, here’s what it could mean for us, before November and after.

For starters, it means we can and must throw out all assumptions about how things go until, on, and after November 5. We can rely upon no election in our living memory, not even 2000 or 2020, to serve as a dependable model for what we are likely to experience over the next five-plus months.

In the mental state Trump has entered, the will of the voters could not be less important. Nor the inviolability of facts, the flame of truth, the general welfare (indeed, anyone else’s welfare), the survival of democracy, the keeping of the peace. Losing this election is not merely intolerable, in his mind it is impossible. 

For a normal, rational being, a persuasive case might be made that — SCOTUS’s broad grant of immunity having arguably lifted the threat of prison off his head — winning this election might no longer be imperative and the stakes no longer existential. 

For the reasons given above, I very much doubt that applies to Donald Trump. For him it remains existential and he has no intention of losing, even if it would mean moving on to a cushy and relatively stress-free existence. Aside from jail, he is facing the triple threat of aging, irrelevance, and ignominy — and he has shown no sign whatsoever of being able to cope.

So, in the mental state Trump has entered, the will of the voters could not be less important. Nor the inviolability of facts, the flame of truth, the general welfare (indeed, anyone else’s welfare), the survival of democracy, the keeping of the peace. Losing this election is not merely intolerable, in his mind it is impossible. 

And if nothing he says or does, no miraculous event or Lewandowski reset, reverses the momentum and the polls — that is, if he can’t win legitimately — there are other ways. 

We will — along with a torrent of lies and calumnies — likely first see both quiet and frantic efforts to subvert the election and upend its grim (for him) dynamic in advance. 

Just to take one example, at the federal level, the House Freedom Caucus, at Trump’s urging, is threatening a pre-election government shutdown if the MAGA-sponsored SAVE Act isn’t enacted. SAVE would require documented proof of citizenship to vote, force states to purge voter rolls, and inflict punishments on any individual (i.e., election worker) caught registering someone to vote who hasn’t met the new documentary requirements. 

Meanwhile, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) contributed a claim that his administration has purged over 6,300 non-citizens from the rolls, essential fodder for Trump and the Freedom Caucus in light of the fact that multiple studies have reached the rock-solid conclusion that voting by illegals is all but numerically nonexistent. Right on cue, Trump chimed in via Truth Social: “We must work hard to make sure the Election is FAIR and SECURE!!! EVERY STATE SHOULD FOLLOW VIRGINIA’S LEAD.” 

Missing from Trump’s encomium was any mention that Virginia erroneously purged 3,400 ex-felons just before its 2023 election, or that Youngkin vetoed legislation that would have restored the state’s connection to ERIC, a nonpartisan national database that is designed to make voter roll maintenance more efficient and more accurate but that a number of red states have abandoned, believing it cramps their style.

Democracy, Watch Your Back

Purging is a big thing for the GOP, even in ordinary, nonexistential elections. So, if you live in a GOP-run state or county, or know anyone who does, do not simply assume your registration is valid and up-to-date, no matter how long you’ve lived at your current address and no matter how many elections in a row you’ve voted in. 

And, obviously, all the more reason to be vigilant if there have been any changes in your status, or even if you have a common name or a name an immigrant or a felon might share — the kind of name that can get swept up in the exuberant, non-overly-specific purges some red states and counties have been known to execute. 

It may well take more than protecting your own registration, your own rights. This year, we’re all in it together and have to look out for one another democracy-wise. Your help may well be needed in protecting the rights of your fellow voters where they are endangered. To begin with, know your state and know your county — know who’s in charge, who can help, whom to call if you see a problem.

I’d go so far as to say that eligibility to vote and the mechanics of registration and voting should be a popular topic of conversation among families and friends from your local Walmart or Costco to the stands at sporting events. 

But it may well take more than protecting your own registration, your own rights. This year, we’re all in it together and have to look out for one another democracy-wise. Your help may well be needed in protecting the rights of your fellow voters where they are endangered. 

To begin with, know your state and know your county — know who’s in charge, who can help, whom to call if you see a problem. Although MAGA election deniers have not had great success in winning election to statewide offices with power over election administration, they have been far more successful taking control of election administration at the county level. And since the reality of American electoral infrastructure is that in many crucial respects each of the nation’s 3,143 counties (3,244 including “county equivalents”) runs its own separate show, infiltration at the county level constitutes a serious threat to electoral normality. 

Control over the allocation of voting equipment; protection or harassment of precinct-level election workers; protocols for sending out, accepting, validating, or rejecting mailed ballots; informing voters about deadlines and requirements; and certifying (or refusing to certify) vote counts: Much of this power lies with county-level administrators, who may be answerable to state-level officials but may choose, as some have been doing, to ignore or defy their mandates and set off battles, in the courts and quite possibly in the streets.

If Trump cannot win the election legitimately, the game plan being prepared is to plunge it, and the country, into chaos. If you remember, that was the plan in 2020, but all the administrative, legislative, and judicial infrastructure was not yet in place. So, when push came to shove, Trump had no moves left beside leaning hard on Mike Pence and ginning up the MAGA invasion of the Capitol on January 6. He made that insane move, apparently without the slightest hesitation, because losing was not an option.

The stakes being what they are, it’s even less of an option now. There’s no Mike Pence to thumbscrew but there is far more MAGA infrastructure in place, quite possibly enough to achieve the chaos that is Trump’s Plan B. 

That infrastructure includes, as noted above, election denier control of dozens of swing state county election offices. It includes identification of sympathetic judges in both state and federal courts, where challenges might well meet a better fate than in 2020, when virtually all were rejected. It includes GOP-controlled state legislatures prepared to step in as arbiters through the tiny cracks in 2023’s SCOTUS ruling on independent state legislature doctrine in Moore v. Harper — or perhaps even in defiance of the court, should things heat up enough. And it could include a GOP-controlled US House ready to exploit the chaos — whether challenged slates of electors, fatal delays in certification, or unresolved court cases — to make Trump president again in a contingent election under the 12th Amendment.

Which of course makes each of the several dozen truly competitive House races that will determine control of that chamber crucial must-wins for both sides — and, again, potential sites of not just pre- but post-election no-holds-barred battles integral to the Trump-MAGA plan. (An upcoming article will identify and prioritize those districts to facilitate efforts to support candidates and protect the electoral process where it matters most. I have examined the vital importance of such prioritization in a previous column.)

Keeping It

So, you may ask, how did a column begun in a blaze of light and good cheer wind up in this catastrophist’s hellscape? And is this armageddon somehow inevitable?

There are too many variables, and too much still unknown, for anything to be inevitable. But there is a real danger that the current mood of relief, excitement, and hope — even if it turns out to be no sugar high but an enduring dynamic — will blind us to the hazards yet posed by a desperate and quite possibly deranged man, backed by tens of millions of Big Lie-brainwashed cult followers, with control of at least some key levers of power, and no use at all for democracy as we know it.

The election is far from over, the Democrats’ big mo notwithstanding. Just yesterday, The Washington Post’s editorial board reminded us what the media can do to candidates that won’t bow to its demands with this headline: “The times demand serious economic ideas. Harris supplies gimmicks. Harris’s most outlandish plan is her proposal to ban ‘price gouging,’ but that’s just one of many misguided ideas.”  We’ll soon enough know if there’s more and worse to come.

But assuming that the momentum is sustained and produces what in an ordinary election would be a narrow Harris/Walz win, it is a better than even bet, I submit, that our nation will face a Stop the Steal on Steroids Squared — a desperate push, or putsch, that will make the last one, including January 6, seem like a desultory walkthrough.

The trajectories of Donald Trump and democracy are converging rapidly and we need to do more than get out of the way. We need to prepare — seriously, soberly. We need to become fully informed and have a plan. We have a republic to keep.

Amazingly, unexpectedly, the world turned suddenly brighter. Celebrate! Take a breath! Then let’s work hard together to make sure it stays that way.

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