President Donald Trump is “lashing out” as he increasingly finds his influence waning — and, according to experts and historians who spoke with the Guardian, he’s never been more dangerous.
The Guardian, in an article published early Saturday, described Trump’s verbal attack on CNN’s Kaitlan Collins this week as “a reminder that even Trump, who has expanded executive power and dominated the national consciousness, finds some things beyond his control.”
“Indeed, 20 months into his second term, there is a widening gap between the president’s self-perceived invincibility and the reality of his waning influence,” David Smith wrote.
According to Smith, “For the first time since his improbable political resurrection, Trump’s aura of authority is fading.”
Former Republican strategist Rick Wilson noted this is “the beginning of the end” for Trump.
“This is the decline,” Wilson said. “As powerful and transgressive as he’s been, the country does not have a positive outlook right now. In fact, the negativity and pessimism among voters has reached a point that is unparalleled since Jimmy Carter.”
As Smith wrote, Wilson also compared the “current mood” among the Republican-led Congress “to a wildlife documentary.”
“It needs a David Attenborough voiceover,” Wilson told the Guardian. “It’s like the gazelles wandering the savannah. … The risk factor that they face now is Trump.”
Wilson argued that voters are catching on to the president’s cascading policy failures.
“It’s reached the point where the magic doesn’t work any more,” Wilson said. “There’s no political upside from a president who is at 29 percent approval rating in some polls, has presided over a disastrous war, and has ended up raising energy prices and food prices – all the things that they can’t spin away."
“The voters now have very much put that together. They associate the war with Trump. They associate the gas prices with Trump. They associate the grocery prices with Trump.” He added.
Wilson said the more Trump “becomes a liability, the more he acts out” — and his actions threaten the Republican Party as a whole.
“Everything was handed to him for a decade by that party and, now that they’re paying the price, they’ve decided this has got a little too hairy,” Wilson said.
As Smith reports, Trump “has had a rough month”: “The Federal Reserve defied him on interest rates. The Supreme Court blocked his administration’s attempt to impose new restrictions on mail-in ballots for November’s midterm elections. One judge prevented him adding his name to the Kennedy Center … another judge blocked his ban on three news outlets from the White House grounds."
According to Smith, “even Trump’s dependable power base, the Republican party, is showing cracks amid fears that he will cost them seats in November."
For former Bill Clinton adviser Bill Galston, as the Republican Party focuses on finding a new leader for the post-Trump world, “nothing will drive him crazier than the shift of the spotlight away from him.” “The prospect of passing the torch, giving up the spotlight, is intensely painful for him,” Galston said. “It’s his oxygen. Will he be able to breathe, spiritually and emotionally speaking, without it?”
Longtime conservative Charlie Sykes likewise argued Trump’s biggest fear is “irrelevance,” telling the Guardian the president will “rage against it as long as he can.”
“The notion that he will go quietly would be incredibly naive,” Sykes said.
American University history professor Allan Lichtman agreed that Trump will get more dangerous as the spotlight fades on him. “He cannot stand not being the centre of attention and that’s dangerous,” Lichtman told the Guardian. “… [W]ho knows what crazy things he might do to reassert attention on him? And that’s frightening.”
Lichtman warned that despite Republicans appearing to distance themselves from Trump, the president maintains “enormous power – and he is certainly quite willing to use that power unconstrained.” “He doesn’t care about the courts and doesn’t care about the Congress,” Lictman said.
As Smith wrote, “from this perspective, Trump’s last refuge will be the unchecked use of executive authority, a politicized justice department and a sweeping pardon power.”
“With nothing to lose in his final two years, he could go out all guns blazing,” Smith wrote.
“We’re headed for a collision between a lame duck who has no respect for the constitutional norms and an opposition that may have some power to hold him accountable,” Sykes explained. “The paradox is the weaker he gets, the more dangerous he gets.”
