This is what I mean when I compare DJT to the ants in our kitchen. https://twitter.com/RonBrownstein/status/1248277700239740929
He has these things he does, and they work out great for him a lot of the time, but even when something else would work better, he still does what he does. He's not capable of changing his tactics or thinking strategically.
I mean, okay, he DOES think strategically, but in a very simple way. Two pathways:
"do this favor for me and I'll do this favor for you" "refuse me this favor and I'll punish you."
He ALWAYS delivers on #2 (refuse me and I'll punish you) but his delivery on #1 is spotty. He doesn't always do the promised favor for you. And that's not strategic either. He does you the favor if he feels like it and it costs him nothing.
What the hell kind of president DOES that? "You have to flatter me into doing my job"

And what the hell kind of pathetic failing nightmare country has people who WANT a president doing that?
But this March 26 article notes that "California’s Gavin Newsom [..] complimented Trump for “his focus on treatments” for the virus and thanked him for sending masks and gloves to California. He said the president was “on top of it”"
So, in this case, DJT offered his usual sort of bargain -- flatter me, blue state governors, and I'll give you your supplies -- but when the supplies didn't come, they didn't KEEP ON flattering him.
Post 9/11, I was disgusted by that palpable longing to unite behind the president as a "strong leader" when he's already failed and that's why we're even having this crisis, but GWB DID know how to play it.
He played it to nothing good, of course. The Iraq invasion, the PATRIOT act, the establishment of ICE, the further erosion of democracy, etc. etc.
But I think what GWB did after 9/11 was more or less what people were expecting DJT to do -- playact at leadership for a while to reassure people, give the wretched "both sides" media a chance to spin the requisite amount of pro-DJT material.
And then maybe quietly use the cover of the crisis to enact even more of the Republican wish list.
But that was never going to happen, for two reasons.
One, this crisis is a lot more like Katrina than like 9/11, and for GWB, the Katrina flooding revealed the gap between his playacting at leadership, and actual leadership.
You can only say "we'll have all the equipment, we'll have all the tests" so many times without delivering -- maybe your loyalists won't care, but people who need the equipment will NOTICE they still don't have it.
9/11 was a thing that happened once and then we started making myths about it. It wasn't continuing to happen and proving our myths wrong in real time.
And of course the other reason it was inevitable that DJT would squander such a moment is because he's not capable of CHANGING his approach in any sustained way.
I saw a couple of his early press conference things and it seemed obvious that he started out trying to be "presidential" -- which made him seem tired and bored -- but then would start to slip back into his habitual agitation and nastiness when challenged by questions.
I mean, look at him now, his idea of being a leader in a time of crisis is to brag about his RATINGS.
Before he started running for president, I didn't spend much time thinking about DJT, and I preferred it that way, but now that I've been forced to think about him for a sustained period, what I think is that he is EXTREMELY easy to figure out, and I suspect --
That he has always been surrounded by people who thought they had him figured out and thought they could use that to THEIR advantage, but were still dismayed, because their calculations failed --
To account for his fundamental lack of loyalty to anything or anyone other than himself.
Like, right now, the Republicans, the Magas, the evangelicals -- they're giving him EVERYTHING, and he's delivering so far, but he has no loyalty to their causes and at some point that will cause them to feel --
That he has betrayed them.
I see this coming with the evangelicals in particular. They made a cynical & practical bargain with him for political power, but they can't help themselves, they keep trying to make him their messiah too.
DJT has no objection to being made a messiah because he craves adoration. He'll take everything they've got. But he'll only give back if he feels like it, and it costs him nothing.
There will come a point where the evangelicals are going to feel dismayed that they followed a second messiah who won't die on the cross for their sake, and will in fact quite nonchalantly throw them all under the bus if need be.
There's a thing -- maybe a parasocial thing -- where people who love a celebrity very intensely might start to think the celebrity loves them back.
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