1/ Trump cut off stimulus talks. It's almost as if he has a political death wish and will take down Republicans with him.

His campaign people are staring mutely at the screens of their phones, stunned and depressed.

Stepien was just on with the pollsters. Ooops. Blindsided.

2/ The desperation is growing in the campaign. They've watched the tracker. They see how badly they've bled out since the debate and his manic behavior since diagnosed.

The stunts aren't moving the numbers. Even the base is fading. Seniors fading. Noncollege whites fading.

3/ What happens next? Well, a lot of places are about to end rent and mortgage forebearance. The COVID bounce is coming.

There is no vaccine. There is no scalable therapy. (What Trump got at Walter Reed was bespoke and expensive.)

More pain is coming because he has failed.

4/ He has failed in every meaningful way and COVID will be his grim legacy. The Trump reality distortion field is cracked and broken; if he's *lucky* history will brutalize him as a clown, a joke, a man without the intelligence to govern either the nation or himself.

5/ The more likely course of history will paint him forever as corrupt, mentally ill, and a wannabe authoritarian without a single redeeming quality.

He will be seen as the first anti-American President, a man who reduced our nation at home and abroad.

6/ His elected enablers will lose, if not this cycle then next. Some will try to wash off Trumpism, but it's a combination of septic muck, stripper glitter, and authoritarian nationalism. "Donald Who?" will rise from their lips daily.

*They* were just being loyal to the party.