TRUMP IS SUFFERING MIDTERM EGO DEATH

On Saturday I quoted a video essay in which Jamelle Bouie argued that Donald Trump might have a muted response to Republican midterm losses because they're not all about him. Bouie said:

He's not literally on the ballot, and so losing doesn't constitute ego death. He sees it as a political challenge that he would like to avoid. He doesn't want to be impeached again. But as far as the kind of ego death that led him to do January 6th, for example, it doesn't apply here because he's not on the ballot. He's a simple man. And whether or not he is going to suffer ego death really does structure his response to things.

But as we're seeing from Trump's most recent attacks on the media, he's suffering ego death right now -- and it's midterm-related.

What is the press reporting on? Republicans' electoral struggles, and a likely blue wave. National news organizations love horserace coverage, so this is the main topic in the political press. And why are Republicans losing, according to this horserace coverage? Trump.

So even though Trump might tell himself that the GOP losers on Election Day have nothing to do with him, even though he might insist that they're losing because he's not on the ballot drawing infrequent voters to the polls, he knows he's being blamed. And he'll be blamed if Republicans losses are substantial. His ego really is on the line. He doesn't seem capable of rising above this. (I won't even discuss the possibility that he might absorb the losses like a grownup, because that's unimaginable.)

He banished CNN, MS NOW, and Politico reporters from the White House, then CBS, NBC, ABC, and Fox refused to continue producing pool video, which left Trump "literally shouting into the wind on Monday as he cut the ribbon on his new helipad on the South Lawn of the White House, recorded only by a second-tier news broadcaster that could not capture his voice over the roar of Marine One," as Peter Baker of The New York Times reported. According to the familiar saying, there's no such thing as bad publicity, but Trump doesn't believe that -- he wants nothing but positive news reported. He's hearing that the polls for Republicans are bad and he's the reason, so he concludes that the problem isn't anything he's doing, but the fact that bad press exists. There oughta be a law against negative coverage of Trump! is literally his response to all this.

So he's definitely suffering ego death as a result of the midterms. But his response should give us hope, because it's weak and ineffectual. His staffers have now cobbled together something called Trump TV. It's pathetic. It's just a feed of random past presidential events -- old speeches, old Melania appearances -- and while it has more than 3 million subscribers on YouTube, only 1,947 people are watching it as I type this.



(To pick a random comparison, 21,544 people are currently tuned to "lofi hip hop radio 📚 beats to relax/study to," a YouTube music channel.)

All this suggests that Trump's brain has been fully Natalie Harp-ed. She feeds him nothing but happy hopium, and now he craves it 24/7. So if big midterm losses happen, he might lash out up to a point, the way he did at the three news outlets he banned, but what he'll seek most of all is self-soothing -- he'll want to be provided with something that offers him proof that America really, really loves him, no matter what the haters and losers (and voters) say. He might be so desperate for comfort that he won't have his usual energy for fighting.

That might prevent another January 6. It might prevent him from coordinating with GOP officials in the states to deny certification of Democrats' electoral victories. It might prevent him from coordinating with Mike Johnson on a strategy to replace the House clerk with someone who'll agree not to seat Democrats in January.

If I'm right about this, Trump might be fully Harp-brained now, and that's better for America than January 6-brained.