A Noisy Weakling

Some people are convinced that if Donald Trump loses the election in three weeks, he will refuse to leave the White House and attempt to continue his presidency beyond January 20. Given Trump's recent erratic behavior and his open admiration for dictators plus his near constant rhetoric about how he'll be cheated out of what he insists is his certain chance of winning, one can certainly see how some people might believe this theory, in light of the fact that he appears to be losing very badly.

Ross Douthat at the New York Times is having no part of this handwringing. He published a column about it yesterday (link here) with the headline "There Will Be No Trump Coup" and the snarky secondary title of "A final pre-election case for understanding the President as a noisy weakling, not a budding autocrat."

In short, Douthat argues that Trump is too feckless, lacking in skills, and incompetent to pull off any kind of orchestrated attempt to keep himself in power. He is, in a phrase, all bark and no bite.

"Our weak, ranting, infected-by-Covid chief executive is not plotting a coup, because a term like 'plotting' implies capabilities that he conspicuously lacks," Douthat notes.

I tend to agree with what he writes. I think it's far less likely that Trump will go out with a bang but, instead, with a whimper.

Delivering him a landslide defeat will go a long way toward ensuring that.

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