The Times' David Leonhardt:
"The strangest part of President Trump’s coronavirus response is that it’s almost certainly damaging his chances of re-election.
"I realize that may sound surprising, given that his approval rating has been rising."
Surprising? The strangest part of Leonhardt's assertion is that so many center-left columnists still fail to grasp that, in 2016, the American political tradition collapsed on itself in a hellish absurdity. In writing "collapsed on itself" I mean to say that our accustomed politics of mass communication — manifest in America by at least the late-19th century's yellow journalism — was exploited by Trump to an unprecedented degree and in infernal outlandishness. All that has followed is shocking, but not surprising.
Especially his rising approval ratings in a time of — largely — his own self-created crisis. Read 'em and weep:
Approval ratings of 48 to 52 percent in general terms and on his gross mishandling of the covid-19 pandemic. And yet Congress, or rather the publicly known one-half of Congress with a head, a heart, and actual plans to tackle the crisis, the Democratic House, encounters disapproval, with a net-negative rating of 23 percent.
Go figure? No. This is the Twisted Age of Trumpian Politics, in which an inhuman geyser of foul fumes receives plaudits, the farsighted are scorned, and nothing figures.
From where we left him, Leonhardt picks up:
"But when you look beyond day-to-day events … you see that he is creating the conditions for a miserable summer and fall, with extended virus outbreaks and a deeper recession. The summer and fall, of course, are the crux of the presidential campaign."
His point being?
We've suffered three-and-half-miserable-fucking-years of this evil, chronically ill-tempered, overbloated gasbag of a useless POTUS, and for the umpteenth time, this time, believe Leonhardt et al., is that one unique time that will finally catch up to His Orange Rotundity.
The columnist concludes:
"It’s possible that Trump could somehow luck out and the virus will end up being less gruesome for all of us. But that’s not the likely outcome. And nobody should forget that he is choosing a path that endangers lives and jobs mostly because it feels better to him in the moment."
Again, Mr. Leonhardt, your point being? What, really, has changed? Trump is still lying, still insulting the world, destroying America, defaming the honorable and dominating the airwaves and so on ad infinitum. And yet what, really, has changed? His approval ratings have risen. Of course they have. For this is the Twisted Age, and all that once rationally figured is dead.