On Tuesday’s episode of Late Night, host Seth Myers dedicated a segment to tearing apart Donald Trump’s campaign in the wake of the presidential debate.
Things for Donald Trump appear to be unraveling this week after his lackluster performance at Sunday’s debate against Hillary Clinton. He’s been scrambling to piece his campaign back together since a damning audio recording of him talking about sexual assaulting women was released last week. Trump’s already unusual campaign strategy has gotten increasingly bizarre, with his semi-coherent late night tweet storms and his continued denial of his own standing in the polls.
Seth Meyers blasted Trump on his show Tuesday night and insisted that his campaign was crumbling around him. It’s difficult to capture the utter weirdness of this whole election, but Meyers does a decent job summing up Trump’s main strategy of denying reality. “Trump can’t stomach the reality that he’s losing so instead he just pretends that he isn’t, by complaining that even the polls are rigged against him,” said Meyers.
Recent polls have showed that Trump’s support is dropping, and the entire Republican party has been thrown into total chaos as a result of his behavior. Many prominent members of the GOP have spoken out against him and withdrawn their support, with some even calling for him to drop out of the race entirely. A candidate dropping out of the race this close to the election would be unprecedented, but then again, this entire election year has been unprecedented. Why not bring a little more chaos and destruction to our political system? As Seth Meyers put it, “Trump has responded, meanwhile, with a slash-and-burn strategy designed to appeal to his loyal supporters, throwing the GOP, once again, into chaos.”
It’s very telling of the state of our nation when we are turning to late night comedians to give us serious and sobering takes on political news. He brings up some excellent points though, saying “Even if he loses, Trump can still do lasting damage by questioning the legitimacy of our political system”. Meyers goes on to point out that Trump may be setting up a sort of safety net in the event of his failure to win the election. By claiming everything is rigged against him and denying that the polls are accurate, he makes it look as though our whole electoral system is broken and being controlled by other people. If he loses, the GOP members who are speaking out against him are the perfect scapegoats. In his own post-election narrative he can then claim that he didn’t lose because he was unpopular, he lost because the GOP establishment rigged the election.
Even the media outlets that had previously seemed to support him are beginning to distance themselves from Trump now. The combination of his recent cryptic tweets, his bizarre claims during the debate, and the leaked audio recordings have caused a stir as the same people who once defended him now mock him.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign has found ways to make Trump look crazy without even needing to say anything, with the above video being a perfect example. Claims that he is having a total meltdown are probably not far from the reality. With just over three weeks left until the election, there is plenty of time for him to continue barreling towards some kind of spectacular train wreck.
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Win or lose, Trump can cause all sorts of irreparable damage to this country, and he seems to know that. It will take time to find out the extent of the damage, but we are in for a wild ride either way.