In his column for the Daily Beast, conservative commentator Matt Lewis claimed that Donald Trump's professed desire to delay the November election is a sign he knows he's "going down in flames" and that should worry Republicans and Democrats alike because that makes the president dangerous.
Under a headline proclaiming "Trump Finally Admits That His Election Is Swirling Down the Golden Toilet," Lewis -- who abandoned the Republican Party due to Trump -- said the president likely ramped up his claims of a "rigged election" because of terrible economic news on Thursday as a distraction, only to make it obvious to all that he knows he's going down to defeat.
As Lewis notes, there is little good news on the horizon that will save the president with the coronavirus pandemic still raging across the country and the economy still in collapse, adding that "...changing campaign managers isn’t going to shake things up, and there won’t be a convention 'bounce' to help, either."
After stating Trump is "going down in flames," Lewis suggested that Trump is at his most dangerous now since he has already shown he cares about nobody but himself.
"If this is Trump conceding to the apparently inevitable, it’s also a dangerous time. People who are forced to finally admit imminent defeat are prone to outbursts and desperate behavior. When those people are the president, and especially this president, things can get dicey," he wrote before adding, "If the choice is between Trump’s political ambitions and the preservation of this great experiment, there isn’t much of a contest. That’s why Trump thinks it’s safe to send kids back to school amid a pandemic (that helps his re-election chances) but not safe enough to have an election on November 3 (that hurts his re-election chances)."
Writing, "it’s worth remembering that even if Trump is admitting to the evidently inevitable here, he’s still going to go down swinging," Lewis wrote now it is just a matter of time for Republicans to flee the president, oppose him and try and save their themselves.
"Trump’s tweet is an open invitation to wavering Republicans to finally jump ship. In recent days, I have noticed commentators like Rich Lowry and Erick Erickson (both originally Trump critics who sidled up to him after the election) create some distance and start to hedge their bets," he wrote before suggesting, "For the rest of us, it’s important to keep things in perspective. Trump said something truly shocking on Thursday. But it’s mostly shocking because it signals that even he can’t deny that the jig is finally up. It’s now just a matter of time. "
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