'Mad King Trump' is being propped up by his sycophants during his waning days in office: conservative

In a column for the conservative Bulwark, author Richard North Patterson claims we are watching the waning days of "Mad King Trump" as he blunders from interview to interview spewing nonsense as his advisers try to prop up an administration in a death spiral.

Getting right to the point, Patterson said Trump evokes the image of a "mad king of some Ruritanian backwater, spewing splenetic ravings while his shrinking cadre of sycophants struggles to steer their foundering ship of state."

To make his case, he noted a recent interview the president participated in with Fox News host Chris Wallace where he bragged about passing a test designed to monitor signs of dementia, with Patterson pointing out, "instead of entering his second childhood, Trump seems never to have left his first."

Describing the Fox News interview, the author said the president came off across as "pathetic," wallowing in self-pity and completely disassociated from the reality on the ground where people are dying from COVID-19 as his own health advisers are urging increased efforts to stem the spread of the pandemic.

"Instead of listening to science, Trump looks for affirmation from the fever swamp of right-wing media, recycling falsehoods, bogus conspiracies, and patent quackery," he wrote before noting a report from the Washington Post that stated, "People close to Trump, many speaking on the condition of anonymity to share candid discussions and impressions, say the president’s inability to wholly address the crisis is due to his almost pathological unwillingness to admit error; a positive feedback loop of overly rosy assessments and data from advisers and Fox News; and a penchant for magical thinking that prevented him from fully engaging with the pandemic."

Noting Trump's attacks on presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, Patterson said the president is engaging in a "war on reality" in a desperate attempt to remain in office.

"Such incoherent vituperation captures Trump’s central problem: Compared with Trump himself, Biden is Mr. Rogers. Trump’s ad hominem lunacy isn’t working, and his time is running out: Early voting in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Wisconsin starts in mid-September, and Trump’s campaign seems to be writing off Michigan," he explained. "In desperation, Trump has declared war on the ultimate reality which separates democracies from monarchies: that, come November 3, voters will render judgment on his presidency. Hence his preemptive claims of voter fraud spawned another hallucination—postponing the election itself."

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