Trump is doing everything he did in 2016 to get elected — and it's failing this time: columnist

On Saturday, Washington Post columnist Dan Balz wrote that President Donald Trump is relying on the same old bag of tricks that let him lurch blindly to a surprise victory in 2016 — but that that playbook is unlikely to get him elected again, let alone deliver sound domestic or foreign policy.

"After a week in which the threat of recession rocked global financial markets, his trade war with China showed no signs of progress and the government of Israel got into a nasty dispute with two members of Congress, President Trump went to bed Thursday night with other weighty issues on his mind. 'Great news,' he tweeted. 'Tonight we broke the all-time attendance record previously held by Elton John at #SNHUArena [Southern New Hampshire University] in Manchester!'" wrote Balz. "This is the frivolous mind-set of the president of the United States. Trump’s flurry of statements over the past few days have brought into focus once again something fundamental about him: He has little understanding of what it means to govern. He would rather tweet from the bleachers."

In addition to boasting about his crowd size, Balz noted, Trump spent a great deal of time trashing Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and the "fake news" media, stepping into the controversy of Israel prohibiting entry to two Democratic congresswomen critical of Netanyahu's regime, and flirting with the idea of buying Greenland from Denmark. But on complex issues that really demand American leadership, like the uprising in Hong Kong, Trump has shown only a passing interest.

"The president’s supporters still love him, as his rally in New Hampshire on Thursday again showed. The president put on quite a show, a rambling discourse that lasted more than an hour and a half and revisited old lines and familiar themes (sometimes more than once)," wrote Balz. "Meanwhile, a new Fox News poll of the 2020 campaign showed Trump losing to every Democrat tested. More telling was that the incumbent president did not break 40 percent against any of them. Polls are polls, and the election is more than a year away, but those numbers should concern the president’s advisers."

"Trump is following the same limited playbook that got him to the presidency," concluded Balz. "Whether those tactics have the same potency they once did is the question that will determine his and the country’s future. Meanwhile, serious problems are in front of him and he is struggling to find the answers."