For months, President Donald Trump has watched his grip on power collapse. It’s the consequence of self-inflicted wounds.

Trump’s intransigence over releasing the Epstein files created fissures in his MAGA base.

The Iran War worsened that fracture.

Lifting crippling sanctions on Russia and abandoning Ukraine in its fight against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s naked aggression drove the wedge between Trump and his most fervent supporters even deeper.

The price of oil, gasoline, and diesel fuel soared, thanks to the war that Trump alone thinks America has won.

Inflation and the national debt are moving in the wrong direction, while Trump’s illegal tariffs made everything more costly for Americans.

The incompetence of the people he appointed to the most important cabinet positions, including Pete Hegseth, Kristi Noem, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., created havoc and killed innocent Americans.

He destroyed alliances that have endured since World War II and compromised America’s international stature.

His approval rating has plummeted to historic lows as independents deserted him.

And ordinary citizens are finally fed up with the naked corruption of his pay-to-play administration. Trump, his family, and friends have made billions on the presidency while most Americans have struggled to survive.

Trump promised an “October surprise” that presumably would blind voters to his malfeasance and grift. What was it? A hollow promise of $5,000 to every adult citizen if Republicans maintained control of Congress after the midterms? Overtly siding with Putin in the Russia-Ukraine war? A last-minute award of $8 billion to farmers suffering under his idiotic economic policies?

I think it’s something far worse.

Avoiding Accountability

Trump is desperate to avoid accountability, and that makes the most dangerous president in American history more dangerous than at any previous point in his presidency. A Democratic majority in either chamber of Congress will begin investigations that will reveal the depth and breadth of his abuse of power to enrich himself and his cronies. Trump’s priority now is to prevent voters from electing Democrats. Period.

Trump can’t rely solely on the voter suppression techniques that Republican-controlled states have adopted over the past several years. Restrictive voter ID laws........

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