For those Republican candidates still confused about their pitch to midterms voters, Donald Trump offered some specific instructions at last week’s GOP midterm convention: Make the midterms all about me!

The president believes that his two (or, by his count, three) presidential victories, in contrast with poor GOP performance in 2018 and underperformance in 2022, are proof positive that Republicans win when he’s on the ballot and lose when he’s not. So he proclaimed in Dallas, “I’m asking you to pretend that I’m on the ballot. I’m on the ballot. I’m on the ballot. Just one more time.”

This is rather counterintuitive, given Trump’s own terrible job-approval numbers at present. But perhaps he really does think all those adverse polls are “fake” or that they don’t take into account the MAGA-turnout boom he is trying to stimulate. Congressional Republicans, on the other hand, think public concerns about living costs need to be addressed via some party-branded proposals to show that the party understands voters’ top issue and intends to do something about it. This enrages the president, who wants everyone to know that America has in fact entered a “golden age” in which the economy is red hot and getting better every day in every way. He regards the whole affordability issue as a “hoax” (as he insisted once again in Dallas) and seems to think of voters who fret about their ability to make ends meet as ignorant ingrates who need to be told they’ve never had it so good.

Still, in his pity for GOP candidates and his longing to shock the world with........

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