Like all good flimfam artists, President Trump is a master of misdirection.

As Americans grow increasingly skeptical of his inflationary tariffs, deficit-swelling tax cuts and senseless push to gut federal agencies and research, he floods the zone with a firehose of falsehoods to shift media and public attention elsewhere.

Take his grandstanding plan to dispatch U.S. troops to Chicago and other cities, as he’s already done to Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. It’s a classic “wag the dog” ploy with a Trumpian twist: Instead of fabricating a foreign military crisis to divert voters from their domestic woes, he’s invading America’s blue metros.

Crime and public disorder, including sprawling homeless encampments, are serious problems. But a rational president would partner with local leaders to alleviate them instead of putting our cities under military occupation.

Trump’s grotesquely exaggerated claims of urban anarchy discredit America in the world’s eyes so he can score political points at home. Hard-core Republicans eat it up, but the rest of the country seems unswayed by the president’s gaslighting.

The president’s job approval rating has slipped to 38 percent in the Pew Center’s latest poll. Voters also give Trump’s main policy initiatives a thumbs down.

They strongly disapprove (61-38) of his tariffs, the retro centerpiece of Trumponomics. A solid majority of 55 percent say they lack confidence in Trump’s ability to make good........

© The Hill