Will Trump Become a Victim of His Own Success?

by Alexei Bayer*

For the Democrats in the United States, things have been looking bleak. Their prospects of retaining the White House had gotten dimmer by the week.

But now that Joe Biden has bowed out of seeking another term, Kamala Harris, his Vice President, reshuffles the deck of cards for the 2024 U.S. presidential campaign.

Trump’s inability to maintain a winning hand

At this point, perhaps the Democrats’ best hope to turn things around may well be Trump’s penchant for extreme arrogance and, for that reason, his inability to focus on maintaining a winning hand.

In other words, Trump could end up defeating himself.

The evidence from business

Trump can be a very tough fighter, and he fights hard and dirty whenever he is down. But it is another matter when he is ahead.

Look at Trump’s business career. He came early to the money-making bonanza of post-bankruptcy New York City.

Back in 1976, he developed the old Commodore Hotel next to the Grand Central Station on 42nd Street, turning it into The Grand Hyatt.

That was a remarkably prescient deal. If Trump had continued along the same path as a real estate developer, he would have surely become one of the richest people on the planet.

Heady success

But success seems to go straight to Trump’s head. After creating the Grand Hyatt, he immediately threw caution to the wind and plunged into a variety of risky harebrained ventures.

These ranged from an expansion football team, the Plaza Hotel, Trump Airlines and Atlantic City casinos. Such projects were costly failures, draining his resources and ultimately resulting in bankruptcies.

Throwing caution to the wind

As Biden’s ratings sank and opinion polls point to a possible Trump victory, he shows signs of throwing caution to the wind and becoming increasingly arrogant and unhinged.

After the attempt on his life, he had a unique opportunity to turn presidential, rather than vengeful and narcissistic.

The infamous Project 2025

Trump’s rhetoric is now more radical and he reveals more and more of his extremist agenda. He is opening up about his plans to deport as many as 15 million illegal immigrants, banning abortion, etc.

Take the by-now infamous Project 2025, the right-wing Heritage Foundation blueprint for the upcoming Trump Presidency drafted by a coterie of Trump’s first-term officials, including such characters as Stephen Miller, Ben Carson and Ken Cuccinelli.

Replacing career bureaucrats with political hacks

Their ideas for the Trump second term include turning the United States into a Christian nationalist state, weaponizing the Justice Department to act as an enforcement arm of the president and replacing non-partisan career bureaucrats with political hacks.

Amazingly, this is reminiscent of ideological purges effected by the Nazis in Germany and the communists in the Soviet Union, which first destroyed the institutional memory and then turned the government into an instrument of terror.

Trump’s irrepressible instinct to go too far

The extremist nature of Project 2025 is such that even some Republicans now fear that it has gone too far and may possibly even sink Trump’s presidential campaign.

For now, Trump has decided to distance himself from it, sort of. But he continues to echo many of its ideas during his rallies. Moreover, as he sees his lead in opinion polls grow and senses victory, he is likely to be even more emboldened.

The January 6 parallel

There is a clear parallel with the way Trump’s public references to January 6 rioters have been evolving. Initially he disavowed them, claiming he had nothing to do with their actions.

But gradually, he started embracing them, calling them patriots and accusing the Biden Administration of holding them hostage.

Overly confident

In any case, as Trump approaches Election Day in November, he will open up more and more about his plans for the United States. This will surely disgust and scare most middle-of-the-road voters.

As he has done time and again in the course of his business career, Trump may yet snatch electoral defeat from the jaws of victory.

*Senior Editor, The Globalist
**first published in: Theglobalist.com