Trump comes face to face with one of his greatest fears

[brooklynite]

Washington Post

The founding falsehood that set the tone for the most mendacious presidency in U.S. history — the original Big Lie — was all about crowd size. In January 2017, President Trump and his spokesperson inflated his inaugural audience with a series of grotesque falsehoods. Trump even attacked the media for telling the truth about his paltry inaugural turnout.

So it’s fitting that as Trump’s first term — and perhaps his presidency — winds down, he is confronting the very same fear that produced that original series of foundational lies: The fear that the crowds just aren’t showing up the way they’re supposed to.

Two new reports — one from NBC News, and one from the Associated Press — shed light on an internal debate now underway among Trump advisers about how to manage both this new reality and Trump’s own emotional struggle with it.

The picture that emerges is one in which they are working to balance Trump’s insatiable need to feed off adoring crowds against the reality that people might be disinclined to brave the plague conditions that he did so much to unleash on the country. The imperatives of satiating Trump’s megalomania are bumping up against the consequences of his depravity and incompetence.

[Wounded Bear]

1. Trump is such a pathetic, whiny, insecure little man...nt

[NCjack]

2. He is now a LOSER, and that must give his some severe chest pains. nt

[malaise]

3. Not severe enough

That is all

[soothsayer]

4. He should take extra hydroxychloroquine for it

[ProudMNDemocrat]

5. My Corona......

Keeping the adoring crowds away.

Those STUPID enough to show up will not have learned from Tulsa, SD, or Phoenix. Trump is spreading the plague with each stop he makes.

[durablend]

7. I'm more afraid of

Swing states where he's going to certainly show up (incl. PA) where they're going to spread it among the rest of us

[Nevilledog]

6. Gonna come down to two choices for him

Holding rallies or a convention with few people in attendance, bad optics. Or doing them virtually, where he'll come off as robotic and his deterioration won't be masked by his followers cheers.

Both are losing propositions.

[MyOwnPeace]

11. Just as the late-night shows seem so different

without a live audience, can you imagine BunkerBoy saying his usual verbal garbage and no insane "ROAR" taking place?
It would truly be an example of "theater of the absurd!"

[Nevilledog]

12. I can not only imagine it, I'd watch it!

[PatSeg]

8. It is kind of coming full circle

He started out with a fake crowd. There were a lot people who were paid to appear at his announcement event at Trump Tower. I don't think at that time he ever anticipated the huge crowds he ended up getting. For Trump it was initially just a PR stunt to revive his brand and he certainly enjoyed the media attention. Then all those enthusiastic, adoring fans went to his head. He started to believe his own hype.

When he found out he could do or say anything and not lose his supporters, I'm sure he felt invincible. Hence the "I could shoot someone on Fifth Ave." comment. At the time, he appeared genuinely surprised.

[lagomorph777]

10. Now that he's actually killed EVERYBODY on Fifth Avenue, it seems the paradigm has shifted.

[PatSeg]

13. Apparently it has to be more than ONE person

I still can't believe how much he has gotten away with and then there is still all the crap we don't even know. There will be exposes for many years to come.

[lagomorph777]

9. "people might be disinclined to brave the plague conditions that he did so much to unleash on [us]"

The Grim Reaper, reaping what he has sowed.