Trump, der scheitert und verblasst, sieht für die Amerikaner wie ein Verlierer aus

In Aesop’s Fables, a mountain shook and groaned, and brought forth a mouse. This was how Donald Trump’s address to the nation unfolded on Thursday night. After promising “really, really big news”, he appeared to deliver a nothingburger. But it was a dangerous one all the same.

The evidence of foreign interference and voter fraud was so thin that Trump appeared to be reading from a heavily sanitised script. His previous false claims about the so-called 2020 “stolen” election gave way to mere puffed-up rhetoric about Americans being “blatantly lied to” about the security of their “election infrastructure”.

Had he been taken hostage by his own top aides and intelligence chiefs, who refused to let him spout actual fibs in a national address from the White House podium? If so, his power is waning, even within the Oval Office.

Moreover, his speech was delivered in a hoarse, throaty voice reminiscent of Joe Biden’s in his declining years as President, though not as enfeebled. It was an embarrassingly public reminder that [Trump](https://inews.co.uk/opinion/cant-sneer-trumps-america-britain-needs-binface-4616133?ico=in-line_link) is 80 and time waits for no man. The address showed him fading before our eyes.

Trump’s obsession with relitigating the disputes of the past appears increasingly like the bizarre ravings of an old man. If he hasn’t proved the 2020 election was rigged by now – six years on – he never will. The US public has lost interest in the subject and is less inclined to take the President at his word. After all, he keeps insisting he has “won” the Iran war, when it is obvious [none of his stated goals](https://inews.co.uk/opinion/trumps-iran-gamble-left-him-nowhere-to-go-4632624?ico=in-line_link) have been achieved.

Trump lives in his own world of imaginary popularity. On Truth Social last weekend he claimed to have a “59 percent Approval Rating” though no poll has come to that conclusion. At its most favourable, *RealClearPolitics*, a conservative site, places his average approval rating at 41 per cent, while the *New York Times* poll of polls has Trump on 39 per cent, with 58 per cent disapproving of his performance in office.

In the same post, Trump also claimed that “prices are coming down along with the lowering of oil and gas”, when they were spiking at that very moment after the renewal of hostilities with Iran.

Although the Democrats are fully capable of [shooting themselves in the foot ](https://inews.co.uk/opinion/democrats-moral-cowardice-reeks-of-trump-4629568?ico=in-line_link)at the November midterm elections, the ground is clearly unfavourable for the governing Republicans in Congress. Undoubtedly, the result will be viewed as a verdict on Trump.

Seen in this light, his exaggerated claims about election interference are still capable of serving a malign purpose. He is desperate to maintain the illusion of success in the shadow of defeat. Just as his insistence that he won the 2020 presidential election spared him the taint of the loser and powered his comeback, so his latest claim about “shocking vulnerabilities” in America’s election apparatus is designed to cast doubt over the results of the midterms.

Trump is adamant that Republicans pass the SAVE America bill, bringing in stricter voter ID (with the apparent goal of suppressing Democrat turnout), but it would require them to overcome a filibuster to achieve – and Republican senators have shown no inclination to humour him in this regard.

Disturbingly, what Trump actually revealed in his address was not a plot to foil his winning of the presidency, but a far more dastardly plot to bring US democracy into disrepute.

China, Trump claimed, had secretly hacked US voter files, and that “members of the Deep State” within American intelligence agencies had actively suppressed “the extent of China’s sinister election meddling” in 2020. Yet there was nothing to suggest China had done anything with the information, much of which is freely available on the internet.

One freshly released intelligence document noted, “We assess that China prefers that Donald Trump be defeated” and had “stepped up rhetoric” criticising the President. However, no leading Chinese official turned up on American soil touting votes for Biden in 2020, as Vice-President JD Vance did for Viktor Orbán in Hungary last April.

And, as the Democrats soon spotted, the same batch of documents released by Trump referred to Russian attempts to “orchestrate a high-profile corruption scandal” against Joe Biden, linked to Ukraine.

For those wondering whether [Nicolás Maduro](https://inews.co.uk/opinion/trump-promised-maga-us-wouldnt-police-world-running-venezuela-4146874?ico=in-line_link), the snatched former leader of Venezuela now sitting in a US prison, would do a deal with his captors to implicate his country in alleged US voter fraud, the answer was no. There was a passage in Trump’s speech that suggested Venezuela had been up to no good, but it referred solely to an alleged plot to rig their own elections to keep Maduro himself in power. Presumably it was only there to confuse a few addled brains.

As Sue Gordon, former deputy intelligence director in the first Trump administration, explained on CNN: “Since 2016, [foreign] intelligence communities have been trying to influence our elections with the purpose of undermining democracy, not undermining a president.”

In this, Trump has been carrying out the wishes of America’s enemies to the letter. That’s why his delusions about “winning” are so dangerous.

*Sarah Baxter is director of the Marie Colvin Center for International Reporting*

The problem is that the country is losing as well.

But, not enough Americans. His brainless lemmings continue believing Trump walks on water.

Because he is

Tell me something I don’t already know about TACO. Such a douche bag.

And he looks like god and Americas savior to the entire Republican entity. Besides. The idiots are like broke back Mountain with chump. They just can’t quit him or his dumbass Republican directive.

He’s brought the US down to his level, unfortunately

Hold on there OP, okay here’s my idea… let’s replace “looks like” with the word “IS” and that’ll be better.

On the one hand… yes. Stupid. Obnoxious. Loud. Racist. So sure… a total loser. On the other… he sort of perfectly represents millions and millions of Americans to the whole world. If you close your eyes and try to picture an American ya… toss a flowered shirt on him… he does live in Florida…. Trump is honestly the perfect stand-in for the average American.

He’s setting the stage to cancel the midterms.

He’s a whiny little bitch boy.

Not fading fast enough …

He’s bankrupting the country just like he has bankrupted every other business he has started. He’s a fucking moron.

Wish he’d just burn out, not fade away.