Yes, there is a way for Trump to win by losing

(Tom Toles)

President Trump has gotten off to a terrible start. Or has he?

Trump’s early moves have revealed a haywire staff, with terrible ideas, incompetently executed, bunglingly explained, ludicrously defended, publicly repudiated and legally stymied. It doesn’t get much worse, but it may not matter. Some are asking: Is Trump actually playing chess while his opponents are playing checkers? The answer is no. Trump is playing face-punching. Give a minute to an actual chess-player’s analysis of the Trump pattern. It is not sufficient that he lose; he has to be perceived that way, too.

If the imperfect measures of a presidency, such as jobs, legislative victories and public approval, go well for Trump, he will point to them as evidence of his genius. A win. If things go badly, he will attempt to blame this on others, and the others will be painted as enemies, and the existence of enemies will be used for suppression and greater powers, and this will be evidence of evil genius. Win-win.

It is the path to authoritarianism that people keep misapprehending. It is not necessarily a plan, and it does not require intelligence or conventional success. What it requires is fear. What it requires is disinformation. What it requires is a ruthless disregard of democratic conventions, cold-blooded intimidation and implacable erosion of fact-based understanding. Sound familiar?

What is the opposition to do? It is laughable to hear the concern-trolling about how public resistance to Trump may create a backlash. In fact, it is widespread, consistent, open and durable resistance to Trump that is our last line of defense against him. If you want to find somebody to worry about in this environment, it is the people who find excuses to cower and facilitate Trump. Republicans, you can find them in the mirror every morning!

The only mistakes the resistance can make at this point are staying internally divided, which will play into Trump’s little hands, or resorting to violence, which will play into little Trump’s hands bigly.

As Garry Kasparov advises, “Keep fighting, stay steady, keep morale high — and public protests are good for all of these things.”