Trump went on a marathon “truthing” spree last night, posting over 160 times. “Most of the posts involved sharing MAGA-friendly content from right-wing sources including Fox News, YouTuber Benny Johnson, and broadcasters Scott Jennings and Alex Jones,” says Daily Beast. Among the choicer “truths” is that Michelle Obama was in charge of Joe Biden’s auto-pen. Trump shared a lot of videos targeting his many political “enemies” — Gavin Newsom, Tim Walz, Nancy Pelosi, James Comey, etc.  To me, this reveals obsessive, seething rage and a whole lot of insecurity.

Last week the New York Times published an article that pushed Trump over the edge, according to several reports. In Shorter Days, Signs of Fatigue: Trump Faces Realities of Aging in Office, Katie Rogers and Dylan Freedman write that Trump works hard to “project round-the-clock energy, virility and physical stamina.” But, they note that he keeps shorter working hours and lighter meeting schedules than he used to, plus he’s been caught falling asleep in public several times recently. Many news outlets reported that Trump raged and fumed and lost it over the report. Right-wing outlets ran puffery about what an exceptional physical specimen Trump is, of course.

But then see The Bubble-Wrapped President by Jonathan Lemire at The Atlantic. Whatever his physical status, he is extraordinarily isolated even by presidential standards. For example, he’s making international trips but not seeing much of his own country.

I looked at Trump’s travel schedule from the fall of 2017, the first year of his initial term, to compare it with this fall’s, and I was surprised by the drop-off. Back then, he traveled into the country more than a dozen times from September to November to talk with energy workers in North Dakota, rally support in Alabama for a Senate candidate, and explain his agenda directly to his supporters. During that same stretch this year, he barely traveled at all. This fall, he’s ventured beyond the Washington, D.C., metro area; his New Jersey golf club; and Florida, the home of Mar-a-Lago, only five times. Four of those domestic trips were to New York, including three to hang out with rich friends in luxury boxes at sporting events. The other was to attend United Nations meetings, but he stayed only one night, compared with five in 2017. The fifth trip was to Arizona, to attend Charlie Kirk’s memorial service.

After the Big, Ugly Bill passed, people close to him tried to get Trump on the road to do some rallies or other personal appearances around the country to sell the thing. He just never got around to it. He was asked to make appearances with some of the candidates who lost in last month’s elections. He did a couple of virtual appearances but wouldn’t travel.  His media consumption is mostly right-wing outlets that say good things about him, and the people who work for him in the White House are all brown-nosers. He’s cut himself off from just about everybody else. Including his own voters, out there in flyover country. And this is significant, because it means it’s very unlikely he’ll do anything to win support back. This may be a sign of flagging energy, or it may just be that now that he’s in charge he’s just going to do what he wants to do, nyah nyah nyah. Or both.

See also David Graham, Trump Seizes Back the Spotlight (That may not be the boon he thinks it is), also at The Atlantic. The things he is doing to get attention aren’t making him look good. And we still don’t know what’s going to happen with the Epstein files. But I suspect that those anticipating Transparency At Last will be disappointed.

One big way the Trumpers miscalculated since the beginning of this term is in the optics they want to promote. Trump seems to have believed people would think videos of mass military roundups of brown people would be cool. Mostly, they don’t. Remember when his thing was to show lots of brown people being loaded onto big military planes? That fell apart. Then somebody must have thought it would look cool to send Ice Barbie  to El Salvador to pose with the prisoners. “Cringy” is probably a better word.

In September Ice agents rappelled from Black Hawk helicopters onto an ordinary Chicago apartment building to terrorize the residents. Somebody must have thought that would look cool. The White House claimed that a Venezuelan gang had taken over the building. But the raid resulted in no criminal charges. I’m sure the die-hard Trump base eats this stuff up, and the low-information crowd may barely know this is happening. But I doubt the whopping majority of Americans are favorably impressed.

And now it’s the boat strikes. Even people who are dumb enough to believe there’s some legitimate purpose to the strikes may not want to look at them. Trump/Miller/Hegseth and whoever else is behind this may think videos of bombing boats are cool. That’s only reason I can think of for not just relying on the Coast Guard.

The most recent example of prepubescent “humor” coming out of the White House, Pete Hegseth posted an image of a children’s book character destroying boats.

He did this after the Wall Street Journal published the “second strike” article, mind you. What is he trying to say? That killing people is just good, innocent fun? People are selling T-shirts with that image on them, btw. And the publisher of the Franklin the Turtle books is, justifiably, furious. I hope the publisher sues.

Update: Do see Paul Waldman at The Cross Section, A Few Bad Men, who is making a lot of these same points.

Bottom line, though, the executive branch is being run by a pack of sociopaths. They have all the judgment and sensibilities of spoiled 8-year-old boys. And Trump’s poll numbers continue to slip. He’s fallen into late-term Richard Nixon territory.

Tonight we’ll learn if Republicans can hang on to their House seat for Tennessee’s 7th congressional district. I’m making no predictions. But a close Republican win should make the GOP pretty nervous, since Trump won it by 22 points last year. And the polls are all very close.