People tend to view habits, negatively. We associate the word with actions that are if not bad for us, at least not necessarily good. Smoking is one example of a negative habit as is fingernail biting. Gambling, watching too much television are other examples. But good habits exist as well. People practice daily routines such as working out, meditating, going for a walk, etc. The bottom line: Habits encompass a wide variety of behavior, both good and bad.

For someone like President Trump, he has the unfortunate habit of having to respond to any slight, any criticism or any negative news. What makes it worse is Trump doesn’t deny allegations or brush off criticism with self-deprecation the way many other people handle criticism. Instead, Trump manages to take what should be the equivalent of a motor vehicle fender bender and turn it into the kind of “big one” wrecks you see at restrictor-plate racetracks in NASCAR. Even then, instead of allowing for a time to cool off and clean up the wreckage, it’s as if Trump takes the tow truck and drives through it, causing more carnage before calming down.

Trump’s tweets on the morning of April 15 are not the calm, collected thoughts of a President, but instead the kind of expression of incoherent rage that would make most people think, “What the hell is the matter with this guy?” Here’s one of them:

The big questions in Comey’s badly reviewed book aren’t answered like, how come he gave up Classified Information (jail), why did he lie to Congress (jail), why did the DNC refuse to give Server to the FBI (why didn’t they TAKE it), why the phony memos, McCabe’s $700,000 & more?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 15, 2018

Naturally, Trump claims Comey’s book is “badly reviewed.” When Trump doesn’t like something, he accuses of it of “failing” or having been poorly reviewed by critics. But just after that, he slips into the despotic mode he enjoys so much where he wants people thrown in jail and laughingly follows up by saying FBI should have seized the DNC email server (despite no legal reason to do so). He also attempts to link Andrew McCabe to Comey when those are two separate issues. Then he tweeted:

Attorney Client privilege is now a thing of the past. I have many (too many!) lawyers and they are probably wondering when their offices, and even homes, are going to be raided with everything, including their phones and computers, taken. All lawyers are deflated and concerned!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 15, 2018

This line of “reasoning” made its way into the fever swamps. People claim Mueller’s sole reason for raiding Cohen’s office is so that Mueller can snoop around the privileged communications between Cohen and Trump. It’s more complicated than that. For a more in-depth look at the Cohen situation, read Andrew McCarthy’s piece at National Review. Pay particular attention to paragraphs five and six as McCarthy discusses the attorney-client privilege freakout.

When Trump engages in this kind of rage-tweeting, he naturally has his strongest defenders ready to go to the mattresses for him. We all know who those people are and it’s pointless in attempting to reason with them. Trump could send out a tweet saying, “I like pooping in my pants” and the usual suspects would come out in full force discussing the “obvious” benefits of defecating in your drawers.

Then there are the “soft” Trump defenders. They know his rage tweets don’t do any good, but they try to find them reasonable. They’ll argue, “Yeah it’s  kind of stupid, but he’s not wrong, though!” Seriously? The guy you pass in the Metro station wearing newspaper for clothing and looking like he hasn’t bathed since the Nixon administration is right when he rants about the evils of communism at the top of his lungs. But who in their right mind will sit down and listen to that person? That Trump may be right about what he says doesn’t mean a thing if he comes off looking like a damned fool when he says it.

Others say nobody pays attention to his tweets which is nonsense. People may not be on Twitter to see it happening, but they watch the news, read the news and listen to the news. People know about it, and it’s a good reason why Trump continues to languish in the polls. If not for the Rasmussen results which have his approval at 50 percent, he’d still sport an average approval that sits at around 41 percent. 

People can attempt to spin his tweets any way they want. The bottom line is, they continue to do damage to his job approval and this also continues to drag down the GOP as a whole. If Trump thinks he has problems now, wait until Democrats are chairing the committees that will investigate him and his administration. Wait until he tries to get something done with Nancy Pelosi as Speaker instead of Paul Ryan.

Unfortunately, Trump won’t listen. Reason and rationality are beyond his scope. He only knows how to yell into the wind and it will continue to hurt him.