Matt Lewis: “Trump’s America is a cynical and base place where people are identified as extreme avatars and insulting stereotypes instead of as complex individuals. But is it reality? This worldview helped him win in 2016, because enough voters believed the caricature he sold us about himself (a bogus image of wealth and success), as well as the image he sold us about others (Lyin’ Ted Cruz, Crooked Hillary, the ‘fake news’ media, you get it).”

“But after nearly four years, it is helping him lose bigly in 2020. Trump sees the world in a perverse and superficial way—and he thinks you and I do, too. This projection is sometimes effective and has been reinforced by his success. But at some point, the twisted way he views the world went from being an asset to a detriment. The first time I picked up on this concept was back in 2016, when Trump was asked by Chris Matthews about abortion. His answer (which was, essentially, to punish the woman) sounded like something no actual conservative would say. As Marc Thiessen, a former chief speechwriter for George W. Bush, observed at the time, ‘Trump is not a real conservative—he is the liberal caricature of a conservative.’ ‘Since Trump does not actually understand what pro-life conservatives truly believe,’ Thiessen explained, ‘he mindlessly echoes the liberal caricature of pro-life conservatives. He mistakenly thinks this is what these conservatives want to hear. They don’t.'”