Why Trump Keeps Creating Crises

It’s easy to survey the last 10 days in America and be flabbergasted at President Trump’s tendency to inflict politically bruising crises on himself. I know this because I had just that reaction on Wednesday, trying to make sense of his abrupt signing of an executive order intended to end separations of unauthorized immigrant families at the border. The current moment is more acute than others, but it follows the template set by the aftermath of a white-supremacist march in Charlottesville, Virginia; brinksmanship with North Korea; the collapse of Obamacare repeal; the firing of James Comey; and any number of smaller, half-forgotten crises. Why doesn’t he learn?

But maybe the truth is that Trump keeps creating crises because he needs them.

The Trump candidacy was itself based on creating a sense of crisis. This was noObama was reasonably popular and the economy was growing. Yet Donald Trump adeptly manufactured a series of crises that helped convince slightly less than a majority of the country to vote for him, despite his manifold weaknesses as a candidate. He preached of a surge of immigrants, when border crossings were actually down; he painted a dark picture of widespread crime, even though crime rates are historically low; he warned of China stealing jobs and manipulating currency, when in fact both job loss to China and yuan devaluation had peaked years before. Crisis was the theme of both his and his bleak inauguration speech.