After watching his slate of candidates underperform in the red-ripple midterms, Donald Trump had a few options to argue that his leadership was still necessary. He could have argued that he remains the GOP’s best figure for rallying the base, both literally and figuratively — with some merit. Trump might have argued that his remaining wealth still makes him less dependent on the donor class. At the very least, Trump could have just welcomed the upcoming opportunity to slug it out on the merits and policy in the upcoming 2024 presidential cycle.

Instead, Trump opted to attack Ron DeSantis yesterday as “sanctimonious” and a loser right after the Florida governor transformed the state into a Republicans Only club. And today, Trump attacked Glenn Youngkin — another potential 2024 rival — on the basis that his name “sounds Chinese.”

I only wish I was kidding:

Trump now attacking Glenn Youngkin .. pic.twitter.com/eEEPcAMplX

— Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) November 11, 2022

Who wrote that “interesting take” — Trump himself or a middle-school intern? I think we all know who wrote that, and so … yeesh.

Let’s skip over the blatant racism for a moment and go to Trump’s substantive claim. Youngkin distanced himself from Trump in last year’s Virginia election, and ended up defeating Trump-aligned Amanda Chase in a six-round nomination contest. Mindful of Virginia’s blue-state electorate, Youngkin kept Trump at arm’s length while focusing on the parental-rights movement rather than MAGA and the 2020 election. Trump endorsed Youngkin just before the election and held a telephonic rally in the last days of the election, as he said, but Trump had little or nothing to do with Youngkin’s win. It was the first signal that Republicans could win without Trump in unfriendly territory, and Trump’s late endorsement was meant to blunt that conclusion.

This week, of course, showed that Republicans could lose by aligning with Trump even in friendly territory. These attacks from Trump are meant as a distraction from that conclusion, as well as attempts to make himself relevant after his slate of candidates largely struggled or lost.

Most of this is old hat for Trump, however. He never could stand the spotlight getting shifted to others, especially at his own expense. That’s why Trump has gone out of his way to attack DeSantis in order to (a) paint him as weak and (b) as entirely indebted to Trump. Both claims are ridiculous, but especially (a) after Tuesday’s red tsunami in Florida.

But even as undisciplined as Trump usually is, his “interesting take” on Youngkin is a big step into an abyss. It validates criticisms of Trump as a racist demagogue, because this is racist demagoguery, and absurd on its face. There’s nothing wrong with Chinese names in the first place — millions of Americans have Chinese ancestry — and on top of that, Youngkin isn’t Chinese. It’s a smear squared based on bigotry, either Trump’s own bigotry or some bigotry that he assumes his followers share.

Just the fact that Trump published this yuuuuge reach on the etymology of Youngkin as an “interesting take” on his own platform shows how desperate Trump has become to become the center of attention again. It’s also a good opportunity for Republicans to consider what value there would be in having Trump lead their party again, and whether they want to be associated with his “interesting takes” for the next two years. Trump may be settling the 2024 presidential primary this week …. and if so, he likely won’t enjoy the outcome.