Trump’s performance over the past 3½ years has made it clear that his greatest passion is himself, which means he is loyal only to those who are loyal to him, a group that includes his white base and selected international despots. His tax cuts have benefited the very richest, his wall on the Southern border remains unfinished, an entirely foreseeable pandemic caught him unawares, the economy has tanked, millions of Americans are unemployed and schools, most of them anyway, are shuttered.

He does not even pretend to be the president of all of us, and his best argument against Biden is downright nonsensical. (I want to say “craven,” but I am in danger of overusing that word when I write about Trump.)

If Biden is elected, Trump predicts, the country will explode with the kind of racial unrest and protests against police brutality that we saw this summer after a white police officer choked the life out of a Black man, George Floyd.

It’s a neat and cynical trick: Vote for me because what’s happening on my watch is unacceptable.