Why not? As I wrote earlier this week, sabotaging the Postal Service to settle a score and suppress mail-in voting is obvious move if you don't care about who you harm.
My other example was why Trump would sabotage testing. He sees Covid-19 deaths like the stock market in reverse. Higher is bad, so do anything to keep the numbers down until election day. cnn.com/2020/04/20/opi…
Pundits tend to look for complicated explanations for autocratic behavior. It flatters their supposed expertise. But it's almost always just blunt self-interest. The shortest path to power and money.
People are always shocked by the crassness of it, the disregard for the law and norms and basic morality. It's why autocrats constantly surprise us and gain advantage.
Power is the ability to control the conversation. Will stupid bleach comments hurt Trump in November? Will news of his being millions in debt to China? So which would he prefer everyone talk about?
