Trump has had a number of big crises of his presidency and managed to cover at least back to his baseline level of unpopularity by calming down for a while and letting his poll numbers rise. But each of those were crises of his own making and ones he could more or less end ...
2/ at will simply by ceasing to be weird for a while. Now he has three or four overlapping crises, each of which he bears significant responsibility for but which are also real and inflamed. They’ll still be crises even if he managed to stop being ridiculous and malevolent.
3/ So his normal path to recovery is blocked. The only way out, at least through the prism of his predatory mindset, is to escalate.
