Hardly anyone remembers this now, but back in 2016, Donald Trump threatened to run as an independent if the Republican Party didn’t nominate him.

“But if I leave, if I go, regardless of independent, which I may do — I mean, may or may not. But if I go, I will tell you, these millions of people that joined, they’re all coming with me.” (Emphasis mine.)

It was an early indication of the Trump doctrine: Loyalty goes one way. It’s always demanded, seldom given. If you don’t play ball, Trump will take that ball and go elsewhere... so he can aim it directly at your head from a safe distance.

He’s done it with Michael Cohen, with James Mattis, with John Bolton, with Jeff Sessions and with anyone else who comes out against him. And it’s what Republican lawmakers are deathly afraid he’ll do to them in primary elections if they criticize him.

Flawed assumption

It’s become accepted wisdom that Trump doesn’t quit, but that’s simply not true. When things stop being fun for him, that’s exactly what he does. Remember those six bankruptcies? The USFL? Trump University? When his system stops working, as it inevitably does, he quits, cuts his losses and moves on to the next thing. My hunch is that’s what he’ll do here.

Does that mean he’ll pull an LBJ and announce he’s not running in 2020? I’m not sure. But some signs point to it.

Significantly, it was Mike Pence, not Trump, who abruptly became the face of the COVID-19 fight at the first meeting of the White House task force on the crisis in several weeks. Pence had, of course, been named to lead the effort in the first place. But he hadn’t gotten much face time because Trump wanted to be sure he got the credit for stopping the virus in its tracks.

When it became clear the virus wasn’t stopping, Trump handed his clusterfuck off Pence and went golfing. It’s his M.O. He wants all of the credit and none of the blame. But something else Pence did over the weekend was noteworthy: He started urging people to wear masks to slow the virus’ spread, something that has been anathema to Trump.

Reading the tea leaves

What does this mean?

Perhaps Trump is just letting Pence take the lead because it’s a lost cause and he wants to place it in Pence’s lap. Pence’s mask-wearing might look futile at this point (although it isn’t) if the virus keeps spreading (which it will, but not as fast as if we didn’t wear masks). But perhaps Trump is simply taking his golf ball and going home. Perhaps he’s checking out. In an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox, he couldn’t even articulate any goals for a second term, which raises the question of whether he wants a second term.

I’m not sure he does. He’s in this for the adulation, not the legislation, and when the Tulsa rally fizzled, it may have been the last straw. Trump’s always spoiling for a fight, but the one thing he can’t stand is feeling ignored, and a crowd of 6,000 people in a venue that seats 19,000 was bound to make him feel just that way. He’d never looked as defeated as he did when he stepped out onto the White House lawn, tie undone, hat in hand, after returning from that rally.

Trump has a history of digging in his heels when the going gets tough, as well as for pushing the envelope, so it’s entirely possible that this is just more of the same and he’ll stick around. Or try to. But it’s also possible he’s tanking on purpose: Creating a pretext for the Republican Party to abandon him and basically ask him to step down by making explicit what many of us have known for some time: His administration is a haven for white supremacists and a puppet for Russia.

There’s a difference between denying something and making it so blatantly obvious no one can ignore it. And he’s been doing the latter, which has been causing his polls to drop.

No way out

His poll numbers have been this low before – even lower. But when they were, it was in a crisis of his own making, the government shutdown, and he had an easy way out. All he had to do was open things up again. But the current health crisis is not of his own making. And if you try to open things up again in the middle of a pandemic, the virus is going to shut you down. Bigly. Which is, of course, exactly what’s happened.

The escape hatch for Trump is there, and it’s one he’s taking before in private business. He thrives on winning, and if it becomes clear he can’t (win, that is), he’s likely to quit in a huff. But don’t expect him to go away, and don’t expect him to take any of the blame. Sure, he’ll lash out at Democrats, but he’ll also blame Republicans who, he’ll say, have turned on him.

Then he might very well do exactly what he threatened to do in 2016, but with a twist. He won’t run as an independent, but he’ll become an independent voice. For what? The Republicans? Hell, no. For himself, of course. And even if party stalwarts and independents desert him in droves, he’ll still have those never-say-die loyalists, maybe a third of the population, that will continue to follow him even if he shoots someone on Fifth Avenue.

What happens next

My bet is, if Trump leaves office – either by not running again or by losing to Joe Biden – he’ll become the Republican Party’s worst enemy. He’ll blame them for not supporting him, and he’ll use friendly media such as OANN and unfiltered social media sites, to make them listen. Maybe he’ll even start his own media empire.

Where would that leave Fox News, which has been catering to him for the sake of ratings but has earned his ire whenever it stops being his own personal echo chamber (even when that involves nothing more than being objective enough to conduct impartial polls that make him look bad)? You have to know the folks at Fox are sweating about that very possibility.

In sports, teams tank – stop trying – when it’s clear they’ve already lost too many games to qualify for the playoffs. But it’s not that they want to lose. It’s that they’ve been forced, by reality, to change objectives: Instead of trying to win a championship this year, they’re trying for the best possible draft pick so they can win next year or the year after that. They’re losing in order to win.

That could very well be Trump’s calculus if he comes to the realization that he can’t win in 2020. It may be no coincidence that he’s withdrawn to the golf course and given the COVID-19 reins to Pence at the same time reports are surfacing that he’s finally believing those polls. He finally knows he’s behind. And he knows the coronavirus isn’t going away before the election, and that Black Lives Matter won’t, either.

Look out, GOP

Has Trump come to the realization he can’t win? Maybe not quite yet, but he’s getting there. And if things continue on this trajectory, he may keep nudging them along – which is what he appears to be doing now. Tanking.

But wait till next year, Republicans. If you thought Trump hurt your cause as president, when went along with your agenda for his ego’s sake, imagine how big a pain in the ass he’ll be when he realizes you don’t have anything to offer him.

Don’t delude yourself into thinking this former Democrat who threatened to run as an independent will be loyal. He never has been. Besides, that’s your job, and if you fail at it, you’ll end up just another Michael Cohen: discarded like a broken fixer in the overflowing dumpster of Trump.

Photo: Trump speaks to supporters during a 2016 campaign rally in Arizona. By Gage Skidmore, CC BY SA-2.0,.