Delusional Truth Social rant proves Trump has finally lost the plot

What happened

AlterNet reports that Donald Trump blamed Republican strategist Karl Rove and Texas Sen. John Cornyn for making it harder for Trump-backed Ken Paxton to defeat Democrat James Talarico in a Texas Senate race. The article argues that Trump’s Truth Social post—especially his praise of Paxton as Texas’s greatest attorney general—exposed the weakness of his own judgment rather than establishing sabotage by Rove or Cornyn.

The outlet also describes Republican Senate campaigns in Georgia and North Carolina as faltering after Trump helped elevate Mike Collins and Michael Whatley, respectively. It says Republican leaders had canceled millions of dollars in advertising in those races, while incumbents in Ohio, Kansas, and Nebraska faced unexpectedly difficult contests.

None of the cited polling establishes who will win. AlterNet explicitly acknowledges that uncertainty and frames its case conditionally: if Trump-backed Republicans lose on November 3, the article argues, Trump’s interventions will be a central cause.

Power belongs to the president

Rove may retain influence, and Cornyn may retain a political network, but neither holds the power described here. Trump is the president, the dominant figure in his party, and the official whose endorsements helped shape Republican nominations.

That distinction matters because Trump’s accusation reverses the chain of responsibility. He promoted Paxton, attacked Cornyn, helped Collins secure the Georgia nomination, pressured Tillis before his retirement, and backed Whatley in North Carolina. According to AlterNet’s account, Trump exercised power repeatedly. Rove is being assigned blame after those choices produced political risk.

The scapegoat is the strategy

Trump offered no evidence in the reporting that Rove and Cornyn were “doing everything possible” to defeat Paxton. The accusation functions as preemptive blame allocation: if Paxton wins, Trump can claim vindication; if Paxton loses, designated traitors can absorb the failure.

Calling this mere confusion would miss the political utility. Trump’s post shifts attention from the candidate he endorsed and the intervention he made to figures with less control over the result. The rant is not proof that he has literally “lost the plot.” It is evidence of a familiar refusal to accept accountability.

Loyalty displaced competence

The article’s strongest case is not psychological but institutional. Trump used presidential and party power to favor candidates who pleased him personally, despite liabilities that could burden Republican campaigns.

AlterNet notes that Paxton narrowly survived an impeachment effort in the Texas Legislature and that former staff members had accused him of corruption. It describes Collins as under House Ethics Committee investigation and reports associations between his political operation and white supremacists. Those are allegations and unresolved concerns, not convictions. But they are plainly relevant electoral risks—and Trump’s praise does not erase them.

Whatley’s thin record and the reported criticism of North Carolina’s Hurricane Helene recovery present the same structural problem. A party organized around one leader’s approval rewards displays of loyalty while weakening its ability to screen candidates for competence, credibility, or broad appeal.

The framing overreaches

AlterNet is right to center Trump’s agency, but its headline substitutes armchair diagnosis for political analysis. A social-media tirade cannot prove delusion, and “lost the plot” explains less than the article’s own evidence does.

The observable conduct is sharper: a powerful official made consequential endorsements, dismissed candidates’ vulnerabilities, and then accused weaker actors of causing the resulting danger. That is not a medical judgment. It is an accountability judgment grounded in who possessed authority and how that authority was used.

The article also occasionally treats prospective losses as more settled than the evidence permits. Polling, canceled advertising, and negative approval ratings indicate danger; they do not establish election results or prove a single cause.

A party built to evade consequences

The larger pattern is personalist rule converting an institution into an alibi machine. Candidate selection becomes a loyalty contest. Electoral weakness becomes sabotage. The person with the greatest power presents himself as the person least responsible.

That arrangement damages more than campaign strategy. It trains officials to flatter upward, blame sideways, and conceal foreseeable consequences until voters impose them. Whether every named Republican wins or loses, the governing defect is already visible: power is concentrated around Trump, while responsibility is continually exported to everyone else.

Thanks to Alter Net

Source: Delusional Truth Social rant proves Trump has finally lost the plot