In any election cycle, it’s common for candidates, officials and party leaders to save their strongest message for what’s known as a “closing argument” — a phrase the political world borrows from trial lawyers. After months of speeches, debates, advertisements, interviews and countless interactions with voters, this is the final opportunity for political players to put their best foot forward and summarize why they deserve the public’s support.

Donald Trump has spent quite a bit of time on the campaign trail lately, and I’ve heard his closing message several times. And while I’m certain the president wants voters to know something as they cast their ballots, I’m not at all sure what that is.

The Atlantic’s Jonathan Lemire summarized the problem this way:

Modern political history offers few examples of closing arguments that appear more out of touch, self-defeating, or downright bizarre than what Donald Trump has offered his fellow Republicans ahead of next week’s midterm elections.

The Democratic message, as articulated by Barack Obama among others, is relatively straightforward: Trump and Republicans took power and made things worse. A Democratic-led Congress can serve as a check on White House abuses, hold the corrupt accountable and push policies that would help get the country back on track.

Trump’s message is … harder to nail down.

After watching his final-week rallies and reading his social media messages, it’s clear that the president cares a great deal about Republican Sen. Jon Husted’s buttocks. And cognitive tests. And the oil industry’s profits. And golf courses in Washington, D.C. And his weird attempts to give artificial intelligence a new name.

It’s equally clear that Trump desperately wants Americans to hate Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar and fear transgender Muslim immigrants who believe in communism, and who apparently want to take hamburgers away.

Does the Republican president have any policy priorities or a vision for the final two years of his term? Well, no, but he has a lot of thoughts about Bill Maher (the target of Trump’s single longest online post since launching his own social media platform), White House renovations and why it would be awesome if New Mexico changed its name.

“Many Republicans, and even some in Trump’s orbit, don’t quite get it,” The Atlantic’s Lemire added. “What has happened, they ask, to the instincts of the man who authored two of the most improbable victories in American political history?

“Trump’s superpower was his intuitive understanding of what motivated his supporters. Many Republicans privately tell me that he’s lost that feel. Trump now lives, they think, in a gilded bubble, palling around with billionaires, oblivious to — and, even worse, uncaring about — the problems facing so many voters,” he said.

There’s already ample speculation about whom the White House will blame if Democrats fare well next week. Whether Trump is prepared to acknowledge his own role in crisscrossing the nation, peddling weird absurdities that only he seems to care about, remains to be seen.

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