Donald Trump needed to win the final debate. It should surprise exactly nobody that he did not. We have more than enough evidence right now confirming that Socrates he ain’t . But what is interesting is the way in which he lost.

This entire debate was a confirmation of my suspicion of what the Trump campaign now is. Because while it may still say ‘Trump for President’ on the plane, this is not really a Presidential campaign anymore. It is a face saving exercise.

We know Trump watches the polls. He cannot have missed them turning against him. And yet he is pursuing an aggressive and confrontational strategy on issues that will lose him the support of crucial voters.

Rather than attacking Clinton and shifting the conversation to her or her husbands misdeeds Trump compulsively backtracks to defend himself from charges. And when he did make attacks in Clinton directly many of them were some kind of strange in medias res alt-right talking point. He just drops a reference to some leaked email or some allegedly scandalous video that even i have never heard of and just assumes the entire public is up to speed.

That is a good strategy to gain ground against your opponent rhetorically, but a very poor strategy to convince undecided voters. But that doesn’t seem to matter to Trump at this point. Because now this is an exercise in brand management, not electoral politics.

Trump cannot allow himself to be attacked without response. He can’t just pivot to another issue he can win on. Most of this debate was just him standing there slogging through the proverbial losing ground.

He hit the sweet spots for his base, once again. And he said things that would alienate suburban voters, particularly those of the female or college educated variety just as he did before. The only saving grace of his performance in practical terms is that i’m not sure how much damage there is left to be done aside from adding some padding to Clinton’s electoral margin.

Because this is not a winning strategy. He got up on the stage and said what he wanted to say, not what he needed to say. In a very real way he is no longer playing the same game as he was before. Now every action seems pitched to maximize his apparent strength, minimize his opponents performance, deligitimize the system that is soon to rebuke him and shift the blame for his loss.

So it seems that Trump isn’t a masterful political tactician after all. That he isn’t ‘playing four-dimensional chess’ or ‘dominating the media through mind games’. He reminds me most of the Wizard of Oz. A an empty facade of smoke and light telling you to pay no attention to the sad, egotistical, vain old man behind the curtain.