“…he likes to keep all the idiots leftists running around freaked out like a cat chasing a laser pointer, presumably in order to distract them from other (hopefully productive) things he might be doing.”
That’s part of it, but I think there’s another strategy:
He actually wants the Left to hate him so that they will knee-jerk oppose him on the issues.
This way, he can pick the 80% popular side of any 80/20 issue, and because they hate him, they will always embrace the unpopular side of every issue.
This only works if they hate his guts.