DONALD TRUMP IS LOSIN’ IT
Keith Boag
Often an animal is most dangerous when it’s wounded, weakened and scared, and that’s exactly how it is with Donald Trump right now.
Not only is he still reeling from the pummelling Vice President Kamala Harris gave him in last week's presidential debate, he’s angry because the blow that really rang his bell came when he punched himself in the face with his stupid comment about Haitian immigrants eating people’s pets in Springfield, Ohio.
Nope, the moderator said, not true.
He’d seen it on TV, Trump shot back — and, with an assist from Taylor Swift, almost broke the internet as an international laughingstock, which, for him, is worse than hell.
Except he’s never a laughingstock among the credulous MAGA hats who’ll fall for anything that comes out of his mouth.
So when he doubled down on the pet-eating hoax in the days after the debate, there were soon bomb threats and anti-Haitian vandalism in Springfield. A small group of Proud Boys, the white power group, marched through town, Saturday.
On Sunday, Trump’s running mate, J. D. Vance, perhaps finally twigging to the ugly absurdity of the pet-eating nonsense, waved off the trouble in Springfield saying, “you’re never going to get this stuff perfect”, as though the alarm at Trump’s wildly outrageous and racist claims is just liberals being persnickety again.
This will likely get worse because Trump will likely get worse. He’s an old man who doesn’t understand that he lost his fastball long ago.
His main mistake at the debate was simply that he couldn’t, for the life of him, remember why he was there. He had lots of opportunities to channel the anger of voters about prices, the border, fracking, whatever, but too often he made it all about himself.
The split screens showed Harris studying him, smiling, chuckling, amused, bemused, bewildered and for a brief moment allowing him a soft-eyed look as though she were ready to walk him off the stage and send him safely home to the quiet of his bed and bowl, with a pat on the head and a soothing “who’s a good boy?”
Somewhere in America the former president is back on the campaign trail today, probably scowling and trying to get “her” out of his head. He could be stewing on his plane right now with the conspiracy theorist and Islamophobic hate-monger Laura Loomer at his knee, winding him up with imaginary horror stories about murderous, pet-eating immigrant rapists fanning out all across America.
Trump has pulled Loomer from the fringes of the right-wing fever swamp precisely to be near him for moments like this; to be his muse, stroke his ego and tell him whatever she thinks he might want to hear so they can be angry together and maybe figure out how to put it all to some use.
But surely she’s exactly the wrong person for that.
The key to firing-up the masses is clearly explained in Robert Penn Warren’s seminal novel, All the King’s Men, published the same year Trump was born, 1946, and it doesn’t include making a fool of yourself:
Make ‘em think you’re God-Almighty. Or make ‘em mad. Even mad at you. Just stir ‘em up, it doesn’t matter how or why, they’ll love you and come back for more. Pinch ‘em in the soft place. They aren’t alive, most of them, and haven't been alive in twenty years…So it’s up to you to give ‘em something and stir ‘em up and make ‘em feel alive again. Just for half an hour. That's what they came for. Tell ‘em anything. But for Sweet Jesus sake, don’t try to improve their minds.
That sounds like an earlier version of Trump, not the unfocused rambler that is the 2024 candidate.
Thursday night at a MAGA rally in Tucson, Arizona, Trump tried to fix it. Having caught a whiff of esprit de l'escalier, he told his adoring audience what he should have said to the nation two nights earlier:
“People said I was angry at the debate, annngrrry!” he growled. “And YES! I am ANGRY! Because he allowed 21 million illegal aliens invading our communities! Many of them are criminals! Many are criminals. I’M ANGRY!” And on he went like that.
His claims were wild and wicked exaggerations, certainly, but not easily mockable, and thus effective.
On FOX News the next day a murder of Trump women crowed about the “do over” in Tucson, and the righteousness of Trump’s anger, their anger, anger generally and the need for a lot more anger right now and asap.
Redirecting his anger from his own issues and back to what’s happening in “the American political landscape, is a winner every day of the week,” said Trump's former press aide Kayleigh McEnany, without acknowledging the subtext: Trump had lost the plot earlier in the week when it mattered most.
Public opinion polls taken days after the debate are just starting to roll in and Harris appears to be moving forward again, nosing ahead of Trump, after having stalled in the week or two prior. Trump knows it — he pretends not to, but he knows it, and it scares him. For Trump, losing the election could mean criminal trials, convictions — maybe even prison.
The pattern of Trump’s campaigns is consistent: divide Americans and pit them against each other. In 2016 his target was the Hispanic community, in 2020 the Black Lives Matter movement, in 2024 it will be all of them again or someone else. But this time, with the stakes so high for him, his grip on reality loosening, his increasingly evident cognitive decline, buckle up and look out.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Keith Boag - The US presidential ticket is set: Trump + Vance versus Harris + Waltz. And to cover that election, we're bringing our readers and listeners a brilliant journalistic mind and political correspondent legend, Keith Boag! Keith was with the CBC for more than 30 years, including as Chief Political Correspondent. His career included work for many years in Washington, D.C., and as Ottawa Bureau Chief. Keith covered seven federal elections in Canada, ten party leadership campaigns, as well as several US elections. Keith will regularly offer his written analysis via "QUOTES" at Air Quotes Media.
The views and opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Air Quotes Media. Read more opinion contributions via QUOTES from Air Quotes Media.