Donald Trump’s allies keep saying they want him to stay on message (immigration, inflation, economy) yet the craziness continues, and a significant share of the electorate is laughing all the way to the ballot box.
“Would anybody else like to faint? Please raise your hand,” Trump joked after two attendees collapsed at a town hall in Pennsylvania.
As they were carried out, Trump stopped taking questions and instead swayed to the music of “Ave Maria” and other favorites for 39 minutes.
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Pressed by friendly conservative interviewers about his plans to combat “the enemy within,” Trump doubled down on who he meant – Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi, and yes, he would use the military if necessary. Former Marine Gen. John Kelly, Trump’s ex-chief of staff, just warned Trump would rule America like a “fascist” dictatorship.
Vice President Harris is calling Trump’s latest hits and meanderings “unhinged,” and evidence he should not be returned to the White House. But nothing seems to stop the bile and vile insults that have become Trump’s signature behavior.
When he launched into a soliloquy about golf legend Arnold Palmer’s anatomy at a rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, there was no attempt by anyone to clean up Trump’s language. “Locker room talk” didn’t sink him in 2016 when the Access Hollywood tape came out, why should some off-color banter hurt Trump in 2024?
After all, his entire campaign from Convention to Closing argument is pitched to the hyper-masculinity of the bro culture.
It’s how Trump erases his loss in last month’s debate with Harris when she crushed him. “She made him small. A presidential race is a dominance contest, and she spanked him,” says a Democratic analyst who did not want to be quoted. Trump doesn’t like losing so the debate intensified his disparagement of Harris, who he repeatedly calls “stupid,” and says she is a “s—t vice president.”
You would think Trump would pay a price for his “unhinged” commentaries. Instead, the race remains stubbornly close with the burden on the Harris campaign to do something to shake things up. But what?
Take the fight to Trump, inform and even scare people about what he would do in a second term, bolstered by immunity from the Supreme Court, and unmoored by any court proceedings. She’s returning to democracy at stake, which was Biden’s theme, while Trump wants to “terminate” the Constitution. His craziness and extremity is nourishing her campaign, as much as it is his own base.
Harris has run a good campaign, one that rivals Barack Obama’s in 2008, sixteen years ago before misinformation became a cottage industry. She’s up against a barrage of ads that that tar Democrats with chaos at the border, chaos in the cities because of crime, and ads showing trans people playing girls’ sports. “Those ads are not trying to scare people, they’re making them angry, that’s the emotion he’s tapping into,” says Jim Kessler of Third Way, a progressive centrist group.
Letting those ads go unanswered invites disaster. She followed the law on medical care deemed necessary for those incarcerated just as Trump did when he was president. End of story.
Joy has run its course for the Democrats. Now it’s about grinding out votes and campaigning with Liz Cheney to create the permission structure for Republicans, especially pro-life Republicans, like Cheney herself, to do the unthinkable and vote for Harris.
“This is a race in slivers,” says Jack Pitney, professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College. “Harris is courting a sliver of moderate non-Trump Republicans, while he’s increasing his share of the Black vote to 15 percent. It may not sound like much, but it could make the difference.”
The NAACP released a poll that shows more than a quarter of Black men (26 percent) under 50 years of age said they would support Trump. Older Black men were more supportive of Harris and 67 percent of Black women said they supported Harris, while only 8 percent said they supported Trump.
Mark Halperin in his “Wide World of News” says this race could be simple: A multi-racial working-class revolt.
That would explain in part the defection of younger Black men to Trump. Harris has not let the Trump campaign define her as a dangerously out-of-touch San Francisco liberal. Trump calling her Comrade Harris really didn’t stick. She’s pretty much a generic Democrat, as safe as you can get except for her gender and racial identity, a huge exception with unknown impact.
The civil rights generation is now in the past, and younger Black men are not committed to the Democrats like their grandparents. Trump is appealing to white men and getting a disproportionate share, and white women are voting their race just like they did when Trump won them by 9 points in 2016 and 11 points in 2020.
Harris is working hard to boost her share of women to counter Trump’s advantage among men. If it weren’t for Trump’s handpicked judges overturning Roe, Democrats would be at a loss in this election. Liz Cheney predicts millions of Republican women will vote for Harris as president, and if they fear reprisals, they don’t need to tell anybody about it. “I would just remind people, if you’re at all concerned, you can vote your conscience and not ever have to say a word to anybody,” Cheney said at a stop in Detroit with Harris.
If Harris wins this election, it will be because women made it happen, and if she loses, it will be because she is up against an inexorable force, a push toward authoritarianism that is worldwide. This election is not about four years, it’s about forty years. If Trump defies history and returns to the White House as a convicted felon, he will send a message to the world that elections don’t matter. Telling lies loud enough and long enough can rewrite history. And the craziness we are seeing now will only get worse—for America, and the world.
