The next time you’re in the presence of someone who tries to tell you that Donald Trump is a political genius, I’d like you to grab the nearest copy of Men’s Hairstyles magazine and whack them upside the head.
Maybe not too many people are saying that these days, as he’s clearly in the early stages of a ’roid-driven meltdown. But people have remarked many times on Trump’s supposed genius. It has never been true. He didn’t win his massive following by being a political genius. He won it by lying his ass off and being a racist. That’s not political genius. That’s just demagoguery, and anyone can do it if they’re willing to be a liar and a racist.
No—he’s a political idiot. And he just proved it again Tuesday afternoon by announcing that there will be no stimulus deal until after the election. This is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen a politician say:
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As near as I can tell, Trump seems to think this gives him leverage. But this is hostage-taking. This is a National Lampoon version of political negotiation: Buy this campaign, or I’ll let you and your kids get evicted and starve.
The thread ends: “THE BEST IS YET TO COME!” He means it as a promise, but it sounds like a threat. Does he think he’s playing three-dimensional chess here? He can’t play checkers. Listen, Mr. Art of the Deal, because this may be simple enough even for you. You left the negotiating table. People will blame you. Got it?
It’s also a hanging curve ball that Joe Biden ought to be able to whack. At the next debate—if there is a debate; if Trump isn’t back in the hospital or breaking the china at the White House—Biden will say: “Listen to what he’s saying, folks. He is denying money to millions of people in need, people facing eviction, people whose children are hungry; he’s holding that money hostage to a political outcome.” That’s the moral high ground for Biden to take. And then other Democrats should say forget Trump. You elect Biden and us, we’ll give you a much bigger stimulus in January.
It almost goes without saying that if Trump is defeated, he won’t do any stimulus at all. He’ll see America as a bunch of ungrateful losers and suckers who must be punished, and the time he’s not spending trying to steal the election he’ll spend dreaming up ways to punish the “Democrat” states and cities that caused him to go down to such ignominious defeat.
There is, however, one thing he will do between now and the election, one word he’ll keep. He’ll shove Mrs. Spreader Event through the Senate and onto the Supreme Court. You can be sure that Il Duce is standing on his balcony dreaming of that.
But that, too, may yet prove to be politically stupid. A pre-election vote could spell trouble for some Republican Senate candidates and cost Mitch his majority. And if just two or three more of them get sick, they really might not have the votes to force it through.
And if they do, yes, they’ll have their justice. But 70 or 75 percent of America will disapprove of the way they did it, and pretty strongly. And then, once she’s seated, the decisions will start coming. Goodbye health care. Goodbye same-sex marriage. Goodbye abortion rights. Boy, that’s going to be popular! They will pay for that politically for years. Years.
Meantime, while Trump was telling dying Americans not to let COVID dominate their lives, while he was saying to people facing eviction “vote for me first, and then I’ll think about it,” what was Joe Biden doing? Giving a presidential and mature and actually pretty moving speech on national unity from, wait for it, Gettysburg.
I’m torn about this unity business. In some ways it’s a mug’s game for a Democratic presidential candidate to vow to seek unity, because he will, but the Republicans will say go fuck yourself, as they did to Obama, and then, when it emerges that the Democrat has not unified the country, Republicans will whine, “He said he was going to unify the country!” So I think Democrats should tread with caution here.
However, the other edge of the sword is that most voters do want to hear this kind of talk. And let’s face it, it makes a great contrast to the snappish incumbent. Biden carries himself with presidential-style dignity. And Gettysburg: sacred earth where so much blood was spilled for liberty and union. This is a smart campaign doing smart things.
Compare that with Trump the night before, standing on the balcony, wheezing like Grandpa Simpson, violently ripping that mask off as if it he were in an S&M dungeon and someone just shouted the safe word. I know Biden is ahead, but I look at these polls and still stare at Trump’s 41 percent and wonder who on earth these people are.
Ford to City: Drop Dead, said the famous 1975 Daily News headline. The irony is that while everyone remembers the headline, no one recalls that later, Ford actually did come through with some cabbage.
Well, this is the irony-free version. Trump is telling Americans to drop dead—and not figuratively but 700 or 800 or 900 people here on any given day. And it’s all the worse because he thinks he’s being smart. God deliver us.
