Decision Time

People still attending Trump’s rallies, albeit in diminishing numbers, who aren’t among those walking out while he’s still speaking, will love every lie, every grade-school-level personal attack on Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. History confirms that humanity includes a plentitude of terrible people; still, it’s jarring to hear the cheers and laughter when Trump says, “Joe Biden became mentally impaired. It’s sad, but lying Kamala Harris, honestly, I believe she was born that way.” That’s an unsubtle combination of racism and misogyny, which explains the joyous crowds’ reaction. And it’s projection: lying is his lifelong m.o., his raison d’etre. That it’s become the expected call and response at all Trump rallies speaks ill.

In Georgia, Trump added to his intra-galactic record of consecutive days with at least ten lies by claiming, a day after Governor Kemp had said he’d talked with President Joe Biden and received everything he’d asked for, that Kemp had been unable to reach Biden. Each of the governors of the four states most affected by the hurricane said the same: they’re getting what they need.

Trump’s visit was a photo-op to show how much he cares, in contrast to President Biden and Vice-President Harris who, by implication, don’t. That appearing amid rescue efforts distracts personnel from those efforts, and that the governors had asked them to stay away for now, mattered not to Trump and to his fluffers on Foxian media. His and their shamelessness knows no end. At least he didn’t toss paper towels this time. Nor did he mention Project Trump 2025’s intent to end FEMA and the National Hurricane Center. Funny, that.

For shamelessness, though, and evil, Trump hit an all-time low, directly accusing Kamala Harris of murder, blaming her personally for “letting in” a migrant who murdered someone. She may as well have had the gun in her hand, he said. “Lock her up,” chanted his delighted pawns. Suddenly it’s vice-presidents who make policy; who are responsible for inflation (but not its decline?), for border crossings (but not the reduction in same?), and whatever else Trump and MAGA Republicans would have us believe. Like rising crime which is falling. Puzzlingly, none of them credit Mike Pence for what Trump claims as accomplishments. He was, after all, hanging around.

The Constitution assigns one and only one job to the Vice President: breaking ties in the Senate. Which Kamala Harris did on several occasions, to the benefit of us all. Weirdly, it didn’t come up in the VP debate.

Made clear, though, is that JD Vance is a much more talented liar than Trump. He definitely won on style points, solid as a Yale padlock. And Governor Walz struck out looking as several fat, hanging curveballs floated by; a better debater would have knocked them out of the park. Like the whopping fabrication that Trump “saved” Obamacare. What saved it was the thumb heard 'round the world. 

The programmed stuff is now over. Trump not only refuses to debate Vice-President Kamala Harris again, but he just backed out of appearing on 60 Minutes. Maybe it’s because, at a speech in Wisconsin, he looked and sounded weak and defeated, speaking barely above a whisper. And the smallifying crowd was all but silent. Even his lies about “bare cupboards” when Covid hit got nothing. Not mentioned was the fact that one of his early “presidential” acts was to disband the pandemic preparedness group established by President Obama. Probably just an oversight.  

For all but the inexplicably remaining “undecideds,” minds are made up. A few “conservative” pundits are cynically demanding more “specifics” from Kamala Harris, despite the fact that she’s provided many and Trump’s have mainly been about economy-destroying, inflationary tariffs, imprisoning his enemies and, hot off the depresses, an unconstitutional day of wilding by police in which bad guys like shoplifters would be “roughly” taken out.

By now, we know who Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump are. It’s time to stop being distracted, as hoped by Team Trump, by squirrels; like almost non-existent transgenderizing of incarcerated criminals. An exception might be noting that when Trump just said that “eighteen years ago” San Francisco was the greatest city in the US, Kamala Harris was its District Attorney. History isn’t among his strong suits, evidently. Or arithmetic. Unless the curiously-timed longshore strike, led by their union president who’s a prominent pal of Trump, has an impact, there’s not much left to decide.. 

Which is another way of saying this column, written on an aging laptop by a man a month from 80 years old, sitting in a recliner with no commentary credentials, read by tens of people, is inconsequential. Maybe the best approach, for now at least, is to let things play out and remain silent. Let the cow chips fall where they may.

Leader Of The Pack

The drift of the Republican Party away from partnership in producing positive legislation began with Newt Gingrich (“a stupid person’s idea of what a smart person sounds like”), if not before. DeLay, Ailes, Limbaugh (Presidential Medal of Freedom from Trump, unremembered in death), Breitbart, Jones, Carlson, Hannity. The list goes on. All of them facilitated Trump’s emergence as the personification of their party’s decline.

Rather than detriments, his lying, gaslighting, ignorance, fake Christianity, and narcissistic nastiness became vehicles for success. It released what must have been building for years among Republicans (as opposed to conservatives, of which there remain, uncloseted, but a few); namely, a preference for electing people disinterested in legislation but committed to “sticking it to the libs.” Performative outrage and constant denigration were necessary and sufficient for MAGA candidates to be elected.

A few decades ago, it was beyond imagination that the party of Dan Evans, Mark Hatfield, John McCain, Barry Goldwater, Margaret Chase Smith, Everett Dirksen, and dozens more, would nominate for governor such an awful human as North Carolina’s self-described “Black Nazi,” vile social media poster Mark Robinson. Nor would they have countenanced a presidential candidate of that party who referred to Robinson as “better than Martin Luther King” and “Martin Luther King on steroids.” To Trump, skin color defines a person.

The presence of Trump as head of the party has freed red state voters to unlock deeply-held resentments of all people unlike them, to elect people like Boebert, Greene, Gaetz, Fox, Cruz, Cotton, Hawley, et uck, who contribute nothing to the common weal, but make a living appearing on rightwing media, pleasing themselves and their voters by attacking and lying about liberals.

Trump is the template for all but a few Republicans serving in Congress. Under Trump’s influence, the Republican Party elects the worst of the worst. It’s what they want. Old-school conservatives are tossed aside like Trump’s rumored adult diapers. 

Trump’s business failings, his lies and serial adultery, his bragging about sexual predation were well-known. Millions were fine with it and voted for him. (Many millions fewer than for Hillary Clinton, let’s not forget.) To North Carolinians, Mark Robinson’s Holocaust denial, misogyny, and anti-LGBT diatribes were known, too. Nevertheless, he was elected Lieutenant Governor and is their current choice for Governor. The logical conclusion is that MAGA Republicans want their candidates to be horrible.

Placing Jim Jordan and James Comer as chairmen of important investigatory committees, successive Republican Speakers of the House stood by appreciatively as their undisguised weaponization of government became routine. Having struck out with impeaching President Joe Biden, they’re moving on to “investigating” Tim Walz and his family. Vice President Kamala Harris’ tenure at McDonald’s is surely next.

And they’re doing it out of obsequious obeisance to Trump, such an unworthy candidate that, knowing it’s false, he continues his lie that Haitian immigrants are eating their host city’s pets. But, next to his stolen election lies, all others pale in damage to our democracy. As evident senility increasingly takes hold, some are becoming simply laughable. 

His latest, but surely not final outrage is preemptively blaming “the Jews” if he loses the election. Notwithstanding how ignorant he is about nearly everything, from Bitcoin to tariffs and windmills and alliances, he knows the consequences of such a detestable statement, virtually asking for violent reprisals. Which we can be sure there will be. His flock will feel called upon to do it. Because they were.

After the second assassination attempt, which Trumpworld blamed exclusively on liberals and their truthful rhetoric, Trump and Vance and every rightwing screamer demanded liberals tone it down; by which they meant stop accurately pointing to the dangers that Project Trump 2025 represents. No one should call a political opponent a fascist, Vance hypocrisized.

Within moments, Trump and Vance (“Trance”) were back to lying about Haitian menu choices and claiming Kamala Harris is a "radical left Marxist, socialist, communist fascist." There’s been no moratorium on their inflammatory prevarication. Who’d have predicted otherwise?

Trance wants the facts about them buried while they continue to lie about Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz. Because he’s smart enough to know better, Vance’s lies are worse than Trump’s. 

If, first time around, some voters didn’t fully understand who Trump is, after four years in office and four even more horrifying years out of it (both senses of the term), there’s no excuse for pretending he’s fit for election (by the Electoral College) to a second term. Given what’s been seen from him since his ejection, it’s inconsistent with decency that a decent person could vote for him again. We know why anti-Semites do. Homophobes and racists. Xenophobes, for sure. (Prepare to be disgusted). But decent? No.

By now, remaining undecided (one bad word, but excellent link) is like having a fire in your house and demanding more information about their hoses before letting firefighters in.