I didn’t plan to watch Donald Trump’s speech. Just as my Sheepshead game on the Memorial Union Terrace (it was a lovely night with a great band playing in the background, though I lost 40 cents in the game) was wrapping up, I noticed on the screen inside the building that Trump had started speaking.
I shrugged and started walking home, which takes about 40 minutes. But when I arrived there he was still speaking. I sat down to listen. It was a jumble of non sequiturs. He jumped at random from the carefully prepared speech on his teleprompter to whatever occurred to him at the moment.
What made it worse for the Republicans was that they had overhyped this as the new Trump, a man chastened and changed by his near death experience. No, not so much. Turns out he’s the same self-obsessed, undisciplined megalomaniac he’s always been.
Trump may have dodged a real bullet on Saturday, but the Democrats dodged a virtual one last night. If Trump had actually lived up to his billing — and been able to sustain it until November — he would have dealt the death blow to the opposition. You would have had a united, motivated and confident Republican Party plus a message that resonated with moderates, independents and the Trump-skeptical. It may have even turned Never Trumpers into Maybe Trumpers.
But he couldn’t help himself. He had to air his grievances. He had to attack. He had to lie. He had to make stuff up out of thin air. He had to insult, demean and debase. The bullet took off the tip of his ear but it didn’t touch his soul, which remains as black as ever.
Combine that with the fact that Democrats now seem poised to force Joe Biden to step aside and there’s a chance that things were at their worst on Wednesday night. Maybe the combination of a new Democratic candidate and the old Donald Trump will still deliver us from the disaster of a second Trump presidency.
Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos 
We can always count on Trump to be Trump. In the meantime, Biden says he’s going back on the campaign trail. Fine. Time to play hardball.
LikeLike
Did not watch any of the RNC. It would be too depressing. Dont know why anyone would be surprised at Trump’s speech. A tiger does not lose his stripes.
However, the Democratic Party is screwed. This is also like watching a train wreck in slow motion. Worse, it was having a few dozen track engineers watching, all with handles on the switch to allow the train to safely exit the track well before the crash. They all opted to sit on their hands as well.
Too little, too late, and it will be a disaster for the Party. Even if they win. Why? Two reasons:
To me it is not just about the top of the ticket but the picks for SecDef and SecState. I hope all present their picks to the public before the election. Those choices show real balance and direction of how the party will act globally, not just domestically.
So why does abandoning Kamala spell some amount of disaster for Democrats? Because DEI will be dead. She was an unqualified candidate in the first place, picked to fill a progressive ideal rather than through the qualifications for the office. This will happen. Because the damage down ticket in loss of seats is far more disastrous than the loss of DEI. You can live that battle to fight another day but not if you lose the war before any battles. Any Republican with a brain would be making this a significant campaign point.
I hope to see a Klobushar/Sinema/Manchin combination who would bring the party more center and pull in more independents. Plus, that just might have a chance to winning back ‘blue collar America’. While I believe that has run too far under the radar, the fact they have already lost that base is just astounding. Perhaps, this wins some of that back.
Curious in your thoughts, and hope to see a blog in the future about what your crystal ball says.
Now, the real questions……….what do you think about the Madison budget issues? Soglin has been pretty clear, media is giving Conway a huge pass on any investigative journalism on the where/why/when of shortfalls and overages with throwing nothing but balloons (and that’s even a stretch) at the Mayor rather than real questions.
Have a great day and thank you again for your passion and writing.
David
LikeLike
“… She was an unqualified candidate in the first place…”
Statements like this are exactly why we need to keep talking about racism in the US. She was the Attorney General of California, she ran in the presidential primaries. If a white man had the same resume they would never be accused of being unqualified. Not to mention that the R ticket has 2 people of extremely thin resumes themselves, yet where is the outcry about them? Hmmm, makes you scratch your head, but only if you’re not asleep in the dream. Wake up David. I dislike Harris, but certainly not because of her “qualifications” or her race or her gender. I disagree with her policy viewpoints, but I’ll vote for her if I have to.
LikeLike