The Sad, Tired Spectacle
The smoke machine won't be enough
Donald’s worst nightmare’s is coming true—the old, white, racist is being beaten by a young, strong Black woman. Not surprisingly, he isn’t taking it well.
Polling averages in recent weeks show that the candidacy of Vice President Kamala Harris is resetting a race my uncle thought he had in the bag. (He didn’t, but the corporate media certainly gave him every reason to think he did.)
J.D. Vance, his new running mate, has become a national punchline. The positive buzz around Harris’ pick for vice president will only increase tomorrow when she makes the official announcement. Democrats are united and excited. Harris’s events are packed and electric. And then there are those polls. According to Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo,
Harris went from a .2 percentage point lead on July 28th to a 1.9 percentage point lead today. That is a substantial move over one week. We’re now looking at a four-to-five point move in Harris’ direction over just two weeks.
Harris is holding all of Biden’s strength in the Blue Wall states, adding to it and then also moving the southern tier states into contention. Her current popular vote margin is moving into the range a Democrat needs to win the election.
No wonder Donald spent the weekend in Georgia throwing a temper tantrum.
As soon as he arrived on stage, after walking through the smoke machines that had been set up to make him feel like a rock star, he praised his idol and handler Vladimir Putin, made crude attacks on Kamala Harris, repeatedly calling her— the former Attorney General for the state of California and United States Senator — a “low IQ individual.” He devoted an absurd amount of time attacking local Republican officials, like Governor Brian Kemp, simply because they wouldn’t steal the 2020 election for him.
In a move that underscored how weak and jealous he is, he complained that his crowd wasn’t smaller than Vice President Harris’s had been in the same venue just a few days previously. He blamed school officials for not letting more people into his event, a lie so transparent that not even he believed it.
The only reason there was so much energy and enthusiasm at Harris’ rally, he whined, was because Harris cheated by asking Megan Thee Stallion to perform. As amazing as Megan Thee Stallion is—and she is amazing—she was on stage for less than 10 minutes. And she was there to support Kamala Harris—just like the audience.
This morning, Donald cheered on a stock market collapse before sitting down with a random right-wing extremist for an interview during which he swooned about what a great job Venezuela’s dictator—the guy who just stole an election—is doing. And, because he can’t help himself, he repeated his attacks on the women who interviewed him—and fact-checked him—at last week’s National Association of Black Journalists event.
Neither Donald nor his campaign is doing well, and the worse the latter does, the worse the former is going to get.
Instead of welcoming home the Americans who had been held unjustly in Russian prisons for years, Donald congratulated Putin “for having made yet another great deal. We got our people back, but boy we make some horrible, horrible deals,” an ignorant statement that completely ignores the exhaustive, complex, years-long negotiations the Biden-Harris team engaged in.
While President Biden was still in the race, polls suggested that too many voters saw the candidates as the same—two aging white guys who say things they shouldn’t. It was deeply unfair to Biden considering he was the best president in my lifetime and Donald was the worst executive in American history, but that is often the way politics rolls. With Kamala Harris replacing President Biden as the Democratic nominee, the contrast between the two candidates has become pronounced and voters are taking notice.
Donald is clearly not ready for this. A disciplined candidate would never engage in weeks of baseless and otherwise racist attacks against an opponent who is smarter, stronger, and infinitely savvier politically than he is. It is foolish to give a seasoned prosecutor—especially one who is two weeks out from giving her acceptance speech to what will likely be the largest audience in convention history—so much ammunition.
What we saw in Georgia this weekend is a preview of what’s to come. Kamala Harris is announcing her pick for vice president tomorrow and then her campaign will really hit its stride. The monumental error of picking J.D. Vance will only become more pronounced. Donald will continue to lash out and more voters will remember how unfit for office he is.
As longtime political analyst Stu Rothenberg noted Monday, Donald “has once again made the 2024 election about himself — which is why recent national polls show him trailing Harris. Congrats, Donald.”
Congrats, indeed.
I cannot wait until I never have to see or hear him again.
He is really showing the strain, and it is only August. He is 78 after all. Kamala and whomever she chooses will be a nightmare for him. Can you imagine him calling her "low IQ"? That's the best they can come up with? As always, his projections tell you exactly what he is thinking and fearing.