Month: September 2016

The GOP nominee Don.

His campaign goes hither and yon.

He just can’t help lying.

He’s not even trying.

All sense of decorum is gone.

1.  In light of the importance of the issue, Matt Lauer spent way too much time asking Clinton questions about her e-mail.  If he ran out of time, it was his fault, not hers.
2.  Clinton came across as being competent, but not compelling.
3.  Trump was rarely pressed during his part of the program, but he repeated several of his talking points that are absurd or obnoxious, including the following:  (a) We should “take Iraq’s oil” (the issues that would raise, and the implications of it, will be discussed in a post in the near future); (b) He has a secret plan to defeat ISIS, and we should just have faith in it, based on his success as a businessman; (c) He can’t figure out whether our military establishment is a disaster or not, so he compromised by saying that he would listen to people who are more competent than the ones currently in charge; (d) He once again lied about his position on Iraq, but provided an interview date that disproved his own statements; (e) He suggested that President Obama was ignoring professional advice, based on his perception of the body language of his briefers, without providing any details; (f) He embraced Putin, as usual; and (g) He cited the resignation of the Mexican Finance Minister after his visit as evidence of his ability to be restrained and diplomatic, which makes absolutely no sense on any level.
4. Chuck Todd indicated before the program started that Clinton would be graded on her performance, and Trump on a curve.  That is fundamentally unfair.
5.  I don’t know how perceptive the average American viewer is.  If he missed the points laid out in #3 above, thanks to Lauer’s failure to follow up, last night was probably a victory for Trump.

                Donald Trump’s Blues

I’ve got those dirty, lowdown, presidential blues.

You surely know by now; it’s all over the news.

The MSM attack; they haven’t got a clue.

I see in black and white; my foes all see in hues.

 

I should be way ahead; the polls say I’m behind.

Some people think I’m cruel; I’m really far too kind.

I have no money; my campaign’s in a bind.

I’ll make us great again; my critics are just blind.

 

I’ve got the blues.

The faux strong man blues.

Didn’t mean to be a fascist

But what else could I choose?

Can’t see where this is heading

But I’ve paid my share of dues.

I just can’t sit here thinking

That I’m really going to lose.

Roughly two months ago, Thomas Friedman had a column in the NYT in which he was interviewing the author of a book about disruptive technologies in the 15th Century.  Friedman asked the guy if he could think of a 15th Century equivalent of Donald Trump;  he indicated that Savonarola’s sermons were similar, in their day, to Trump’s incendiary tweets.

At the time, I thought this was one of the dumbest things I had ever read.  I had to reconsider, however, after I heard Trump’s dystopian speech at the GOP convention.

Notwithstanding the two apocalyptic visions, Trump and Savonarola have very little in common.  The latter was an ascetic idealist who genuinely thought he was channeling God, not proclaiming his own personal greatness.  You may well disagree with the wisdom of his objectives (I certainly would), but you can’t reasonably say that he was an opportunist or a self-seeker, and the thuggishness of some of his supporters was more than matched by his opponents.  Trump, on the other hand, is a luxury-loving, wealthy cynic who seeks power only to elevate his already swollen ego.

I will be on vacation through next Tuesday.  Posting will resume on Wednesday.

So, within the period of just a few hours, Trump:

1.  Meets with the President of Mexico and tries to pass himself off as a diplomat;
2.  Subsequently engages in a debate about whether he lied when he said paying for the wall wasn’t discussed;  and then
3.  Makes an inflammatory speech in Arizona in which he replays his greatest hits:  Mexico will pay for the wall; immigrants commit horrible crimes; etc.

Perhaps he thinks that we already have some sort of digital wall at the border that prevents his words from entering Mexico.

In the immortal words of John McEnroe, “You cannot be serious!”

There once was a Donald named Trump.

His poll numbers needed a bump.

So he went to the border

To talk law and order.

Human refuse he’s planning to dump.