The Silly Season

To begin with:

In just one week, Trump: 

— Struggled to answer if a man can become a woman 

— Said he didn’t know who awarded Fauci the Presidential Commendation 

— Denounced Heartbeat laws as “terrible” 

— Promised to compromise on abortion to appease Democrats 

— Walked back his plans to use the military against the cartels 

— Invented excuses for why he didn’t keep his promise to end Birthright Citizenship 

— Said Biden is not too old to be president 

— Confused Obama with Biden, then confused Obama with Hillary 

— Said Biden is getting us into World War Two (big, if true) 

— Complained about not getting credit for COVID, said his response was perfect 

— Claimed the mRNA shots saved 100 million lives 

— And, of course, repeatedly lied about Ron DeSantis 

This is not the Donald Trump from 2016.

And as regularly as the quadrennial “Nobody likes the incumbent! He can’t win! We’re done for, we’re done for!” beat sweeteners comes the reminder the electoral college sucks, but nobody else in the world has such a rickety set of governments (states) under one umbrella (federal), so look out; CONTINGENT ELECTION ALERT 🚨!

Yeah. About as likely as the sun not coming up tomorrow and water running uphill.  Besides, "contingent election" is now the argument Ken Cheseboro is trying to use in Georgia.  "Contingent election" is much harder than it looks.

And a reminder I saw recently, that at this time in ‘95, Bob Dole (who got the nomination as his gold watch for decades of service to the party), was beating Bill Clinton like a drum (in the polls, which is all that matters, right? Right?), because this is the time of year when everybody is sick of the incumbent. Until it comes time to vote against him. 

(In my lifetime, four incumbent Presidents have lost re-election: Ford, because he pardoned Nixon (and was never elected to the office of VP, anyway); Carter, because he was elected mostly because he wasn’t Ford (or Nixon) and Iran made sure he lost; George H.W., who lost some votes because of Perot, but mostly because Bill was teaching master classes in electoral politics in 1992 and again in 1996, and Poppy was nobody’s idea of a charismatic politician. And Trump, about whom the less said, the better.)

Campaigns, believe it or not, work. Trump is campaigning right now, and he sounds like a damned fool (even in the Welker interview,* where he handed his ass to the prose on a silver platter). He’s going to get worse, not better; and face trials and hearings during primary season (if not before. I still think Chutka responds to the DOJ motion by moving the trial date back closer to the present.). Biden hasn’t started campaigning, and he has a majority of the under 50 vote. That’s the cohort that’s turned back the anti-abortion tide in Kansas, Ohio, and Kentucky (I feel like there’s a fourth, but I can’t remember it). The people not being polled, and being ignored by the punderati. Trump, meanwhile, has a squabbling, diminishing base disinclined to vote because he’s convinced them the system is rigged.

As Molly Ivins used to say: “Nothin’ but good times ahead!”

*As Lawrence Tribe also points out, Trump can’t make the “reliance on counsel” defense without testifying) who else has the best evidence of why Trump did what he did?). And if he testifies, he’s a dead man walking. You almost feel sorry for him. But really, you don’t.)