You do know that Donald Trump has never won a majority of the votes in any election, right? Hillary Clinton got 3.5 million more votes than Trump in 2016; Joe Biden beat him by 7 million in 2020.
So, the idea that hes a political superstar is nonsense. Even polls showing Trump leading in the 2024 presidential contest have him topping out at 46% about what he got in 2016.
Yeah, yeah, the United States is a republic, not a democracy. Republicans say that a lot. In this country, we privilege cows and square acres over American voters. But even so, to be confident of winning, a presidential candidate needs to do better.
Clearly, the MAGA faithful will believe anything, but millions of American voters view Trump with mistrust and fear. Nothing about the turbulent events of last week Joe Bidens dropping out of the 2024 race and Trumps accepting the Republican nomination changed the odds appreciably. He and presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris remain in a statistical tie. Some polls even show her with a modest advantage.
Thats why Trumps bizarre GOP convention speech promising unity but delivering anger, self-pity and delusion was such a shocker. It was also as boring as one of those hours-long rants Fidel Castro used to deliver. TV ratings dropped steadily the longer it went on. By the time it ended, hardly anybody was watching.
So, heres my question: With one geriatric candidate having left the race, is there any chance that the national news media normally capable of focusing on only one bouncing ball at a time, like a golden retriever will notice that the remaining aged individual in the contest is faltering before our eyes?
Remember when Trump confused Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi? Tell me how a neurologically healthy person does that. He didnt merely stumble over a name. He did a whole routine about it.
Reporters largely pretended not to notice.
Trump began his big convention speech in his mincing baby talk voice always a sign of total insincerity talking about national unity and God Almighty saving him from an assassins bullet. Then he put aside the teleprompter (my theory being he can barely read it, which would explain a lot) and started in with the traditional thunderous lies and false accusations against Crooked Joe Biden and communist Democrats generally.
Before Trump took the stage, House Speaker Mike Johnson declared that the radical woke progressive left is trying to build a borderless, lawless, Marxist, socialist utopia.
Ho-hum. People in Louisiana actually vote for this guy.
But the real fabulist was Trump. MVP blogger Kevin Drum dissected his speechs more bizarre lies. The candidate claimed that Afghanistan has turned over Bagram Airfield to China, which is simply and totally make-believe. Did not happen. He neglected to mention that the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan was caused by his own surrender to the Taliban, negotiated without Afghan government participation.
Its also false that many, many American citizens were left behind in Afghanistan. Thousands were evacuated from Kabul, and the handful who remain clearly want to stay. The only military equipment abandoned belonged to the Afghan army. Bringing it out would have required reinvasion and months of bloody combat. And for what?
Trump complained that Russian warships and nuclear submarines are operating 60 miles offshore and that the news media refused to cover it. In reality, a ceremonial visit by a Russian nuclear-powered (not nuclear-armed) sub to Havana was well-publicized on all major U.S. TV networks, as Russia and Cuba clearly intended.
(Its actually a bit more than 100 miles from Havana to Key West.)
Pretty much everything Trump said about foreign policy was pie-in-the-sky fantasy. If he were president, there would be instant peace in the Middle East, and Russia would never have dared to invade Ukraine. Bidens fault, not Vladimir Putins.
But it was Trumps lies about Crooked Joe Biden and Democratic domestic policies that were most egregious. No, crime hasnt risen sharply under Biden. Its declined every year since Trump left office. Partly thats because millions more have jobs. Trump also keeps saying that foreign governments are emptying their prisons and insane asylums and shipping them across the Mexican border.
There is zero evidence thats happening.
Trump claims that Democrats are scheming to cut Social Security and Medicare. How out of it would you have to be to believe that? Maybe far enough to believe that this is the only administration that said were going to raise your taxes by four times what youre paying now.
As Drum notes, this bears no relation to reality.
Hardly anything in Trumps speech did. Even at his most confused, Joe Biden never came anywhere close to this delusional rant. The man is clearly losing it. Now that they havent got Biden to kick around anymore, youd think maybe the national media would take notice.
Arkansas Times columnist Gene Lyons is a National Magazine Award winner and co-author of The Hunting of the President (St. Martins Press, 2000). You can email Lyons at [email protected].
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