The Witness Chronicles, July 23, 2024

The end of the beginning…Trump campaign is in trouble

Photo by Aditya Ghodke on Unsplash

The Trump House of Cards Has Collapsed

This would be funny if the stakes weren’t so high

I take it back. This is hilarious. Only two days ago it was the Democrats that were torn by confusion and the Republicans who were strutting around believing they had the election in the bag.

Now, improbably, the tables have turned 180 degrees and Trump’s Party is running around like chickens with their heads cut off. And spouting out every panicked response they can come up with, all logic thrown aside.

What’s striking about this, among other things, is how shocked they seem by Biden abruptly dropping out, though the writing has been on the wall for weeks. And there was a deadline coming with the virtual nominating process about to start. Missing that deadline would have made the transition much more complex.

Joe Biden is a savvy politician, one of the most savvy. He knew the odds were mounting against him and time was running out. And he knew he had a running mate who stands a decent chance of beating Trump if she can build momentum. All signs point to that being more and more likely as the party coalesces around her.

It’s really hard to exaggerate how unhinged the Republican response has been but it was Marjorie Taylor Greene, as you might expect, who came up with the real doozie, claiming Biden was dead because he has not been seen in public in a few days.

The fact that he is isolating because he has Covid didn’t seem to interfere with her demented logic. And she isn’t the only one who put this story out there. Again, not much thought was put into this because he is scheduled to address the nation later this week when he has recovered, which it is reported he is progressing towards.

Atlantic reporter Tim Alberta embedded with the Trump campaign strategists and wrote about it earlier this month (may be paywalled). In a comprehensive article he describes a campaign that believes it will not only win, but win by a landslide. Their only fear? Running against someone like Kamala Harris.

They were all in on portraying Biden as old and doddering, and until this weekend, were exultant that he had reinforced their core message. And then it all fell apart.

Within hours of Biden’s endorsement of Harris, the campaign reported raising an astounding $50 million (since I wrote this it has surpassed $200 million in donations and pledges, many from small donors) in just hours. This likely reflects donors holding back as part of the campaign to convince Biden to drop out. Dems were having their worst month of fundraising. No more.

The Trump campaign gurus admitted their entire campaign was based on Biden, something that makes me wonder just how brilliant these folks are. It appears they don’t have much of a fallback strategy in place. They were building a house of cards and convincing themselves it was a monument.

There is another reality at play here that has basically got a pass as the media focused on Biden’s age issues. That is the fact that Trump is totally out of the control of any of his handlers. That was clear during his acceptance speech last week, when he stayed on the unity script initially and then went off the rails, ranting for over an hour about every crazy thing that came into his head.

The general public of American voters to date has only seen snippets of the true Trump, but that speech was seen by millions. We also saw an unending litany of hate, fear, and conspiratorial thinking from a host of speakers. Despite the rhetoric about unity we saw the true face of the MAGA Republican Party in all its weird glory.

In hindsight, those rants were an almost perfect background for the rise of a Democrat without baggage, who is articulate, represents many people not represented by the right, and who presents a startling contrast with the aging, overweight, Trump who has been falling asleep repeatedly during his trial and at a convention devoted to worshipping him.

In another development, only days after nominating J.D. Vance as their vice presidential candidate, they are panicking over their choice. Vance was chosen to rally the MAGA faithful, supposedly his own people, though his true background belies that. Now he will be thrown against a highly competent ticket ready to attack his weaknesses, particularly his harsh stance on abortion (no exceptions for rape or incest).

Now the Dems will have a former prosecutor and a woman of color who has been traveling the country speaking about the abortion issue and rallying women to the cause of regaining their reproductive rights. And though we have yet to know who she may run with, we can rest assured they will be an experienced advocate and debater.

In a campaign year that has seen an almost unbelievable series of events, changes, and turnarounds, the events of the last twenty-four hours have somehow surpassed all those things and caught the entire Republican Party flat footed.

And their reaction has been to unleash a flood of paranoid goofiness never before seen in American politics.

Shaking my head once again this year. And probably not for the last time.

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