The Witness Chronicles, July 30, 2024

J.D. Vance opens his trap once again

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

The Kamala Sucker Punch

“The bad news is that Kamala Harris does not have the same baggage as Joe Biden”*

That’s what J.D. Vance told a roomful of donors at a private event after he described her choice as Biden’s successor. This was after he described the news as a ‘sucker punch’ to the Trump campaign. It’s recorded by the way.

Someone might want to tell Vance to shut his mouth, but like his running mate, he would be unlikely to comply. Virtually all his true thoughts seem to end up on the record somewhere.

But what the above quote tells me is that the only strategy the Trump campaign can imagine is an underhanded attack plan where they dig up conspiracy-friendly background stuff, blow it out of proportion, and repeat it until everyone wants to vomit.

It is an interesting way to see the world, but one I am very happy I do not share. That sentiment may contribute to Kamala Harris’ own campaign strategy. So far, the constant and ridiculous string of attacks doesn’t seem to faze her whatsoever. And that is her strength as a candidate.

Not only do they seem to have no negative effect, she seems to be enjoying herself.

I need to flashback to Trump’s 2016 campaign where he was the underdog. Part of what got him elected and helped him build his cult is that the guy seemed to be having fun. In retrospect it was a narcissist’s dream. Everywhere he went he could say anything he wanted and the crowds went wild.

Basically he had nothing to lose. But that is not the Trump of today. He literally has everything to lose. If he can’t regain power he will inevitably face the courts for felonies far more serious than the 34 he has already been convicted of. And those 34 still loom, no matter how much he pays lawyers to stall his sentencing.

The Trump of 2024 is not the smiling Trump of 2016. He is scared and bitter, a growling, snarling, incoherent fear monster, but that fear is for his own freedom. A man whose actions have almost caught up with him and he knows it.

All this is why Kamala Harris’s laugh is so much in the forefront of Trump’s attack. It seems to infuriate him and he wants it to scare everyone else too. But it doesn’t. Instead, we take pleasure in it, and it seems, in her enjoyment of being in the clear after four years of being Vice President, a thankless job at best.

She’s having fun. And so are the rabid followers who have appeared in the last week, seemingly out of nowhere.

The Trump people have made a massive miscalculation but they seem incapable of recognizing it, even after that ‘sucker punch’. They immediately went to the ‘find dirt on Kamala’ tactic, but as Vance’s words say, there ain’t much to find.

But their bigger problem is that Trump cannot get past his own fears because they have real consequences. He simply cannot lose. It’s hard to see how the man sleeps at night, much less runs a national Presidential campaign. So he resorts to the same old, same old litany of lies, insults, and victimhood every day.

The sucker punch thing goes beyond Trump himself. His party’s first reaction was idiotic at best. Impeaching Biden? Claiming dropping out of the race was illegal? Going after women without children?

This is what happens when cults start to unravel. The charismatic leader shows their true colors and that charisma fades, slowly and then suddenly, until it is obvious the person is a shyster. But the followers have rejected all normalcy and shifting gears back to sanity is nearly impossible.

It appears that is where the Trump campaign is headed. It was their dream to run against a fading older opponent but that dream was shattered just days ago. And replaced by a nightmare called Kamala Harris.

Smiling attack dog Kamala Harris, the ‘Sucker Punch’.

*from the Washington Post, 7/30/24

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