The current presidential election cycle has been and continues to be an unusual one for many reasons. Both debates have been memorable. In the first debate, one candidate lost so badly he ended up withdrawing from the race. In the second debate, one candidate also lost but instead of acknowledging his humiliation, he claimed victory, and has no suffered no consequences for his defeat. If anything, he emerged stronger.
Many words have been spilled in the analysis of the second debate, but there is still much to learn from it.
1. PROJECT 25
Project 25 has received a great deal of attention. People have scoured its pages as a virtual blueprint for what the former President would do if he is restored to power. Many of the planks have become talking points for the Democrats as to why not to return the former President to the White House.
Sure enough, Project 25 became a debate point raised by the Democratic candidate. Sure enough also the Republican candidate was ready with a response. He claims not to have read Project 25 and refuses to be held accountable for its contents even though his own people compiled the blueprint.
However in this instance he is telling the truth, He has not read the 900+ pages of Project 25. What is being ignored is that he is not capable of reading the report. He lacks the mental necessities to read such a report. He could not read it if it were 90 pages. He may or may not be able to read the read the report if it were 9 pages triple-spaced large font but I will hold off judgment on that.
In the NYT book review section (Sunday, September 29, 2024 print) of At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House by H. R. McMaster, the reviewer attributes to McMaster the following insight:
Time and time again, Trump can’t seem to focus on briefings and responds to serious problems with inane suggestions.
McMaster observes how a 13-day trip to Asia tired him and stretched his patience — and that was seven years ago.
His limited attention span has been known for decades. In “He Wasn’t a Billionaire. He Just Played One on TV (NYT September 15, 2024, print), he was limited in his mental necessities two decades ago.
Several producers remember him completely losing focus when a woman he found attractive crossed his field of vision. He would accept only the shortest of briefings. Mr. [Dan] Gill [a senior brand integration producer] said he would often have no more than four minutes to brief Mr. Trump about the sponsor before taping began.
His current handlers undoubtedly performed yeomen work preparing debate binders for the candidate only to have their work undermined by the immature child with the emotional maturity of a child who decides to wing it.
His inability to read at an adult level is no fault of his. His brain simply is not wired that way. There is no surgery, no drugs, no therapy that can compensate for his inability to concentrate and read. If he were in school today, he would be considered “special.”
2. SIMPLE-MINDED
Along with his lack of reading skills is his simple-mindedness what he does hear or read. Something or someone is the greatest or the worst ever. The worst Secretary of State ever. The worst treaty ever. The worst presidential candidate ever. The worst president ever. The greatest president ever (except maybe for Lincoln.) No one has done for Black people than he has. Jews who not vote for him are traitors.
One day a grad student looking for a thesis topic will compile a list of all the greatest and worst ever usages by a person who can’t read and has limited knowledge of American history. It will be astounding to know how frequently the best of times, the worst of times, occurred precisely during this narrow window of time when he was running for president. The odds really are astronomical that so many extremes of the best and the worst could be so concentrated in time.
Now think about his answer to his favorite book in the Bible. He could not identify one. He probably does know the name of some of the books of the Bible. But if he should select one book to the exclusion of the other books, the follow-up question would be “Why?” At that point he would be at a complete and total loss to explain why he preferred one book out of the many he had to choose from. Try giving him a list of treaties, Secretaries of State, Vice Presidents, and Presidents and asking him to rank them. Even assuming he knew who they all were, he lacks mental necessities to differentiate them. The four presidents of Mount Rushmore probably are his limit.
3. SIZE MATTERS
Numerous people have commented on how the Democratic candidate baited the MAGA candidate during the debate. One example hearkened back to the first days of his presidency in 2017. There we learned not to believe our eyes but to believe the spin about the crowd size. How could Obama have had a bigger crowd!
Crowd sizes proved important in the 2020 campaign as well. At that point he cited his crowd sizes as proof of his lager vote totals. Naturally he offered no proof of the connection between crowd size and vote totals. It simple was something his simple-mind took for granted. If his Georgia crowds exceeded Biden’s in size then he must have won the state.
That limited correlation has taken a beating this time around. In this this election, it is the Democratic candidate who has had huge crowds. For the immature child with the emotional maturity of a three year this fact in the real world was more than he could handle. Instead he resorted to temper tantrums of childish nonsense. NOBODY ATTENDS HER RALLIES. SHE HAS TO PAY PEOPLE TO ATTEND. His rallies are the best and biggest rallies of all time. No one leaves early. This is the limit of his analytical skills. He literally cannot cope with reality except through gibberish and nonsensical lies.
4. TAYLOR SWIFT RETRIBUTION
At times the immature child with the emotional maturity of a three-year old must be drooling in anticipation over the divine retribution he will inflict on those who have opposed him. Most of the people are politicians. They know full well that Trump will unleash his Brandons on them just as he did on January 6 against Mike Pence. They know that the full weight of the government including the IRS, Department of Justice, and whatever committees he controls will be marshaled against them. No one has any illusions about the importance or revenge to the thin-skinned wounded child.
5. Haitians Eat Cats
Of all the words spoken during the debate, the ones that will be remembered most not only for this election cycle but for American history, it is the claim that illegal Haitian immigrants are eating the beloved pets of real Americans. Here we see just a glimpse of the chaos which can ensue when the immature child has the bully pulpit. A thoughtless phrase here, another one there, and suddenly towns that are minding their own business are sulked in the Trump maelstrom. One shudders to imagine what disruptions he will cause from out of nowhere if he is returned to power.
We see now that he spiraling out of control. His insults on the mental necessities of his opponent from birth crossed the red line even for the few remaining Republicans. No gag order can be placed on him for his wild accusations. Instead it is business as usual. The more he is forced to live in Earth 1, the more unrestrained he will become until he is constantly babbling nonsense.
Despite all this, the race remains neck and neck. There is no final straw that will break the Brandon back including open fealty to Putin. The best Harris can show for all the enthusiasm, all the volunteers, all the funding and all the joy is maybe at the national level she can eke out a 3% victory in the popular vote as one would expect from a generic Democrat following 2016 and 2020. That still leaves the battleground states with their voter suppression as the sites of World War I trench warfare in the weeks to come where the ground game may make the difference…. and the Trump Court is on standby to help push him over the top. At least this time everyone knows, Election Day is not the end but only the beginning of the next round of warfare.
