In case you were wondering, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is no longer running a political campaign, if he ever was. The Washington Post‘s Chris Cillizza explains.
‘Campaigns Have A Message’ – Trump Does Not
If this is the first time you’ve paid attention to a presidential election, you might think that this is just another election cycle. You might think that debates always spiral down into discussions of penis size or unconstitutional threats of imprisonment.
They don’t. This election is unlike anything we’ve ever seen.
Writing for the Washington Post, Chris Cillizza puts it this way:
” … Campaigns have a message. They have strategy and tactics. They show restraint and coordination.
Trump, in the 10 days since the release of a hot-mic tape of him making lewd and sexually suggestive comments about women, has done none of those things. Literally none.”
He is correct. I never thought I’d find myself wistful for the days when Sarah Palin was the nuttiest person in a political campaign. Yet here we are.
Cillizza breaks down the myriad of ways in which Trump proves that this is a vendetta, not a political campaign. He talks about Trump destroying a teleprompter (literally) while bouncing between over twenty different topics within five minutes. He talks about Trump’s dismissal of accusations of sexual assault by implying that the women accusing him are too ugly to assault. To quote Cillizza on that: “Um, what?”
‘There’s More. Much, Much More.’
The incidents above should be enough to disqualify anyone from being the President of the United States. Of course, Cillizza goes on:
“Trump last week began to talk seriously about a global conspiracy aimed at keeping him from the White House. ‘This is a conspiracy against you, the American people, and we cannot let this happen or continue,’ Trump said during a Thursday rally in West Palm Beach, Fla.
He has repeatedly used — in his speeches and on his evermore active and inflammatory Twitter account — the word ‘rigged’ to describe the election, an attempt to discredit and disqualify the results even before Election Day.”
As if THAT wasn’t enough, Trump is ramping up his attacks on his opponent, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. He even went so far as to body shame her this week. And, on top of that, there are the constant cries of “Lock her up!” at his rallies, as well as Trump’s (completely unconstitutional) threat to jail her if he were president.
Trump tweeted last week, as GOP leaders started distancing themselves from him, that the “shackles were off.” Cillizza’s take on that is this:
“This is end-stage Trumpism. He has proclaimed that the ‘shackles’ holding him back earlier in the campaign are now off. Those shackles, of course, were the attempts by political professionals to transform the rebellion he led during the Republican primary fight into something resembling an actual campaign.
That hope — if ever it truly existed — is gone forever.”
As an ardent progressive, there is a part of me that basks a bit in the schadenfreude Republican Party’s demise.
Of course, the question must be asked: What will rise from its ashes?
Watch as Trump agrees that “lock her up” is right. Immediately after this clip, by the way, Trump read a doctored email that came straight from a Russian propaganda site:
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Featured Image via screenshot from YouTube video
