Only the grift, the swindle, and the ego are real with Donald J. Trump. All else is fraud. His SAT. His bone spurs. His public tax claims. His multi-billionaire status. His business genius. His negotiating skill. Trump University. Trump Foundation. The Trump brand. The list terminates somewhere over the horizon. No matter how far back you go, as niece Mary Trump has shown us, Trump is a fraud and has been since he was old enough to talk. Now he’s the con-man in chief.
This, of course, is not news. But his fraudulence was displayed more flamboyantly than usual during Tuesday night’s debate with Joe Biden in Cleveland, a “shit show” in the words of CNN’s Dana Bash. On stage he added another stack of lies, half-truths, exaggerations, fabrications, and concoctions to the 22,000 or so he has told the nation since he lied the oath of office in 2017. So much malarkey that even Daniel Dale, the inveterate CNN cataloguer and debunker of Trump lies, couldn’t keep up with the avalanche without help from an actual lied-about person.
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Trump’s momentum was briefly bogged down after he promised a vaccine against the coronavirus in a few weeks time. Biden spoke directly to the camera: “Do you believe for a moment what he’s telling you, in light of all the lies he’s told you about the whole issue relating to COVID?” He developed that into a few more sentences pounding Trump for pandemic failures. A satisfying, but all-too-rare moment.
To be fair, Trump pretty much divided his time evenly between lying and bullying. The latter he achieved mostly through incessant interruptions and talking over Biden as well as moderator Chris Wallace. He flat-out ignored the agreed-upon rules even after being finally scolded for it. But as we keep learning so much that it’s numbed us, Trump has no use for rules of any kind.
This lying-and-bullying tactic had the triple purpose of flicking out bait in hopes Biden would make a mistake in responding to it, flinging out chum to the MAGA base, and packing distraction into time that ought have been filled with substance given that Trump has, after all, labeled this the “most important election in the history of our country.”
Some of my colleagues think Wallace did an okay job under the circumstances. Others think he should have intervened sooner and more firmly than he belatedly did. One suggested that in the coming two debates, the moderator or a timekeeper should have a microphone shut-off switch. Another hinted that nothing short of a shock collar would have achieved what Biden growled in frustration, “Will you shut up, man?”
We've seen enough. Seriously. We don’t need more debates pitting Biden against the fraud in the
White House. Does anybody think any voter minds will be changed if we have two more of these shit shows? Sadly, It seems unlikely that the contending parties will ditch the remaining debates. And since shock collars are probably out of the question, we’re gonna get another dose of this in a couple of weeks. So if it’s going to be inevitable, how about a little change in personnel?
Second the nomination.