the long campaign march
I skip past a National Review headline minimizing the Trump word on “bloodshed”, sighing at the vortex of the magazine that is talking their way back to voting for Trump from a point of view of spotting most of Trump’s evils. I can go in two directions on this point — the “he was talking about the auto industry!” line. Why, Donald Trump is just Thomas Jefferson in his use of violent metaphors! But I am thinking of Bill Clinton, circa 2000, an Esquire magazine cover, a photographic point of view that highlights his legs wide open. Very conspicuous. Act innocent and don’t remark on the elephant in the room on any association you make with this. TRY. The second point is an — okay. Cut this one out. Not important. I almost agree with that. Almost, in that there is a more important and immediate problem with the campaign appearance and speech that makes this detail a sideshow. Remember January 6? A thing which in a different set of circumstances I might be able to proffer a legalistic defence on Trump as not being an “insurrectionist”, if not –in a saner world — politically? Yeah, well there is no distancing here. Trump loves his supporters. He begins his campaign appearances with a call out to his incarcerated supporters. You know, people who shot at police. Play some singing, stand and salute for the National Anthem. In this case Trump made news by announcing he will pardon the whole lot. If you feel the need to minimize a use of the word “bloodbath”, do so and don’t even mention the controversy, but chop it off at the straight forward statement which preceded it instead.
Today I am pretty certain the Trump comments on Jews, Schumer, and Israel — comments he already made — will get a smug recitation of Biden’s “you ain’t black” 2000 comments.
Meanwhile, over with Biden / Harris, the juggling of the parcels of a campaign continue — a contradiction that they need to win on the normal even if it rubs up against the abnormal. Harris visited an abortion clinic! The first president or vice president to do so, and somewhere the pundits bark “What took so long?”, pretending there was no political costs and Clinton / Gore would risk losing Pennsylvania by manoeuvring off of a “safe, rare, and legal” positioning. And maybe this really makes political sense in a post-Dobbs world, and one where Biden is desperate to get out a suburban woman’s vote. But I do have to ask — what? You wanted Quayle to make a stop-over?