Trump sounds desperate.
We understand this moment. It is the "Hail Mary" moment, when character is revealed.
"[Biden will] take away your guns, destroy your Second Amendment. No religion, no anything. Hurt the Bible. Hurt God. He’s against God. He’s against guns. He’s against energy. Our kind of energy."
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| End of the road for Joe McCarthy |
In storytelling sometimes a central character, in defeat and exhaustion, gives it his last best shot. In the Frank Capra movie, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, the character is sympathetic and eloquent in his desperation and exhaustion, and wins over hearts and minds of opponents, and succeeds. In football, the Hail Mary moment is when the quarterback throws the ball deep downfield into a clutch of defenders in an improbable play, yet with no other choices. Sometimes the ball is caught, miraculously, by the winning team's receiver. In Cool Hand Luke, the Paul Newman character, or in the first Rocky movie, the Sylvester Stallone character, ends the fight defeated but still swinging, wildly but ineffectively, and each becomes heroic in their defeat, persisting past all hope.
Sometimes desperation looks good and works. Other times not.
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| Paranoia revealed |
Sometimes in the moment of desperation, character flaws get revealed. Humphrey Bogart, the captain in the Caine Mutiny, rambling and looking crazed as he sits on the witness stand, rattles steel balls. Joe McCarthy, who became increasingly relentless and accusatory in the McCarthy-Army hearings, destroyed his own reputation. He went past a tipping point, and a famous question at long last was asked: "Let us not assassinate this lad further. Have you not done enough, senator? Have you no sense of decency?" We realized that McCarthy indeed did not.
Watch Donald Trump on the tarmac in Cleveland. The clip is two minutes long and worth a reader's time: Click Here.
It looks unhinged. He went past a tipping point himself. It doesn't look heroic. It looks wild and dishonest.
Trump--when looking strong--comes across as confident and cruel. He toyed with Elizabeth Warren, calling her Pocahontas, with a smirk. Trump put down opponents with punches that landed. Jeb Bush, as this blog photographed and described, did in fact carry himself with low energy posture, arms dangling at his side. Trump exploited that. "Little Marco" Rubio is, indeed, short in stature. Joe Biden is, in fact, low drama--call it "sleepy"--compared with Trump.
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| Beat. Hopeless. |
But Trump in Cleveland is entirely different. Accusations that aren't remotely credible hurt the accuser, not the accused. This clip is an in-your-face notice that he is willing to say anything, if he thinks it hurts his opponent. There will be people deep within a partisan or media bubble who absolutely agree with Trump, ready to believe any charge, so long as it is negative about a Democrat. This kind of talk will bring cheers from a small, thoroughly vetted partisan crowd. That will be a misleading and dangerous signal to Trump.
Joe Biden as an anti-God, anti-Bible frightening socialist simply does not seem plausible to people outside Trump's closest orbit. Biden is an ethnic cradle-Catholic. A church-goer. He prays, he goes to Mass, he gets ashes on his forehead on Ash Wednesday. We know people like Biden. They aren't anti-Bible. Biden's Party has become secular, but Biden has not. Biden's Party has moved left. Biden hasn't, not much. Nina Turner calls him a "half bowl of shit."
Biden doesn't look like a tyrant out to hurt God.
Biden doesn't look like a tyrant out to hurt God.
Among storytellers, if this scene of Trump desperation were to come with many pages still to come, then we would understand this to be a fore-shadowing, not the climax. We are at a hinge point, where Trump could either persist and go over the cliff, or turn back. There are still pages in this real-life story. There is still time for Trump to settle down and realize that wild talk hurts him, and he will ease up and become more disciplined. However, in stories and in life, this is the time when character is revealed. I do not expect change. Wild accusations got him this far, and Fox News encourages more outrage, not less. He will get feedback that encourages these charges, so I expect Trump to accentuate, not change.
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| Trump in Cleveland . |
This isn't over. Biden could lose. Biden could sabotage his own campaign, or Biden's allies could say and do things that prove Trump's case. But if Trump keeps sounding like this, then Trump will be hurting himself.
Trump sounds like the car salesman when the buyer is walking out the door, not ready to buy, the salesman desperate--desperate--to have you talk to the sales manager before you leave.
Your instinct is to say you need to leave and to walk briskly to your car.
Trump sounds like the car salesman when the buyer is walking out the door, not ready to buy, the salesman desperate--desperate--to have you talk to the sales manager before you leave.
Your instinct is to say you need to leave and to walk briskly to your car.
5 comments:
The McCarthy comparison continues to resonate. There's the Roy Cohn connection too, but it should be noted that it wasn't until his popularity sank that the Senate finally moved to censure him. Until late 1954 they all were just fine with with him. Public sentiment with his tactics declined once the media ran stories about the damage being done to innocent people, led by Edward R. Murrow.
What's different now is that there is a healthy appetite for the racist, misogynistic, and bigoted attitudes he promotes as evidenced by the stubborn refusal of popularity polls go below 40%. The reasons for this are the real danger we face.
Trump may lose, Republicans may lose their majority, but their constituency will remain and will make it extremely hard for Progressive programs to be instituted.
Yes Rick Millward the 40 % remains, but the other 60 % now knows what happens if the 40 % is not resisted. The fight to end Obama care does not have the same rallying cry. Red states are adding medical coverage by vote against red state governors. From a historical perspective liberalism is winning. We have child labor laws, slavery is no more, women have the right to vote, social security pays the elderly, less murder and mayhem than existed 100 years ago. It may not feel like it, but the human race is making progress.
Good thing for God, he has Trump to protect him.
To Dave Sage's point, it's worth turning to Robert E. Lee (ironically enough)for some wisdom:
“The march of Providence is so slow and our desires so impatient; the work of progress is so immense and our means of aiding it so feeble; the life of humanity is so long, that of the individual so brief, that we often see only the ebb of the advancing ways, and are thus discouraged. It is history that teaches us to hope.”
Robert E. Lee
Letter to Charles Marshall, 1866
Biden is no certainly no progressive, nor is the DNC or the Democratic Party establishment. Instead of capitalizing on the vigor of the next generation, they are circling the wagons to protect their corporate gravy train while courting a mythical "center" that simply does not exits in polarized times.
And when they lose elections, you can be sure they will blame the youth and the "deplorables" who they have so vilified and turned off. The Democratic elites have always hated populists because, truth be told, they do not really believe in democracy or a democratic republic. Or, to put it another way, they believe that, in terms of power and influence, those who are better educated or meritorious should be "more equal than others." That is, and has been, Trump's trump card and it still resonates with the "What's the Matter with Kansas" crowd, given the hypocritical alternative provided by globalist Biden and the Dems. Thomas Frank does a great job of explaining historical anti-populism of the Dems and Repugs in his new book, "The People, No" (get it?) You would think that the recent spate of primary wins by progressive incumbent challengers would give them pause, but denial is a powerful force when you're used to having your way.
Andy Seles
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