Donald Is A Failure

5 Watt Bulb by Nancy Ohanian

 

In case you missed the Sydney Morning Herald on Sunday, sometimes it's good to get a look at our own politics from a perspective somewhat removed. Columnists Ian Hughes and Alan Blotcky made it clear why that hasn't been easy anywhere in the world, since, as they wrote, "For almost four years, there has hardly been a day that Donald Trump has not made front-page news. The unrelenting avalanche of lies and norm-shattering behaviour that Trump has unleashed has presented the mainstream media with an unprecedented challenge. It is a challenge that the media has struggled to meet, largely because of the ethical and practical difficulties that journalists face in dealing with Trump’s mental pathology." Ah, yes... Trump's mental pathology, which is becoming more and more of an issue in the U.S. election as the "president" suffers a complete mental breakdown front and center for everyone to see. Over the weekend, a trio of Washington Post reporters wrote about how undecided voters in states that voted for Trump in 2016 have been making up their minds to vote against him this cycle, "choices they say were either made or reinforced in recent weeks as Trump has stumbled through a disastrous stretch that has included embarrassing leaks about his comments disparaging military members, a ridiculed debate performance and a Rose Garden ceremony that some describe as a superspreader for a deadly virus. In the homestretch of the 2020 campaign, there has been little good news for the incumbent. And that is showing up as an ominous turn for him in the polls as Biden consolidates support. What had been a steady national lead for Biden in the high single digits during the late summer has expanded to 12 points in early October."

One voter who didn't like Trump or Hillary in 2016 ("couldn't stand" was her phrase) voted for the Libertarian. This year she said, "Trump is just so scary at this point that I don’t think I can waste my vote on a third party. It just keeps getting worse. From his pick for the Supreme Court to his racist comments to his degrading anyone who doesn’t agree with him to his handling of the virus. I can go on and on." A North Carolina Republican who wrote in Romney in 2016 is voting for Biden this year. He told the Post reporters that Trump is "dangerous... just horrible."

Four years ago, voters who decided in the presidential campaign’s waning days broke decisively for Trump, a political newcomer, delivering him a shock victory. This year, evidence suggests there are few who have yet to make up their minds. But many of those who had been on the fence appear to be coming down on Biden’s side.

Back to Hughes and Blotcky in Australia-- there was a reminder that "Even before his election, mental health professionals were warning that Trump’s psychopathology posed a threat to US democracy and to global stability. After his election, dozens of mental health experts collaborated on the book The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump which became a New York Times bestseller. Over the past three or four months, the number of voices expressing alarm at Trump’s pathology has been growing. The media, however, has largely continued to cover Trump’s actions one story at a time, without joining up the dots and accurately describing his pathology. Of all the thousands of headlines, there is one headline that has not been printed but that makes the most sense of all: "Donald Trump suffers from a dangerous incurable narcissistic disorder which makes him incapable of empathy or reason. He is a grave danger to the US and the world."

The failure of the media to emphasise this obvious fact is a lost opportunity to inform and educate the public so that Trump’s pathology is fully appreciated and understood. As mental health professionals know, Trump’s mental disorder manifests itself in a wide variety of behaviours and not in isolated or disconnected events. In these dangerous times, the challenge for the media, difficult though it is, should be to explain Trump’s pathology in all its complexities and ramifications for the public.

...The evidence about Trump is overwhelming. A free press is one of the central pillars of a democracy. Its role is to be a watchdog on our political leaders and to inform the public. The media can play a vital role in engaging with the alarming reality of Trump’s pathology, despite the difficulties in doing so. Donald Trump is part of a much larger picture. Individuals with dangerous personalities have risen to the highest ranks of power throughout modern history-- from Nixon to Mao, Stalin to Pol Pot. Some have played a crucial role in steering our world towards disaster. A widespread understanding of this basic fact has now become essential for the protection of democracy.

Amy Walter wrote an excellent column on Monday putting all this into a very specific electoral context: Trump's failed bet on his base. She identified 4 requirements for his base electoral strategy to have worked for him (over and above a good economy):

• A united, enthusiastic and engaged GOP base
• A deeply flawed opponent
• Decent support among independent voters (Even as Trump ran up the score among his base in 2016, he also carried independent voters by 2-points.)
• Third-party candidates siphoning off enough votes to allow Trump to win key states with a plurality as he did in 2016

None of that-- including the good economy part-- has worked out for him. And he wasn't counting on a pandemic to expose his incompetence. But that aside, the rock solid GOP base it a little shaky. Biden doesn't appear threatening, even if no one actually likes him. Independent voters hate Trump almost as much as Democrats and he's going to lose every swing state because of that, even a state like Arizona that no one ever counted as a swing state before. And Kanye West? That doesn't seem to be working out for Trump, does it? He might even take Republican votes from Trump... since Democrats aren't going to be this crock from him:

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

 

by Noah

Did he really say that? No, at least not the second part. Well, at least not publicly, yet. God knows what this drug-addled monster is saying as he roams around the White House bumping into walls.

Would he think that? Yes, Of course. He's psychopathic enough and it sounds exactly like something he would think and be proud of. He is, after all, the Dear Leader of the Republican Death Cult.

Is it true? Yes. Absolutely. Hands down. He is a walking, talking Super-Spreader. No one has more COVID-19 cases and deaths on his bloody hands than him, not even FOX "News," although, to give them credit, they have tried mightily.

Trump Is Mentally Unbalanced-- Where Are His Doctors When He And The Country Desperately Need Them?

 

Before moving to L.A., I had lived in New York, Amsterdam and San Francisco. In L.A. I discovered something unique to this city. People ask you to invest in their films. It's insane because "invest" is the wrong word. It means you give them money for the film and then you write it off as a tax loss. I avoided that ugly world for the whole time I lived here. Then I got cancer. The doctor takes care of fighting the cancer. The patient takes care of fighting the side-effects. One of the side effects, it turns out, is that you become extremely impaired in every day, including mentally. Some unscrupulous hustler/movie producer figured out I was suffering from the side effects and tricked me-- easy in my state of mind-- into investing a very large sum of money in his absurd film, Cold Moon. I'm listed as a producer. Needless to say, I lost all the money. Lesson: Don't make important decisions when you're on strong drugs.

Guess who's on very, very strong drugs after his treatment in the hospital for COVID? Hint: Donald Jr, Thinks Sr. is acting insane. Gabe Sherman on Monday: "Trump's erratic and reckless behavior in the last 24 hours has opened a rift in the Trump family over how to rein in the out-of-control president, according to two Republicans briefed on the family conversations. Sources said Donald Trump Jr. is deeply upset by his father’s decision to drive around Walter Reed National Military Medical Center last night with members of the Secret Service while he was infected with COVID-19. 'Don Jr. thinks Trump is acting crazy,' one of the sources told me. The stunt outraged medical experts, including an attending physician at Walter Reed. According to sources, Don Jr. has told friends that he tried lobbying Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump, and Jared Kushner to convince the president that he needs to stop acting unstable. 'Don Jr. has said he wants to stage an intervention, but Jared and Ivanka keep telling Trump how great he’s doing,' a source said. Don Jr. is said to be reluctant to confront his father alone. 'Don said, I’m not going to be the only one to tell him he’s acting crazy,' the source added. One area where the family seems united is over the president’s manic tweeting early Monday morning. After Trump sent out more than a dozen all-caps tweets, the Trump children told people they want Trump to stop. 'They’re all worried. They’ve tried to get him to stop tweeting,' a source close to the family told me. The Trump family’s private concern about Trump’s behavior could raise questions about his fitness for office. Trump has been prescribed drugs that medical experts say can seriously impair his cognitive function. Last night the New York Times reported that steroids, which Trump is reportedly taking, specifically dexamethasone, are known to 'affect mood, causing euphoria or a general happiness.'"

Uh... yeah... to put it mildly. The state Trump is in now is what the 25th Amendment was passed for. And the insane tweeting has only accelerated. Yesterday Michelle Goldberg tweeted that Señor Trumpanzee's "Twitter feed is always nuts but right now it really seems like he’s suffering some sort of psychological implosion." Well, yes, he clearly is. Earlier, Wisconsin Republican icon Charlie Sykes tweeted "Trump’s Twitter feed is extra-deranged tonight." That super-derangement spilled over into the next day, when the whole country-- world-- could watch Trump falling apart mentally and emotionally. He should be aware from electronics and in the care of physicians-- and I have nothing against osteopaths at all.

What if he decides to order the U.S. military to attack someone? Who's going to stand up to him? Certainly not Republicans! When he ordered them to break off negotiations with Democrats on the desperate needed pandemic relief package that he has held up, McConnell and McCarthy both said, "Yes, Your Highness," screwing over the country-- and their own constituents. "Trump pulled the plug on ongoing bipartisan coronavirus relief talks in an abrupt move that jolted Wall Street and surprised lawmakers of both parties," reported the Wall Street Journal but hours later called on Congress to approve a bill providing another direct check to many Americans." Hours later he was tweeting that Congress must pass the package IMMEDIATELY. The Washington Post: "First, he says he won’t pursue a package until after election. Then he demands Congress immediately pass bills." No one knows what to make of his erratic behavior-- other than scholars of King George III and fans of Hamilton.

And... Judd Legum who's Wednesday morning newsletter was devoted to a close look into Trump's Drugs. He wasn't treated by a quack he's been pushing, Stella Emmanuel, and he didn't take hydroxychloroquine, Legum wrote about what he did take:

• Regeneron's antibody cocktail, a promising experimental drug that has been made available to fewer than ten people outside of clinical trials.
• Remdesivir, a drug administered by IV that was found to shorten hospital stays for patients with serious cases of COVID-19.
• Dexamethasone, a steroid that was found to increase survival for patients with severe cases of COVID-19 and require supplemental oxygen.

Legum pointed out that "hydroxychloroquine is not an effective treatment for COVID-19 [and that] Trump foisted an unproven and potentially dangerous treatment on the American public for months. But when his own health was on the line, Trump unwilling to follow his own advice." (No one know if he drank any bleach or shoved a UV light up his ass, though.)

Despite the overwhelming scientific evidence, hydroxychloroquine boosters are disappointed that Trump has abandoned the drug. Dr. Emmanuel, the conspiracy theorist that Trump promoted in May, said whoever convinced Trump to stop taking hydroxychloroquine should be "punched in the face."

She offered to prescribe hydroxychloroquine to White House staffers.

Steve Jalsevac, a hydroxychloroquine fan who co-founded the far-right website LifeSite News, urged readers to "contact the White House to ask why the president and Melania are not immediately being given this well-proven-in-practice medication protocol for COVID infection.”

Others, like former White House staffer Sebastian Gorka, were in denial. "I’m sure he’s taking his hydroxy this morning just like I did this morning," Gorka said. 

Most people who have heard of Mona Charen, I suspect, know her as an outspoken, partisan and very conservative Republican. She's written 3 books and you can figure out from the titles, who she is: Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got it Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First (2003), Do-Gooders: How Liberals Hurt Those They Claim to Help (and the Rest of Us) (2005) and Sex Matters: How Modern Feminism Lost Touch with Science, Love, and Common Sense (2018). She worked as a speechwriter in the Reagan White House and for Jack Kemp. I gather she's not supporting the fascist candidate next month but the institutional conservative: Joe Biden. About a month ago she wrote The Coming Biden Landslide for the #NeverTrump site, The Bulwark. In her mind, Biden is the Republican saint, Ronald Reagan, and Trump is 2020's Jimmy Carter, detested by Republicans to this day.

Yesterday another Bulwarker, #NeverTrump Republican Tim Miller, wrote that when he looks at Trump’s "Twitter-centric negotiation over the possibility of a second COVID-19 stimulus package in the past 24 hours, I just gotta say, I think he might be fouling this up. He is the Great Negotiator. He 'wrote' a whole book on the subject, you may have heard of it. And here I am, a liberal arts major. A person who did not not go to Wharton Business School while pretending that I did... But speaking as a novice, this stimulus negotiation looks like an epic self-own on par with bankrupting a casino or selling steaks in a home electronics store. For those who aren’t juiced up on steroids or slamming dexamethasone, it might be hard to keep up...

For the last few months, Democrats and Republicans have been-- slowly, distractedly-- fighting over the details of a supplemental COVID stimulus package that would address the severe economic hardships brought upon many families and businesses by the pandemic. On Tuesday, the president, who had been largely absent from these discussions previously, crashed through the wall like the Kool-Aid Man in an attempt to demonstrate his mediation prowess.

First, around 2:30 p.m., he executed one of his patented gambits straight out of Art of the Deal:

The “economic populist” timed this power move on the heels of a conversation with Austerity-for-Thee Cocaine Mitch, blindsiding his own advisers (element of surprise!) in a series of tweets announcing that he will end negotiations on the stimulus package until after the election. As part of the tweetstorm, he also kindly ensured that people are aware that Nancy Pelosi wanted to pass a munificent $2.4 trillion in aid for people still struggling through a once-in-a-century pandemic.

Here-- within half an hour after his tweeting began-- is how the stock market responded to his announcement:

So, as an opening bid, it left a little bit to be desired, I would say. Jonathan Chait, another non-businessman mind you, called it “the worst political blunder in history.” A tad dramatic maybe, but not a great sign.

Regardless, it seemed like the dire reaction in the markets left Trump in a bad negotiating position vis-à-vis Speaker Pelosi-- and she agreed, firing off a single tweet about how the president’s ploy exposed his heartlessness.

This sense was confirmed five hours later when the president took a new/old tack, recanting his earlier contention that Pelosi’s offer was overly generous and adding a dollop of his trademark schoolyard misogyny:

With balance restored to the negotiating table, you might think he would wait to see how Pelosi would respond.

Not this president.

No he needed to further demonstrate his position as the alpha.

So in between IVs, presumably during commercial breaks from the shows, possibly wearing his preferred nightgown, he began to unleash a torrent of tweets negotiating against himself like a person suffering from a bout of psychosis due to a corticosteroid therapy.

First he did a complete 180 on his earlier position that Congress should pass no stimulus legislation, retweeting a news story about the Federal Reserve chair that implied Congress should spend even more!

Then he retweeted the esteemed Paul Sperry of Investor’s Business Daily-- not once, not twice, but twenty-two separate times-- on matters ranging from #Obamagate to the “disgraceful” moderator of the debate that Trump totally won to a not-all-that-veiled attack on Joe Biden for being concerned about health care when his wife and child died in a tragic car accident.

Trump followed that up with eight retweets of Fox News analyst Gregg Jarrett, calling for the jailing of his former opponent Hillary Clinton and disparaging Speaker Pelosi’s looks.

He then tweeted a meme depicting the late Chris Farley—in character as the thrice-divorced homeless motivational speaker Matt Foley from the classic SNL sketch-- berating Attorney General Bill Barr for not arresting enough political opponents.

It’s unclear to me if any of these missives were part of the gamesmanship of the ongoing negotiations but I wanted to make sure that everyone had a clear picture of the state of play.

Around 10 p.m., on day five (we think) of the experimental drug regimen he is taking for combating the coronavirus, the president then launched back into the stimulus negotiations that at this stage are taking place only between himself and his earlier tweets.

No longer wanting to walk away completely, the president demanded that Congress pass two pieces of standalone legislation, the first bailing out the airline industry, the second sending a round of $1,200 stimulus checks out to our “great people.”
In the final tweet at the time of writing, he tagged Nancy Pelosi-- whose visage he had insulted hours earlier and who has been silent as he dickered for hours-- presumably in an attempt to reopen the line of communication with his counterparty.

Whew.

Given that I have never been “in a boardroom” for a high-stakes parley like this and that I cannot take the full measure of Donald Trump since he spent the day hiding from the cameras as the novel coronavirus infection consumed him, I can only turn to a celebrity negotiator for his expert analysis on what transpired:

"The worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it. That makes the other guy smell blood, and then you’re dead."
—Donald J. Trump.

Hard to argue with that.

How Madness Shaped History Author Chris Ferguson: Biden-- The Placeholder We Need

 

A Guest Post
by Dr. Chris Ferguson

As we approach elections in November and the end of President Trump’s first term, it’s worth taking a look at the stressors facing our country and the two leading contenders for the throne. In my book How Madness Shaped History, I write about how important individuals can find themselves in a critical historical moment, playing a pivotal role in the fortunes of their culture or nation. I think we can say that the United States is at one of these critical moments as we nervously approach a kind of cultural precipice.

Though there are often multiple contenders for the presidency, like it or not, it’s typically only realistic to think the candidates of the two major parties are truly competitive. So, let’s have a look at them.

Recent decades have seen several books emphasizing the role of the environment, geography and even luck as contributors to history. Popular wisdom has seemed to deemphasize the Great Person model wherein specific individuals have a powerful influence on world events. Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel has been perhaps the best known of these and we’ve certainly had plenty of these in 2020.

So, I don’t want to suggest these other factors are unimportant. But if 2020 has taught us anything, it’s the difference an individual can make. Do we honestly think we’d be in the same position we are today if Hilary Clinton or even, say, Mitt Romney had been president? I don’t think so.

In Donald Trump, we got exactly what was on the tin. Other mental health professionals have diagnosed Trump as an extreme narcissist, and a danger to our country. With the caveat that any mental health impression is, by necessity, based entirely on public behavior not a mental health assessment, I tend to agree. When things were humming along, it was something of an embarrassing carnival sideshow. But his inability to handle the catastrophe of 2020, whether covid19, race relations or even establishing law and order in the face of violent looting and riots (the denial of which, let’s be honest, is not casting the left-leaning mainstream news in a great light), highlights the degree to which he and his administration are ill suited for this particular moment. Even if one is a conservative worried about law and order (which is not unreasonable), do we really think four more years of Trump is going to bring more of that?

That said, I still understand why some people vote for Trump. To be clear, I don’t believe the majority of Trump voters are racists, white supremacists, transphobes, etc. Rather, the far-left has worked with remarkable diligence, whether via “cancel culture,” some surprisingly stereotyping views of ethnicity, and their elitist disdain for working-class people to make themselves as obnoxious as possible to mainstream voters. I don’t believe these voices represent the majority on the left any more than the QAnon "masks are tyranny" folks represent the right. Unfortunately, both our news media and social media environments promote and amplify the most extreme voices in our society. These, in turn, make it more difficult for us to remember our shared humanity.

What we need, more than we’ve needed in decades, is a truly great leader to light our way through the darkness and unite us, liberal and conservative. Is Joe Biden that person? Well, no probably not. I actually met Joe Biden back in 2013 after the Sandy Hook shooting when he held hearings on the role of video games in the shooting (TL/DR: there wasn’t one.) I think he’s a talented politician but the odds of his (or Trump for that matter) having at least mild cognitive impairment are not trivial.

That said, he’s the placeholder we need (yes, I know that’s not the best political slogan) until that great person can come along. To be fair, like a stopped clock, Trump has been right on a few things, such as the update to Title IX hearings in universities, which restored necessary due process to those proceedings. But my best guess is that Biden is the better choice for stability moving forward. If we’re to have any hope moving forward as a country, we need to work together and as individuals to end our partisanship, find empathy for one another and stop indulging our anger and fear. We should find the better angels of our nature, even if our opponents don’t reciprocate. That’s a choice each of us can make as individuals. We can move forward together or, divided, come to our end.

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

And what if that guy also told you injecting Lysol or drinking bleach would get rid of COVID-19, or, told you this:

We had somebody get on a plane from a certain city this weekend, and in the plane it was almost completely loaded with thugs wearing these dark uniforms, black uniforms with gear and this and that. They're on a plane. It's under investigation right now. It took place sometime... That person was on a plane, said that there were about six people like that person, more or less, and what happened is the entire plane filled up with the looters, the anarchists, the rioters, that people that obviously were looking for trouble.

Or this version of the same from the very next day. It's more insane and more "developed." It actually starts out like an "A guy walked into a bar" joke. But, I can't wait 'til he says they all looked just like Obama or starts babbling about little orange men from Neptune:

A person was on a plane said that there were about six people like that person more or less and what happened is the entire plane filled up with the looters, the anarchists, the rioters, people that obviously were looking for trouble and the person felt very uncomfortable in the plane. This would be a person you know. So I will see whether or not I can get that person. I'll let them know and I will see if I can get that person to speak to you.

Sigh, It's so Republican to be "uncomfortable" in the presence of "others." Yeah, I know President Nutjob got this whole thing from the internet even if he says it's someone he knows but it's starting to sound like some sort of darkley bizarre Twilight Zone remake of Harvey (the one about the guy who talks to a 6-foot rabbit buddy) which is turned upside down and mixed in with elements of Taxi Driver, Death Wish, and Stephen King's plane ride horror The Langoliers. Trump's dreams would even scare King.

Don't worry, Little Donnie. One day, the bad, bad men will all go away, like a miracle.

But, wait! There's more. What if this guy sat down next to you on a park bench, told you he was president, told you "This Russia thing is a hoax," and then started comparing a cop holding onto some guy's shirt and shooting him 7 times in the back to missing a 3-foot putt at Mar-a-Lago, or the Masters, or someplace?

My God! Can you imagine if America elected a man like this as president?

Oh, right. We did. Well, 62,000,000 of us did, and they see the bad, bad men, too, wherever they go.

This is life in America in 2020. Life is just a box of live grenades!

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

The entire plane filled up with the looters, the anarchists, the rioters, people that obviously were looking for trouble...

Yeah, sure Donnie. Woman. Man. Snakes. Person. Thugs On A Plane.

Sure Donnie. You're speaking for a friend of course, you see Bad Bad Men In Black filling a plane. Lots of them. Black. Menacing looking. Black. Backpacks! Black. What else do you see, Donnie? Black. Black. Go ahead. Black. Please tell us more. Can we send you some inkblots? What's that, Donnie? You don't like Black ink? If "they" looked so obviously bad and as you said, "looking for trouble," how did all these "thugs" you see get past airport security? A whole plane full of "the looters, the anarchists, the rioters" in this day and age? What happened? How could this be? Did you put some mega donor in charge of the air marshals? Does that Louis DeJoy clown have a brother?

Yeesh! This man is nuts. That's not news. But nuts with mini-strokes? That's a real scary combo. The synapses are fried. Forget about who's a heartbeat away. Forget about that shattered, catatonic husk of maggot-brained ectoplasm named Pence. This big orange freak with the tiny hands IS the heartbeat. He is the heartbeat of this country. He is the heartbeat of this country in so many more ways than one. He is the heartbeat of this country, an irregular, fluttering heartbeat who's party loves his every word and action. A party that hangs on his every word. In more ways than one.

This country is also hanging. A new and tighter noose was placed around its neck on the Capitol steps on January 20, 2017. Since that darkest of days in our history, those steps have been slowly sinking under our feet so our body weight pulls the noose tighter. We're all strangling, even his blindest followers among us. The steps go lower and the noose tightens at the same rate. Our necks are burning. Putin is in the dark munching his vodka popcorn. Air is getting harder to come by. Our eyes are starting to water.

None Dare Call It Fascism... Except Jamie Raskin

I Can't Breath by Nancy Ohanian

Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin is widely considered the top constitutional scholar in Congress. He began an e-mail to his supporters yesterday with a quote from Benito Mussolini, a fascist dictator who dragged Italy into the sewer and was eventually brutally murdered and hung upside down in a Milan square while the whole city cheered: "If you pluck a chicken one feather at a time, no one will notice." It isn't unrelated to this quote by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels:

Referencing Madeleine Albright's new book, Fascism: A Warning, which he described as "chilling," Raskin wrote that "fascism is not a political ideology but a strategy for taking and abusing power. The active ingredient in the strategy is the relentless and casual dismantling of the rule of law and the rights of the people." He then enumerated how we're seeing that from the Trumpist Regime: "the formation of a secret police force by President Trump and Attorney General Barr to crush civil rights protesters; unidentified agents sweeping people off the street and detaining them without due process; overt illegal use of the White House and other federal property for campaign purposes; the endless promotion of hate, propaganda and dangerous lies; corruption and vandalization of government for private moneymaking purposes; massive assault on the Post Office to sabotage the election; and provocative presidential rhetoric encouraging civil violence and disorder."

He came right out and called what we're seeing, exactly what it is, though few members of Congress would dare: "We will have our hands full defending a November victory against every trick in the fascist playbook...These brutal times are trying to our souls."

Now, when it comes to Trump's systemic corruption of the federal government-- his "strategy for taking and abusing power"-- ProPublica's exposé on the way Trump makes it appear that he is sending relief packages of food paid for with taxpayer dollars and authorized by Congress is relatively small potatoes... one of Mussolini's single barely noticed or noted feathers. "Millions of Americans who are struggling to put food on the table," wrote Isaac Arnsdorf, "may discover a new item in government-funded relief packages of fresh fruits and vegetables, dairy and meat: a letter signed by President Donald Trump. The message, printed on White House letterhead in both English and Spanish, touts the administration’s response to the coronavirus, including aid provided through the Farmers to Families Food Box Program, a U.S. Department of Agriculture initiative to buy fresh food and ship it to needy families. The letter is reminiscent of Trump’s effort to put his signature on stimulus checks and send a signed letter to millions of recipients. It’s the latest example of the president blurring his official duties with his reelection campaign, most prominently by hosting Trump’s acceptance speech for the Republican nomination last week on the White House lawn. Democratic lawmakers have gone so far as to say the USDA letter violates the federal Hatch Act. The law prohibits government officials from using their positions or taxpayer resources to engage in electioneering. Though the president himself is exempt, the ban applies to White House staff and agencies such as the USDA."

Jonathan Chait made the relevant and overarching point at New York Magazine yesterday though: Trump’s Reelection Campaign Is Corrupting the Entire Federal Government. Trump's illegal activities in using the government for his own ends have caused what Chait called "a flurry of recent reports on new and unprecedented government activity. All of these developments follow the same theme." He mentioned right-wing nut and Trumpist DNI John Ratcliffe announcing his agencies would end the traditional briefings to Congress on election security, even as Russia continues trying cripple America by helping the Trump campaign win the election. He also mentioned the government will be sending out relief checks to coincide with voting, while Trump pressures a weak FDA bureaucracy to rush-release a vaccine before the election whether it kills people or not. Chait reported on an HHS quarter billion dollar campaign "slush fund" and reminded his readers that on Monday Trump announced a joint Justice Department–Homeland Security task force to "investigate violent left-wing civil unrest."

Chait wrote that "Trump’s unhinged rhetoric would just be a Trump problem, were it not for the fact that the government appears to be following his lead. Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf told Tucker Carlson last night he is 'working' on a plan to arrest leaders of Black Lives Matter, who he claims are instigating a violent plot. Trump’s Homeland Security officials have already ignored or downplayed threats involving right-wing terrorism, which has resulted in a number of deadly shootings... [T]here is a pattern in all these events: They describe recent actions by the federal government; they all serve the purpose of enabling Trump’s election; and they all conscript the power of the federal government in novel ways. It has the appearance of coordinated action-- as if Trump has ordered every arm of the government to generate whatever tools can be placed at the disposal of his reelection."

Would You Trust A Trump-Endorsed Vaccine In October?

What would Trump not do to win? After all, he's obsessed with the idea of going down in the history books as the first American president to go to prison. If he loses in November, it may happen-- not likely, but possible. Even a worthless corporate shill like Biden has publicly pledged to not pardon him. I suppose Señor T could try pardoning himself but that might not stand up. Or he could make a deal with Pence at some time between tomorrow and Wednesday, January 20, 2021-- exactly 24 weeks from today-- when Biden is inaugurated, and resign so that Pence will be able to say he was once president and so that Trump and his family have iron-clad presidential pardons.

Reporting for Raw Story yesterday, clinical psychologists John Gartner and Alan Blotcky wrote that Trump is becoming increasingly dangerous and mentally unhinged. "Trump," they wrote, "is a malignant narcissist, a diagnosis introduced by the famed analyst Erich Fromm, a refugee from Nazi Germany, to explain the psychology of Hitler, Stalin  and other grandiose destructive dictators throughout history. It has four components: narcissism, paranoia, psychopathy and sadism. Malignant narcissists enjoy destroying their real and imagined enemies. It makes them feel powerful, they enjoy inflicting pain, and it is an effective gangster’s tool to intimidate others to do their bidding. If they have been publicly humiliated, made to look weak, they must exact revenge viciously, fiercely, dramatically and preferably publicly. Trump’s philosophy: 'When somebody screws you, you screw them back in spades... You’ve gotta hit people hard. And it’s not so much for that person. It’s other people watch.' Since June 1, Trump’s polls have plummeted, he has been widely mocked and jeered for his dishonest and  ineffective response to the pandemic, protestors have continued in the streets, and his humiliation has continued. His response has been to bring Lafayette Park to scale. Unmarked military have abducted protestors off the streets of Portland despite the outrage of local and state officials. Trump has signaled an intent to send troops to Albuquerque, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, and Baltimore-- none of whom want them-- arguing he must 'dominate' US cities."

When a malignant narcissist like Trump says “Make America Great Again,” what he really means is make ME great-- or else. Malignant narcissists will demonize and destroy anyone who gets in their way, and the list of enemies always grows both because they are paranoid, and because their behavior provokes real opposition. Staffs are purged over and over for disloyalty. And the categories of people in the population who are enemies grows. First, we were defending the border from “infestations” by immigrants, sadistically taking away their children and putting them into concentration camps in the desert. Now those same Border Patrol agents-- who have shown their willingness to commit crimes against humanity for Trump-- are being drafted into service as Trump’s personal Republican Guard to attack our citizens in our streets.

...[W]with Trump, we have a Reichstag fire every night, as we watch a similar process take place in slow motion.

How bad can it get if Trump feels power slipping away? When Hitler knew his war was lost, he too went into a bunker. Before he committed suicide, he issued an order known as the “Nero Decree” calling for “scorched earth.” “All military transport and communication facilities, industrial establishments and supply depots, as well as anything else of value within Reich territory…will be destroyed.” Hitler told Speers, “It is not necessary to worry about what the German people will need for elemental survival…it is best for us to destroy even these things” because “only those who are inferior will remain after this struggle, for the good have already been killed.”

In other words, they failed to make Hitler great, and so the surviving Germans deserved to perish alongside him. Like a homicidal abusive spouse, he was determined that if he couldn’t have Germany then nobody would.

Trump is not Hitler. But like Hitler, he is a malignant narcissist. If we don’t make Trump great, he will predictably use his power to punish us. And if we don’t submit–he may just try to destroy us. Tear gas in the streets and one hundred and fifty thousand dead would suggest that he has already begun.

So what would Trump do to win? Anything. And one he is sure to try is announcing, perhaps distributing, some partially safe-- which means partially unsafe-- vaccine. The NY Times had a team of reporters-- Sharon LaFraniere, Katie Thomas, Noah Weiland, Peter Baker and Annie Karni-- look into it over the weekend. Trump has something called Operation Warp Speed whose goal is to develop a vaccine, something that usually takes 2 years, in October, in time for the election. The quintet wrote that "The ensuing race for a vaccine-- in the middle of a campaign in which the president’s handling of the pandemic is the key issue after he has spent his time in office undermining science and the expertise of the federal bureaucracy-- is now testing the system set up to ensure safe and effective drugs to a degree never before seen. Under constant pressure from a White House anxious for good news and a public desperate for a silver bullet to end the crisis, the government’s researchers are fearful of political intervention in the coming months and are struggling to ensure that the government maintains the right balance between speed and rigorous regulation, according to interviews with administration officials, federal scientists and outside experts. Even in a less politically charged environment, there would be a fraught debate about how much to accelerate the process of trials and approval. The longer that vaccines are tested before being released, the likelier they are to be safe and effective... [E]xperts inside and outside the government still say they fear the White House will push the Food and Drug Administration to overlook insufficient data and give at least limited emergency approval to a vaccine, perhaps for use by specific groups like front-line health care workers, before the vote on Nov. 3."




Trump will stop at nothing. And neither will Kushner-in-law, who is also more than a little concerned about a blanket pardon before Biden takes over.

“There are a lot of people on the inside of this process who are very nervous about whether the administration is going to reach their hand into the Warp Speed bucket, pull out one or two or three vaccines, and say, ‘We’ve tested it on a few thousand people, it looks safe, and now we are going to roll it out,’” said Dr. Paul A. Offit of the University of Pennsylvania, who is a member of the Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine advisory committee.

“They are really worried about that,” he added. “And they should be.”

Mr. Trump relentlessly touts progress toward a vaccine, raising hopes of quick approval. Touring a North Carolina biotechnology lab last week, he vowed to “deliver a vaccine in record time.” In a tweet last month, he explicitly tied vaccines to his re-election hopes.

On a campaign call with supporters in Pennsylvania on Sunday evening, Mr. Trump said the “F.D.A. has been great, at my instruction,” and he again raised hopes of rapid progress.

“We expect to have a vaccine available very, very early before the end of the year, far ahead of schedule,” he said. “We’re very close to having that finalized.”

The president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, who is helping to steer the re-election campaign from the White House, is a regular participant in meetings of a board formed to oversee the vaccine effort.

...White House officials said that Mr. Trump would not distort the vaccine review process to help his campaign. “The rapid research, development, trials and eventual distribution of a Covid-19 vaccine is emblematic of President Trump’s highest priority: the health and safety of the American people,” said Judd Deere, a White House spokesman. “It has nothing to do with politics.”

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told lawmakers on Friday that he remained “cautiously optimistic that we will have a vaccine by the end of this year and as we go into 2021.”

Dr. Stephen Hahn, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, has not ruled out emergency approval of a vaccine.

“We would consider using an emergency use authorization if we felt that the risks associated with the vaccine were much lower than the risks of not having a vaccine,” he told the Journal of the American Medical Association in an online interview.

...Kushner, Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the White House coronavirus coordinator, and others interviewed Dr. Moncef Slaoui, a pharmaceutical industry veteran, and orchestrated his appointment as chief scientific adviser despite concerns within the Food and Drug Administration about conflicts of interest because of his financial ties to two companies that are developing a vaccine. Rather than being bothered by the conflict, Mr. Kushner and others reasoned that it took someone with such industry experience to oversee the effort.

Dr. Slaoui resigned from the board of Moderna, which has received nearly $1 billion in federal support to develop a vaccine. But as of May he still had nearly $10 million of stock in GlaxoSmithKline, a partner with the French drugmaker Sanofi, which last week signed a $2.1 billion agreement to produce 100 million doses. Dr. Slaoui, who is working on a $1 contract, cleared an ethics review by the Department of Health and Human Services and has said he is determined to avoid any conflict.

Shortly after Dr. Slaoui’s appointment, Dr. Marks resigned from the project he conceived and returned full-time to his post as a senior regulator at the Food and Drug Administration, where he will be the key decision maker on whether a vaccine merits approval.

The administration has conducted the vaccine hunt with a focus lacking in much of the rest of its pandemic response. Contracts have been executed at a brisk pace. Mobile trailers have been speedily delivered for experimental doses to be administered. When a company was short on needles, the Pentagon dispatched planes to deliver supplies within 48 hours.

The pharmaceutical companies are reporting the results of their trials at regular intervals, accelerating the review process. With the government paying much of the cost, the companies are beginning the process of manufacturing millions of doses of vaccine essentially on spec so that they can be distributed quickly if they secure approval.

The process has moved at a remarkable clip. Two vaccine candidates, one developed by Moderna in conjunction with Dr. Fauci’s institute and another by Pfizer, last week began Phase 3 trials, the final stage of clinical experimentation. Others are expected soon.

...Scientists have argued that it would be unwise to cut corners on a vaccine that is to be injected into some 300 million Americans, adding that a failed effort would fuel public distrust of vaccines generally.

...It is not clear that a vaccine approval shortly before the election would be an “October surprise” sufficient to alter the outcome of the vote. An announcement could give Americans hope that the end is in sight. But some Republican strategists said that it might not help Mr. Trump because his opponent, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the presumptive Democratic nominee, would surely continue the vaccine process if elected.

“Does it turn everything around for him politically? I don’t know,” said Sarah Longwell, a conservative strategist and prominent Republican opponent of Mr. Trump who regularly conducts focus groups and has found that public attention is more focused on government relief checks and school reopenings.

“If the vaccine is an October surprise, there’s a lot of other things that are cutting against” it as a game-changer, she said.

The drug companies find themselves caught in the middle. While eager to bring products to market as quickly as possible, they face risks in moving too quickly in order to fit an election calendar, analysts said.

“They are acutely aware of the political dynamic here,” said Rob Smith, the director of Capital Alpha Partners, a research firm. A vaccine that flopped would jeopardize their broader business, he said, and it would not make sense “to take a huge reputational risk not just for your vaccine but for all the products across your portfolio to benefit the president politically.”

Dr. Fauci has expressed confidence that the system will hold.

“Historically, the F.D.A. has based their decisions on science,” he told a House committee last week. “They will do so this time also, I am certain.”

I'll wait a little and see-- like another six months or so after Trump, who has never cared much about "reputational risk," is gone.

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

And I for one have stopped stepping on the scale... Problem solved! I am no longer overweight! Nothing beats Trump logic!

But, seriously folks, Trump logic aside, the temperature has been hitting 90 degrees or higher in most of this great infected land for a bigly tremendous amount of days now and those coronavirus cases haven't disappeared by any miracle that I can see! In fact, in the real world that the minds of non-Trumpies live in, COVID-19 cases have been multiplying exponentially by the hour, and it seems that the hotter the state, the wider the spread. Trump logic kills.

So hey, I better check in with Trump's doctors! Calling Dr. Bornstein! Paging Dr. Immanuel, Dr. Demon Sperm herself! What happened to that "One day like a miracle it will go away. It will disappear when the hot weather comes" claim that the Orange Menace To Society made? Looks like I better quickly find a White House doctor quack and order up some alien DNA and wash it down with a Hydroxy-Bleach cocktail, inject more Lysol, and chant the magic Trump best words! God, I hope they remember to send the Demon Sperm chant! And, hopefully, a magic republican spell or two, too!

Now what do I do to ward off those demons and witches that the Trumps and their new family doctor believe in? Might cause a case of the virus by visiting me in my dreams? I know! I'll ask Mikey Pence! He and "Mother" will know exactly what to do!

Need the skinny on the new Trump doctor, the one he says is "impressive" and "spectacular?" Here ya go. Just keep in mind, sane folks want nothing to do with her:

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

It says something pretty horrible that we have a president that is so mentally lame that he feels he has to repeatedly brag that he passed a cognitive test 2 years ago. He's going around acting like it's his biggest achievement, and it just may be, at least if you're just looking for the positive ones.

Obviously, there were enough signs of Trump's mental deterioration 2 years ago or else he would not have been given the test; not that we can trust anything that the doctors around him would ever say about the results anyway. The signs were there during the 2016 campaign but now Trump's deadly combo of dementia and psychosis is really blooming! He's bringing up his alleged test results every damn day, even multiple times a day. He might as well emblazon it on one of his ridiculous red hats. I can see it now: all his supporters wearing hats and t-shirts that read "I Passed A Cognitive Test!" as if that could ever convince us that they're any saner than their idol. Trump's incessant defensive bragging about the ability to remember 5 words in order 2 years ago not only says something horrible about him but it's also a horrible indictment of the people who not only put him in the White House but keep him there, whether through a traitorous $enate vote, a corrupt cabinet's refusal to invoke the 25th Amendment, or simple public pressure. Trump's existence anywhere outside of a prison or high security mental hospital is a horrible indictment of America as a whole. Most of those who see the danger of Trump are so naive that they think Tuesday 11/3 will be some sort of panacea. In fact, whether he wins or loses, The Orange Menace To Society will get much worse. Tuesday 11/3/20 could become at least as deadly as Tuesday 9/11/01 was. And, yet we sleep. It's 97 days until Election Day. The longer we sleep, the worse the nightmare will get.

Since our Orange Menace To Society thinks he got extra "bonus" points for remembering "Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV" in order on his 2018 test, tonight's meme offers a more current (2020) phrase for him to start practicing. He can write it on the palm of his hand, if it fits. Sadly, It actually works for any republican as well as it works for him.

I've also provided an additional phrase: The 2021 phrase in black at the bottom is for the rest of us to push for, use as graffiti wherever appropriate, chant from BLM Plaza, leave on Capitol Hill, FOX "News" and White House message machines, tweet, and in the best of all worlds, tattoo on his forehead or use for his tombstone epitaph after he's buried at a hazardous waste dump along with any of his korporatista supporters and defenders. Showing mercy is for fools and masochists who want more abuse down the line.

And, yes, I fully realize that expecting the people of this country to actually do anything about this situation would mean that I am as delusional as Trump or any Repug. Prove me wrong. It would make my year. It would also make America's year, and it's future.

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

Watching the cascading mental breakdown of Donnie The King Of Republicans live on TV is frightening and the total inaction and silence of the rest of Washington can be considered even more frightening. Yet, it is what it is. We are helplessly left to watch it happen because nearly all of those in Washington fall into one of three camps: 1) They don't want to jeopardize their positions and the cash flows that come with those positions, 2) They are just as wacked out crazy as their Dear Leader, or, 3) Both.

Some small semi-conscious part of Trump's already small brain knows that he is having mental problems. It's at least evident to others or he wouldn't have been given a cognitive test to determine the depth of his dementia. That is evident by the fact that, for days, he has been boasting about how well he did on his cognitive test. It's a thou doth protest too much thing. He's been doing this every time a microphone appears in front of his pasty orange face, a face that appears to be melting from the physical heat of Washington almost as fast as his mind is melting from the mental heat of Washington. He's telling anyone within earshot how well he did and claims his score is exceptional compared to how others would do, especially those he sees as rivals or opponents. His non-stop chirping about the test is in itself something that can be seen as a sign of dementia. It's as sad as it is scary. He does this chirping while glossing over the fact that his behavior led to enough people deciding that he better be tested in the first place. That alone is cause for concern. Here's the punchline of the whole thing: Trump took the test ye keeps yapping about back in 2018, 2 years ago! That's a very meaningful fact that most of the media seems to be ignoring.

You don't "pass" a cognitive test. At best, you get a picture of how you did that day. Trump would like us to think that he had the best score ever, tremendous results, whatever. The context we should take all of this in, however, is the knowledge that, although this is a mental acuity test, we have received numerous dodgy assessments of his physical condition from suspect doctors in the past, and, we now know that he even paid someone to take his SAT tests. There's simply no reason to believe anything he has to say about anything. That, of course, goes for anyone who works for him. I mean, are you really gonna believe anything the likes of Bagdad Barbie McEnany, Mike Pence, Stephen Miller, or total wacko Kellyanne Conartist has to say?

So, here we are: We have the nation's cartoonists to tell us what the go along to get along crowd in Washington will not. The story told by the above Barry Blitt (the New Yorker) cartoon that I'm using for tonight's meme provides us with something more accurate than anything we'll get from the DC cesspool of cloying hangers on, parasites, quacks, crooks, and agenda mongers. We know the truth because we have eyes, ears, and at least a modicum of critical thinking ability.

Seriously, Objectively, Has Trump Lost His Marbles?

Let's start off with some numbers, like the numbers folks at the Trump campaign-- if not their sheltered capo-- are confronting daily. These come from Change Media, one of this cycles' best polling firms. Biden leads Trump by 10 points among likely voters nationally, and by 6 points in the battleground states, steady over the past two weeks. Majorities disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy, helping your pocketbook, COVID-19, and ensuring relief for COVID-19 goes to those who need it. Only 43% of voters nationally approve of Trump’s overall job performance and strong approval is also at a new record low of 35% in the battleground states, while 51% strongly disapprove.

Voters are also rejecting GOP governance more broadly. In Florida a 57% majority disapprove of Republican Governor Ron DeSantis’ handling of the outbreak. In Arizona, a stunning 71% disapprove of the job Republican Governor Doug Ducey is doing handling COVID-19. Democratic Governors, on the other hand, receive much better ratings for their handling of the outbreak: 55% approve of Gretchen Whitmer’s handling of COVID-19 (50% strongly approve), 55% and 56% approve of the jobs Tom Wolf and Tony Evers are doing, respectively, and 51% approve of Roy Cooper’s handling of the outbreak. The rejection of GOP governance is translating to strong margins for Democratic candidates for Senate in Arizona, Michigan, and North Carolina. The Democratic candidates lead by 7 points in each of those races.

I asked Adam Christensen, a progressive House candidate in an open, red-leaning district in north-central Florida (FL-03) how this negative feeling about Trump and DeSantis and GOP governance in general is playing out in his race against Trump extremist Judson Sapp. Wednesday morning Christensen told me that "Last night's AARP public debate was a perfect encapsulation of the reason the Republican Party is self destructing. Nearly every Republican was more concerned about 'government overreach' than they were about protecting the people they claim to want to serve. We had many brag about openly flaunting mask regulations, decrying 'socialism,' and claiming that this pandemic happened because 'we didn’t know how to stop it.' They blamed the CDC, the WHO, China, everyone but themselves. To most people watching last night, the reason the U.S. is one of the only countries in the world that hasn’t gotten a handle of this crisis is obvious. Grown men are throwing a temper-tantrum when being asked to do the equivalent of wearing a seat belt. I’m sure their mothers told them growing up that every action has consequences. The consequence for burying your head in the sand in the middle of a pandemic and making up conspiracy theories is that no one takes you seriously anymore."

Trump is, clearly, having a mental breakdown and his grasp on reality is, at best, tenuous. At his press conference/campaign rally in the Rose Garden Tuesday, wrote the Washington Post's Jacqueline Alemany, he invoked Biden's "name nearly 30 times on a range of topics, and despite his claims otherwise, sounded like an underdog on shaky ground throwing spaghetti at the wall to find a new message that might stick." She noted that as an excuse for his poor poll numbers, he seems to think "a lot of people don’t want to talk about" their support for him. "I think they’re not going to say, 'Hey, I’m for Trump, I’m for Trump'-- they don’t want to go through the process. And I fully understand that, because the process is not fair. The media doesn’t treat us fairly. They never have, and perhaps they never will. But maybe they will when we turn this around for a second term, and it’s going to happen very quickly."

Dana Milbank went right to the heart of it: he's losing (or lost) his mind-- or, as he put it, Trump's window is closing. "All signs suggest it’s closing on his presidency because of his world-class incompetence with the coronavirus pandemic, the protracted economic collapse that resulted, and the increasingly overt racism Trump has embraced," he wrote. "But it also appears the window is closing on his connection to reality, if it hasn’t already. Trump called a news conference Tuesday evening in the Rose Garden... to launch an hour-long diatribe against Joe Biden, attributing a platform to his Democratic opponent that bore hardly any resemblance to anything occurring in the real world."

Biden would “incentivize illegal alien child smuggling,” Trump announced.

He would “abolish immigration enforcement," “abolish our police departments” and “abolish our prisons, I guess.”

Biden’s party is even “calling for defunding of our military,” Trump alleged.

And, yes, Biden’s energy plan “basically means no windows” in homes or offices by 2030, he said, and “cold office space in the winter and warm office space in the summer.”

Um, Biden would abolish windows?

“I’m not making this up!” Trump said, mid-jeremiad. (Actually, he was.)

He alleged that Democratic mayors possibly “wouldn’t mind” if terrorists “blow up our cities.”

“We could go on for days,” he said after 40 minutes. Indeed, the only limitation was Trump’s, and his staff’s, imaginations.

...He started with an announcement about Hong Kong; bounced to Biden’s infrastructure plan; swerved to the pandemic; careened to the swine flu of 2009; lurched to Ukraine and Burisma (“Where is Hunter?”); wobbled into the stock market; detoured to “AOC” (“a young woman not talented in many ways"), “Bernie" and Nancy Pelosi; floated into Maine fisheries; listed into the “tremendous fraud” of mail-in voting (“a mailman was indicted someplace”); and took on water with a claim about “criminals pouring into our country”-- from Europe.

Every now and again, his thoughts would return to the paper in front of him, and he would read some other fantastic allegation against Biden, so absurd it seemed to surprise even Trump. “Oh, I didn’t notice that,” he said, reading an allegation that Biden has plans to rejoin the Paris climate agreement but make it “worse than it was.”

“We did this very quickly,” Trump explained at one point as he read through the imaginary Biden agenda.

Who would have guessed?

Trump’s instability seemed to have been set off by Biden himself, who earlier Tuesday did the very opposite of what Trump did: He delivered a reasoned and measured speech about his infrastructure plans, hewing closely to the teleprompter and taking no questions, and eschewing liberal favorites from the Green New Deal. “Look, these aren’t pie-in-the-sky dreams,” Biden said. “These are actionable policies.”

Confronted with an opponent who is conspicuously reasonable, Trump has pretended he is running against somebody else. He has tried to brand Biden as senile and corrupt, and his allies have tried to brand the presumptive Democratic nominee a sexual predator and a pedophile.

“Joe Biden’s entire career has been a gift to the Chinese Communist Party,” Trump alleged. Biden “never did anything but make very bad decisions.”

“Last Independence Day, Biden attacked the United States.”

“Biden is pushing a platform that would demolish the U.S. economy.”

“He wants to kill American energy!”

He has “the most extreme platform of any major party nominee by far in American history.”

“It’s worse than Bernie’s platform it’s gone so far right,” Trump said, mixing up his directions.

5-Watt Bulb by Nancy Ohanian

How stupid and ignorant does anyone have to be not to notice the president is off his rocker? Does he expect anyone to believe any of this? Certainly not the press, but what about Trump fans in Wyoming, Mississippi and Oklahoma-- a state to which he personally brought the pandemic and where a 993 one-day spike on Tuesday brought the state's total cases to 21,738? Milbank wrote that "Maybe some in the MAGA crowd will believe that. They’ll also believe that 'thousands of people in New York died because of poor management' by Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) and that Trump’s decision to stop flights from China saved '2 to 3 million lives' ('a number that we’re actually working on'). Asked whether his extraordinary Rose Garden tirade was a sign that he thinks he might lose, Trump’s answer included references to his electoral college win in 2016 and the fact that 'we’re making swabs [in] a beautiful big new factory.' Beautiful, that is, until Biden takes away all its windows."

In response to the Rose Garden loony session, CNN analyst Stephen Collison wrote about Trump's denial and delusion... brutally. "Rarely," he noted, "has a president shown himself to be so unequal to a tragic national emergency. Hundreds of Americans are dying daily and tens of thousands are getting infected from a once-in-a-century virus. States and cities are closing down again, threatening to trigger a ruinous new economic slump. Doctors and nurses lack sufficient protective gear as they battle the deadly pathogen. And with testing swamped by waves of disease, one top official is warning of the 'the most difficult time' ever for US public health this winter. Yet this is what is on Donald Trump's mind: Joe Biden didn't fix the country's roads and bridges, crowds of bikers and boaters in MAGA hats prove that election polls are wrong, and the border wall is almost finished (except it isn't). Oh, and by the way, where is Hunter Biden?

What is needed from Trump and his administration is a plan to tackle the most relentless national challenge since World War II, consoling words to memorialize the 140,000 Americans who are already dead and the thousands destined to follow, and the rhetoric to summon the will to triumph over this invisible enemy.

All Trump could offer on Tuesday was self-pity, incoherence and indifference. He came across as a leader living in a different dimension from his people and their fear and suffering and uncertainty about what the coming months will bring.

This is a President who has demonstrably failed to beat back the virus and has long since stopped trying to lead the country out of the darkness. He resorts to boasting about inconclusive steps he took months ago-- like limiting travel from China-- that have no relevance to the current moment, and he complains he's not getting enough credit for his performance.

He's also mining divisive political seams he thinks helped him in the past. In a CBS interview on Tuesday, he insisted that more White people than Black people are killed in police violence, dealing an insult to the national soul searching about race following the death of George Floyd.

"We could go on for days," Trump said at one point in his Tuesday tirade, and for a while it seemed that he might in the blasting July heat of the Rose Garden, where journalists sat wearing masks, socially distanced and in bemused silence.

...Trump has been charging that Biden is mentally impaired and is not fit for the Oval Office. But at times, it was the President who appeared to be veering into confusion and incoherence. At one point he appeared to argue that his rival's vow to sign the Paris climate accord would lead to US office buildings being constructed without windows. And he suggested Biden wouldn't even know how to define the word "carbon."

...The President did his best to talk up his "transition to greatness," but the idea is so divorced from the awful reality of the last few weeks-- with the average daily rate of new infections hitting 60,000-- that his words only served to display his own considerable remove from reality.

"I think you're going to have some good news very, very quickly having to do with the vaccines," Trump said, at about the same time that Fauci said that it could take a year-to-a-year-and-a-half for the world to get a Covid-19 vaccine, that even then may not be completely effective.

Despite the rolling shutdowns in cities across the country, certain to throw many Americans who work in the service, tourism and transit industries out of work again, the President stuck by his predictions of a riotous return to economic growth.

But absent any credible plans to stem Covid-19's march, all the President has to sell right now is hope.

"I think by Election Day you're going to see some incredible numbers. The third quarter is going to be really good, the fourth quarter is going to be great, but next year is going to be one of the best economic years," he insisted.

"So hopefully I'll be able to be the President where we say, 'Look at the great job I did.'"

And as far as that enthusiasm gap problem... Sure voters aren't enthusiastic about voting for Biden-- how could anyone but a complete jerk or ignoramus be?-- but what they are enthusiastic about is voting against Trump. That looks like it will be enough to get him out of the White House. And even Trump voters aren't filled with anti-Biden jet fuel, the way they were in Hillary's case.