W.J. Astore
I’ve been thinking that Donald Trump is going to lose on November 3rd.
Why? It’s just a feeling, but I think enough Americans are tiring of his act to tip the scales to Joe Biden, which in my view is not a lot to celebrate.
Senator Joseph McCarthy had his run of malicious lies and denunciations in the alleged cause of anti-communism, but the American people tired of him. They came to reject a man with no sense of decency — a man of no shame. Trump is also indecent and shameless — and reckless with his accusations. These qualities endear him to his closest followers, but over time they lose their appeal to those who aren’t as enamored with the man-child.
Today we learned Trump released his own video of his interview on “60 Minutes.” I chuckled when I read his description of his performance:
“Watch [Stahl’s] constant interruptions [and] anger. Compare my full, flowing and ‘magnificently brilliant’ answers,” Trump tweeted along with the link to the interview.
“Magnificently brilliant”: you have to hand it to Trump. What modesty! The “very stable genius” strikes again.
Readers of Bracing Views know I like to cite my father and one of his favorite sayings: An empty barrel makes the most noise. I think enough Americans are tiring of that noise, and enough have recognized the emptiness of the man, to throw the election to Biden. Which, again, is not a lot to celebrate.
Readers, what do you think on this eve before the last debate? Any predictions?
Bracing Views 
If Americans were tired of senseless noise, they would turn off the TV, take off their masks (beyond the COVID19 narrative) and get to work fixing their collective & respective democracies, economies & government. Biden is as bad as Trump and Americans are, by and large, worse than both for allowing the greatest experiment in human history to become a slow-motion technicolor train wreck of optimistic promises divorced from the reality of government as we know it. This election is like asking someone if s/he wants to get punched in the face or kicked in the crotch, although I don’t know whether TheOrangeMenance or GropeyJoe is the face; HL Mencken was correct when he wrote that we will get the government we deserve, good and hard. Cue the credits and prep the pitchforks…
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Astute and pungent assessment.
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I think it would be better to say we get the government we are served. The election of Trump was a desperate act to smash things in DC and it worked only to destroy the appearance of propriety and very necessary government regulation, not to improve things, except for Trump. The need for change is still as important as ever but Trump has taken us even further away from the change needed. The bull has smashed all the china but we remain a democracy of lobbies and Biden will be happy to keep that going as it is all he knows. Danger threatens in many forms from climate change to the extradition of Julian Assange to kill the freedom of the press and nobody is paying attention.
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But less us not forget that Trump was elected by a minority of the voting citizenry. This republic would move a bit closer to democratic ideals if the horrid Electoral College was abolished.
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For everyone who dislikes the electoral college, I would like to point out that in 1960 Nixon won the popular vote. The foundational idea behind it is that the little states should not be ignored, a form of protecting the minority from the excesses of the majority. Ninety five percent of our population lives on either the east or west coast, the other 5% live in the ‘small’ states.
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“One vote per citizen,” regardless of where you reside. That’s my program.
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It’s not one of my “things” to make predictions about politicians or dictators. It my hope that enough people show up to cast the requisite number of votes to restore a some adulthood to the White House and beyond that to the appearance and functioning of the United States in the world.
It really doesn’t matter if the election of former Vice President Biden is a thing to bring on great outpourings of a celebratory nature. But the election of Biden over Trump may well means that the American Constitution and concept of a democratic republic will triumph over an evil sort of Nazi-like dictatorship (as Trump likes to say) ‘the likes of which the world has never seen’.
That in itself will be something to celebrate.
Those who bemoan Biden as just a same-old, same-old establishment wonk best not just retreat in their misery. Should Biden win it will then become incumbent on those who carp about how “unprogressive” he is to just get to work to help push the country in a new, perhaps better direction.
Under a new, American fascist nation, those who desire a progressive change won’t get the chance.
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I have set aside a bottle of sparkling cider (I can only afford real champagne on very rare occasions!) to hopefully celebrate a Trump defeat. Get it? Not a Biden victory, but just an impossible-to-reverse rejection of The Donald. A Biden landslide win?? I’m very skeptical of THAT transpiring.
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I’ll drink to that.
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Me, too!
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Me Three…!
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Greg, remember that Trump doesn’t drink so wouldn’t his defeat be the very thing to celebrate with at least a beer?
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Just a personal thing for me. I only drink beer in the summer. The cider is just to simulate real bubbly; I have some Glenlivet on hand for really special occasions. But how long will we have to wait after Nov. 3 to have a reliable answer to the little question: Who actually won?? This is gonna be the craziest election yet.
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I had to laugh out loud at Trump’s self-description!! I know Mr. Pence complained after the VP affair that Susan Page of USA Today was pitching him “hostile” (i.e. difficult, i.e. reality-based) questions, and Trump says Ms. Stahl was very “hostile” toward him. I only heard one soundbite, via CBS Radio News, in which Trump tried the bully approach of just rolling over the questioner with the statement “And you know this is true” [re: MSM “hostility”], with the interviewer coming back at him with “No, I don’t know that to be true.” So what does Angry Baby Trump do? He stomps out of the sandbox. Are we shocked? As for the outcome of this election, I dare not predict a Biden victory. CNN online is reporting mail-in ballots are already being tossed in the trash on “technicalities.” Naturally, this is in areas of the country expected to lean Democratic but with GOP control of the voting process.
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Greg: was that self-description, or self-deception? 🙂
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Self-deception, I think, is in that category of concepts Trump simply can’t grasp. Does he actually believe his statements are truthful? No, he’s just being a “reality TV star” spewing his dialogue. But as I’ve stated here before, in his own warped mind I’m sure he thinks he’s The Center of the Universe, and Jesus Christ and Jehovah God are small potatoes by comparison.
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Well, I can make one prediction with absolute certainty:
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“Louis XIV is usually considered a master monarch, largely because people tend to accept a successfully dramatized self-estimation [emphasis added]. In reality he exhausted France’s economic and human resources by his ceaseless wars and their cost in national debt, casualties, famine and disease, and he propelled France toward the collapse that could only result, as it did two regimes later, in the overturn of absolute monarchy, the Bourbon raison d’être. Seen in that light, Louis XIV is the prince of policy pursued contrary to ultimate self-interest. Not he, but the mistress of his successor, Mme de Pompadour, glimpsed the outcome: ‘After us the deluge.'” — Barbara Tuchman, The March of Folly.
For the American analogue to Louis XIV, one has to look at George W. Bush (a.k.a., “the Shrub,” as Molly Ivins called him). Compared to baby Bush — who destabilized much of the globe, sending the US corporate empire into a financial and military death spiral — Donald J. Trump looks more like a second generation Mme de Pompadour without the self-awareness. When it comes to “successfully dramatizing one’s own self-estimation” Donald Trump has managed that only half as many times as Deputy Dubya, Sheriff Dick Cheney’s Barney Fife. To date, I have not seen Donald Trump pretending to clear sagebrush from a make-believe “ranch” in Texas or parading around in a “top gun” flight suit on an aircraft carrier flight deck like a randy bantam rooster at an avian mating ritual. Donald Trump the carnival- barker, snake-oil salesman has only provided half-time entertainment compared to Dick and Dubya’s epic two-term melt-down.
Donald Trump an amateur Mussolini? Perhaps. An amateur Hitler? Don’t make me laugh.
At any rate, as my favorite Australian after Julian Assange, the lady artist/journalist Caitlin Johnstone, recently pointed out, apropos of the upcoming corporate-tool acquiescence charade on November 3:
Things you will eliminate by getting rid of Trump:
Trump
Things you will not eliminate by getting rid of Trump:
The factors which led to Trump
The evils that Trump facilitated
Some new evils that Trump couldn’t get away with
A system which only allows evil presidents
~
Do you not think it odd that the single most important civic duty you’re told you’ll ever perform is always a vote for more war, more oligarchy, more authoritarianism, more ecocide, more exploitation and more plutocratic theft?
So stand by for “more” America. You might get less Donald Trump, but since you apparently demand more Sheriff Dick and Deputy Dubya foisted on you by the Pentagram, FBI, and CIA, you may just get your wish.
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An outstanding post on all counts. Could not agree more vehemently. Good call, including the Louis XIV info. I hadn’t considered it, but yes, Dubya bore a notable resemblance, in policy terms. As for comparing the Dumpster with Il Duce, maybe. My first thought is an unnamed evil, demented clown.
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I voted against Trump last week (though I swore I wouldn’t vote for Biden), as Texas is apparently in play now. I only waited in line 15min to vote. It was festive at the polling location, a big tour bus with “Vote with us!” written across the side was parked in the lot. Lionel Ritchie’s ‘Brick House’ was blasting from the speakers. Kids were dancing, waiting for their folks. While I went through the process, with every new voter, a poll worker would announce, “We have a first time voter here!”, and all of us would cheer. There were 6 first time voters in the 5 min it took to vote. It was the best voting experience I’ve ever had.
Too bad the candidates sucked.
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Reportedly 50 MILLION of us have already voted!! Quite unprecedented. This really is a referendum on Trump. Do we keep the Bombastic Boor or subject ourselves to the Boring Mainstream Imperialist? Tonight’s affair had way too much repetition of what both guys said in the first round, but I have to say the biggest laugh line for me was Trump’s repeated claim to be the best buddy black and Hispanic folks have ever had! (Didn’t stop him from reverting to talk of those “Mexican rapists”!) Memo to Biden: It’s ‘Proud Boys.’ A Poor Boy is a New Orleans sammitch! And aren’t we shocked that Trump again declined to use the occasion to denounce racist violent extremists?!
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Yes, indeed, it was a telling “debate.” Now I have to write about it …
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Biden: Criminal?
I restate your title, and tweak this good line by one word: “I think enough Americans are tiring of that noise, and enough have recognized the emptiness of the man, to throw the election to (insert different name here)”. When it comes to politics, Americans don’t focus well. But when they do, they focus clearly!
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I’ve never heard a man more impressed with himself than Trump. He reminds me a bit of Captain Queeg in the Caine Mutiny. Petty, vindictive, always blaming someone else, capable of much noise and nuisance but incapable of true leadership.
Biden, to me, is just a figurehead. A mediocre politician in decline.
Trump has done much harm in service of his own ego. Can Biden do more harm? It’s difficult to say, but I don’t think so.
All that said, I voted for neither.
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It’s quite possible we will arrive at Jan. 20 with Trump not having launched any new major military actions. (On the other hand, anyone got any reliable info about the alleged troops reduction in Afghanistan? Maybe they were all phantom troops in the first place?) Very good chance that will change in a Biden presidency. So, do we support Trump as “a peace candidate”?! I think not. Woodrow Wilson’s campaign slogan for 1916: “He kept us out of war.” Well, that situation changed in the first year of his second term, as the US entered World War I. Decisions on war and peace, fundamentally, are not made by an individual POTUS. They are made by the representatives of the dominant Ruling Class faction of the time. Had those currently in control insisted on new major military actions, Trump would have bowed to them–or found himself somehow removed from office. Our country, sadly, is thoroughly addicted to war. Replacing Trump with Biden won’t change that one bit. It is muffling–we know he’ll never fully shut up until he’s summoned to the Great Beyond!–of the racism, the misogyny, the xenophobia, the idiocy about the Climate Crisis, etc. that I hope will come to pass soon.
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