Skip to main content

Stalker




The very fact that Donald showed up was a victory in itself.  Not only that but he surrounded himself with Clinton victims beforehand in a brazen effort to deflect media attention away from the misogynistic tapes that grow by the day.  He even wanted to have the women join his family box at the debate, but was refused.  No doubt something he will emphasize this week, hoping to turn attention away from what was another dreadful debate performance.

He lost when he threatened to prosecute Hillary if he is elected President, and petulantly retorted when Hillary challenged him that she would be in jail now if he had been in charge of laws in this country.  He doesn't want to be President, he wants to be dictator, and like his good buddy Vladimir Putin wants to stifle opposition by putting his adversaries behind bars.  What a far cry from the man who just four years ago praised Hillary Clinton as a "great woman."

There was no handshake this time around.  They glowered at each other from the start.  Trump who didn't even try to contain his anger and contempt, in the end projected it on Hillary when asked what he would do to heal the country.  He once again claimed that She and Obama are the ones who divided this nation.

When it came to taxes, he readily admitted he used his monumental losses of 1995 to write off federal income taxes for years afterward, but once again turned the blame on Hillary by saying that she is the one who allowed the loophole in the tax codes for her friends Warren Buffett and George Soros.  I was surprised Anderson Cooper didn't challenge the utter absurdity of this claim.  It is hard to say what time frame Trump was referring to, although it seems he was referring to her time in the Senate from 2001-2009, which doesn't coincide to the time he began writing off his losses.

Trump was brash and unapologetic throughout the debate, determined to rally his alt-conservative base in the general election.  I'm sure in their eyes he came out a big winner, feeding straight into all their fantasies with one conspiracy theory after another as he blamed every ill over the past three decades on Hillary Clinton.  There was absolutely no attempt to ground any of his arguments in fact, whether claiming high crime rates or drugs flooding across the borders or holding Hillary personally responsible for Capt. Humayun Khan's death, saying there would have been no war in Iraq if he had been President.

Like so much that we hear from the alt-conservative universe, everything has become conflated into the last 8 years.  No one remembers that this war started in 2003 or that Capt. Khan was killed in 2004 under Bush's tenure, and that ISIS has been around at least that long.  In Donald's addled mind all the problems we see in the Middle East began in 2011 when we pulled out of Iraq, a war he steadfastly claims he never supported yet blames Obama and Clinton for ending.

Trump continued to talk over Hillary like he did in the first debate. but what was particularly creepy was the way he stalked behind her, reinforcing his predatory nature.  For her part, Hillary returned to her seat after her two minutes, not once interrupting Donald as he flew off on his harangues.  Why should she?  He damaged himself far more than she ever could.

Still, some news outlets are claiming Trump won the debate.  One would expect this from Hannity or Breitbart, but CBS News?   It just shows how much some news stations still want to see a horse race when Donald pulled up lame long ago.  At this point, all he has is his alt-conservative base.  What ever middle ground he was hoping to reach for is gone and he doesn't seem to care.  It's as if he expects some massive turnout of the underclass, like the Brexit vote, to carry him to victory.

Not surprising, Nigel Farage was in his corner after the debate, reminding us just how far this right-wing movement extends beyond our borders.  This isn't a referendum.  It is a Presidential election and Trump has far too many negatives to carry him to victory in November.  But, you have to hand it to Donald, he is not going down without a fight.


Comments

  1. Hard to figure what CBS was looking for as far as a winner is concerned. There was only one sane participant in that "debate," and I thought, under the egregious circumstances, Hillary did okay. If you've never debated someone who is completely immune to the truth, I don't think you can appreciate what she was up against.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And now we know what Trump was up to while standing behind Hillary. He was checking her out and, of course, was not impressed. Seriously? A sixty-eight year old grandmother has to worry about that?

      Delete
  2. Now Trump wants drug tests before the next debate. This guy will say anything to get attention,

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-we-should-take-a-drug-test-prior-to-the-debate-172900453.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Not sure how the Clinton campaign will reply. I would point out that as long as Trump's medical bill of health has been provided by someone with about as much credibility as Marcus Welby, this is a non-starter.

      Delete
  3. I guess he hoped to bring up more speculation on Hillary's health, but he's off on more tangents including once again making claims that vote is rigged. You would think he was running for mayor of some remote Russian province.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

O Pioneers!

It is hard not to think of Nebraska without thinking of its greatest writer.  Here is a marvelous piece by Capote, Remembering Willa Cather . I remember seeing a stage production of O Pioneers! and being deeply moved by its raw emotions.  I had read My Antonia before, and soon found myself hooked, like Capote was by the simple elegance of her prose and the way she was able to evoke so many feelings through her characters.  Much of it came from the fact that she had lived those experiences herself. Her father dragged the family from Virginia to Nebraska in 1883, when it was still a young state, settling in the town of Red Cloud. named after one of the great Oglala chiefs.  Red Cloud was still alive at the time, living on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, in the aftermath of the "Great Sioux Wars" of 1876-77.  I don't know whether Cather took any interest in the famous chief, although it is hard to imagine not.  Upon his death in 1909, he was eulogi

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

  Welcome to this month's reading group selection.  David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908.  At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades.  Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society.  I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran.  Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro

Colonel

Now with Colonel Roosevelt , the magnum opus is complete. And it deserves to stand as the definitive study of its restless, mutable, ever-boyish, erudite and tirelessly energetic subject. Mr. Morris has addressed the toughest and most frustrating part of Roosevelt’s life with the same care and precision that he brought to the two earlier installments. And if this story of a lifetime is his own life’s work, he has reason to be immensely proud.  -- Janet Maslin -- NY Times . Let the discussion begin!