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Slouching toward Election Day


As they stand in a barn full of cow manure at the Butler Farm Show grounds, look how Elon Musk towers over Trump.  Mind you Donald claims to be 6'-3" (191 cm).  Yet, Musk is listed at 6'-2" (188 cm.).  Musk does appear to be wearing heeled boots, but then Trump is also known to wear lifts to boost his height.  The rally was pretty much a bust with Musk becoming an overnight viral sensation with his flying leap.  

Yet, Team Trump hailed it as a victory in returning to the scene of the crime, where Trump allegedly had his ear clipped by a bullet.  No sign of any damage to his ear lobe upon his return.  These tell tale signs matter, as it shows the depth of Trump's pathological lying.  Yes, he did get shot at, but it was the fireman who took the bullet behind him, not Trump.  He paid a tribute of sorts to Corey Comperatore, but in retelling the incident he focused on himself, noting that he is "bulletproof." 

It was this incident that supposedly led Musk to endorse Trump. Up to that point Mr. X had been noncommittal.  However, many thought the assassination attempt would propel Trump to victory and Musk wanted a "seat at the table."  Not that it worked out very well the first time.  However, the polls didn't reflect any major uptick in support, despite the media covering the shooting and its aftermath 24/7 with short breaks for the ongoing saga of whether Joe Biden would remain in the race after his disastrous debate performance in late June.  Nevertheless, the mood of the campaign seemed to be turning in Trump's favor.  

Mark Zuckerberg also thought it was pretty "badass" the way Trump raised his fist in front of the American flag.  He seemed one breath away from endorsing Trump himself.  That would have been interesting to see both Musk and Zuck vying for Trump's affection after the two had been threatening a "cage match" for well over a year.  Trump could have presided over the fight like he once presided over the WWE.  But, Zuck held his breath and the moment was lost.  

In many ways, Zuck would have been the better choice for Trump.  Zuck had also lifted the social media ban on Trump, claiming he regretted "caving into the White House" after the January 6 insurrection.  Zuck is only 5'-9" (171 cm) tall and would have presented a more favorable height advantage for Trump.  

Anyway, Trump chose Musk and the two have become bosom buddies, or so we are led to believe.  It looks like Musk told a good joke, whether about Kamala Harris or Zuckerberg, we can only guess.  By this point, Joe Biden was no longer in the race and Trump was desperately trying to find a line of attack on Harris.  Instead, the rally was remembered for Musk's viral leap.  It seems Trump was having second thoughts judging from this photograph.


As I said in the previous post, it is really hard to gauge what is going on in this election.  Rather than contribute directly to Trump's campaign, "Leon" (as Donald affectionately calls him) created his own AmericaPAC, and invested approximately $75 million in it.  Not quite the $45 million per month he allegedly pledged but certainly an impressive sum.  Even still, Musk's super PAC has struggled to meet outreach targets.  Like Twitter, he has ventured into an unknown domain he knows little about and appears to have hired the wrong people to guide him.  

Since the $47 per registered voter scheme didn't work, he is now randomly awarding a million dollars on a daily basis to new "registered voters" who sign his online petition, essentially turning the election into a lottery.  So far the Democratic reaction has been "deeply concerning."

This is an attempt to save a failed voter registration drive that has relied exclusively on the internet to solicit new voters.  Here again the Millennial could have really helped out Trump.  Zuck has a much better track record when it comes to social media outreach.  But, Donald has never forgiven Zuck for banning him on facebook, and actually threatened the social media mogul with "life in prison" for plotting against him in the 2020 election.

Musk is widely regarded as having "saved" Twitter from wokeness by opening it up to anyone who wants to vent on social media.  He reinstated all sorts of controversial figures and has pretty much turned Twitter into Gab with a much broader outreach.  Those within Trump's inner circle think that Musk will bring a greater segment of the "alt-right" crowd into their camp, allowing them to counter the loss of the female and "beta male" vote in this election.  Good luck with that.  To date, Twitter has lost 75% of its value thanks to Musk's dubious leadership.

It reminds me of American Horror Story: Cult, which focused on the aftermath of the 2016 election.  We were introduced to a cult of literal basement dwellers who thought their time had come with Trump's ascendancy to the White House to leave their nests, only to be easily outwitted by women. 

Team Trump is busy scraping the bottom of the barrel again, hoping to find basement dwellers his campaign missed the first two times, largely 18-21 year old disaffected young men who weren't old enough to vote in 2020.  Yet, studies show that Gen Z is politically made up of women and beta males who voted Democratic in 2022, helping to tilt key states like Pennsylvania and elect young US Representatives like Maxwell Frost of Florida.  These young men and women have grown up in an era of school shootings and have little time for the "Thoughts and Prayers" Republicans.  Yet, Team Trump seems to think there is an underbelly that hasn't fully expressed itself yet.  Maybe the guys that quietly supported the shooters?

It was one of these young shooters who took aim at Trump at his first rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, only to miss and hit three others behind him, killing Corey Comperatore.  It seems even this disaffected following isn't pleased with Trump.  I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but I found it odd that the secret service and local police both spotted the young man before he fired and yet failed to act quickly.  The Secret Service was roundly chastized afterward.

Since then there have been two other "assassination attempts" on Trump, both of which sound pretty sketchy.  It's almost like Team Trump is using these assassination attempts to elicit sympathy from potential voters, but it doesn't seem to be yielding the desired results.  Most of the folk at the Coachella rally were left stranded in the California desert after Team Trump fled the site.  The MAGA cult members had been bussed five miles (8 km) into the searing hot rally site so that they couldn't quietly leave early. This gained far more press coverage than the alleged shooter.

Trump might have won this election if Biden had refused to step down.  As dodderly as Don has become these days, he still looks more vigorous than the rapidly aging Joe Biden.  However, Donald no longer has that advantage, appearing to be visibly tired from the hectic schedule he must keep to match Kamala's impressive road show.  Recently, we were told he was too exhausted to face interviews even with target audiences in The Shade RoomWaka Flocka Flame, a Trump supporter, was offered as a replacement.

Meanwhile, Kamala goes on Fox and draws a viewing audience of 7 million the same day she held a rally in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.  Not only did she hold her own against a ruthless Brett Baier, but challenged him when he posted a video clip trying to claim that Trump never threatened to go after Democrats if elected.  Baier later "admitted" he posted the wrong clip.  Score one for Kamala!

Trump was able to regain his energy to attend the Al Smith Dinner in New York.  Kamala Harris chose to skip the quadrennial event and Trump let her know about it.  There was Democratic representation in Senate Leader Chuck Schumer, who was forced to endure Trump's 30-minute rant.  This photo of Trump with Cardinal Timothy Dolan, an arch-conservative priest, says it all.  Even Dolan appears to tower over the Slouching Don.


Trump has turned this entire election cycle into a farce, helping to feed the cynicism that most people have of the electoral process.  For her part, Kamala has tried to "go high," in the words of Michelle Obama, but some in her camp feel she is not doing enough to attack Trump in these closing weeks of the campaign.  As much as people say they want their politicians to take the high road, most seem to enjoy watching the campaign descend into the gutter.  It certainly has for Donald J. Trump, and there is little Elon Musk or any of his supportive billionaires can do about it.  


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