Sep.24

electoral-vote.com

Dem 47

   

GOP 53

Trump Goes Nuts

The last few days have been wild, even by the standards of Donald Trump. With another president, each of these stories would at least get its own item. With Trump, just to keep up, we can only do capsules:

• The U.N. Speech: Yesterday, Trump delivered the first U.N. address of his second term. You can watch the whole 57-minute performance here, if you're a real glutton for punishment.
  
  We're gonna have to be blunt here: The speech was an embarrassment. If you are an American, whether you are pro-Trump or not, you should feel shame that this man just spoke to the world on your behalf, and behaved as he did. The first portion of the address was yet another rundown of Trump's "accomplishments," as he patted himself on the back for everything from the Abraham Accords to his having ushered in "the greatest economy in the history of the world." The verbiage was not only over-the-top but, as many observers noticed, it bore a striking resemblance to the stuff that used to come out of communist Russia. Indeed, some folks (e.g., Kamala Harris) have taken to calling Trump a communist dictator, which surely must drive him nuts.
  
  The second part of the speech was pure American chauvinism. Trump alternated between telling the delegates about how the U.S. is the greatest nation in the world, and they should learn from America's example, and telling them how their own countries are sh**holes. Ok, he didn't use that exact word, but he did warn the nations of the world that their countries are "going to hell," primarily because of their immigration and green-energy policies (the latter of which he described as "the greatest con job ever perpetrated"). He also got petty, carped about the fact that the escalator he used to ride up to the assembly hall broke down while he was on it, and pointed out that his company once offered to renovate the U.N. building, and was rebuffed. Presumably, the delegates were supposed to regret turning down his generous offer all those years ago. We suspect that what they were really thinking is that the escalator broke down because Trump pushed it above the weight limit when he stepped on it.
  
  There is simply no excuse for this kind of behavior from any representative of the United States, much less the person who is Head of State. None of this is particularly appropriate material for any sort of public utterance. It's completely inappropriate for that forum. If Joe Biden had pulled that stunt, House Republicans would be drawing up articles of impeachment right now, and they might well be right to do so.
  
  
• Russia: The U.N. performance was not the only "diplomacy" for Trump yesterday. Apparently he has abandoned his plans to win a Nobel Peace Prize, as he got on his formerly-RT-affiliated social media platform, and fired off a long, rambling message in which he slammed Russia as a "paper tiger" and said he hopes Ukraine wins back all the territory it has lost. Later in the day, he appeared on MSNBC, and said that he'd like to see NATO shoot down any Russian jets that venture into NATO airspace. All of this would be a much bigger story if Trump's views on the Russia-Ukraine War were not constantly taking 180-degree turns. That said, such inflammatory rhetoric is not especially likely to advance the cause of peace.
  
  
• The Kirk Memorial: We know this was a couple of days ago, but we wanted to mention it here because the things that Donald Trump said on that day were very impolitic. He declared that, in effect, half of the people he was elected to represent are his enemy. Americans do not like it when politicians say such things.
  
  We also regret that we did not give at least a little attention to the absolutely bonkers remarks that Stephen Miller delivered on that day. He also talked about the enemies within, and although he did not say the word "Democrat" explicitly, his intended target was clear:

  They cannot imagine what they have awakened. They cannot conceive of the army that they have arisen in all of us because we stand for what is good, what is virtuous, what is noble. And to those trying to incite violence against us, those trying to foment hatred against us, what do you have? You have nothing. You are nothing. You are wickedness. You are jealousy. You are envy. You are hatred. You are nothing. You can build nothing. You can produce nothing. You can create nothing.

  Very, very dark. And very reminiscent of a fellow who... well, let's just say someone who would not have cared too much for Stephen Miller.
  
  Either because of grief, or because Kirk's death was an excuse to do so, Trump and Miller pretty clearly crossed some lines that should not be crossed. It's a misstep we think, and the libertarian-leaning folks at Reason agree with us. In a piece headlined "Why the Charlie Kirk Memorial Might Spell the End of Trump and MAGA," that site's Nick Gillespie opines that the memorial may have been the high-water mark for MAGA, as Kirk is no longer around to rally the troops, Trump's approval numbers are slipping, and this us-vs.-them, bunker-mentality stuff is a real turn-off to everyone who is not hardcore MAGA.
  
  
• The Tylenol Thing: We wrote about the "Tylenol causes autism" story yesterday, of course. But maybe we were a little shellshocked by all the B.S. that was flying around, because we missed a few things we want to add.
  
  First, we noted that putting the blame for autism on taking Tylenol serves to shift the responsibility for the condition away from mom's and dad's genes, so they can feel less guilty. Several readers wrote in to point out that it's actually more nefarious than that. If you say that the thing that causes autism is Tylenol, then you shift the burden away from dad's and mom's genes, and you place the burden squarely on... mom. That is to say, if you have autism, it is apparently because mom did irresponsible things, because she was too selfish or too stupid to suck it up and skip the medication. Dad, meanwhile, is completely off the hook.
  
  Second, as reader J.G. in San Diego, CA, points out, Team Trump chose a really stupid alternative scapegoat to vaccines for their big announcement. Inasmuch as J.G. is a pediatrician, we are just going to share the message they sent in, because we don't want to introduce errors in summarizing it:

  A few things:
  
  

  1. You noted by moving the focus from genetics to Tylenol, it takes responsibility away from the parents. Kinda. It takes responsibility away from the DAD. "Aw look, the kid's autistic, I told you that you shouldn't have taken that Tylenol when you were pregnant, you fu**ed up."
     
     What they REALLY should have "found" was something that was absolutely NOT mom or dad's fault, like Wifi or cellular electromagnetism, or bioengineered viruses. That is what makes vaccines so attractive. It wasn't your fault, they MADE you vaccinate these kids, the kid would be 100% normal but for the vaccines.
     
     Tylenol simply doesn't work for that. That just puts the onus on women. "If you had just sucked it up and dealt with it he'd be 100% normal." That is NOT what women want to hear. They want to hear, "It wasn't MY FAULT." This is saying it WAS their fault. Directly. Because they took Tylenol.
     
     
  2. What do they do when the Tylenol avoiders are like, "Okay but my kid is still autistic, now what?" They needed to hit the "Tylenol isn't the ONLY cause, but it is one" idea harder than they did. They will already get plenty of pushback from the "Hey, my kid is autistic, and I've never taken Tylenol" crowd.
     
     
  3. It's the same with leucovorin. Is it possible your kid is autistic because of cerebral folate deficiency? Sure. 1/2 a percent of autism, maybe? But now you are going to have all these families who get leucovorin and are like, "It did nothing."
     
     This is what was so brilliant about ivermectin for COVID. Most people were going to get over COVID anyway, so giving them a placebo makes it seem like, "Well, I got over it, and I took ivermectin, those two things must be related." But the 99.5% of kids with autism who DON'T get better with leucovorin... WTF are you going to tell them?
     
     Further, some kids with autism get worse over time, more seizures, etc. When you give those kids leucovorin and they get WORSE... what are you going to say?

  Thanks, J.G. Clearly, neither the medical "professionals" in the Trump administration, nor the political operatives, thought this one through very well. That may explain why at least some of the medical "professionals," such as "Doctor" Oz, spent yesterday walking back the "Don't take Tylenol" advice. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), who could have prevented this by voting against Robert Kennedy Jr. for HHS Secretary, also tried to do medical damage control yesterday.
  
  One more thing, and we wish we'd thought to mention this. This whole situation, in which the nation's leaders flail about, trying to find the "bad guy" responsible for the "curse" of autism, serves to stigmatize the many people who have been diagnosed with the condition. That really sucks; they don't deserve that.
  
  
• The Walk of Fame: This is nowhere near as harmful as the other stuff on this list, but it does serve as something of a surreal dessert after this parade of madness. It would seem Trump has decided to turn the famous White House colonnade, where a great many historic photos have been taken, into a "Presidential Walk of Fame." See for yourself:
  
  
  
  Sigh... so tacky. Trump refuses to say which presidents are going to make the cut, but he did suggest there would be no Joe Biden portrait. That's actually good news; it will make it easier for the next president to say that the display is not a serious attempt to capture the history of the presidency, and to send the whole thing to the garbage dumpster.

Trump is very, very obviously leaning very, very hard into what his instincts tell him to do, into theatrics, and into red meat for the base. It can't be a coincidence that all of these things keep coming, one after another after another. Is it because of his approval ratings, which are getting close to his first-term lows? Is he trying to distract from Jeffrey Epstein? Is he losing emotional/mental control? Is it the after-effects of a stroke? Is it something else? Your guess is as good as ours, but it's got to be something. (Z)