CT Blue

Gone are the days when I felt it my duty to post here every day. I often get an idea for a post, and figure I’ll write it up the next day. But alas, sometimes the next day is too late.

Yesterday I read this post over at the Palmer Report. Again, before I go on, while I don’t always agree with their conclusions, they usually have their facts right. In this case, they reported that Trump is cutting back on his rallies and is going to concentrate on some sort of on-line campaign. In this particular post they attributed the change in direction to his financial troubles, which do in fact exist.

But I thought there might be another reason. It seems that lately every time Trump has got in front of a crowd he has provided his opponents some sort of ammunition, usually a combination of symptoms of senility and embrace of fascism. The latter breaking the rule that you don’t say the quiet part out loud. It seemed to me that the folks running his campaign probably figured they could do better by keeping him out of the public eye.

Brilliant, right?

Well, what do I see on the Palmer Report this morning, before I’m able to sit down and reveal my brilliance to the world. This post, in which they make precisely the point I was about to make, thereby qualifying/refuting the point they made originally.

By using money problems as an excuse, Trump’s handlers are now getting him away from the rigors of the campaign trail. They’re setting him up to campaign from a safe, stress free environment in which he can literally roll out of bed and babble for an hour into a Zoom app before lying back down. And because virtual events don’t tend to be considered “real” campaign events, fewer in the media will pay attention. Which is of course the whole point. Trump’s babysitters don’t want the media or the public to notice Trump at all. They just don’t want to face questions about why Trump isn’t appearing in public.

Trump, for his part, appears to be at a stage of dementia where the people around him can convince him of anything just by repeating it enough times. So he’ll presumably go along with this idea that he’ll mainly be campaigning from home because Letitia James and E. Jean Carroll stole all his money. Of course the real reason he’ll be “campaigning” from home is that he’s a fully senile man who can’t appear in public without making himself even more non-viable.

To a certain extent, the Republicans and their rich backers are stuck with Trump and have to make the best of things. They’ve created a voter base that refuses to let him go, so their only alternative is to run him, hope he wins, and then basically control him. It is very likely that by January he will be even farther gone, and all they’d have to do is put a pen in his hand and tell him to sign on the dotted line, guiding his hand if necessary, though you have to wonder how they’ll get around the tradition of the inaugural speech, which he’d surely be unable to carry off.

You also have to wonder how effective he has been at schmoozing the rich contributors, as the New York Times reports he’s been doing. It’s hard to believe they can’t see the signs and you have to wonder whether they eventually conclude that their money is better spent on other Republican candidates.

Finally, on a sort of related subject, you can see why so many Republican politicians are kissing his ass, hoping to be named his VP. The eventual nominee loses nothing if they lose, but if they win they can always invoke the 25th Amendment a week or so after the inauguration.