Give the Trumps credit. They aren’t hiding what they intend to do. Take this week’s farcical remarks by Trump, Ivanka, and Don Trump, Jr. about how Trump will place his businesses into a blind trust if he’s elected.

Trump could barely be bothered to complete his sentences when asked this question.  I’m paraphrasing, but he said, “If I’m elected, I’ll be so busy . . . .  All the winning . . . . I’m not going to have time to . . . . My businesses will be in a blind trust. You won’t believe how tin-cup, Mr- Magoo- blind it will be.  A blind trust, and my kids; they are here today; my kids will run it.”

Later in the day Ivanka (So smart! So stylish!) repeated that she and her brothers will run his companies, including the several hundred liability shield subsidiaries.  Many financial experts have pointed out that such a vague arrangement would be neither “blind” nor a “trust.”

A blind trust is George W. Bush or John Kerry placing their considerable wealth under third-party management, without their knowledge of how the money is being invested.  Trump already knows how much money he owes to Russian investors.  He already knows how much he owes to Chinese banks.  He already knows who the vendors are that he’s suing in civil court.

If Trump were elected “President”, if he were even a little bit magnanimous, he’d drop every active law suit that his companies are involved in on favorable terms to the other party.  Does anyone think for a minute that he’d do such a thing?  Or that he wouldn’t use the power of the presidency to put the screws to these people? Does anyone doubt that a “President” “Trump” would do the following:

Continue to run his global branding business from the White House.

Start a cable news network that he’ll run from the Oval Office.

Use the prestige of the presidency to intimidate small and medium businesses in civil court.

Use the prestige of the presidency to sue his critics in civil court for libel.

The banana-republic (not the stores)-level of corruption we can expect from a Trump Administration goes far beyond what terms like “conflict of interest” describe.  It’s why Trump has had success.  We need a new language to describe him. Although, “jagoff” is pretty good.

———

On a separate note Don Trump, Jr. told the truth in Pittsburgh yesterday when he said, that his dad won’t release his taxes because it would turn 300 million Americans into tax auditors. Yeah, it’s a democracy. That’s kind of the point of requiring candidates to release their tax returns to the public.

Hillary’s not allowed to be sick right now.  Not with two months to go. That’s not fair. But, that’s the way it is. I have no doubt that Hillary has the stamina and health to be president. But, now she has to show that she has the stamina and health to win the presidency.

I live in Manhattan. It was hot and steamy Friday, Saturday, and 9/11 Sunday. Not so much the heat as the humidity.  I can’t imagine standing in a crowd, in a business suit, in that humidity. I spent the day in shorts and a t-shirt and couldn’t handle being outside for longer than it took me to walk to the corner grocery.

The campaign says that she’ll be back on the campaign trail Thursday. A number of doctors have suggested that in order to recover from pneumonia, she should take six days or so off. Maybe this is for the best. She’s a terrible campaigner.  Maybe it is better for her to run a Twenty-First Century version of a front-porch campaign, with Barack, Joe, Tim, and Big Bill doing the talking, and Hillary receiving visitors at Chappaqua where, between sips of herbal tea, she describes her plans for making community college more affordable.   And then she re-emerges at the first debate in radiant health, eviscerating the puffy Donald Trump.

The other scenario is that she yields the floor to Trump all week.  She’ll make a few calls into talk shows. Tim Kaine will report that, “I have talked to Hillary on the phone today. She sounds great.”  Thirteen days from now she could still be coughing at the first debate.

She can’t help that she’s sick.  But, she can’t be sick right now.  Even before Sunday, she’s been a very faint presence on the campaign trail.  She left her convention with a massive bump and then sat on her lead through August and spent the time raising a lot of money, with the idea that she’d use September to elaborate on her policies and vision for the country.

Voters want to see you work for it.  That’s all she has to do to lock this up.  Just show them that she’s a fighter, has some vision, and that she wants their votes.

I’m thinking Obama on election eve in 2008. He had it locked up, but finished the campaign late at night in Pennsylvania at an outdoor rally in a driving rain, water pouring down his face as he spoke and then worked the crowd. He wanted it.

Or her husband in New Hampshire in 1992, (trying to make up for lying about sleeping with Gennifer Flowers) campaigning until his voice gave out and he couldn’t’ speak. He wanted it.

Both she and Trump are old. So, I don’t expect her to campaign like she is 45. But, she needs to step out. Tell us what she believes. Do several events a day.  Dive into the crowd and work rope lines till she’s shaken every hand. She’s gotta show us that she wants it.

———–

Of course, there is a double standard here.  Trump does an event a day. Rarely works a rope line or pops into a coffee shop.  Doesn’t sit down and talk to voters. And most nights flies back home to Trump Tower to sleep in his own bed.  But, he’s a would-be fascist leader, and history has selected Hillary as the only person who can stop him.

———-

My father ran for a local office in 1994. Township Supervisor.

Mid-morning on Election Day, my friend Jim and I were working the polls at the Dry Ridge Volunteer Fire Department, one of the bigger precincts in the township.  My father was making the rounds of the various precincts and pulled his pick-up into the Dry Ridge VFD parking lot. “What’s wrong with your dad? “ Jim asked, as we both noticed him limping across the parking lot, just dragging his left leg behind him.  I hustled over to meet him.

Throughout the election, Dad had in his pick up and I in my car, signs, wooden stakes, a staple gun, and a sledge hammer for either erecting or repairing yard signs.  These hammers were a foot or so long, with big hunks of lead at the top. Early on Election Day, Dad had been erecting signs near various precincts, and, at one such stop, the hammer slipped from his grasp and landed on his left foot.  It was May, and he was wearing canvas sneakers.   I don’t know if it broke his foot, but his big toe was swollen and bruised.

I sympathized with my dad’s pain, but, looking back across the parking lot at the busy polling station, the only solace I could offer was, “You aren’t allowed to break your toe today.”

Trump just can’t tell a joke. Every time he makes a horrific gaffe, like suggesting that gun owners assassinate Hillary if she wins or urging the Russians to hack State Department servers or throwing a mom and her baby out of a rally, his few surrogates and defenders quickly fall back onto the lame, “it was a joke” defense.

Each of these half-hearted attempts to fob off Trump’s unhinged eruptions as jokes reminds me of the scene in the Sopranos in which two gangsters catch Soprano capo Vito Spatafore frolicking in a gay leather bar. Caught red-handed, he can only desperately claim “It’s a joke!!” The clip’s here (with some blue language)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPJDwWrWjFA

One of the many reasons that I loathe Trump is that he degrades all aspects of politics as a profession, including humor and fun.

Humor is important in a president.  It shows emotional intelligence. It shows that they can make fun of themselves. They can also use it as a weapon against their opponents. To demonstrate that even in times of stress, they are emotionally grounded.  To show that they are just having fun on the job.

Trump does none of this. No smiles. No jokes. No fun.

I’ve selected some clips of presidents or presidential candidates being funny.  Try to imagine Trump delivering any of these one liners, or extended comedy bits, or formal jokes, or off- the-cuff ripostes.

Reagan

Reagan could spin a yarn like an old Irishman, but he was a master of a well-delivered one liner.  Here is  his classic answer in the second debate against Walter Mondale during the 1984 election to a moderator’s question about whether his age (he was 73) would affect his ability to perform in office.  Recall that Reagan stumbled badly in the first debate, appearing old and confused, and giving the Mondale campaign a faint glimmer of hope. Reagan’s masterfully delivered joke essentially ended the campaign.

Note to Trump campaign:  You can tell that it’s a joke because everyone—including Mondale and the moderator—are laughing. And Reagan drinks from a glass of water, probably to mask the smile on his own face.

FDR

These clips are from 1938 and 1944, but when you watch them, you realize that FDR could step out of a time machine, appear on a CNN debate or at a rally in Iowa and instantly be declared the front runner.  In these two clips, he’s everything that Trump isn’t:  Intimate, but distant; self-aware enough to poke fun of himself, but always aware of his immense power; and, he’s funny.

Grilled Millionaires Speech

Roosevelt delivered this address at the University of North Carolina in early December 1938. It was a low point of his presidency.  He had over-reached in spectacular fashion with his Supreme Court packing scheme, among other things.  And the Democrats were handily defeated in the November mid-term elections. Here he is responding to his critics. In the face of defeat, he is defiant but ebullient.  He can barely keep a straight face, he’s enjoying himself so much.

My Dog Fala

Here’s Roosevelt again in 1944. The Roosevelts had a scotch terrier named Fala. Republicans were circulating a story that Roosevelt had accidentally left Fala on an island in the Pacific and had re-routed a navy destroyer to retrieve the dog, at great cost to the tax payers.  Roosevelt responded with extended ridicule.

Note to Trump campaign: You can tell it’s a joke because everyone, including the Republicans, are laughing.

 

Hillary

Hillary supporters frequently say that the notoriously scripted and reserved campaigner is warm and funny in person. Every now and then, she’ll throw her head back with a genuine smile and a big, little bit brassy, laugh. Here’s a glimpse of that humor, near the end of what would be 11 hours of testimony before a hostile House Benghazi committee, when a Republican back-bencher is pressing her on whether she was home alone all night during the critical events in Libya.  She shows a sense of the absurd that I find reassuring in a president.

Note to Trump campaign: You know it’s a joke because people are laughing (though not the hapless Representative haplessly searching for a smoking gun.)

George Wallace

And, finally, as promised in the headline, Alabama Governor George Wallace telling a joke in 1964 at Auburn University. Wallace, was, of course, one of the most odious political figures of the 20^th century, a full-blown white supremacist and demagogue. Like Trump, he represented angry white people. I mean, really, really angry racist white people.  But, unlike Trump, he can tell a joke.

Note to Trump campaign: You can tell it’s a joke because 1) he says it’s a joke 2) He uses a format that most human beings recognize as a joke and 3) people are laughing.

 

Watching Khizr and Ghazala Khan out-duel Donald Trump these last few days, I was, like everyone else, moved and impressed by this immigrant couple.

But, as I watched them in multiple interviews over the weekend, I couldn’t shake how familiar they seemed. Something inside me said, “I know you.”  And something about them made me think of the small town I grew up in.

We didn’t have any Pakistanis in Crabtree, Pennsylvania in the 1970s. And, I doubt there are any there now.  Or Muslims of any kind. But when I was a kid, we still had a fair amount of old people who were born in the 19^th Century and immigrated to America in the early part of the 20^th Century.  I would see them around town, walking to get their mail at the post office or leaving the social club at the Volunteer Fire Department in late afternoon. They were contemporaries of my grandparents. Some of the men were veterans of the Great War.  They mostly came from Italy and Eastern Europe and worked in the coal mines in Crabtree and nearby towns.

I hadn’t thought about these people in a long time. Watching the Khans brought them all back.

Like Ghazala most of the women wore head scarves.  Different fabrics and colors and with none of the regrettable political context attached to a hajib. I don’t know why they wore them, perhaps out of modesty and old country tradition. Or perhaps because they were just old and didn’t have access to an array of L’Oréal products to make their hair look fuller and less gray.

Like the Khans, there was a formality to them. Probably because I most frequently encountered them in church, when people dressed up for church, and so I remember the men looking like Mr. Khan.  In a sport coat. Reserved. Mostly bald, speaking clear, but what we used to call “broken,” English.

They were devout Catholics (though some of the men only went to church on Easter and Christmas). Some of them still observed the conservative practice of men and women sitting on opposite sides of the church during mass.

I was an altar boy for years and for one week each summer, each altar boy had to serve the weekday 7:00 a.m mass. No greater hardship for a twelve-year old boy than to wake up at 6:00 a.m on a summer morning, put on long pants, and walk to the un-air conditioned church for the early mass. Attendance was usually sparse, and the congregation was mostly these older immigrants.

Prior to mass, the priest sat in a pew with the congregants and led them in praying the rosary. If, as an altar boy, you arrived at church a little too early, you had to take your place next to the priest until the rosary was completed.  As you kneeled in the pew, you checked Father Kieren’s rosary with great attention to see how far along he was.

I’ll never forget those immigrant voices. “Hail Mary, full of grace,” they said in voices from Italy, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia. In their new country where they were free to pray and work and prosper.

The Khans did America a great service by possibly preventing a deranged, dangerously unprepared man from becoming president. But, their bigger service may have been to introduce Islamic immigrants to people in America who have never met a Muslim, but whose own families came from Belarus, or Krakow, or Sant’ Agata Feltria, Italy.  To allow a nation of immigrants to think, “you look familiar . . . I know you!”

Trump just squeezes every bit of living out of long summer weekends.  None of what I’m listing below is new, but all of these events were from one week end.

A dizzying array of political incompetence and mental illness. As I mentioned in an earlier post if he were my dad, I’d hug him and seek out the best possible institutional care for him.

This was a weekend when new GDP numbers were released on Friday. Any sane and competent campaign would have spent the weekend hammering Obama and Hillary for slow economic growth. Not the Trump campaign. Not a word.

Instead, these were the headlines emanating from the Trump campaign.

He Picks a Fight with the Khans and Has His Ass Handed to Him

Everyone by now knows about the Khans. What’s amazing is that if Trump had any discipline, he could have just stayed quiet, and the story would have faded away after a couple of days.  Instead, he goes after a Gold Star mother and father, and they don’t back down. Man, he picked the wrong Pakistani-Muslim, Gold Star parents to mess with.

Thanks to Trump, they’ve been all over the media all weekend and into this Monday morning, speaking with a dignity and restraint that Trump likely can’t even recognize. I sure that Trump’s asking his lawyers if he can sue them for libel and make them spend $50k in legal fees.

Perhaps, we should thank Trump for making the Khans the face of Islam in America.

Gives a Sarah-Palin Level Disastrous Interview with George Stephanopoulos

Take a coffee break and watch the entire thing.  The link is below. In twenty-two minutes, in addition to ripping the Khans as noted above, he:

Lies about helping to build the Vietnam veterans memorial in NYC.

Lies about not having any relationship with Mike Bloomberg, despite the fact that the media this morning is displaying photos of him playing golf with Bloomberg, attending baseball games with him, showing up at other public events with him.

He says that Russia should be allowed to keep the Crimea.

He says Russia is not going to move into the Ukraine. Stephanopoulos says, “aren’t they already there?” And then he does go all Palin-incoherent.

He says that he’s never met Putin even though the media this morning can play multiple clips where he brags about his relationship with Putin.

Most disturbingly, he keeps talking about how Putin has been “nice” to him.  “Nice?”  I didn’t Google “Putin, nice”, but I’m pretty sure that the results would be meager. The Trump Russia policy is best summed up by a quote from Frank Burns in season 3 of MASH when he’s flustered by a pretty nurse, “It’s nice . . . to be nice . . . to the nice.”

Oh, yeah, he also lied about the NFL sending him a letter asking him to move the presidential debates so that they don’t conflict with NFL games.  And he lied about the Koch brothers asking him for a meeting. These were just palette cleanser lies between the weekend barbecue main course lies.

Here’s the entire Stephanopoulos interview.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWdQD0SANgY

 

Many people have pointed out how much we’ll miss Obama and how we might not see his like again. He is an exceptional and unique historical figure. But, we are also going to miss Joe Biden, and the kind of politician he represents.

Check out the link below to an interview Biden did with a group of journalists on Morning Joe this week.  It’s remarkable. He’s warm, funny, smart, finding common ground.  All hands on shoulders, patting a guy on the leg while he disagrees with him. He also in twenty-four minutes:

• Talks about how important personal relationships are in politics. How, though he disagreed with everything Strom Thurmond stood for, Thurmond asked on his deathbed for Biden to speak at his funeral.  How he and Chris Dodd were the only two Democrats at Jesse Helm’s funeral in July 2008.  How at the funeral Helms’s widow said to him, “we’re voting for you, Joe. We have the sign in our yard.”  He’s one of the last of those senators from the 1970s, when senators from both parties ate lunch together, and knew each other’s families, and could be friends despite deep political differences. He’s essentially magnanimous. And, I think magnanimity is probably the most important virtue for any leader. And something Trump is devoid of.
• He goes deep on Iraq and foreign policy as befits someone with 35 years on the world stage. He modestly notes that he has personal relationships with every world leader. That’s a lot of experience leaving government.
• He goes right at income inequality issues like few politicians can do anymore. “My dad sold GM cars. He was a job creator. He sold the damn cars.”

It’s an amazing performance, and he takes a lot with him as he exits the world stage.  The link is here.

http://player.theplatform.com/p/7wvmTC/MSNBCEmbeddedOffSite?guid=n_mj_biden1_160727

The only reason I hesitate to observe the obvious, that Trump is running as a Fascist, is that it’s an insult to hard-working Fascists, living and deceased.  The Trump “campaign” is under performing General Vargas in Woody Allen’s Bananas by any measure.

I haven’t blogged about the GOP convention because I really can’t keep up with it all.  That is, of course, Trump’s main rhetorical weapon.  If every word you utter is at one time some combination of a lie, a personal insult, a racist comment, or a potential future constitutional crises, it makes rebuttal a bit tricky.

It feels like this convention has been going on for weeks, but it’s only been three days.  And yet, in those three days, we have the following stories. Any of which would be career-ending for any other politician.  But, because Trump floods the zone with lies and narcissism, he gets away with it.

Here’s what he’s done in three days:

He Undermines our Commitment to NATO.

He’s about to become one of two people nominated for President of the United States.  And he chose this week to suggest that he wouldn’t defend the former Soviet Baltic Republics if Russia decided to invade or intimidate them.

He Uses the Courts to Punish His Critics

Trump is one step away from being the most powerful person in the world, but he’s still using the courts to intimidate people who dare to criticize him. Last week, the story broke that he was suing a former campaign staffer.  Yesterday, he served a cease and desist order on his ghost writer from thirty years ago who had the temerity to criticize him in public.  Does anyone doubt that President Trump will use the civil courts to punish his critics? And the IRS, HUD, the FBI, NSA, CIA?

He’ll Delegate the Powers of the President to the Vice President

The Times reports that Trump’s son offered the vice presidency to John Kasich with the promise that a Trump vice president will have authority over foreign and domestic policy, while Trump focuses on “making America great again.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/20/magazine/how-donald-trump-picked-his-running-mate.html

This is not the first time that the Trump campaign has floated this novel concept of the vice presidency. It’s probably not constitutional . . . . and, aw, c’mon.  I can’t even finish this sentence. You can’t delegate being president.

He Will Destroy the Civil Service

http://www.vox.com/2016/7/20/12233454/christie-trump-purge-federal-employees

He has An Aryan-Featured Woman Greet Him with a Fascist Salute  

I’m not sure why Laura Ingraham was speaking at all. And, I’m sure she didn’t mean it.  And if you watch the video, it happens pretty quickly. On the other hand, she’s a professional entertainer and she’s on a big stage and should be aware of her every gesture.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/07/20/laura_ingraham_closes_rnc_speech_with_some_sort_of_a_salute.html

Laska and Mr. Jones are sometimes bemused by my conviction that a Trump victory this fall would likely result in a military coup. More likely, it will result in multiple impeachment hearings and constitutional crises. Here’s only one example why.

He’s Taking a Former Campaign Aide to Court

It was reported today that he’s suing a former campaign aide for violating a non-disclosure agreement. As far as I can tell, this has no historical precedent.

The Fox News and AP story reports:

“In a court filing obtained by The Associated Press, Nunberg accused Trump of trying to silence him “in a misguided attempt to cover up media coverage of an apparent affair” between two senior campaign staffers.”

The full article is here.

http://www.fox23.com/news/trump-seeks-10-million-from-former-aide-in-disclosure-case/399547319

Trump is about to step into history next week. Step up and become the Republican nominee for President. Commander in Chief. Leader of the Free World.

And four days before the start of his nominating convention, he’s taking a former staffer to court. And, as the AP story reports, he’s not ruling out requiring White House staffers to sign non-disclosure agreements. I’m pretty sure that White House employees have to sign things a lot more serious than boilerplate non-disclosure forms that give their boss a reason to take them to court if they need it. Anyone who has worked for a publicly traded company has signed one of these. And it’s generally understood that they are mostly unenforceable unless you do something like hand over the new IPhone specs to Samsung.  Unless, of course you work for a jackass like Trump for whom lawsuits are a work-a-day business tactic.

The aide being sued is Sam Nunberg. I know nothing about him. But, unless his family is very, very wealthy, he’s got money problems.  Having to fight in court not only a wealthy, famous man, but the Republican Nominee for President of the United States.

Do you think for one minute that, if he becomes President (!!) Trump, he’s going to stop suing people? Presidents can’t be sued in civil court while they are in office.  I can’t find anything on the internet that explains whether a sitting president can sue a citizen. I would welcome a lawyer’s opinion.

But, if Trump wins, get ready. He’ll either sue someone directly as president. Or, certainly one of his stupid companies will sue contractors or individuals for all manner of perceived or real slights.

And what happens to all of his other current lawsuits? And the rights for a fair hearing in the courts for people who are being sued by the president? A sane, magnanimous new president would just drop all the law suits on favorable terms to the other party. Does anyone think that President Trump won’t try to use the IRS, FBI, HUD, etc., to put the screws to the people he’s fighting in court? And when he does that, will Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell have the moral clarity to move for articles of impeachment?

Trump’s Low Self-Esteem V.P. Candidates

Which brings us to who would be vice president when Trump is impeached. Trump is going to name his choice for vice president on Friday.  I still think he might pick Rick Santorum. He really does want to select Ivanka, to better reinforce his brand. She’ll settle for being the de facto or actual chief of staff. Until she’s in post-coup exile in Macau or the Cayman islands. A leggy version of Madame de Stael.

It’s apparently down to Gingrich, Pence, and Christie.  The first has been retired from politics since Republicans forced him from the Speakership in 1996; the second could well lose re-election in November for governor of Indiana;, the latter has a 26% approval rate in his home state, and still could face criminal charges for Bridgegate. Trump would probably pick Christie, but when he was a prosecutor, Christie put Ivanka’s father-in-law in prison. And, the son-in-law apparently has a problem with that.  So, anyhow, First Family, everyone.

Hubert Humphrey’s greatest misfortune was to give into ambition and become Lyndon Johnson’s vice president.  Early during his vice presidency, Humphrey made a speech asserting some manner of domestic policy position.

Johnson called Humphrey to his office and insisted that Humphrey recant the speech in public. After the meeting with his vice president, Johnson strolled into the press room and told the reporters there, “Well, I guess I’ve got Hubert’s balls in my pocket.”

Robert Caro documents at great length that anyone who worked for Johnson for any extended length of time was generally a weak person, trapped in an abusive work relationship, and who suffered significant emotional damage from the experience.

Trump has all of LBJ’s Shakespearean, Faulknerian, and Hanna-Barbarian flaws with none of Johnson’s counterbalancing sense of history or social justice. And certainly not Johnson’s devotion to using his power to help the powerless.

Later today former President George W. Bush and Laura Bush will join President Obama and Vice President Biden in Dallas to address the nation about the recent events in Dallas, and Baton Rouge, and Minneapolis. I would expect and hope Obama to be thoughtful and eloquent.  I would expect President Bush to be sincere and big-hearted.

Hillary spoke in Philadelphia before the African Methodist Episcopal Convention on the night of the shootings in Dallas. She could have easily cancelled the event, but she recognized it as a chance to address recent events in a positive way. Her speech wasn’t great.  Someone had half a day to write it. She didn’t have much time to rehearse it. And she’s not a natural performer. But, it was thoughtful and generous, and its only goal was to ameliorate the situation, speaking both of black lives and police lives.

And, that is true of almost every person who has appeared in the media in the last 72 hours to try to make sense of things. Except for the Republican nominee for President of the United States.

Trump made his first public appearance since Dallas yesterday.  The speech is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4LxLqsnJFg

Most of it is about veterans affairs, which was the scheduled topic. His remarks on Dallas, Baton Rouge, and Minneapolis run from 12:45 to around 20:00.

His speech is right out of 1969. Nixon or Wallace or Strom Thurmond could have read this verbatim.  In fact, I’m still doing web searches, because my guess is that they are recycling one of Wallace or Nixon’s old speeches.

Look, as I’ve written before, Trump is a jagoff. And, if elected, he’ll be deposed in a military coup. But, this speech was deplorable in its embrace of racially charged code words and phrases at a time when people of all colors are working to come together.

He delivered the speech from a teleprompter, which means it was calculated and planned and not just the off-the-cuff ravings of a deranged man. Reuters this morning reports polling that shows Trump significantly underperforming with white men who trend conservative. He’s trailing Mitt Romney’s support with this group by 20 points. I don’t think it’s an accident that Trump is trying to use Dallas to push up his numbers with conservative white men.

I think conservative white men are smarter than that.

How dangerous was the speech?

The speech is entirely demagogic, ginning up the issue of violence against cops to an existential threat to the nation when everyone else is trying to deescalate. He never says the words “black” or “African American” or “minority” or in any way acknowledges that there is a law enforcement issue in black communities. If you Google videos of racist politicians like Wallace or John Stennis or Richard Russell they at least go through considerable effort to try to explain why segregation is a win win for whites and blacks. Trump doesn’t even try.

If you want to be president, you have to inspire hope and convey optimism at times when the country most needs it.  Here are some of Trump’s more inspirational and optimistic quotes from yesterday:

• “The attack on the Dallas police is an attack on our country.” (It’s not, but let’s suggest a moral equivalence with Isis because I want to make white people angry and fearful.)

• “America’s police are what separate us from total chaos and the destruction of our country as we know it?” (The destruction not by Isis, but by blacks, but maybe Isis, too. Anyhow, white guys, just be angry.)

• “Politicians and activists who seek to remove police or policing from a community are hurting the poorest and most vulnerable” people.” (He’s just making stuff up.)

• “Our inner cities are rife with crime.” (Yes, and “The Bronx is burning”. There are crime problems in urban areas. And suburban areas and even rural states like Vermont and West Virginia where drugs are a major problem. “Inner cities” is a Seventies-Times-Square-black-drug-dealer-gay-porn-crack-whore-liberals-soft-on-crime code phrase. I’m writing this from Manhattan. In every way the “inner city” of New York City. Our biggest problem is that families making less than $600,000 a year increasingly can’t afford the rent. The geographic center of NYC is Bushwick, Brooklyn. Which is predominately a Latino neighborhood. With crime trending down. And artists moving into loft spaces. The population center of New York is Maspeth, Queens, which is largely a white neighborhood.)

• He mentions “brutal drug cartels.” Which, yes, are a problem. But, not the problem in Dallas, or Baton Rouge, or Minneapolis.

• Just in case anyone misses that he’s running as George Wallace, he suggests that police are being treated just like veterans returning from Vietnam. (“The Communists are laughing at us! They are laughing!”)

At 17:20 of the clip, he talks about how too many people are living in fear.

Then, at 17:47, he says, “We must maintain law and order at the highest level –100 percent –or we will cease to have a country.”

Hey, we have nothing to fear, but fear itself.

And, he still has the habit of saying, “Thank you”, “Thank You” when people clap during his speeches. Because while he’s running as a racist, he’s really a world-historical narcissist.