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.

If Trump was my father, I’d hug him and tell him I love him and explain to him why the lawyers in the room were just there to help him.

I returned from the gym last night, unmuted the television on MSNBC and got 30 minutes of live Trump in Cincinnati.  I hadn’t watched that much unfiltered Trump in months, and it was deeply alarming. So much so that I spent this morning talking to my priest. And then stopped by the mosque across the street from my apartment because I was still unsettled.  I’m pretty sure they thought I was a cop, but were very nice. They had left-over, but still delicious food from their last day of Ramadan buffet.  They let me take some of it home with me.

Here’s a link to the entire Trump event in Cincinnati.  Just skip around and watch parts of it. It goes on for over an hour. Warning:  This video contains fairly graphic footage of someone who is mentally disturbed. I wish I was kidding about that.

 

Remember, this is the same day that the director of the FBI said all kinds of damning things about Hillary and her email. But, Trump spent as much time talking about Don King as he did Hillary. “Big” Don King. Who is going to speak at the Republican convention.  Apparently, Newt Gingrich was in attendance. Supposedly there to share the stage with . . .

. . . ah, why even bother try to finish the sentence?

The reporters on cable news didn’t know how to respond. They have mortgages, kids in school, career aspirations. But, how much longer can they ignore what’s in front of them?

We started this blog because we love talking about politics and policy, but I’m not sure what to say.  Hillary was called out yesterday by the FBI director for, among other things, telling lies. He’s testifying before a House committee as I write this. Hillary also proposed free in-state college tuition for any family making under $110k a year. But . . .

. . . Laska and Mr. Jones have been bemused by my predictions of a military coup that deposes President {aw c’mon!) Trump. But, watch parts of the video from Cincinnati and then stash four days of cash, canned food, and bottled water in your basement. I mean, why can’t, at least, the Coast Guard step in the next time he’s at the Jersey Shore?

And now, today, Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair Bob Corker suggested that Ivanka should be Trump’s running mate.  “She’s beautiful in every way,” gushed the senator. “She’s very tall,” he continued, “and was wearing heels. I’ll spend whatever time necessary to advise her on foreign affairs. I’m about 5’8” and half. We should declare a no-fly zone in Syria. . . “

Trump is likely to announce his choice for vice president this week or early next.  And, many, many people are asking me who he might select. To cut to the chase, I think he selects Rick Santorum, former senator from Pennsylvania. I’ll get to my reasoning in a moment.  It involves the inevitable and frequent impeachment hearings that would be the signature event of a Trump “presidency”.

Before I get into my reasoning, it’s worth noting that . . . .

He’s Still All Alone

Hillary’s potential VP picks are all over the talk shows, doing local interviews, and showing up at rallies. Just take a look at the lineup for the Sunday shows from this holiday weekend.  Sherrod Brown on ABC, Tom Perez (really?) on NBC, Xavier Becerra (still my pick) on Fox, Cory Booker on CNN. Elizabeth Warren, of course, did a big rally with Hillary this week. Everyone’s auditioning for the part.

By contrast, none of the mentioned Trump candidates were out there working for the soon-to-be nominee. No sightings of Christie or Pence or anyone else other than the most obscure Representatives willing to speak for Trump. Watch Tom Cotton on Meet the Press yesterday pull both of his hamstrings trying to avoid saying something nice about Trump.

So, Trump can go one of two ways with his VP pick.

Proven leader

This would be the obvious way to go for any newcomer in politics. Bob Corker would have been perfect. Mike Pence would do. And, he’d help with Evangelicals and the far right. Newt? Gingrich? It’s easy to say that no serious politician with any future aspirations would ever agree to be Trump’s running mate. But, it’s the vice presidency. One heartbeat from history.  So, I won’t be surprised if a well-respected Republican agrees to be on the ticket.

But, it’s still hard to imagine. Pence is up for re-election as governor in Indiana.  Indiana law won’t allow him to run for governor and VP at the same time.  He’s likely to run for president in four years. Or, he could run for the senate in two years against Democrat Joe Donnelly.  He has a future. Why jeopardize it by having to explain the Trump campaign’s repurposing of anti-Semitic graphics from a racist web site?

The Impeachment Factor

The wildcard here that no one’s talking about is the likelihood that Trump will be impeached. It’s easy to imagine that President (cough, choke) Trump, in his first 100 days provides ample grounds for bi-partisan articles of impeachment. For example,

• President Trump doesn’t show up for work and delegates unprecedented duties to the vice president. No one in congress knows who speaks for the White House. Vice President Corker finds himself in the situation room, with Trump phone calling in from Mara Largo, where he’s playing Scrabble with Ivanka. And no one’s sure who is running the show.
• President (Gack!) Trump fires the Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff after the military refuses to implement torture policies. Or, after Trump just makes an ass of himself in the situation room. Easy to see the Joint Chiefs popping by McConnell and Ryan’s offices and saying, either you do something about this or we’re parking the tanks on the White House lawn.
• President (Gasp!) Trump insults an ethnic group, a country, and women all at the same time. It was all fun and games when he was a candidate, but another thing when he does it from the cabinet room. Or tweeting from the Lincoln bedroom. Mexico closes its embassy in Washington in protest.
• President (!!!) Trump walks away from all his outstanding personal and corporate debts and continues to run his stupid businesses as his first priority while president. Freshman pre-law students are all that’s required to do the legal analysis.

The Impeachment Scenario is the reason why someone like Bob Corker might take the job.  I’m sure that McConnell is whispering in his ear. “We’ll have him out of there by September.”

It’s also the reason that Trump will never pick someone who is overwhelmingly qualified to be president. Plus, his narcissism won’t allow him to pick someone more qualified.  So, we are left with the next category

People with Nothing Left to Lose

In this category, are people who either have no remaining political future or for whom being the VP selection would catapult them into national politics.  These candidates are also people who pose no threat to Donald Trump. Don’t underestimate this criteria. He has no record of hiring strong people who will stand up to him.

So, Ben Carson would certainly take it, and I wouldn’t rule out Trump picking him, if Trump’s endgame is to make as big a farce of the election as possible.  And Carson would be the best impeachment insurance. Mary Fallin, Governor of Oklahoma. Diversity to the ticket. It gets her out of Oklahoma. Everyone would forget who she is three weeks after the convention.  Which, arguably is the main role of a Trump VP, to just fade into the background.  Someone has to campaign in Mississippi and Wyoming.

Scott Brown, former Massachusetts senator, is perfect. However, he’s quite a handsome guy, and I don’t see Trump putting a good looking man in the spotlight.

This leaves Santorum. He’s a former three-term senator so he can claim to be someone who can help navigate Capitol Hill. He shores up the religious right.  He’s from must-win PA, though he decisively lost the last time he ran for election there ten years ago.  He has nothing to lose in taking the job.  Unless he wants to become the Twenty-First Century version of Harrold Stassen.  Which isn’t the worst thing in the world. And which he can still do after pulling himself from the Trump wreckage and having his burns treated at the Mayo Clinic.

 

OK, here’s a nauseating flipside to that James Traub article we were dissing the other day. Where Traub, journo apologist for the benign authority of high-finance elites, calls his upscale readers to the barricades against the barbarian hordes, Irwin, evidently one of the same, takes a different approach. In the Times column self-parodyingly entitled “The Upshot,” Irwin takes a good hard look in the mirror and concludes that these people in favor of, say, rent control, who he’s spent a career agreeing with his corporate cohort are nothing but naive at best, might actually have a critique with its own fascinatingly weird coherence, its own set of exotic values entirely alien to those of the international corporatism he presumes on the part of his readers. Turns out, if you just shift your frame of reference, there might be something bizarrely understandable about all this irrational rejection of what the elites know is best for everybody.

A light is actually dawning for this poor guy. In 2016.

Favorite lines:  “…international businesspeople and others who make up the economic elite (including journalists like me who are peripheral members of it)…” Um, yeah. That’s been a bit of a problem, the access-oriented coziness of people like you with those you’re supposed to be covering. It’s been mentioned a number of times — out here in the real world, that is.

“But what if those gaps between the economic elite and the general public are created not by differences in expertise but in priorities?” Holy crap. Yeah: what if? Gosh, this might change everything! (I withhold comment on the faulty parallelism of the “not…but” construction. Well, no, I guess I don’t.)

“Yes, rent control is a bad idea if you’re worried about the long-term prospects for economic efficiency. But maybe the people who advocate these policies know exactly what they’re rooting for, and that’s not it.” Nothing wrong here that a few years in a Maoist reeducation camp wouldn’t fix.

“Life isn’t just about money, and jobs aren’t just about income.” Wait, what? Sorry. Need time to process.

I find this piece more offensive than Traub’s. At least Traub is sticking to his guns as a class warrior for his people. This other dude has essentially wasted his whole career selling what he now seems a bit blithely — flexibly — inclined to deem a blinkered line of gab. It’s like just because this fool’s suddenly had an idea — probably the first he’s ever had — legitimacy may now be officially conferred upon decades’ worth of argument and activism on the other side. Because that turns out to be, you know, the upshot. Now he can start mining a whole new vein of thinky pieces with fake reporting, because there must be a dozen wrinkles to be pressed out of this one, dim insight. So really, it all works out.

In related news, David Brooks has been tooling down the Monongahela like Stuart Little, looking into the “real pain” he’s recently learned is “out there,” reporting back this hot news: “Whoa, it really sucks here, people, who knew!” And yet Brooks has already tipped that he’s leading us right back where he started: we’re gonna need a few more Teddy Roosevelts. That’s just what he thought back in the ’90’s, when he and Bill Kristol were laughing it up over the nanny state while all those irrational meatheads were getting set to lose their jobs. The upshot: amazingly enough, he’s always been right. Just for different reasons now.

Haters gonna hate. And what I hate are these God-damned nescient sons of bitches and the complacent, supercilious, self-regarding middlebrow journalistic culture they rode in on.

What better way to start observing the 4th of July holiday, than to watch the soon-to-be Republican nominee ridicule and attempt to intimidate a Turkish reporter at a press conference yesterday.  Boy, there just isn’t a magnanimous impulse in the guy. But, notice that when Turkey is mentioned, his instinct, right after making fun of the Turk in the room, is to talk about his business ventures.

 

I’m reminded of that time JFK poked fun at a Japanese reporter. “When I was,ah, a young man, we called your people ‘Japs’.  Am I allowed to, ah, call you a “Jap?” Where’s McNamara? Someone ask Mac about this Jap thing. My father used to run Saki from Canada. He and, ah, Meyer Lansky brought it to the U.S. in 1927. I love the Japanese people.”

Or the time Reagan spoke pidgin Spanish to a reporter from El Salvador. “As, my Undersecretary for Latin American affairs, Senor Wences, once said . . .”

Or that week during the congressional debate on the Americans with Disabilities act, when Bill Clinton affected a funny limp in his left leg, breaking up the press corp with physical comedy every time he pretended to struggle up a flight of stairs.  Good stuff.

And smart campaigning by Trump to step so adeptly into the presidential tradition of making fun of people weaker than him.  What else is a Bully Pulpit there for?

 

I’ve been slammed with other stuff so haven’t posted here much lately, but I’ve had a few stray thoughts:

1. In the context of “Brexit,” which also relates to both Trump and Sanders as alternatives to global corporate elites’ hegemony over the governments of nation states, this Twitter thread by Matt Stoller was of great interest to me: https://twitter.com/matthewstoller/status/746765092218277888. Stoller’s point is that we’re constantly being presented with a manufactured choice between xenophobic, racist, warmongering, hyper-nationalism,  in the form of rightist populism (Trump, Boris); and multicultural, tolerant, diplomatic corporatism, in the form of neoliberalism (Clintons, EU). He tracks how things got that way — how internationalist elites came to see corporate power as more legit than sovereign power. They actually think they’re peaceniks.
2. Yesterday I heard a soundbite from Cameron after a lovely but sad goodbye EU dinner that he and the other leaders of member nations attended. Cameron said something like he was sorry, in a way, that the “leave” voters couldn’t have attended that dinner with him; they might gotten seen how jolly goodhearted it all is.
3. Finally, I wish I had time to go wild in detail on these remarks by James Traub. Did you guys see this? The headline sounds like controversy clickbait, but it actually reflects what’s in the piece. The attitude expressed here 100% disingenuous in its crisis-mongering, since this is the point of view apologists for the upper crust have been taking for thirty years or so. The lead grafs alone are one big howler: Traub thinks the nation is now in an existential crisis that makes the 1960’s look mild. He’s my age yet seems not to recall three decisive political assassinations; nearly every major American city repeatedly engulfed in flames (at one point, gun emplacements at the top of the Capitol steps); nearly 50K U.S. combat casualties; [UPDATE: skyrocketing crime rates]; etc. This is the kind of crap that gets you a Trump and a Brexit.

May and June have been fun times for devotees of Trump Studies. He made a fool of himself almost every day. He has no campaign staff.  No money. Every day former Republican office holders endorse Hillary Clinton, Republican senators and governors refuse to discuss him with the press.  He’s underwater in the polls.  He’s losing in places like Utah and Kansas.

It’s been fun to think about a Hilary landslide, a democratic senate, a 7-2 liberal majority on the Supreme Court for the next twenty years. And, I think all of that is going to happen.

But, Trump’s performances the last two days are a portent for what’s coming the rest of this election. He gave two speeches, one on Monday in Southwestern Pennsylvania about trade and the economy and one in Maine where he talked about Isis.

Both speeches were at indoor venues. He spoke, mostly, from a teleprompter.  No outdoor rallies and stupid baseball caps with Trump free associating about his polls and his amazing company and hurling school-yard insults at his rivals.

His message was clear.  The country is dying. We are weak and stupid. I’m strong. Hillary is weak. Vote for me. Democrats and Hillary had better not underestimate how effective this can be.  It won’t be enough for her to just make fun of him. It sure won’t be enough for her to just look reasoned and safe and defending the status quo. He’s a buffoon and a jagoff, but still the single greatest threat to the Republic.

Isis and National Defense

During his speech in Maine and an appearance yesterday on Bill O’Reilly’s show he told so many lies that it’s impossible to keep up with them.

• He said over and over that Isis is strong , and we are weak (we aren’t). That they are winning (no) and we are losing (no). Just this week, Iraqi forces completed their retaking of Fallujah. Yesterday, U.S. and allied air forces caught an Isis column out in the open on the retreat from Fallujah.  To use Trump’s language, the allied air forces “bombed the shit out of them” resulting in an estimated 250 dead and 40 vehicles destroyed.
• He talked about how we are letting in tens of thousands of Syrian refugees and many of those are Isis. Republican Peter King, Chair of the House Homeland Security committee observed this morning that the total number of Syrian refugees admitted to the country is 4,800 and that they are heavily vetted.
• He gave a full-throated endorsement of torture. Water boarding, yes, but that’s not strong enough. He imagined Isis leaders having dinner and laughing at the U.S. for running a “politically correct” war while they are chopping people’s heads off.
• They are recruiting our young people
• They use the internet better than we do.

 

Fear resonates with Trump’s base and certainly with what we used to call blue collar voters. I remember during the 1980s, a lot of conversations around dinner tables and in bars.  Voters who were sure that the Soviets were strong and smart, and we were weak and stupid. That they were winning, right up to the moment the Soviet economy and political system collapsed.

Kennedy in 1960 made up a missile gap with the Soviets and used that fear to help defeat Nixon.  Twenty years later, Reagan resurrected the pretend missile gap. I still remember Reagan, his voice somewhat choked with emotion, saying of the Soviet’s pretend first-strike capability, “They could take us without firing a shot.”  It was all bullshit, but it was worked. Reagan Strong. Carter Weak.

Fear works on national security issues with a certain segment of voters. The question is, how big that constituency is. Hillary can beat him. But, not by saying things like, “we’ll continue to work with our European and Muslim allies”.

Trade

On Monday, he promised to scrap the Trans Pacific trade deal and to renegotiate NAFTA.  Punish China for trade violations, like dumping steel on the U.S. market. Restrict trade in certain industries to protect American workers.

The message is clear. I’m strong. Everyone else is weak and dumb.  It won’t be enough for Hillary to repeat the usual boilerplate about free trade. Bernie, and Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown will help a lot here, but the candidate herself is not a credible voice on issues of trade and blue collar jobs.

I don’t believe that there are enough voters who buy into Trump’s message of Fear and Strength. Fear through Strength. Strength is Fear. But, this stuff works. And Trump reading from a teleprompter. A Trump with two dozen memorized lines for a debate with Hillary. A Trump whose only message is “I’m Strong and you are Weak” is a viable and dangerous candidate.

I still think he’s going to get his ass kicked in November because everyone (except for many of the people I grew up with in Southwestern Pennsylvania) knows he’s not qualified for the job.  But, Democrats can’t just run out the clock or assume that this is going to be easy.

I was on vacation with my family this past week and so didn’t blog much, but it was a dizzying week in Trump Studies that had the whole family watching Morning Joe before heading to the beach. I feel like we dodged a bullet. Or at least two bullets. “We” being the Democratic Party and the country.  The GOP took both bullets square in the chest and jerked around like Sonny Corleone on the New York Causeway.

For a moment there, it looked like the effort to deny Trump the nomination in Cleveland was gaining some momentum. This was the first bullet.  That Republicans at the last minute might finally dump this creep and replace him with a candidate who could beat Hillary and help them retain the senate. It clearly had the Trump team rattled, and they responded like graduate students who blew off their seminar paper all semester and now had to finish it over the weekend.

For 36 hours the Trump campaign drank coffee, stayed up late, and tried to give the appearance of a functioning presidential campaign. They rapid responsed Hillary’s speech on the economy.  Not effectively, but there was some effort put forth. They dug up some c-list surrogates to appear on television. And, most notably, someone wrote a speech for Trump, and he delivered it off the teleprompter with a base level of competence.  These panicked efforts seem to have been enough to take the steam out of the latest and last stop Trump effort.

The second bullet was that Trump might actually start to turn into a better candidate. And, we’d have to endure weeks of stories about a more disciplined Trump and tightening poll numbers. There was a brief moment at the beginning of the speech.  Just brief.  Where Trump was almost dignified. Where he talked about building a great company. Building something he could share with his children. Talked about jobs. You could almost imagine that if someone like Peggy Noonan in her prime wrote him some speeches that were magnanimous and optimistic, he could be a serious contender.  But, it was just a moment. A few lines in a 45-minute speech that was nasty and exhausting.

One high-school debating tactic is to “run the spread”, to barrage the other side with so many arguments that they can’t rebut them all. The downside to running the spread is that you risk making your own argument so diffuse that it’s not effective. Trump’s speech surveyed the vast landscape, real and imaginary, of Hillary’s supposed ethical lapses in so much detail that reporters and pundits had no idea what to focus on.  Rather than build on any momentum that the speech may have generated, the Trump team did what every feckless student does after a brief dalliance with competence . . . Road Trip!

Scotland. Golf course! Just there to help the family. Stand by my kids. Family first. These suites! Wait until you see these suites! Scotland’s excited about Brexit (they aren’t). It will be great for my golf course (it won’t).

And now the run up to the convention. Laska, Mr. Jones, any predictions?  Who in their right mind delivers the key note address?  Will there be a key note address? Will there be any speakers other than Trump? Surely Ben Carson if Trump will have him. Jeff Sessions if anyone notices him. I’m becoming convinced that it will be Chis Christie for the V.P. spot, as the governor continues to play out his self-esteem issues in public. The Trump campaign claims that it will be a big show, but what entertainers would dare show up at this thing?  Pat Boone, sure, but then who?