The Weekly Sift

In the final weeks before an election, a candidate is supposed to focus like a laser on some closing message that sums up why he or she should be elected rather than the opponent. Whether by mysterious design or simple inability, Donald Trump is doing something else.

---

Six weeks ago, I posted “A Week in Trump’s Declining Spiral“, in which I pointed out that Donald Trump had done something bizarrely Trumpy every single day that week, from politicizing Arlington National Cemetery to calling for Barack Obama to be tried by military tribunal to blaming windmills for people eating less bacon. That article ended “But today begins a new week. Who knows what marvels it will reveal?”

But OK, you might think, that was two months out from the election. When you get down the final weeks, though, candidates start to focus on their closing arguments and the particular voters they think are persuadable. Kamala Harris, for example, is zeroing in on wavering Republicans, and gathering endorsements from former Trump administration officials. She’s centering that pitch on a Trump-is-unfit attack, and she’s also seeking working-class voters by promising to raise rather than cut billionaire taxes.

But we’re in the home stretch now, and Trump is still all over the place, doing weird and crazy stuff almost every day. Maybe this is some four-dimensional strategy only a stable genius can understand, or maybe the stress of the campaign is aggravating his dementia, so that he simply can’t focus or control himself.

In the last eight days, Trump has

• threatened to use the military against political opponents like Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi, who he described as “the enemy within” [1]
• praised legendary golfer Arnold Palmer by telling a lengthy anecdote about his penis size [2]
• ended the Q&A portion of an appearance early and spent the final 40 minutes playing his Spotify playlist and doing some kind of old-man dance [3]
• “answered” a question about breaking up Google by ranting about a Justice Department suit to stop Virginia from purging its voter rolls, then attacked the interviewer for asking questions he can’t answer about how his proposals would run up the national debt [4]
• warned his audience about hydrogen cars (which most of us wouldn’t even know how to buy) blowing up and leaving your unidentifiable corpse hanging in a tree [5]
• told Univision’s Latino viewers that January 6 was “a day of love” [6]
• expressed his amazement that “Harvey Weinstein got schlonged”, as if Harvey were the victim in his story [7]
• staged a fake media event at a closed McDonalds, where he served preselected supporters through the drive-up window [8]

I’ve relegated the details of these incidents to the footnotes, because I want you to appreciate the larger view: This guy has come unhinged.

This is a point that I think is worth making to the maybe-Trump voters you know, the people who may have voted for him before and don’t see why they shouldn’t do it again: He’s getting worse.

You can look at any of the incidents above and say, “Trump’s always said and done things other politicians wouldn’t. That’s part of his charm.” But not like this, not every day. You may have liked him in 2016 or even 2020, but he’s not that man any more. [9]

Father Time is undefeated, and he gets us all eventually. What we’re seeing here is exactly how dementia works: It takes our little quirks and exaggerates them until they become serious dysfunctions.

Look at Trump’s deterioration from 2015 to today and project it forward four more years. Now think about 2028 Trump wielding all the power of the President of the United States.

---

[1] A week ago Sunday, in an interview with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo, Trump started talking about “the enemy within”, who he defined vaguely as “radical left lunatics”. He suggested they be “handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military.”

Vanity Fair’s Bess Levin writes:

Later in the interview, Trump said the “enemy from within” is “more dangerous than China, Russia, and all these countries,” declaring, “The thing that’s tougher to handle are these lunatics that we have inside, like Adam Schiff.” Schiff, of course, is a prominent California Democrat running for Senate, who served as the lead prosecutor in Trump’s first impeachment trial and has therefore been attacked by Trump for years.

Wednesday, Fox’ Harris Faulkner asked him about that clip, and he doubled down, adding Nancy Pelosi to the list of enemies within, who apparently might require a military response.

[2] Saturday, Trump spoke at the Arnold Palmer Airport in Latrobe, PA, where the late great golfer was born. Like any politician would, Trump decided to say something nice about the local hero. So he rambled about Palmer for 12 minutes, leading up to praising Palmer’s penis.

Arnold Palmer was all man. I mean no disrespect to women, I love women, but he was all man. And I refuse to say it, but when he took showers with the other pros they came out of there saying ‘Oh my God. That’s unbelievable.’ I had to say it. I had to say it. I had to tell you the shower part because it’s true. … He was really something special.

In response, there’s something I have to say: One dementia symptom is called “disinhibition“. It’s when you start saying and doing things your mind would have stopped you from saying and doing, if it were still working properly.

[3] Monday, he cut off a town hall style Q&A after only a few questions, and devoted the last 40 minutes of his event to playing music and doing his old-man dance.

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem wound up in that embarrassing position where sycophants in authoritarian systems (like North Korea or the Republican Party) often find themselves: She had to pretend that what Trump was doing made sense. So she spent 40 minutes up there in front of the crowd, imitating his dance moves and spelling out YMCA.

[4] Tuesday at the Economic Club of Chicago Trump was asked whether the Justice Department should break up Google. Apparently, the phrase “Justice Department” set off something in his brain, and he went into a totally irrelevant rant against DoJ filing suit to stop Virginia from purging its voter rolls so close to an election. (DoJ is right in this suit, BTW. Late purges are a prime voter-suppression tactic that violates the National Voter Registration Act.) After the questioner, Bloomberg editor John Micklethwait, reminded him that the question was about Google, Trump aired his personal grievances with Google and said he would “do something” to the company without ever pointing to a genuine antitrust issue.

Later, when Micklethwait asked whether his policy proposals would drive up the national debt (they would), Trump went on a personal tirade: “You’re wrong. You’ve been wrong. You’ve been wrong all your life on this stuff.”

[5] The hydrogen car rant also happened Tuesday. Here’s how Vox’ Zack Beauchamp covered it:

Trump warns that “hydrogen is the new car,” and tells a story about a man who died in a hydrogen car explosion near a tree and could not be identified by his wife. Hydrogen-fueled cars are in fact a 10-year-old technology with a small and declining global market share. There is no evidence that they can explode like the Hindenburg, as a car with hydrogen fuel cells is not the same thing as a dirigible inflated with hydrogen gas.

[6] This was Wednesday. He not only gaslit Latino voters at a Univision event, claiming that January 6 was a “day of love”, but also dodged a question about what will happen to food prices after he deports the majority of our farm workers.

[7] Friday he cut short an appearance on the friendly podcast of Dan Bongino, after he had expressed his amazement that “Harvey Weinstein got schlonged.” That day a report came out that he was canceling interviews because he was “exhausted“.

[8] Sunday he staged a weird media event: He went to a closed McDonalds, put on an apron, and served food through the drive-up window to pre-selected supporters who pretended to be customers. (If you somehow got the impression that he actually worked a shift at a McDonalds, even for a few minutes, you’ve been fooled.)

[9] Don’t believe me? Look at this clip from 2015. He’s answering questions from the crowd, and one comes from Maria Butina (who later turned out to be a Russian agent). Butina asks about how he’ll deal with Russia after he becomes president. Trump listens to her question, puts it in a broader context, and then answers it. That never happens any more.

Maybe you loved 2015 Trump or maybe you hated him, but it doesn’t matter, because he’s not that man any more.