Leaving it all on the Field

Kamala battles onward as Trump's fascist rhetoric crosses John Kelly's red line

That’s right. She’s ready for the inevitable disinformation and the misinformation that will be thrown at her. But, as we’ll see over the next two weeks, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz came to play. And they’re leaving nothing on the field.

Meanwhile, the Trump campaign is in absolute freefall, having spent much of the past month canceling interviews…perhaps practicing for house arrest? Which, naturally, has done nothing to stem the assault of hateful lies and division-sowing rhetoric he employs whenever he’s granted screen time. And while the VP’s candidacy and momentum grow stronger by the day, our disgraced former president’s cognitive decline is on full display every time he opens his mouth (or doesn’t, and opts instead to sway like an automaton). 

Earlier today, at an event addressing Latino Americans, he opened with characteristic irrelevance by delivering a rambling monologue in which he “quickly swerved off topic as Trump bashed solar farms as a threat to RABBITS and pushed falsehoods about electric vehicles.” He also called out Harris for her laziness…which is awfully rich coming from that man, and from his mouth serves as a twofer: delivering both a confession about his couch potato presidency and a core racist trope.   

We’ve been worried about Trump’s cognitive state for a long time, not to mention his moral and constitutional positioning—but concerns about the latter have ramped up exponentially over the last few weeks, especially when he began the echo that those who oppose him politically, like House Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi or expected incoming Senator Adam Schiff, are “the enemy within,” and represent a greater threat to us than Russia or China. Such comments were so out of bounds that even former Marine General John F. Kelly, Trump’s longest-serving chief-of-staff, finally agreed to three recorded discussions, which make evident that Trump’s rally cry about employing our own military against domestic opponents was a step too far—even for those who have previously made excuses for their silence. 

The anti-American insecurity and hostility Trump has been displaying by threatening Americans via Hitler-speak evidently compelled Kelly to state, after reading the definition of fascism, that, in his opinion: 

“Mr. Trump met the definition of a fascist, would govern like a dictator if allowed, and had no understanding of the Constitution or the concept of rule of law.” He continued with unsurprising, yet no less shocking, assertions that Trump “certainly prefers the dictator approach to government,” and “never accepted the fact that he wasn’t the most powerful man in the world — and by power, I mean an ability to do anything he wanted, anytime he wanted.”

Suddenly, it seems less relevant that he turned a town hall into an excruciating, unplanned DJ Sad! set; or spent 16 minutes meandering around a stage like a bully who’d lost his nunchucks because his mic had cut out. And now, in light of these wild acknowledgments, it scans as just pathetic that he devoted last weekend’s rally to a 10-minute rant about how deceased golfer Arnold Palmer was “allll man.” 

Actually…I have to pause there. Despite flooding the zone with everything he’s got (whether wittingly or not), it’s astonishing that—in the closing stretch of this insanely consequential election—when the alternative to winning is a possible prison sentence, this buffoon thought, ‘I know how to grab those coveted undecided voters. I can absolve myself from accusations that I am a vulgar, profoundly weird human. I’ll wow ‘em with a fantasy about pro golfers’ group showers…then do a spiel about Palmer’s tremendous big league penis.’  

This got so cringy that—in one of the more satisfying moments I’ve witnessed on the network— FOX NEWS shut him up mid-sentence, interrupting Trump’s Latrobe, PA rally to cut to Kamala taking the stage, showing viewers what it means to be a serious presidential candidate.

Please, enjoy this:

Hard not to wonder…is Trump maneuvering to be increasingly untethered and off-kilter, to such an extent that he pushes away the previous day’s gaffe by one-upping it the next day? In case that’s the plan, and in light of John Kelly’s terrifying statements, it’s worth revisiting key moments in this campaign alone in which he has reminded us exactly who he is. (Were I to do this since the moment he descended his golden escalator, we’d be into encyclopedia territory.) 

Before you fill out your ballot (if you haven’t already), and before getting overwhelmed by catastrophizing about what could be, remember what we’ve seen in just the last few months: 

Donald Trump went to trial, and though he napped through most of it, was found guilty on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree by a jury of his peers. Which helps explain why Trump is so desperate to win this election. His crimes were not a hoax, and the investigations of them were not witch hunts. He falsified records, kept boxes of our nation’s classified documents in his bathroom in Mar-A-Lago, and attempted to overthrow a free and fair election by inciting an insurrection against our Capitol (while giving not one shit about whether his own Vice President survived).

Republicans still elevated Trump to represent their crumbling party a few years later. The RNC and his campaign, however, were engineered to oppose Joe Biden. He had NO plans other than pointing to the other guy and saying, “He’s too old. He’s in the throes of cognitive decline.” Once President Biden patriotically stepped aside, Trump became the fogey…and had no idea what to do with himself. His plans had been going so well! He could evade accountability for all his wrongdoings! He just had to attack Biden’s age and mental fitness; get mainstream media to help the nation pull its hair out; choose a phony, pliable, inexperienced mini-me with dark money backers for VP; and then prepare to enact Project 2025.  

Along came the fiercely competent Kamala Harris, who knocked Trump sideways. He had no idea how to run a campaign against her. He still doesn’t. Every day since she became his opponent, he has been blathering and flailing to regain any footing he may have briefly had. He openly daydreams about scenarios where President Biden jumps back into the race, enabling his glide path to a second presidential term.

He then had his ass handed to him in his only debate with Kamala Harris.

Trump set out to prove he was stronger, but she rattled him with a handshake, then easily baited him with a simple, and factual, statement about people leaving his rallies early. In his fury, squashed by his ego, he echoed JD Vance’s hateful, racist gossip about immigrants eating cats and dogs. (And because he cannot ever be wrong, he is still keeping up the thoroughly debunked lie, and has thrown geese into the make-believe pet feast.)

The debate was also when he exposed that after 9 years he still has nothing but “concepts of a health care plan.” Healthcare matters to every single voter, far more than Arnold Palmer’s junk. Trump’s non-answer reminded us that despite spending years trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act, he still hasn’t come up with even the pretense of a better idea.

Oh, but you know what he’s had plenty of time for? Conniving his supporters into buying his swag. His whole campaign is predicated on the idea that the economy is terrible and no one can afford anything...yet he’s spent months trying to hawk a $100,000 watch, weird trading cards of him on a superhero’s body, coins branded with his mug, NFT’s, sneakers, or cut up pieces of the suit that he was wearing in Butler, PA. His life has been a series of bullshit licensing deals. He holds zero respect for his supporters: to him, they’re piggy banks that he delights in turning on their heads to empty out.

He has now gone all-out demagogue and promised his supporters that he would have no qualms about ordering our military to execute his opponents. Which has left men like John Kelly with few options but to be honest about who Trump is. 

When you’re so undisciplined that you can’t control yourself for the final TWO WEEKS of the campaign, imagine if Trump was unburdened by another election, with his official immunity gifted from the Supreme Court he stacked, his brain cooked, all guardrails removed, and nobody to hold him accountable. 

Look, to be clear, I know you already know all of this. But Trump is working hard to ensure that we forget—by making each day crazier than the one that came before. And this madness that you’re already well aware of has likely not penetrated the hermetically sealed bubble on the right, at least not without being distorted before it reaches them. And the fans who have seen it simply don’t care. Because being in a cult requires slavish fealty to the leader.

We can help one another swim through his corroded, flooded zone. The onus is on each of us to make the case within our circles. If you’re looking to do your part in this final stretch, find one person who wasn’t going to vote. Make that person your responsibility. 

Everyone get your ballots in as soon as you can—we’re almost there!