You do know that Donald Trump has never won a majority of the votes in any election, right? Hillary Clinton got nearly 2.9 million more votes than Trump in 2016; Joe Biden beat him by 7 million in 2020.
So, the idea he’s a political superstar is nonsense. Even polls showing Trump leading in the 2024 presidential contest have him topping out at 46% — about what he got in 2016.
Yeah, yeah, the U.S. is a republic, not a democracy. Republicans say that a lot. In this country, we privilege cows and square acres over American voters. But even so, to be confident of winning, a presidential candidate needs to do better.
Clearly, the MAGA faithful will believe anything, but millions of American voters view Trump with mistrust and fear. Nothing about the turbulent events of the last week — Biden dropping out of the 2024 race and Trump accepting the Republican nomination — changed the odds appreciably. He and presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris remain in a statistical tie. Some polls even show her with a modest advantage.
That’s why Trump’s bizarre GOP convention speech promising unity but delivering anger, self-pity and delusion was such a shocker. It was also as boring as one of those hours-long rants Fidel Castro used to deliver. TV ratings dropped steadily the longer it went on. By the time it ended, hardly anybody was watching.
So, here’s my question: With one geriatric candidate having left the race, is there any chance the national news media — normally capable of focusing on only one bouncing ball at a time, like a golden retriever -— will notice the remaining aged individual in the contest is faltering before our eyes?
Remember when Trump confused Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi? Tell me how a neurologically healthy person does that. He didn’t merely stumble over a name. He did a whole routine about it.
Reporters largely pretended not to notice.
Trump began his big convention speech in his mincing baby talk voice — always a sign of total insincerity‚ talking about national unity and “God Almighty” saving him from an assassin’s bullet.
Then he put aside the teleprompter (my theory being he can barely read it, which would explain a lot) and started in with the traditional thunderous lies and false accusations against “Crooked Joe Biden” and “communist” Democrats generally.
Before Trump took the stage, House Speaker Mike Johnson declared “the radical woke progressive left” is trying to build a “borderless, lawless, Marxist, socialist utopia.”
Ho-hum. People in Louisiana actually vote for this guy.
Trump the fabulist
But the real fabulist was Trump. MVP blogger Kevin Drum dissected his speech’s more bizarre lies. The candidate claimed Afghanistan has turned over Bagram Airfield to China, which is simply and totally make-believe. Did not happen. He neglected to mention the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan was caused by his own surrender to the Taliban, negotiated without Afghan government participation.
It’s also false that “many, many American citizens” were left behind in Afghanistan. Thousands were evacuated from Kabul, and the handful who remain clearly want to stay. The only military equipment abandoned belonged to the Afghan army. Bringing it out would have required re-invasion and months of bloody combat. And for what?
Trump complained that Russian warships and nuclear submarines are operating “60 miles” offshore and the news media refused to cover it. In reality, a ceremonial visit by a Russian nuclear-powered (not nuclear-armed) sub to Havana was well-publicized on all major U.S. TV networks, as Russia and Cuba clearly intended.
(It’s actually a bit more than 100 miles from Havana to Key West.)
Pretty much everything Trump said about foreign policy was pie-in-the-sky fantasy. If he were president, there would be instant peace in the Middle East, and Russia would never have dared to invade Ukraine. Biden’s fault, not Vladimir Putin’s.
But it was Trump’s lies about “Crooked Joe Biden” and Democratic domestic policies that were most egregious. No, crime hasn’t risen sharply under Biden. It’s declined every year since Trump left office. Partly that’s because millions more have jobs. Trump also keeps saying that foreign governments are emptying their prisons and “insane asylums” and shipping them across the Mexican border.
There is zero evidence that’s happening.
Trump claims Democrats are scheming to cut Social Security and Medicare. How out of it would you have to be to believe that? Maybe far enough to believe “this is the only administration that said we’re going to raise your taxes by four times what you’re paying now.”
As Drum notes, this “bears no relation to reality.”
Hardly anything in Trump’s speech did. Even at his most confused, Joe Biden never came anywhere close to this delusional rant. The man is clearly losing it. Now they haven’t got Biden to kick around anymore, you’d think maybe the national media would take notice.
Gene Lyons is a National Magazine Award winner and co-author of “The Hunting of the President.”
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