Will we finally tune him out?
Sad! Donald Trump’s big solo town hall — held after he backed out of what was supposed to be a town hall-style second debate with Joe Biden and then got NBC, the network that made him a star (“and when you’re a star, they let you do it”) with “The Apprentice,” to give him an hour directly against his opponent’s previously scheduled ABC town hall — was another yuge embarrassment.
First and foremost for the guy who thinks attention is oxygen, it was an embarrassment to lose in the ratings to “Sleepy Joe.”
And first and foremost for all of you who still support this guy, his blustering, babbling performance was an embarrassment — or it would have been if you’re still capable of being embarrassed. His town hall act begged the same question that the “Access Hollywood” tapes did four years ago: Is there anything at all that would be too much?
Trump started off talking about how herd immunity, which is a fancy way of saying that a couple million Americans will have to die to let the rest of us hopefully develop antibodies, might be a good idea since “that cure, that so-called cure that you talk about”
— nobody had been talking about a cure, by the way, this was just Trump raving and passing the buck to governors again — “it can’t be worse than the problem. The problem is a bad problem.”
Fact check: It is a bad problem! Though maybe not so much, according to Trump, who then pivoted to “excess mortality, we’re a winner on the excess mortality. And we have done an amazing job.”
Through September, there have been 279,500 such deaths in America, almost all of them in the months since the virus arrived. We have the highest mortality rate in the developed world. Amazing job!
Are you good with that? Meantime, Trump ducked questions about when he’d last tested negative, what the virus has done to his lungs, and why he’s spent months mocking masks. “I’m good with masks. I’m okay with masks,” he said, before adding that
“85% of people who wear masks catch the virus,” which, fact check: nope, nope, nope.
He talked again about how maybe it was the Gold Star families who were to blame for giving him the virus (fact check: President Superspreader met with those families the day after his no-masks VIP event at the White House for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett), and how “we are coming around the corner.”
We’ve turned the corner so many times now I’m starting to feel like we’re in an M.C. Escher print.
Anyways, that’s all “normal” for this guy and, if he’s your guy, I’m sure you’re more upset about my words than his, you whiner.
And that he’s going to keep squeezing you like any other sucker to accept wilder and wilder things as “normal” if he says them.
How about when he got asked about QAnon and “this theory that Democrats are a satanic pedophile ring and that you are the savior of that,” possibly guided by a still secretly alive JFK Junior?
Trump emphatically refused to denounce QAnon, which is about to elect its first supporter to Congress (a Trumpist Republican, naturally) and which Trump’s friend and former national security adviser Michael Flynn has signaled his support for. Instead, Trump repeatedly said “I know nothing about QAnon,” whose members have been charged with murder, child abduction and other crimes and which his FBI has called a potential source of domestic terror.
Are you good with that?
Here’s one simple trick for not ending up as a sucker: Swallow your pride, accept your losses and step away from the table. Or you can keep doubling down.
A few minutes after praising QAnon for fighting pedophilia, Trump got asked about retweeting — really! — an article “reporting” that Obama and Biden faked the killing of Osama Bin Laden and then murdered the members of Navy Seal Team Six to cover it up.
“That was a retweet. I’ll put it out there. People can decide for themselves. I don’t take a position…And frankly, because the media is so fake, and so corrupt, if I didn’t have social media…I wouldn’t be able to get the word out.” Are you good with that?
If so, you’re the sucker. Sad!
Obvious error
Flushing: “Seperate” debates for Don and Joe...Really? Spellcheck kept correcting my word every time. What happened to yours? Lynne Kanner
Dumbed down
Your “WuMo” comic of Oct. 14 implied that studying Greek philosophy is a waste of time. I guess the cartoonists believe that the time-distilled wisdom of millennia isn’t as worthwhile as wallowing in the bellowing ignorance of our current crop of thinkers. Woe to our civilization! Ira Friedman
Guinea pig quo pro
Bronx: In return for some form of clemency, I would like to suggest that prisoners volunteer to test COVID-19 vaccines. Seems to be a win-win situation.
Joan Brande
The Republicans are such hypocrites. They fought to not have hearings for Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court because it was an election year but now they are pushing through their nomination. It just shows you how they will do anything to stay in power — lie, cheat and change the rules to favor them. What a sham these past four years have been. Wake up, America, and take a look at how this government is only interested in their own well-being, not the American public.
Leslie Duzant
The reporters from years ago would be disgusted by today’s reporters, who always twist the news to fit their personal narratives — the single biggest thing that should disqualify someone from being a reporter. Your article on Amy Barrett’s nomination hearing