The Mouth That Bored
Anyone who forced themselves to sit through Donald Trump’s August 15, “press conference,” in which, from a patio in his private golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, he purported to speak about disastrous Democratic economic policies—the worst in history, destroying the country—while flanked by charts and tables full of consumer products, including a box of Cheerios, could not escape what is now becoming clear to more and more observers.
Trump is fast devolving into what every comic—since at the core, that’s what he is—most dreads, and what, if it continues unchecked, will doom his campaign more than revulsion, advancing age, or even criminal convictions.
He has become BORING.
For once, grudgingly realizing he is losing, Trump gave in to his advisors’ pained and desperate entreaties that he turn his focus from insults to policy—become more Bill Clinton and less Don Rickles. He allowed himself to share the spotlight with props, and for a bit actually talked about the issues that Republicans insist (dubiously) will propel him to victory.
To open the session, he blathered on for forty-five minutes, then took a few questions from reporters. It was obvious that he was trying, really trying, to rein in his instinct to go for the cheap shot and the cheap laugh. He pronounced Harris’s name correctly, did not call her dumb—or Indian—and did not assert that she never passed her bar exam.
But asking Donald Trump to exhibit self-discipline is like asking a toddler to sit still and eat properly. Once the questions began, Trump fell into long, rambling discourses about why he was justified in insulting her, blamed her for the crooked legal system he has been fighting—except for the one “brilliant” judge in Florida—and once more portrayed himself as the poor, beleaguered billionaire beset by evil on all sides. To end the session, he glanced at the box of Cheerios and said he had not seen one in a long time.
It was all difficult to watch, but not for the usual reasons. Whether it was the absence of a braying Christians-to-the-lions crowd or a loss of will, Trump’s droning failed to evoke the outrage that opponents usually feel during these diatribes. Rather, it became difficult for one’s mind not to drift or eyelids not to droop.
That this visibly diminished Trump is in serious trouble has become apparent, but what is discussed less often is the potential impact on a Republican Party that has fully hitched its wagon to his now-soporific star.
Until Joe Biden, with extraordinary reluctance, finally accepted a truth of which all but a few close advisors and family members were aware and left the race, Democrats’ despair was that not only would he lose, but that he would likely take other party aspirants down with him. That coming down-ballot catastrophe seemed likely to cost them the Senate, the House, and a host of state and local races as well.
But Democrats did something that Republicans failed—and continue to fail—to do. First privately, then publicly, they made it clear that Biden’s ego was less important than victory. Elected officials urged him to drop out, as did celebrities such as George Clooney, and donors zipped shut their pocketbooks. The coup de grace was administered by the wonderfully ruthless Nancy Pelosi, who is older than Biden and is almost certainly a reincarnated assassin. (She would have made quite a president.)
Kamala Harris was therefore allowed to tap into to the enormous reservoir of Democrats’ passion and energy that was so longing for a place to go. Not only was the national ticket re-invigorated, but down-ballot candidates were as well.
And so, the script is flipped. Vulnerable Republicans, yoked to Trump, will need to decide whether to continue to express fealty or instead try to save themselves.
When Trump was a potent force, a winner, there was not a whole lot of choice. But the dull, unengaged likely loser is a different story. Trump may have as yet failed to fulfill aspirations to be an autocrat ruling the United States, but he has already been quite successful doing so among Republicans.
But autocrats rely on repression to stay in power. They must suppress the anger, resentment, and jealousy that builds up among those whose own lives and careers become beholden to their every whim. As such, they can never show vulnerability and must ratchet up that repression at even the glimmer of a threat. When they are no longer able to do so, their enemies sense weakness and strike. And so, when autocrats fall, they do so quickly and hard, hung up by their heels like Mussolini.
It is not as if Trump has totally lost power. Many Republicans cannot win without his support, although even the majority of those live in districts in which any Republican would beat any Democrat. And with the primaries over, their risk, at least in this election cycle is limited.
But a significant number of Republican candidates, especially in the House, are running in districts where Trump could end up being more of a hindrance than a help, including a disproportionate number of representatives in New York and California. They are the balance of power and neither they nor party leaders like Mike Johnson can help but be aware that the ride may be over. Trump’s decline has been so apparent that even some die-hard MAGA devotees are likely thinking to themselves, “He’s not as funny as he used to be.”
So here is Donald Trump, the shopworn vaudeville comic who refuses to leave the stage.
Soon, however, the stage may leave him.