Illustration by Michael DiMilo
By Geoff Carter
The 2024 presidential cycle has been a season of heady highs and abysmal lows. To call it an emotional roller coaster is like saying Tom Brady was an okay quarterback. From the lingering despair surrounding Joe Biden’s horrible debate performance, his subsequent withdrawal, Kamala Harris’ dizzying rise in popularity to the horror of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, his subsequent smug martyrdom and self-proclaimed sainthood, things have been crazy. And it’s not nearly over.
The Democrats are rolling. Rarely has a campaign engendered so much enthusiasm, energy, and optimism. And money. Vice-president Harris and Governor “Everyman” Walz have fired up the imaginations and dreams of many everyday Americans. Walz is charming everyone from housewives to hunters to handymen. Ms. Harris has become a paragon for grace and dignity, refusing to sink to the level of Donald Trump’s adolescent name-calling, insults, and bullying.
The Republican campaign, on the other hand, seems to be caught in a slow downward spiral that began with President Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race on July 21st. Even though the Democratic powers that be had been pushing President Biden to step aside because of his horrible debate performance and physical frailty, the unexpected move caught everyone by surprise.
Donald Trump seemed especially disappointed to see President Biden withdraw. The sudden change seemed to bewilder him. For weeks afterward, he kept speculating wistfully—and publicly—that President Biden could storm into the Democratic National Convention and wrest his nomination back. Since then, Trump has been lying low in his Mar-a-Lago lair, playing golf and (I imagine) muttering under his breath.
Democrats were worried, too. There was immediate and widespread consternation that the Democrats—as they are known to do—would splinter into a disorganized mass of braying asses. After all, they are not known for presenting a unified front like the Republicans are wont to do. Yet this time they did. Once Biden endorsed Kamala for candidacy, the entire party fell into line. No one stepped to challenge Vice-president Harris as the nominee.
When the vice-president picked Tim Walz, the generally unknown governor of Minnesota, to be her running mate, political pundits scratched their heads, wondering why she would pick this guy over Governor Shapiro of Pennsylvania or Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona. The reason soon became apparent. Tim Walz is a paragon of the midwestern charm, decency, neighborliness, and integrity that has been sorely missed in American politics.
And then, after a spectacular DNC featuring family, diversity, a call for rights, decency, equity, and a revitalization of the middle class, the Democratic Presidential ticket seemed to have hit all the right buttons.
The Republicans, on the other hand, were—and are—floundering. Donald Trump, once the golden boy (golden orange boy) of the GOP, has lost his luster. The abdication of Mr. Biden seems to have deflated him.
Trump, the master of the insulting nickname, seems at a loss as to how to attack Kamala Harris. His use of inappropriate and juvenile nicknames just hasn’t worked. “Lyin’ Kamala”, “Laffin’ Kamala”, or “Crazy Kamala” haven’t really worked. In fact, when Tim Walz mentioned that he thought Trump and running mate Vance were just “weird” for their opinions about women’s rights and IVF, that seemingly innocuous label stuck. The shoe was on the other (the left) foot. And now Trump, who at one point had been critical of Joe Biden for being too old to be president, now finds himself labeled as the addled old man grasping for the levers of power.
Even before Biden withdrew, Trump’s mental acuity had been called into question. On one occasion, speaking about electric car batteries, he said that batteries in a sinking boat would cause electrocution which might be better than a shark attack. If a drunk uncle at Thanksgiving said something like this, you might cut him off, but Mr. Trump was not drinking—he’d been addressing his followers at a rally. He should have been cut off, anyway.
Trump also recently—in a rather pathetic attempt to garner votes—did an abrupt double flip-flop on reproductive rights, stating that the government would not only allow, but would pay for, IVF treatments, and then flipped again when asked about his position on a Florida reproductive rights referendum. Of course, Trump is the model of inconsistency—and prevarication.
He also seems to be having a difficult time focusing on anything besides himself—which is entirely in character. Trump’s campaign advisors have repeatedly asked him to stay of message on policy and content, but he cannot restrain himself from personal attacks. During a forum with African American female journalists in Chicago, he said that he didn’t know that Kamala Harris was black, that she just recently “became black.” At another event, he claimed that he was prettier than Ms. Harris, which was not only inappropriate, but, well, weird. In short, he—and his attendant Republican sycophants—are fraying around the edges.
Trump’s running mate J.D. Vance is not faring much better. Having already alienated many female voters by calling them “childless cat ladies”, denouncing IVF procedures, and maintaining that couples with children should pay lower taxes and have more votes than couples without children, he tried to court union support and was booed off the stage after stating that Trump had done more unions that anyone.
The final unraveling might be the dissolution of Trump’s formerly hegemonic support within the Republican Party. A number of Republicans spoke against Trump at the DNC. One of his former White House staffers called him a danger and resigned immediately the January 6th Capitol rights. In all, over one hundred Republicans, including former President George W. Bush and Vice-presidents Dick Cheney and Pence have actively opposed his candidacy.
Donald Trump, like mad King George (whom he aspires to be) is unraveling thread by thread by thread. He rambles, he appears incoherent and cannot seem to hold a single thought in his head for very long. As a result, he is finding that his power over his base is fading. While he still has his hard-core supporters, spectators at his rallies are leaving in droves during his speeches.
Trump looks distracted. He seems more focused on selling trading cards and tennis shoes than on policy and when he does try to connect with the American electorate (as in Arlington), he isn’t able to attain any sort of human rapport. J.D. Vance is not much better at it.
Yet, for all the gaffes and blunders and incoherencies, the polls say Donald Trump is still in a virtual tie with Kamala Harris. Somehow, in the course of his slow descent into the realm of incoherence, he has still held onto his people and may still very well win the presidency unless voters recognize the danger of a man whose faculties—never that strong to begin with—are fraying around the edges.
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