Twilight of the Morons

The Trump campaign ended yesterday, Saturday, November 7th, 2020 in ignominious and humiliating fashion, in front of a garage door at the Four Seasons Total Landscaping Service in Philadelphia. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/11/four-seasons-total-landscaping-trump-team-news-conference.html

According to Slate, on Saturday morning before the major networks and media outlets called the election for Biden/Harris, Trump tweeted that Rudy would stage a presser at the Four Seasons in Philadelphia. Let the comedy begin!

It looks like someone in the Trump campaign then booked the Four Seasons Total Landscaping Service for the event rather than the famous Philadelphia Hotel. Too embarrassed to admit a mistake, Rudy and his clown academy showed up at the industrial site anyway and taped some Trump signs on the landscaping company’s garage door. The event location was sandwiched between a crematoria and a porn store (which reporters said had some good deals on vibrators that day). I think there was also a dumpster nearby.

So, Rudy Giuliani started blathering about “stolen ballots” and “we’re ahead, so let’s end the counting now” (OK, I’m paraphrasing a bit), but while he was speaking, the news hit that all the networks (including Fox News) had called the election for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

Well, that was a buzz-kill, wasn’t it? No, that buzzing sound you’re still hearing is all the customers road testing the new vibrators in the porn store next door. Rudy, to his comedic credit, pressed on, claiming that Republicans weren’t allowed to observe the ballot counting (flat-out lie, as all counting operations had Democratic and Republican observers in-house). The presser ended with Rudy and his staff slinking away, each wondering how to author a resume that doesn’t show any connection to the Trump campaign or his Administration.

Howard Cosell, the hated Monday Night Football announcer, would always intone near the end of the game: “As I predicted at the top of the show…” and then go on to boast how smart he was identifying some player’s shortcomings. Howard, of course, is more famously known for the phrase “Down goes Frazier, Down goes Frazier!” which he excitedly shouted when George Foreman knocked down the heavyweight boxer, Joe Frazier, in a title fight.

I was watching a Saturday edition of Morning Joe at 11:24 a.m. when almost simultaneously CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, and the AP called the election for President-elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. I’ll admit it, I started chanting in my head: “Down goes Trump, Down goes Trump!” Still, how did Trump go from a winner in 2016 to a loser in 2020?

Spoiler: Trump lost because he is, at the core, a moron.

Four years ago (2016), Donald J Trump lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million, but still managed an electoral college win by flipping just three states that had been reliably Democratic in years past.

Wisconsin	(10 electoral votes)	Trump bested Hillary Clinton by 23k votes
Michigan	(16 electoral votes)	Trump bested Hillary Clinton by 10k votes
Pennsylvania	(20 electoral votes )	Trump bested Hillary Clinton by 44k votes

Note that only 70,000 votes spread out over three traditionally Democratic states was enough to put a reality show performer into the White House. Trump boasted that his electoral victory was a landslide (not true, Obama did better twice) and tirelessly repeated this boast at every campaign rally.

Last March, when Trump learned that Joe Biden was probably going to be his opponent, he teed up his usual schoolyard insults:

• Sleepy Joe
• Dementia
• Leader of Hunter Biden Crime Family (thanks to Rudy and Russians for that one)

Did it work? Not a chance, it turned out. Biden and Harris did a magnificent job running their campaign, but in all fairness, their opponent was, in the words of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, a “fucking moron.” Trump undermined his own campaign team on a daily basis.

1. Flip Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania

Job One for Biden was to flip Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania back to the Democratic column. Biden succeeded wildly in Michigan and Wisconsin, crushing Trump so badly in the polls that the Republicans stopped spending money there. Pennsylvania took some work, as the interior is Trump territory, where rubes still believe that Mexico is going to pay for that wall. Still, the effort paid off and it was Pennsylvania that finally triggered CNN and then the other networks to declare Biden the winner.

2. Crush the Dementia Card

Trump’s son, Don Jr, appeared on Fox News every day claiming that Joe Biden was too old, decrepit, and suffering from diminishing mental acuity. This was picked up by every right-wing social media outlet. The problem was that appearances by Biden in interviews, debates, and speeches showed a man who was mentally sharp and able to address issues cogently. Nowhere was this more obvious than in the two Biden – Trump debates. Trump looked like a petulant child whilst Biden spoke to the American people. So Biden dementia was a losing gambit for the Trump campaign.

3. Blow up the Biden Crime Family Nonsense

The suggestion that Joe Biden is corrupt was blown out of the water last February by Nancy Pelosi, when she successfully impeached Trump for attempting to manufacture bogus evidence against Biden using Russian/Ukrainian kompromat. Rudy and this guy below, Lev Parnas, traveled to the Ukraine in search of dirt on Biden’s remaining son, Hunter Biden. The Russians were happy to comply.

Lev Parnas was arrested last spring and has been singing like a bird to Federal investigators. Left to his own devices, Rudy concocted a Hunter Biden scandal that was ludicrous from the get-go. A laptop computer, from supposedly Hunter Biden, who lives in Los Angeles, was dropped off at a New Jersey computer repair shop, run by a legally-blind Trump supporter. Said laptop was never picked up or paid for, remained at the shop for one year, but then suddenly shown to have EMAILS and other nasty stuff in its hard drive.

This bogus laptop “evidence” was so ludicrous that no national newspapers or TV media gave it any credibility, except for the right-wing scream machine.

It’s no secret that Hunter Biden fell into a serious drug habit, ruined his marriage, and got kicked out of the military. His father, Joe Biden, has acted as a loving father, encouraging him to stay in rehab, that he can still put his life back on the right track. That’s what a loving and compassionate parent should do.

Bottom line: the Biden Crime Family gambit was a DUD.

Trump’s Pitiful Last Month

As the three major Trump campaign lynchpins (Battleground States, Dementia, and Hunter Biden Crime Family) were methodically destroyed by the Democrats, the last two months of the Trump campaign were pitiful super-spreader events staged only to assuage the ego of the self-absorbed President.

Trump’s abject failure to deal effectively with the COVID-19 pandemic was put on tragic display, both nationally and internationally, by his staging of these super-spreader events, at the White House or on airport tarmacs, for hordes of devoted but delusional supporters. States like North Dakota have seen COVID hospitalizations spike after these brainless events. Our friends and enemies abroad looked with shock and disdain at Trump’s lunacy in infecting himself, his family, and supporters.

Biden played it smart, didn’t stage any super-spreader events, boat parades, or redneck truck caravans. He kept his appearances low key and within Cleveland Clinic guidelines. It paid off.

Game Over

As you know by now, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won big. Biden won the popular vote with 75 million votes, the largest vote total ever recorded. To be fair, Trump won 71 million votes which was also impressive. That said, a 4 million vote popular vote difference is a shellacking. The electoral college score is 279 – 214 in favor of Biden, as of Sunday November 8th.

Incumbents usually win these elections. 71 million Americans fired President Trump. 71 million Americans saw him as a total failure as a President. 71 million Americans said “Buh-bye.”

My advice to Republicans (and conservatives), don’t put a moron into the White House ever again.