Democracy Dies In Trumpian Boredom

Edward Luce: “Call it the banality of chaos. Here is a checklist of Donald Trump’s recent activity. He promised on day one of his presidency to let January 6 convicts out of jail, close the US-Mexico border and ‘drill baby drill’ for gas and oil. He feted Viktor Orbán in Mar-a-Lago as the best leader in the world and assured Hungary’s strongman that he would not ‘give a penny’ to Ukraine. He took out a $91.6mn surety bond to pay defamation damages to his sexual assault victim, E Jean Carroll.”

“He purged the Republican National Committee with 60 staff firings — the opening move by his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, who he handpicked as RNC co-chair. He did a U-turn on TikTok, now saying its Chinese parent company should retain ownership. He mimicked Joe Biden’s stutter, insisted that America’s true inflation rate was 50 per cent and attacked Jimmy Kimmel as the worst ever Oscars host. It seems almost trivial to add that new detail emerged about Trump’s apparent soft spot for Adolf Hitler.”

“All this happened since last Friday. Now multiply that by 47, which is the number of five-day slots between now and the general election. Even the most diligent Trump observer would feel catatonic after a few such increments. It is thus little surprise that most of his recent episodes did not hit the headlines. In another time, with a normal candidate, any single one would hijack the news cycle. Trump’s candidacy is so far off the charts it is almost paranormal. That is the essence of his political appeal. It means he is judged by a different standard to Biden, or any other politician, Democratic or Republican.”