The Biden-ing of Donald Trump

John Heileman: “Political journalism has always struggled to fully capture or cope with Trump when he’s lost the plot—and it’s struggling mightily now. The standard recourse is to embrace euphemism: to say that Harris’s rise has ‘rattled’ or ‘disoriented’ Trump or ‘knocked him off his game,’ that he’s failing to ‘drive a consistent message,’ that he’s ‘unfocused’ or ‘undisciplined.'”

“But if we’re honest about Trump’s public behavior over the past month, there’s no getting around the fact that the words and phrases above aren’t merely euphemisms or modestly inaccurate descriptions of his performances on the stump. These weasel words and phrases are well-intentioned but ultimately misleading bullshit. The Trump on display on the campaign trail in the past month isn’t disoriented, unfocused, or undisciplined—he’s dotty, doddering, demented, possibly deranged, and clearly disturbed.”

“Which is the point that Trump-watchers far more obsessive than me—coming from widely varying ideological and temperamental orientations—are now making in unison.”