As President Trump repeatedly alleges, Joe Biden may indeed, at his age, be suffering from early stage dementia. But, as for Donald Trump, there is increasing evidence that he and common sense are estranged.
How else can one explain his initial refusal last week to renounce violence if his re-election bid fails?
His failure is bad on two fronts. First, Trump aids the Left’s attack on him as an authoritarian who hates democracy and will cling to power any way he can.
Second, his answer implies that violence is OK if it’s “on his side”. Thus, he undercuts the general public’s disgust with the leftwing and racial violence which has been plaguing various American cities for months. That disgust had been fueling a recent rise in the President’s poll numbers and has prompted Biden to announce that he, too, opposes the rioting and destruction. Now what will the public response be? A plague on both your houses?
[Note: His later clarification was not helpful. The President said he would leave office peacefully if the election is fair. But if he believes that the election was unfair, Republicans should take to the streets?]
Even if Trump “really” did not mean what he said (he is notorious for saying, without a filter, what pops into his head) the impact on some unhinged listeners – both left and right – may be dangerous.
Trump, of course, has left no doubt for nearly four years that his “shoot from the hip” style is a paramount part of him. So to continue the metaphor, he continues to put bullet holes in his feet.
Would that America – and Republicans in particular – were not victims of his faulty aim as well.
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