And A Cat Named “Vagina”

Dr. SJ stayed yelled at the TV, at Kaitlin Collins. “Say something.” And she tried, to no avail. Whether it was because she wasn’t up to the task or it was an impossibility no matter who was moderating the “Town Hall,” filled with supporters whose questions ranged from the equivalent of “what’s your favorite color” to the always tough, “if you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be,” the answers were the same. The election was rigged.

On a scale of 1 to Marjorie Taylor Greene, I’d give him an 11.

By this point, one would hope that everyone has reached the undeniable conclusion that he’s a pathological liar, at the very least about not having lost the election. Yet, there he was, pathologically lying about it anyway. Whether it was about his call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to the hundreds of miles of border wall that never happened to his defense against E. Jean Carroll’s claim of sexual abuse, to which he whined that the “Democratic” judge wouldn’t let him introduce critical evidence that she had a can named “Vagina,” he made his case.

In response to question after question, on issue after issue, Trump denied incontrovertible facts, insisted on alternative ones, spoke of America as a country swirling down the toilet, spoke of himself as the only politician who could save it, framed his presidency as one that outshone all the others, projected his own flaws and mistakes on his critics and opponents, expressed contempt for them and claimed persecution.

He was, in other words, a font of lies keeping true to himself, ever the peacock, always cuckoo. The evening made utterly clear — just in case there was a scintilla of doubt — that his latest, third bid for the White House won’t be any kind of reset, just a full-on rehash. And that was inevitable, because someone like Trump doesn’t change. His self-infatuation precludes any possibility of that.

CNN came under harsh criticism for providing a platform for Trump to be Trump. Collins was criticized for not being tough enough to shut him down as he meandered through the darkness of his delusions in his best incoherent stream of consciousness way. But it was Trump on full display. Unfortunately or fortunately, this is the person in whom many Americans would place their trust and the power of the office of President. Could anyone have stopped this train from rolling?

There are four things to take away from the evening’s festivities.

1. He won’t answer a question. If he’s asked what day of the week it is, he’ll respond with how he would stop the war in Ukraine in 24 hours because “China.”
2. He feels no shame about lying about anything and everything, knowing that his supporters care nothing about whether his claims are batshit crazy or not.
3. He will not abide the norms of discourse, such as responding to the question asked or stopping talking when the moderator speaks.
4. He has no policies. He has no shame in claiming that he’s going to save the nation, and nothing to say about how he would do it.

And his explanation for why is that everyone who doesn’t believe him is “stupid.”

And he has no acquaintance with a thesaurus, dignity or maturity. “Stupid,” “stupid,” “stupid” — he kept using that word, I guess because it’s so presidential. He applied it to anyone who doesn’t believe that the 2020 election was stolen and rigged. He applied it to everything about the Biden administration and Democrats in Washington.

“Our country is being destroyed by stupid people — by very stupid people,” he said. He never ascended to an altitude of eloquence above that.

Anyone expecting eloquence from Trump has never heard Trump speak before.

Q. What’s your evidence?
A. You’re stupid.

For all the criticism of letting Trump put on a Trump infomercial merely by providing Trump any opportunity to speak, it had to happen eventually anyway. Like it or not, he’s running for office and, at least as of now, is still the darling of the disaffected. Picture Joe Biden on that stage with Trump, trying to get a word in edgewise, trying to confront an avalanche of lies, irrelevancies, equivocations and more lies. Biden was never much of a speaker to begin with, as his old nickname of “Gaffe Biden” suggests.

Maybe that kid DeSantis is youthful enough to shut down the steamroller head on, but he so personally unlikeable, so far to the right and so inclined to turn away from a challenge that it’s becoming increasingly unlikely that he will run only to lose and be humiliated. DeSantis doesn’t take humiliation much better than Trump, as he showed in his war with Disney.

Even if you are capable of suspending disbelief long enough not to realize that his world is made of ridiculous false claims, if not a tenuous grasp of reality, at least as lawyers you can appreciate the absurdity of his claims that Pence had the authority to refuse to count the votes of the Electoral College or that the Presidential Records somehow entitled him to keep classified documents and “negotiate” with the National Archives.

Hate Biden all you want. Hate the Democrats all you want. Hate wokeness all you want. But you got an eyeful of the alternative last night. In 2016, people wondered whether it was time for a change, and maybe, just maybe, Trump would be that change agent America needed. It turned out that nearly every one of his “best people” ended with he’s a liar or a moron, or both.

That was Trump at the town hall. That was Trump for his four years in office. That would be Trump if he gets back to the White House. And it’s no display of superior cognition. Just a reminder of the madness that this country can’t seem to put behind it.

Not even CNN could stop Trump from proving that conclusively. Whether you believe he’s the lesser of two evils, he’s still Trump, the perpetual victim, loser, failure and whiner. And he’s just as shameless as ever.