September 20, 2016--Trump Is A Jerk II

In early June, not long after winning the Republican nomination, with a head of post-convention momentum, after delivering a decent acceptance speech that suggested he was about to pivot from outrageous-entertainer-candidate to become something resembling a more-or-less-serious, more-or-less-responsible general election candidate, Donald Trump revealed himself to be out-of-control without the temperament to be taken seriously as a potential commander in chief much less president when he attacked the Mexican-American judge who was presiding over the Trump University fraud case, slandering him repeatedly by mocking him as "that Mexican judge."

That's when I wrote my first Trump-Is-A-Jerk piece.

There was talk that Trump should either step aside and let Paul Ryan take his place (Ryan as a result tried to put on a presidential showcase) or be deposed by the Republican National Committee, turning the nomination over to Cruz, or Rubio, or even Jeb Bush.

This of course did not come to pass and Trump made attempts, with some success, to clean up his act and act presidential. He began speaking from TelePrompTers and it seemed that his genuinely-smart-and-savvy daughter, Ivanka, was writing his speeches and had him under a version of control.

For example, last week in the ballroom of the newly renovated hotel Trump Washington, or whatever it's called (the construction work also directly overseen by the now ubiquitous Ivanka) The Donald delivered a reasoned speech about his plans to revive the economy. Paul Krugman predictably took it apart but for a Republican it was a reasonable, less-draconion plan than, say, Paul Ryan's or either of the Bush president's.

A couple of days later, he delivered an even more responsible talk about child and eldercare. In regard to the latter, his, amazingly, is more generous than Hillary Clinton's since I can find no evidence that she has a plan for taking care of older adults who need assistance. She has hundreds of other plans but, as modest as Trump's is, none of this type.

National polls began to show Trump at least even with Hillary and in key states such as Ohio, Nevada, Colorado, and Florida that he was either within the margin of error or in the lead.

To boot, Hillary in public view on 9/11, collapsed allegedly from pneumonia which did two things--caused undecideds to think again if she is healthy enough to live through the unspeakable stress of serving as president (she has had a number of blood clots); and, related to that, since she tried to cover up whatever was ailing her, this contributed to the narrative that the Clintons are at a minimum not transparent and, to the conspiratorial-minded, fundamentally dishonest and crooked.

And, with rare political finesse, Trump said nothing much more that wishing her a speedy recovery and return to the campaign trail.

His numbers as a result continued to improve. Even the partisan New York Times began to have to report that his chances of actually being elected rose from single digits to perhaps 25-30 percent. Discounting the paper's political bias this more likely meant that the race was now a tossup.

But then Trump again blew it--

On his own momentum, with Barack Obama's favorables comfortably above 50 percent and Trump at the same time doing better with young voters of color, he stepped again into the Birther thing, declining when asked to pretend to be exasperated with the whole thing--"Of course he was born in America. Can we now turn to more important things such as growing the economy and providing childcare assistance to low-income [read, minority] families?"

Instead he let it sit and fester politically for a couple of days before finally appearing to be exasperated, saying, "Yes, he was born . . ." And then made matters worse when he tried to blame the whole Birther issue on Hillary.

No one any longer was talking about his plans for the economy or children. It was Birther 24/7.

Doubling down on outrageous talk, when trying to claim that Hillary Clinton would try to ignore or repeal the Second Amendment, he in effect cracked, "If she's so anti-gun, why not take the weapons aways from her Secret Service detail and see what happens."

This reminded commentators and voters of an even more outrageous, borderline felonious incitement back in August about letting "Second-Amendment people take care" of Hillary.

And this reminded me what a jerk he ultimately is and for this reason among others is unfit to be our president.

Sigmund Freud would have a field day with Donald Trump.