The Daily Populous Monday August 26th, 2024 evening edition
Authored by newrepublic.com and submitted by plz-let-me-in

Will RFK’s endorsement get Trump a few votes? It might. But these two unprincipled freakos deserve each other, and if it ever looks like RFK might matter, all Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have to do is say something like that.

Harris’s campaign so far has been a work of genius on several levels, but maybe the most ingenious stroke of all has been the decision to mock Trump—to present him not only as someone to fear but also to ridicule. Harris perfectly encapsulated this two-pronged attack in these memorable lines from her acceptance speech: “In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man. But the consequences—but the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.… Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails.”

But the emphasis has been on ridicule (Tim Walz’s “weird” comment, Maryland Governor Wes Moore’s jab at Trump’s bone spurs, Barack Obama’s hilarious hand gesture when he was talking about Trump’s obsession with crowd size). It’s great on three levels. The first is that it must drive Trump nuts, and when he goes nuts, he says especially nutty things. Second, it’s arguably more persuasive to swing voters than calling Trump a fascist. Trump is a fascist, make no mistake. But he’s also ridiculous. Mocking him over his Hannibal Lecter obsession will stick in apolitical people’s minds far more strongly than warning about his plans to wreck the Justice Department, and in its way, it’s just as disqualifying. Do we really want a president who thinks an eater of human flesh, however fictional, was misunderstood?

Illustrious-Bee4402 on August 26th, 2024 at 11:35 UTC »

He hates the word “small”

Virtual-Squirrel-725 on August 26th, 2024 at 11:30 UTC »

It's amazing that a rapist, fraud, traitor and felon is essentially untouchable.

But being mocked for just being weird as fuck, has pierced the armor.

EnderCN on August 26th, 2024 at 11:21 UTC »

Same weakness as Pennywise. Go figure .