Unfit to Serve

Wow. So, today President Obama weighed in on Donald Trump's very bad campaign, describing the GOP nominee as "unfit to serve" and inviting the GOP leadership to take note that if they genuinely disapprove of the things that Trump says, it rings hollow when they don't disavow the man himself. This is basically what I've been saying--you can't have it both ways. Every day that the leadership supports someone who clearly seems hell-bent on turning off large portions of the electorate in weird and almost deliberate-seeming ways, is another day that they are being part of his rolling disaster.

Now, while Obama was making this unprecedented statement for a sitting President (and to undercut what might appear to be the partisan nature of the comment, admitted that he felt no such sense of horrible lack in his own former opponents, Senator McCain and Governor Romney), Donald Trump was ejecting a lady with a crying baby from one of his rallies. I know, I know. You may be thinking that demonic Hillary Clinton enticed a fire marshal to plant the lady with a baby there, but no, he mocked a lady with a crying baby because of course he did babies are the worst. I guess it was stealing his attention. As you know, things are totally rigged for babies. Sad!

If it wasn't for being so unfit for office that POTUS had to comment on it, the baby-banishing thing, the fact that an oh-so-carefully-taught child was calling Hillary Clinton a "bitch" at Trump's event, and all that sort of thing, I guess we'd probably have time to note that he still hasn't apologized to the Khans, that he thinks if a woman is sexually harassed, she can just "change her career" (so in touch with working folks, you guys!) and that he accepted a Purple Heart as a gift, saying, "I always wanted one of these," which is utter madness for a guy with five deferments from serving his country to state.

Pretty much all of these things could be separate blogposts, if Trump could stop being horrendous long enough for a person to catch the hell up.


(Deep breath.)

So, as if pre-emptively dumping top Republicans before they deign to dump him, Trump has pointedly decided to not endorse Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, Sen. John McCain, Sen. Kelly Ayotte, or any them because, he doesn't have to, and you can't make him. (Also--note the symmetry--that "not quite there" language was where Paul Ryan sat on his duff before endorsing Trump; he's basically backing his challenger like he had leverage in the primary. But maybe--he's anticipating an Eric Cantor/David Brat type of upset. Things are weird out on the political streets these days, and you can't take anything for granted.) I think the response from most candidates was "whatever". Does he help? Does he hurt? How the fuck do you know that when you don't know if you're getting "good Donald" or "bad Donald" from day to day?

As for President Obama's comments, who doubtless had Trump's delegitimizing Birther BS on his mind as one of the reasons for determining that he was unfit, Trump fired back with: "Well, so's Hillary Clinton!" I just have a feeling that the fitness argument on expertise and temperament just isn't his to win, though.

And the day isn't even over, people. I'm probably getting back on Twitter to find he really did shoot some guy on the main drag just to see if he'd lose any supporters. It's like that, now. The new abnormal, if you will.