This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

It is a story of cognitive decline but not the one everyone expects. Not all cognitive decline is uniform. They also decline who just insist. Not Gramps lost the remote control, and the TV is stuck on the Animal Planet. But the insistence the TV stays on the Animal Planet. The back side of cognitive decline. Angry and petulant, “you know they told me that wouldn’t work in 1985, but I showed em! I showed them all!”

The Trump campaign flails at cross purposes. Mr. Trump is being begged by his staff to try and stay on message. Just once please, please, pretty please! And rather than giving in and performing as would be expected. Mr. Trump takes the stage to troll his own staff. “You know, they want me to stay on message. Do you want me to stay on message or do you want me to get personal?”

Like rattling the cage at the monkey house. Trump gets his reaction. Then glances off stage as if to say, “See, see? They love me when I’m like this!” I’m right and you are wrong! You’re not the boss of me! I’ll do what I want. Is Mr. Trump unable to differentiate between working the campaign and working the room? Maybe it gets a rise out of the cheap seats but how does this play on the TV? Does the message begin to look detached or somehow muddled and out of focus?

The purpose of this press conference is to discuss the economy and tell my staff what I really think about them and their cockamamie ideas. You guys aren’t the boss of me even if I do pay you ten grand a week. Let me show you how we did it old school. The recent addition of Corey, the sexually frustrated man Lewandowski to the campaign as Mr. Trump’s personal representative. Basically, Mr. Trump’s Hollywood agent. To negotiate the terms of what Mr. Trump is willing to do. A friction between campaign and candidate.

I don’t need your instructions, I‘ll do it all by myself. Watch and learn children. You could call it set in his ways; I suppose. Mr. Know it All says by gum; this is way we always used to do it! Where’s your Fax machine? Have you seen a TiVo? Man, those things are great! The candidate vs. the candidate product. The product of countless hours of research and preparation. To put forth a professional and cogent political campaign or just let the old boy pull it out his ass and wing it?

The Trump campaign caught between a rock and a hard headed place and running out of time to try and turn things around. It is the type of cognitive decline where subconsciously a battle is going on between the cold sterility of today and the warm comfort of used to be. Tonight, we’re going to party like it’s 1999! Just leave it to me! Who let the dogs out! Woof, woof, woof!

A recent poll showed Ms. Harris opening a 13-point lead with women over Donald Trump. Gee now how did that ever happen? That’s okay, we will just get 13% more single men! That’s going to be a tough gap to overcome. Ask Richard Nixon about that. So, Mr. Trump declares it is all fake polls insisting suburban women just adore him. As proven by his thinking they do. Because he kept their suburbs safe from low-income housing projects. As some campaign staffer off stage tears through the talking points memo screaming. “Low-income housing project? Where the hell did that come from?”

Now Mr. Trump sir. It’s very important you don’t bring up things not in the memo. This our campaign road map sir and you’re all over the road.  Me? Are you talking to me? Boy, I was doin this while you were still pissing in diapers. The Trump campaign since the convention in Milwaukee has been an unmitigated disaster. And the blame falls almost entirely on the candidate. Yes, J.D. Shady Vance has been a disaster too, but who picked him in the first place?

They write him a speech and plug in the teleprompter. They wind him up put in a nickel and push him out on stage. Close their eyes and cross their fingers and see what happens next. Somehow rambling disjointed odd conversations with xenophobic threats and subliminal warnings aren’t cutting it with the public this time around. Could you at least try to stay on message? That kind of cognitive decline.

Even though it is perfectly clear to everyone else in the room. Orange Grandpa still doesn’t get it. “What? What’s everyone looking at me for? I thought it went great!”

That kind of cognitive decline. Where he might recognize a giraffe from an elephant, but he can no longer grok himself in this world or his place in it. Like Norma Desmond living in a sheltered aging mansion world of the past. “I am big! It was the pictures that got smaller!”

I don’t have to change, I’m big! I can do what I want! They love me! I am the message! “Max, bring the car around! “The failing rock star whose last record didn’t sell so good. Unaware of the fickle nature of the audience. They love me! I can do no wrong! Experts? Who needs experts when you got “it” baby! Yeah, and Daddies still got it! That kind of cognitive decline.