This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

A news story says, “Republicans are worried about Trump’s ground game.” Well yeah, that’s why they call it “doing poorly.” It’s unlikely a team is going to be a ten in one area and a two in another. More than likely, a four across the board. But this has been a campaign of presumptuous assumptions.

First, they assumed they we’re running against Joe Biden, check! We don’t need to do any opposition research on anyone else, just Joe and his family. Second, we got this thing in the bag. Go ahead and sleep in tomorrow and maybe take the weekend off! When your scariest opponent in the primaries is nerd personified Ron DeSantis. It could become easy after that experience to assume an attitude of “this shit is going to be easy.”

Who’s the leader of the club that’s made for you and me? And who is the greatest ever? And gooder than an aire angel too! Inside of the cult, an objective outlook is difficult to find. They’re certain, how could it ever be otherwise? The dark numbers and harsh reality are discussed behind closed doors and not shared with the faithful at large. Common among authoritarians there is only either Good News and No News. Trained since puppies to deflect all negative information as Fake News. An overly optimistic appraisal is bound to come into view.

Yeah sure! We got X votes last time. So, this time we should automatically get X PLUS. Everybody loves Donald Trump! But nothing is automatic.

Last time around, the street corners of my tiny Casa Grande were overwhelmed with oversized Republican road signs. Many with “Donald Trump Approved” on them or “ I kiss his ass! Vote for me!” This time around, only a few lonely yard signs planted along the main drag. No pictures of Trump or endorsements by Trump. I received a Harris-Walz flier in the mail but from Donald Trump bupkis. Does Donald take us for granted or does he take us for lost?

Arizona is a purple state, shouldn’t this be where the Republicans choose to fight it out in the trenches? Is a mailer too much to ask for? It’s like details are left undone or not being followed up on. A few measly yard signs along the main drag in a campaign costing hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars? For that kind of money, we should get our own float in the Rose Parade.  

For Mr. Trump, it has been a downhill sojourn ever since the debate. Then Joe Biden stepped aside, and Donald Trump lost his shit. The Trump team hasn’t been able to get things back on track since. Plus, with Jimmy the gibbering Appalachian meat robot out there terrorizing the countryside, it’s difficult to get up any steam. Recently, Mr. Trump has gone from a bumbling stumbling Gilligan to something much darker.

Mr. Trump talks of purges and rough arrests and mass deportations. Unapologetic and unrepentant, last days at the Fuhrer bunker. The angry loser giving pronouncements and making threats against innocents. Nothing quite says winner, like making angry threats! The manifestations of Donald Trump under pressure and perhaps starting to break down.

Under pressure to perform, Trump presses towards the extreme. If a little is good, then a lot is better, right? But in his extremity Donald Trump risks becoming a comic stereotype of himself. The raging old man always grousing about something or other. This is America, get in the game! That same old crazy is not going to work around here anymore, we want something new. We always want something new. You can’t expect us to get excited by more of the same, can you?  What else have you got in your bag of tricks to show us?

But you guys voted for Donald in the primaries! It’s Donald Trump! You guys love Donald Trump! Ho hum, yeah, I know, but that was a long time ago. Trump is somehow not the same this time around. And we don’t like VD or JD or whatever his name is. Unless you’re playing Abe Lincoln in the Junior college play, lose the beard. Not since the mid-nineteenth century has America voted for a presidential candidate with a beard.

Things Americans won’t vote for; Two headed Vice-Presidential candidates and Vice-Presidential candidates with beards. Look at the pictures! Read the room! Who do you think you are another Rutherford B. Hayes or something? Maybe it’s just a coincidence; there hasn’t been a President with facial hair in over a hundred years. But you go ahead, J.D. I’m sure it will be fine. Set trends and be groundbreaking! Carpe diem!

The beard gives J.D. the look of a middle school vice principal. The mean one, the one that none of the kids like very much. “Quiet down in back! I’m the Vice Principal here, you know! Keep it up, and I’ll move you to detention street mister! I’ve got a beard and a whistle and I’m not afraid to use them.”

But as J.D. preaches his gospel of “19^th Century Appalachian folklore of  “Barefoot and Pregnant at 15.” The beard appears to be a simple self-defense mechanism for J.D. to preach from behind. See? I have a beard! I’m a manly man with follicle proof! Many highly respected intelligent men wear beards. You never know, I could be one of them!

The Trump -Vance campaign has been focused on contemplating their own navels. Republicans complain the Trump teams’ messaging doesn’t match the local Republican agenda. They don’t care about Springfield Haitians eating pets in Ottumwa. They don’t want to hear Donald Trump say the same old racist something, just to shock the crowd again. That’s old news. You’ve done that before; don’t you have anything new to show us?

Because it is starting to get boring.

“This is it folks! Enjoy the jokes because I don’t dance.” – Rip Taylor