Opinion

The Haitian community in Springfield, Ohio, is in a helluva lot more danger right now thanks to the convicted felon, Donald J. Trump, than Trump ever was while working hard as always on the campaign trail at a golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Sunday.

Further, AMERICA is in a helluva lot more danger right now, thanks to the America-attacking Donald J. Trump, than it has been in recent memory, because this soulless bully has spent the past nine years sowing violence and spreading lies and distrust in a country he’d rather split in two than unify.

I don’t think Bill Maher knows anything about politics that you don’t. But I do think the host of HBO’s Real Time has a kind of specialized knowledge. He knows when a showman has lost his touch and turned himself into a laughingstock. And he knows there’s no turning back from that.

That’s my takeaway from Maher’s latest. On Friday night, he predicted that Donald Trump will lose the presidential election, and he will lose, Maher said, due to comments he made during the debate last week with Kamala Harris about people eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio.

We have a complete madman running for the President of the United States, and it would be about damn time our national media started reporting it this way.

We are just over seven weeks from a landmark election that will determine America’s standing in the world, and her ability to protect the rights, welfare and lives of her citizens.

It would undoubtedly be of consequence and consolation if Donald Trump were held civilly liable for January 6, especially if he managed by hook, crook or Supreme Court to escape blame for his four criminal indictments. At this point, however, the civil lawsuits against Trump do not seem to be faring any better than the criminal lawsuits against him.

After nearly four years post January 6 and Trump’s failed insurrection, the former president’s tactics of delay, delay, and delay for both his criminally and civilly related lawsuits have been enormously successful. As of the November 5th presidential election, Teflon Don will still be escaping from seven out of eight election interference cases that have resulted in one criminal trial, 34 felony convictions, and no sentencing.

And he’s handling his debate loss the same way he handled his 2020 loss: by lying about it.

Trump's post debate spin alternates between “I won” and “the debate was rigged,” as if people won’t wonder why he’d say it was rigged if he’s also saying he won it. Is he saying it was rigged so he won it? Or does he not understand basic logic, that winning a rigged contest isn’t really winning at all and it’s not in his best interest to claim it is?

I usually write what I hope are thoughtful pieces about American politics that feature something like a beginning, middle and end. But today, I’m going to comment on short videos I have seen throughout the week.

Some refer to the news. Others refer to universal themes of our democratic condition. Either way, I think they say something interesting and important about our country, our politics and the moment we’re in.

Now that the debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris is over, let’s resist asking whether it’s going to have any impact. I think it will, but I also think asking about its immediate electoral consequences cheapens what happened. No one has done what Harris has done.

His ego is glass.

A listener called into my program recently and asked, “Is Donald Trump the Antichrist and, if so, will he reveal himself at the debate?”

I passed on drawing a conclusion, but then the lines lit up with a steady stream of people over the next few hours offering their “proofs” that Trump was, in fact, the Evil One come to ravage the Earth. That he’s a literal and iniquitous thaumaturge. My first caller clearly hit a nerve.

The Times came out with a new poll. It suggested the honeymoon for Kamala Harris is over. She had enjoyed a sizable lead over Donald Trump, but now they are in a statistical dead heat. Some pundits now say the stakes for tomorrow’s debate are even higher. She has to beat him Tuesday to win the presidential election in November.

I don’t think “beating” him is her objective, though. It is, or should be, to minimize and put him in a box. Then she can say what she wants to do for the American people and why.