Attribution: AFP via Getty Images
Raindrops keep falling on his orange, comb-overed head. Remember when he stood at the door of Air Force One and couldn't figure out how to close his umbrella so he could board? Ah, privilege!
By Mark Sumner
Daily Kos Staff
If you scan the front pages of the nation’s newspapers on Thursday, you’ll find that President Joe Biden's historic and moving speech is at the top of papers across the nation.
Biden’s call to defend American democracy, personal sacrifice, and passing the torch to a new generation is not just front-page news at The Washington Post, it can be found from coast to coast to coast to coast to coast.
And Vice President Kamala Harris is there receiving that torch. She's there on the cover of the Los Angeles Times, and she's front and center in The New York Times. She's there in Georgia, and North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. Stories about Harris’ campaign and the enthusiasm and energy it’s generating are everywhere.
But something else is missing. There's something different about the headlines. Something that makes all these papers less gloomy, less angry, less ... orange.
Wait, here’s that missing something. It’s hiding inside The New York Times, where Maggie Haberman writes that Donald Trump "has lost his grip on the news cycle."
It’s an unfamiliar experience for Mr. Trump, who has monopolized America’s televisions, newspapers and smartphones for more than 12 months through indictments, primary victories, 34 felony convictions, an assassination attempt and a Republican National Convention at which he was celebrated as a quasi-religious figure.
Twelve months is an understatement. This may be the first time since Trump came down that golden escalator to start a campaign based on racist fear and the promise of violence that he has not dominated national news on an almost daily basis. Even when the nation was going through a pandemic that took more than 1 million lives, Trump took over what was supposed to be a regular medical briefing and made it all about him.
There have been bursts of light in the darkness, and certainly, Biden’s victory in 2020 seemed like a return of the sun after a long, cold winter. But this week … this week feels different.
It feels like a cloud has been lifted. All of the ardor, all the fervor, all the passion seems to be with the Democratic Party—and especially with the 100,000 volunteers who have signed up to support Harris’ campaign for the White House.
For once, Trump is finding that no matter how many ugly insults he spews, he’s doing it just for the red-hatted hate squad gathered around him. The media has found something more interesting to write about.
As Maria Cardon said Wednesday on CNN, Trump is having something of a “mental meltdown … because he doesn’t know how to run against someone like Kamala Harris.” As an attractive, accomplished, powerful woman of color and daughter of immigrants, Harris, said Cardon, is “a cauldron of all of the things Trump has nightmares about every single night.”
Trump and his advisers are baffled by how to go after Harris and frustrated by how she is capturing the media’s attention. It makes this moment nothing less than joyful.
But we shouldn’t start thinking that Trump's extended reality show has finally been canceled. This election is close. Every moment from now until November will be a fight. And it’s only a matter of time before every screaming headline is once again accompanied by the sight of spray-on tan and a snarling face.
Trump will find something to say that is so outrageous that it demands attention. He will make claims about Harris that try to put her on the defensive. And there’s little doubt that the media that has spent the last eight years circling the black hole of Trump’s ego will be pulled into that gravity well again.
Even today, it’s possible to scan all those papers and find a handful that still feature Trump front and center. But thank goodness it’s only a handful.
Enjoy this week of good political weather while it lasts, and use this moment to prepare against the storms ahead. Because there will be a lot of rainy days between now and the election.
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