I finished watching the video embedded above and thought I’d share it with my readers as a bonus blog post for today.
This video is a breakdown of former President Donald Trump’s speech at a rally in Pennsylvania this weekend. As the title says, some people attending the rally left the venue in the middle of the former president’s speech.
Not a good sign considering the venue already had numerous empty seats before the speech started.
It seems that even some of Mr. Trump’s supporters are tiring of his rambling, self-aggrandizing, barely coherent, and aggrieved comments where he offers the same vapid stump speech that he’s been using since 2015.
It seems his campaign is completely discombobulated since President Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race and Vice President Kamala Harris is overtaking the former president in the polls.
It seems the concerns Democrats had about President Biden’s cognitive health and age should be of similar concern to the Republicans regarding former President Trump.
In this speech, not only did Mr. Trump address the crowd as being in “North Carolina” rather than where he and they actually are, in Pennsylvania, but he continues to veer off message.
If Mr. Trump is trying to win this election, he is certainly going about it the wrong way.
Historically speaking, the American electorate seldom has an appetite for negative political campaigning, especially when it appears that the candidate(s) isn’t addressing their concerns.
Mud slinging is only effective when the electorate is feeling just as aggrieved as the candidate(s) appear to be. Even then, it only works to a certain point.
In 2016, Mr. Trump succeeded in tapping into an angry, frustrated, and aggrieved portion of the electorate in the Rust Belt states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Trump only won those states by a total of 77,000 votes and he lost the popular vote. Of course, the Electoral College is the only count that matters.
The point is that had those 77,000 votes gone the other way, Hillary Clinton would have been the 45th President instead of Trump. In 2020, Biden defeated Trump by winning all three aforementioned Rust Belt states that Clinton lost in 2016 and added Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada.
Biden won by running a mostly positive campaign that didn’t engage much in mud slinging, name calling, and negative campaigning.
Anger and fear mongering only goes so far.
That said…
It seems I was hardly alone in not wanting to see Biden vs Trump rematch.
At 81 and 78 respectively, Biden and Trump should be enjoying the twilight of their lives rather than trying to be the next Leader of the Free World. I give President Biden credit for stepping aside, even if I personally think this was always the plan. The timing and the effect that his withdrawal seems to be having in favor of Kamala Harris seems very calculated and coordinated.
I won’t delve into any theories beyond my mild suspicions above, but I will say that I am glad to have another choice in this election besides a very old man and a very, very old man.
It’s nice to see someone closer to my own generation running for president. I’m also hopeful that this is the start of a return to sanity in our political discourse where the two parties can work together despite their differences.
The video above demonstrates that Biden isn’t the only one who should do himself a favor and just retire.
-The Rational Ram
The Rational Ram 