JUST TRYING TO KEEP MY HEAD ABOVE WATER

I don’t think I am alone in finding the events of the past week exceedingly strange and confusing. There is an eerie calm that has settled over the nation, despite the flurry of misinformation about Trump’s medical condition. This is, after all, the last four weeks of the campaign and yet the campaign seems to have disappeared from view. As one of my friends pointed out, part of the reason for the calm is the absence of an endless series of disruptive statements, tweets, outbursts, lies, and blustering by Trump.

 

Since I am of course utterly incapable of making any knowledgeable judgment about the medical information we have received, let me focus on just two brief moments that I found striking or suggestive. The first is the 18 second videotaped statement that Trump issued from the White House before he was airlifted to Walter Reed Hospital; the second is the four-minute recorded video that he put out from the hospital – on Saturday, I believe it was, although it has been hard to keep track of these things.

 

One wag called the 18 second video a “proof of life” video, the sort of thing kidnappers offer when demanding a ransom to prove that their victim is still alive. All it lacked was Trump holding up the front page of that day’s Washington Post to prove that the video was current. More interesting was the four-minute video he put out from the hospital.

 

Am I alone in having found it quite unlike any other statement Trump has made? It was oddly subdued and completely lacking in belligerence or bluster. Trump went out of his way to comment on the bipartisan support he had received and several times said that he would not forget this support. I had the very powerful sense that he was frightened. At any rate, he was completely off his usual game.

 

Trump’s actual medical condition remains an utter mystery. Earlier today the doctors said that he would be kept at the hospital for “another period of time,” whatever that means. But just a few moments ago I saw a TV report that he might go back to the White House tomorrow, and there was commentary to the effect that he had insisted on this despite the fact that he is in the midst of a five day course of medication which is supposed to be monitored in a hospital setting. Since rather unexpectedly it was Mark Meadows who contradicted the official doctors’ report and told reporters that Trump was having serious problems, we can perhaps look forward to Trump replacing yet another Chief of Staff.

 

I eagerly await the first round of polls taken after the first debate and then a round of polls taken after the announcement of Trump’s illness. I find it impossible to believe that this will be good for his polling but people are so frozen into their positions that we may not see much of an improvement in Biden’s polling after these two disasters. Notice that the news of Trump’s illness has completely knocked off the news the anguished discussion of his support of white supremacists.

 

Twenty-nine days to go.