Wednesday, October 16, 2024

Known for his improvisational departures, Donald Trump has long been the Keith Jarrett of American fascism.




Even for Trump, this was bizarre behavior and sufficiently erratic to be newsworthy. Three weeks before the election in a tight race, one of the candidates abruptly ends a swing state town hall halfway through and spends the next almost 40 minutes standing in the middle of the stage swaying as one of his aides plays his favorite mix tape. It raises questions, or rather begs questions already raised about this man's stamina and mental state.

In the establishment press, however, not only did those questions go unanswered, but there was an appalling effort to downplay the weirdness, to sane wash away the craziness of the event. The big exception here was the Washington Post which made an admirable attempt at capturing just how odd things got, including this photo of the teleprompter.



Trump sways and bops to music for 39 minutes in bizarre town hall episode

By Marianne LeVine

OAKS, Pa. — The town hall, moderated by South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem (R), began with questions from preselected attendees for the former president. Donald Trump offered meandering answers on how he would address housing affordability and help small businesses. But it took a sudden turn after two attendees required medical attention.

And so Trump, after jokingly asking the crowd whether “anybody else would like to faint,” took a different approach.

“Let’s not do any more questions. Let’s just listen to music. Let’s make it into a music. Who the hell wants to hear questions, right?” he said.

For 39 minutes, Trump swayed, bopped — sometimes stopping to speak — as he turned the event into almost a living-room listening session of his favorite songs from his self-curated rally playlist.

He played nine tracks. He danced. He shook hands with people onstage. He pointed to the crowd. Noem stood beside him, nodding with her hands clasped. Trump stayed in place onstage, slowly moving back and forth. He was done answering questions for the night.
...

As Trump stood onstage in his oversize suit and bright red tie, swaying back and forth, it was almost as if he were taking a trip back to decades past. Trump’s decision to cut short the question-and-answer portion of the town hall and instead have the crowd stay to listen to his favorite songs was a somewhat bizarre move, given that the election was only 22 days away. Vice President Kamala Harris has called Trump, 78, unstable and questioned his mental acuity.


The Washington Post reporting looks especially good compared to their peers.





The idea of trying to spin this as a concert seems to have start - surprise, surprise -- with Trump's team doing damage control.



This is another one of those stories where the more partisan press, feeling no need to appear objective, is actually able to be more objective. Viewers of Colbert have a more accurate take on this than do reader of the NYT and probably the most honest reporting on this came from MSNBC.





Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)