There once was a time when summer meant reporting on meaningless little oddities that might amuse a reader swinging in a hammock in the shade. Those were the days, as a famous fictional televised bigot used to sing.
Now the nightmares come around the clock. These are ugly times, but they’re our times, so let’s get on with them. At least we’re not bored.
The fortnight began with a literal bang. Actually, eight bangs, from—spoiler alert!—an AR-15, aimed at former-and-possibly-future president Donald J. Trump.
Democrats had been hoping for some kind of game-changing event that would divert attention from President Biden’s age. They got that, all right, along with an unanticipated side order of ‘be careful what you wish for.’
Republicans had been looking forward to their national convention, as a opportunity to hail their virile, conquering hero. What they got must have been beyond the wildest dreams of Roger Stone and Steve Bannon: a photo of their bloodied candidate, fist raised, with a flag in the background.
What could be more American—and bipartisan! It was just like Oprah on the teevee: You get an act of political violence, and you get an act of …
As a sitting President representing the non-insane party, Joe Biden was constrained from fully embracing the Butler Farm incident. In a formal address the Sunday after, he said, “in America, we resolve our differences at the ballot box… not with bullets.” At least, that’s what he intended to say. Biden being Biden, it sounded like “we resolve our differences at the battle box.”
Hardly had the nation begun to absorb the near-death experience of the presumptive Republican nominee, than it got a reminder of just how terrible a president he had been. One of his gazillion judicial appointees fired Special Counsel Jack Smith as if from a circus cannon, but without the usual net.
The upshot of this decision is that the candidate will not, before the election, be tried for stealing box after box of Top Secret documents, and storing them in the crapper of his insecure and tawdry Florida flea hotel.
The aptly named judge in this case, Aileen “Boom Boom” Cannon, seems to have pulled her legal reasoning out of the same hat where she keeps her rabbit. Jack Smith appealed her decision, and will almost surely win, provided that Article Three of the Constitution has not been rescinded first.
G[r]O[y]Pers Pick Their Poison*
Though now nearly forgotten, due to an assortment of intervening upheavals [see this fortnight’s intro for a reminder about the pace of events], between a failed assassination attempt and the de facto dismissal of a treason trial, Republicans could hardly have dreamed of a more spectacular wind-up for their party’s reinvention of George Orwell’s Two Minutes Hate.
Appropriately enough, Hulk Hogan caught the essence of the entire four-day orgy of self-regard in less than 120 seconds: “They”—actually, a registered Republican gun nut—“tried to kill the next president of the United States.” But “real Americans,” whom he called Trumpites, “are gonna be running wild for the next four years.”
The only news out of the event was the nomination of a running mate. Trump picked J.D. Vance, who is on the record calling him “reprehensible,” an “idiot,” a “moral disaster,” and possibly “America’s Hitler.” Vance apparently concluded that if life hands you Hitler, then become Martin Bormann.
Trump’s speech ran long in order to accommodate the candidate’s characteristic Niagara of lies, which were delivered in what Politico’s Jeff Greenfield called “a monotone worthy of a bus driver’s announcement.”
Rather than deal any further with Trump today, let’s turn to W. Scott Smith, a former editor of this paper, and his thoughts on Grover Cleveland’s acceptance speech 132 years ago: “… no man who is not a chronic partisan can read such a speech without feeling his nerves tingle with shame, that such language and ideas could be uttered by a man who has once filled and seeks again to fill the presidential chair of this great country.”
Capping the fortnight, the Democrats finally did something for which Republicans were not ready: Biden bowed out and endorsed Kamala Harris. The sound of brains short-circuiting could be heard from coast to coast.
* Updating the Nomenclature: All of our readers, we confidently assume, are aware that “GOP” is an acronym for “Grand Old Party.” That phrase, in turn, is an ancient—and now perhaps obsolete—nickname for the Republican Party. Less well known, we’re equally sure, is the term Groyper. Groypers are, according to Wikipedia, “a loosely defined group of followers and fans of Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist, far-right political commentator and livestreamer.” Groypers are “notable for their attempts to introduce alt-right politics into mainstream conservatism in the United States, their participation in the January 6th United States Capitol attack and the protests leading up to it, and their extremist views.” Since the Republican Party has purged all moderates from its ranks, and adopted Groyper ideology wholesale, we believe the time has come to retire the acronym “GOP”, and replace it with G[r]O[y]Per until further notice. Now, we may proceed… .