You can read the rolling commentary here, but let’s just look at the top five takeaways from the town hall held in Philadelphia.
1. The Trump campaign is focused on getting people to remember January and have them project it into current times–like the coronavirus never happened. The only things Trump can run on the warped memory of what was, not the reality of of what is. Job growth… in January. Unemployment… in January. Wages… in January.
The other thing: is the opposite of that: nothing happened from February through September. It was all a dream… a bad, bad dream. But look at the third quarter numbers!!!
2. Trump is in no way prepared for debates or even more Q&A sessions with supports. With what should have be foreseeable questions (on coronavirus, on jobs, on health insurance, on police reform), Trump stumbled badly. He revered to two primary talking points that have already been debunked: that the coronavirus was unstoppable and that we need strong police.
Every other response devolved into a variation of one of those two topics. Even a question about a woman who died of metastasized cancer, Trump talked about COVID.
3. Trumpism is built on an “us versus them” mentality. In speaking to a Black minister from Philadelphia, Trump referred to the African-American community as “they” repeated, insinuating that “they” need to thank him for jobs, wages, housing… and apparently the larger impact coronavirus on their community.
They’re “Democrats” not fellow Americans: Democrat cities, Democrat states, Democrat football divisions.
The virus must be “Chinese,” not just a virus.
There *must* be the other for Trump to rail on.
4. The picture Trump wants to paint of Biden isn’t going to stick. As Biden himself said, “Do I look like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters?” No, he doesn’t, and no matter how many times you claim he is, he simply has to speak–calmly, sincerely, and logically–to undermine any caricature they try to create.
Trump doesn’t know any of Biden’s policy positions, so when he spouts his claims about Biden’s positions, he ends up in a rambling mess of Socialism-AOC–Taxes-Harris-Regulation-Clinton-and-Law & Order. It’ll be a smear campaign.
5. Trump is incapable of connecting with people. There were two times in the debate when he appeared to make connections with questioners: When he learned one of the questioners voted for him, he perked up. But when a woman described her health issues, he was disinterested. Even when a woman cried about the memory of her late mother, Trump got key details of her mother’s case wrong: she died of cancer; Trump said it was COVID–even after the woman described her mother’s cancer metastasized to other organs.
Trump couldn’t bear to hear someone else tell a story. It was too boring to pay attention to.
6. In Trump time, everything is two weeks away. Yes, it’s true. A health care plan was two weeks away. Now it seems we’ll see an immigration plan soon.