Going into the 2024 campaign’s most intense and critical week yet, a reeling Trump and his campaign are desperately seeking to lower expectations going into next week’s debate. To be sure, all campaigns do all they can to beat down the bar so low that any performance can look victorious. But there is a bit more of a burn to this one.

It isn’t hyperbole to say that this debate may decide the election. Additionally, it comes just five days after all of MAGA was kneecapped by an explosive indictment tying some of the most prominent red hats to cold, hard Russian cash. It is enough to make Trump gulp, while flailing his arms and ventilating about the unfairness of it all, pouting out that ABC News is “dishonest” as if honesty were a thing in Trump World. According to Vanity Fair:

“They are the most dishonest network,” Trump said of ABC News [while]…  baselessly suggesting that Harris would be provided questions in advance and mocking anchor George Stephanopoulos … to the delight of his audience. “They’re very nasty. I think a lot of people are going to be watching to see how nasty they are.”

Actually, no. A lot of people surely will be watching but not because anyone is nasty, no – more because the race is now clearly up for grabs, even leaning toward Harris. This is a problem for Trump, who seems desperate to run on his past while having trouble articulating a future that compels another Trump presidency. Debates are fundamentally about the future.

Again, though – this is what politicians do, all of them hedge against expectations but few do it with such urgency. He has no choice, though. The last debate proved to be historically consequential. It unleashed a wave of Trump momentum that ultimately ended a waning Biden campaign. This most-crucial debate may do the same thing, except this time propelling a surging Harris. A particularly bad Trump performance could easily do to Trump what debate did to the president.

Amidst all the “new media,” old-school debates still carry a lot of power as this cycle has proven.

So these are rough times for Trump, literally. At this very moment “X” is ablaze with the fallout of the Russian Propaganda indictments and what they mean to MAGA’s hopes in November. Messaging during such a critical week is difficult in the best of times. It can be devastating when one’s messengers appear to the world to be Russian agents.

And then there is the fallout:

Just what you want as you stare into the abyss of irrelevance if the debate is as disastrous as Trump might fear. There is more at risk than just perceived momentum, campaign cash, and polls. Trump often leans into an air of invincibility and it has served him well despite the 2020 results. He hasn’t fallen yet but that doesn’t mean he can’t or won’t. One is invincible right up to the point that one is not.

Credible accusations of real Russian collusion among all things MAGA necessarily reeks of desperation, nothing invincible. After all, it’s not like Benny Johnson needed prompting to litter “X” with his banal bark in praise of Trump. In such an environment, anyone – even Donald Trump, will do all that’s necessary to prepare for a less than stellar performance by blaming the media ahead of time as if he has no agency in this at all.

There are 60 days to the November election but only five between now and the debate. In this environment, Trump might best consider this week as that which will come to define the critical last two months. If he wants to manage expectations, maybe he should manage his own. Perhaps things can’t get worse.

Of course, he’s still on this side of the debate. Check in late Tuesday night.

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8 COMMENTS

  1. In Little Big Man, Dustin Hoffman warned the egomaniac Custer about going into the valley at little Bighorn, “those aren’t helpless women and children at the Washita River general,(one of the US army massacres of unarmed native Americans), but thousands of Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapahoe warriors. When they get through with you, you won’t be nothing more than a greasy spot. So you go on down there general if you’ve got the guts.” So trump you go on to the debate if you’ve got the guts. The person waiting isn’t an old school polite career politician playing by the Kingsbury rules. She’s a seasoned prosecutor and you are a CONVICTED FELON who can’t string a cogent thought with another. America will be watching. Be sure to put on a fresh Depends.

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  2. Just a thought, but don’t get too confident. He may have a reptile brain, but snakes can be shrewed.

    I cannot find a reference a g search, but I was told that there are snakes that only consume live prey in Africa. So they will put a chicken in the snake pen. At first, the chicken is terrified, but the snake remains still and eventually, the chicken calms down and gets closer and closer. Then the snake strikes.

    Don’t forget that this might be just a game to throw everyone off. In the Biden debate, Mendacious Orange was composed during that off-mic moments, and 90 minutes of made-up facts and lies is only difficult if you have a conscience, it wasn’t hard to do that with no fact checking. Someone who lies while Harris will have to be square with the facts is not a level playing field, and add to that the reptile instinct brain, Harris will have to be a lucky mongoose to outmaneuver the Orange Menace.

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  3. I wish I knew someone that was a good lipreader watching Trump since the mics will remain muted. That would be educational as well as amusing!

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  4. wkdawson…remember orangebob shitpants didn’t gain on his constant lying…Biden just looked like a deer in the headlights. He also set a bar…a low one. There’s no way Kamala will look weak, indecisive, or stunned. I’d put my money on him losing his cool at some point.

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  5. President Biden said one reason he did poorly in the debate was over preparation. Vice President Harris is in “debate school” preparing. There is the possibility that she will prepare for orange menace to act one way and she reacts incorrectly. Every mis step will throw her off her game, just as it did President Biden. I am not holding out a lot of hope for this to be a one sided debate in favor of Vice President Harris. It could go either way. It all depends on what persona the menace to democracy brings to the debate and how Vice President Harris reacts. She might kick his butt or she might look like a fool when that horrid mass of orange stench gets done with her. Only time will tell.

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    • Carol…remember she’s been a prosecutor facing adversaries in court, under pressure, etc. I seriously doubt she’ll look like a fool. Of course we won’t know til Tuesday, but who would you put odds on to act up?

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  6. A friend is taking bets:
    1) Big Don won’t show
    2) Fat Stuff will lose it and storm off 20 minutes in
    3) Melania will hand him divorce papers
    4) Barron will divorce him.
    5) Who knows

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