There are a lot of differences between the two presidential campaigns and the most profound, as we are now in the last, all stops out, final days until November 5, is that the Trump campaign has blocks of time where the candidate is nowhere to be seen. Big blocks of time. I compulsively check the Trump Events internet page every day because it’s in a constant state of flux — unlike Harris/Walz, where those folks know to the nanosecond where they’re going to be, weeks in advance.
Trump is now on calendar for two appearances Wednesday in Pennsylvania, then nothing Thursday and then an appearance in Autora, Colorado on Friday. I guess he’s going to talk about the apartment buildings held hostage by migrants, one of his favorite conspiracy theories.
Then there’s an appearance in California, on the 12th and then, remarkably, there is nothing on calendar for 11 days. Nothing until October 23, when Trump will hold a rally in Duluth, Georgia, with Charlie Kirk. Can Trump be crazy enough to take almost two weeks off the last month of the campaign?
Either that’s the answer, which cannot be, unless he’s just decided to give up now, or Team Trump will book him into events at the last minute, on the fly. This is not how it’s done and especially not the last month of a campaign. But then again, nothing in this campaign has been normal — least of all the candidate, let alone running a campaign like this.
Axios reports Trump held 72 rallies between June and September of 2016. He’s held 24 in that period this year, with another on the calendar for Monday.
Trump’s campaign tells Axios he’ll soon ramp up his schedule with “multiple rallies per week” in the final stretch of the campaign. He’d have to ramp up quite a bit to match the past two cycles.
- Trump held 69 rallies in October and early November of 2016, taking the stage as many as five times per day in the stretch run.
- Even with the pandemic raging in 2020, Trump controversially hit the road with 15 rallies in September and 43 over the five weeks leading up to Election Day.
- Trump stopped holding outdoor rallies for a few weeks after surviving a July assassination attempt in Pennsylvania, but resumed in late August. He held a rally on Saturday in North Carolina and has another scheduled for Monday in Pennsylvania.
Breaking it down: People in Trump’s camp give three primary reasons he’s hitting the road less this time, Axios’ Sophia Cai reports:
- He’s a known quantity. The campaign feels less need to define him or his candidacy for voters this time around.
- Rallies are expensive. Trump’s campaign managers this cycle are keeping a closer hold on the purse strings.
- He’s older, and more inclined to spend his time at Mar-a-Lago.
He’s out of gas. So is his message. He’s now down to his apocalyptic whinings as a method of communication. Mother Jones characterizes it as more disinformation crusade than campaign.
Trump’s dishonesty goes further than the usual campaign lying. He concocts and promotes utterly false narratives to shape voters’ perceptions of fundamental realities. His campaign is a full-fledged project to pervert how Americans view the nation and the world, an extensive propaganda campaign designed to fire up fears and intensify anxieties that Trump can then exploit to collect votes. And the political media world has yet to come to terms with the fact that Trump is heading a disinformation crusade more likely to be found in an authoritarian state than a vibrant democracy. This is unlike other presidential campaigns in modern American history—other than his own previous efforts. […]
Not merely peddling a series of lies, Trump is knitting together a full story that is utterly bogus, trying to convince tens of millions of a reality that does not exist: They’re living in a dangerous hellhole in which they’re imperiled by barbarians, who happen to be people of color. And Trump then accuses Harris and President Joe Biden of purposefully orchestrating this purportedly deadly situation and the collapse of America. At a recent campaign stop, Trump presented a nutty conspiracy theory: “I will shut down all entries through Kamala’s migrant phone app. She’s got a phone app. It’s meant for the cartel heads. The cartel heads call the app, and they tell them where to drop the illegal migrants…It’s not even believable.” It’s not true.
The overarching goal of Trump’s disinformation efforts is to persuade voters that they should live in fear—and that only he can save them. At a campaign event in Wisconsin, Trump said of migrants, “They will walk into your kitchen, they’ll cut your throat.” And elsewhere he brayed, “They’re conquering your communities.” He pointed to Aurora, Colorado, “where they’re taking over with AK-47s.” In another campaign speech, he warned it will get worse: “They’re going to take over a lot more than Aurora. They’re going to go through Colorado. They’re going to take over the whole damn state by the time they finish. Unless I become president.” This was another phony story. Crime in Aurora is not driven by migrant gangs. On a different occasion, Trump maintained these beasts were on the rampage across Middle America: “You see how bad it’s getting when you look at what’s going on with migrants attacking villages and cities throughout the Midwest.”
Trump has been depicting all of America as a place of tremendous peril: “You can’t walk across the street to get a loaf of bread. You get shot, you get mugged, you get raped, you get whatever it may be and you’ve seen it and I’ve seen it.” Yet crime rates across the nation are down this year, including for murder.
You’ve seen how bone, stick, stupid Trump’s MAGA cult supporters are, so I doubt that there’s any reasoning with them, now or ever. But this election hinges on this: are there more reasonable, sane Americans than there are cult members? Because if the answer to that is no, then the America you and I grew up in is gone. It is that tragic and that true.
I believe that there are more of us, us being sane, rational Americans who are sick of Trump, than there are of them. I pray that I am right.
Sample ballots are now being mailed. Study where the early voting places are and get ready to fill your ballot out. Have a plan. Ask everybody you know what their plan is. We have to do this and do it right.
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UPDATE: 10:30 a.m. PDT An Arizona rally has just appeared for October 13, so now there’s only ten dark days for the campaign. In all truth, I have never seen anything like this. No other candidate has massive gaps in campaigning the last few weeks of a presidential election. Never. So evidently, for reasons known only to Team Trump, they are cobbling together appearances literally at the last minute. Unbelievable.
Let’s not even bother speculating. Anything to keep him doing the stupidest possible thing until Election Day ought to be encouraged which in this case means acting like this is perfectly normal. If folks gasp and put in their “oh nos” he might change his mind-he does hate to look like the fool he is.
I think his campaign managers must be torn: 1. It’s best for the candidate, Trump or anybody, if they’re out there constantly the last month and making headlines BUT 2. Trump being Trump, the more he’s out there, the certainty of him saying something stupid.
So I don’t know which side will win out. If he DOES take ten days off, that’s a huge block of time for all the rallies, etc., to be Harris/Walz. Or Vance, trying to get attention.
Mailed mine it last month. Checked and it has been received and will be counted.
I guess different states work differently. I got a sample ballot yesterday in the mail but I don’t know when the actual ballot will be mailed out. I’m thinking of driving it over to an early-voting site and dropping it off myself.
he’s planning how to rig the election. he’s up to something no good, that’s for sure. if only Milton would destroy marolago
I have to caution you about expressing violence on this site. My hope for Trump is that he rots in prison. I don’t want anything to happen to him until he’s convicted.
an October surprise?
Orangebob Von Shitzinpantz and his MAGA cult are, as we say around here, dumb as a box of rocks! Orangebob is the best example of the Dunning-Kruger effect ever, and his cult is close behind!
He does believe he possesses comprehension that he does not.
My guess is that his advance team is struggling to find venues AND jurisdictions that will let him hold a rally “on credit.” He’s stiffed so many places over the years that even in Trump friendly territory local governments simply aren’t willing to deal with tens of thousands of dollars in overtime pay for LE and other workers and get left holding the bag. Same for the private venue owners. They are calculating the costs and asking for the money upfront most of the time now, and Trump doesn’t want to have to pay. So, his people are under orders to find suckers out there that will accept a Trump promise to pay “withing a couple of weeks” after getting an invoice for the expenses incurred.
He HAS to make appearances though and for all the money that’s coming in he likely has trouble coming up with even a couple hundred thousand or so to hold several rallies in rural/small town places (it wouldn’t cost as much) so it’s the combination of juggling whatever Trump has in the “events account” and trying to sucker some place into believing he’ll make good on what they shell out to host him.
Add in he’s fooking old and worn the hell out and I’m not surprised he’s not keeping the same pace as in past campaigns. In 2016 he had major media outlets suckered into giving him MASSIVE ‘in-kind” campaign contributions. All that footage of his rallies both live and in long clips after added up to air time that if Trump had had to buy it via advertising would have cost a billion dollars. Even Fox doesn’t carry that shit anymore. They show clips of highlights or a bit at the start and then cut away. However, now that Trump and Elon are asshole buddies Musk is making twitter/X into a massive “in-kind” campaign contributor to Trump.
It will help Trump but not like it once would have. What Musk has done to that platform has hurt a lot of people and small businesses in particular. Including websites like this one. However, the damage has both shrunk twitter/X but also substantially altered the make-up of its users. It would be inaccurate to call it a right-wing echo chamber because it hasn’t gone that far. However, since Musk bought the platform it’s replaces a substantial number of users who were regulars with MAGAs. There is I think more of a preaching to the choir factor with it than either Musk or Trump realizes. We’ll see. I spend as little time as possible there and you might have a different take.
It remains to be seen how all this plays out. I’m sure we’ll see Trump out there doing his schtick almost every day between now and the election. However ‘thrown together’ events might make for some embarrassing images and moments that will hurt Trump as much as they help. Perhaps even hurt MORE than they help. Especially if Harris and Walz go into overdrive. And they’ve got a WAY better group of surrogates to help out since Harris and Walz can’t be in two places at once.
Last time he did 72 and this time he’s done 24.
That sounds like the measure of him, he’s only got a third of the energy of last time.
Now he’s really old, too old – and he lost last time.
Old, senile, demented and ‘low energy’ can’t win elections.
Maybe he’s juggling what to do about what’s in, for example, Jack Smith’s document, and other legal perils that confront him, along with the skint availability of places where he can interface with his dwindling base to gin them up with his delusional lies etc,. Whatever he’s up to in those glaring spaces it can be a sure bet it’s up to no good.