We speak here often of the laws of political physics. Donald Trump ponders them too, except he sees all this through a television lens, darkly, because that’s what he knows. And knowing TV has paid off for him, handsomely. If he has broken the laws of political physics — and surviving Pussygate was the equivalent of putting the mushroom cloud back in the warhead — it’s because he knows TV and he knows the American public. Like P.T. Barnum, Trump understands that nobody ever went broke underestimating their taste. And like Barnum, Trump has made bank off the gullible and the downright stupid.
Even Lindsey Graham said Trump is a combination of P.T. Barnum, Jesse Helms and Ronald Reagan. I concur. The shamelessly grifting showman, the unapologetic, overt racist and the photogenic B-movie actor. Yep, that’s Donald.
And that’s all that Donald knows. He knows zip about politics, never gave a damn about any of it, except insofar as it held the lure of money, power and fame. And he believed that his disciples, Mehmet Oz amongst them, could take his example and ride his coattails all the way into the corridors of power. So you can imagine how stunned Trumpty is that Oz is washing out. Rolling Stone:
He’s going to “fucking lose,” unless something drastically changes, Trump has said privately of his chosen man in the Keystone State, according to two sources who’ve discussed the midterm election with the ex-president. […]
“The [former] president has used words like ‘lousy,’ and ‘awful,’ and ‘doesn’t make sense’ to describe how Dr. Oz has been campaigning against John Fetterman over the summer,” says another Trump adviser who has spoken to the former president at least twice since June. “Weeks ago is when [Trump] first started asking me and other people, ‘Is he going to fucking lose?’ I am positive that I’m not the only one to tell him that he probably will, if something big doesn’t change.” The other source who recently discussed Dr. Oz with Trump says the ex-president has predicted that the candidate with lose unless “he gets his act together,” the source said, paraphrasing Trump. […]
In recent weeks, some Trump allies have repeatedly flagged polling for the former president showing Dr. Oz down, at times by wide or double-digit margins, to his Democratic opponent. Trump has sometimes responded by asking advisers how it’s possible that someone who was that popular on TV for so long is doing so poorly in the polls. When Trump has inquired if the polling has been “phony” or skewed, multiple people close to him have assured him that — as one of the sources describes to Rolling Stone — “this is not a matter of the polls being ‘rigged,’ there are major problems with this campaign and, more specifically, this candidate.”
Trump just cannot grok this. He simply cannot fathom how the world he knows, TV, can be wrong. Trump lives according to the world of television physics. In that world, popular on TV, especially for as many years as Oz was there, means you get anything you want. It really is that simple. And Trump sees it not playing out that way for Oz. This is rocking Trumpty’s world, make no mistake.
Plus, and this is a slap in the face both to Oz and Trump, the Republican party has given up on Oz and Mitch McConnell stunned people the other day when he said that he had higher hopes for the GOP regaining the House rather than the Senate due to poor candidate quality.
As Dr. Oz has sunk behind his rival Fetterman in successive polls, the national Republican Party has signaled that it shares Trump’s dim view of his chances. The National Republican Senate Committee recently pulled ads for Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania, along with two other Senate races. By contrast, a super PAC supporting McConnell has plowed roughly $28 million into Ohio to support another Trump-endorsed candidate, J.D. Vance, who faces a tight race with Democrat Rep. Tim Ryan, according to recent polling.
Trump was actually delusional enough to believe that he could get his popularity kids together, Oz, Herschel Walker, J.D. Vance, endorse them and then they would be the new class of ’23 in the Senate and they would oust Mitch McConnell and make way for a MAGA Senate Majority Leader of Trump’s choosing. Josh Hawley, maybe? Now, all of those plans are falling into the trash can.
Adding insult to injury is the fact that Doug Mastriano, who was going to be so instrumental in safeguarding a Trump 2024 victory, at least in Pennsylvania, doesn’t look like he’s on a glide path to victory, either.
Trumpty Dumpty is one pissed off egg. If, heaven forfend, Oz loses and Walker loses and Vance loses and others, it’s going to make Trump look really bad. Look for Trump to start characterizing these guys as coffee boys in the near future. That’s the pattern. He’s got to dump them, and stat.
The voting public, writ large, has tired of the TV personality as political star. Plus each of these candidates had other baggage. Walker is bi-polar, Oz has dual citizenship (and is so rich he can’t even fake normal person) and Vance is just a douche that ditched his roots at the first opportunity. So TFG is probably most responsible for the rethugs losing the Senate.
The problem with Oz was that in the beginning he seemed rather intelligent and persuasive. I am a doc, and even I liked him in the very beginning, but gradually he went whacko with more and more snake oil stuff. So it began to dawn on people, and not just me, that this guy was quackish. And finally, intelligent people began to despise him more and more. That’s where we are now.
So, Trump’s TV personality/popularity system doesn’t necessarily work. As for Walker, all people need is to hear the dumbness coming out of his mouth to know they don’t want a simpleton representing them in the Capitol.
So Oz’s polling numbers sinking “doesn’t make sense”. Hmmmm let’s see now-Oz is a “doctor” who hawks snake oil on his show, has dual citizenship, is wealthy, and is, now this might be important donny, Oz is a Carpet-bagger. An outsider on many levels. Trying to rub shoulders with the common man is difficult when you have all that garbage you’re dragging around.
I don’t know why that asinine show catapulted donny into stardom and the W.H. Barnam had it nailed all those years ago.
The carpetbagging issue is probably the real problem for Oz. If he’d done the sensible thing and made a run for a New Jersey Senate seat, he probably could’ve won (and handily, perhaps*). But he screwed up bigly (to use a Trump turn of phrase). Carpetbaggers do best when they’ve established residency for at least a full year in their new state before election day (eg, Hillary Clinton; she and Bill bought a house in New York in 1999 with every intention of Hillary’s running for Senate from New York). But Oz didn’t do that. He bought a home in which he doesn’t live (currently living with his in-laws–perfect optics for a man in his early 60s whose campaign has ridiculed his opponent for getting money from his parents into his 40s) and got a massive tax break on it in the process less than a year ago (literally, less than 11 months before Election Day–even less time before the primary election). Probably the only example of more egregious carpetbagging was when Illinois GOPers literally recruited Alan Keyes (whose residency was in Maryland at the time) when the party’s elected nominee Jack Ryan was forced to withdraw barely 4 months before Election Day.
*Of course, for that, he’d have to wait until 2024 when NJ has a Senate seat coming up for election. I wonder if he loses Pennsylvania if he’ll “suddenly” leave the state and resume his NJ residency?
Yes Oz will lose…
but let us never forget the biggest LOSER:
He’s a PERFECT loser.
Check this video out 😂 Crudité retort.
https://mobile.twitter.com/kimquindlen/status/1559646564896985088?cxt=HHwWgMC-vbKS_aQrAAAA