Picture this: the election that will determine the future of our democracy is less than one month away. Your candidate is behind in the polls. You show up to a rally and watch in horror as he presses play on the Glee Original Cast Recording of “Let’s Have a Kiki” featuring Sarah Jessica Parker. He stands there swaying in the wind for several minutes, and you’re not sure what to think anymore.
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This is not what happened at Trump’s recent campaign rally, but it’s not far off. In a confusing campaign stop near Philadelphia, the Republican candidate allegedly danced for 40 minutes to a strange collection of songs, including the gay anthem YMCA and Sinéad O’Connor’s version of the Prince hit “Nothing Compares 2 U.”
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Trump also seemed to forget which specific song he wanted to close out his appearance with.
There’s nothing too shocking about this, considering that it’s just one step away from Trump’s “bacon windmills” speech from a few months ago. We already knew that Trump is not the ideal person to invite to karaoke, but there’s something slightly more sinister lurking here.
As the Harris campaign pointed out on social media after the event, Trump really went off the rails during his Oaks, PA appearance, once again talking about fictional murderer Hannibal Lecter and referred vaguely to a voting event on “January 5th.” But the problem here is that Trump voters don’t seem to care. The man who bragged years ago about being able to shoot someone in the middle of 5th avenue and get away with it is essentially doing everything short of that at his recent rallies. But if you’re not embarrassed by Trump’s behavior here, and you’re not embarrassed by the mere idea of a MAGA fashion show, clearly you’re embarrassment-proof.
We knew this about Trump supporters, but Trump supporters aren’t really the problem here. The undetermined factor in this election remains undecided voters, and we don’t yet know whether they’re as confused as everyone else about Trump’s consistently failing performance in recent public appearances.
In normal circumstances, it would be wonderful to see Trump failing like this over and over again. But sadly the state of things is so confused and confusing that we genuinely don’t know how this will affect voters. I guess we’ll just have to wait until January 5th—I mean November 5th!—to find out.
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