Alan Zendell, August 1, 2024

Earth’s polar icecaps are melting. The best-known glacier in North America, the Athabasca, in Alberta’s Columbia Icefield, is only half of what it used to be. Standing on a pile of gravel, knowing that very spot was under tons of ice a few decades ago is aptly chilling. Even more so, however, will be the meltdown that has already begun closer to home.

The recession and melting of our ice fields occur over extremely long time spans. The meltdown of Donald Trump and his MAGA movement will not occur at glacial speed, however. It will happen live on our television screens over the next three months. The idea of a three-mile deep mass of ice disappearing is shocking, but more so will be the meteoric collapse of Trump’s political future. We failed to address the fact that our planet is getting hotter, but we can act decisively in November to eliminate the most immediate threat to our future.

Trump, the ultimate narcissist, sees himself as an irrepressible force much the way we used to view mountains of ice as everlasting. Both impressions are false. The change in Donald Trump’s prospects in November since the Republican Convention are stunning, and that shouldn’t be a surprise. Trump has always been a one-trick pony who succeeded to the extent he has through sheer brazenness and spending millions of dollars on lawyers.

He is an empty shell who knows only one way to function – through lies, fraud, and intimidation. Demagogues like Trump have a run of early success because they crash onto the scene which so much violence and malevolence, our system is unprepared to deal with them. When that happens, they invariably overreach, and ultimately self-destruct. Sheer luck and timing enabled Trump to do serious damage by packing the Supreme Court with extremists, but even that is repairable if Americans wake up to the threat they pose and act.

Trump is not a racist or misogynist in the classical sense, but his disdain for people he dismisses as beneath him – non-whites, women, and hard-working Americans struggling to pay their bills – blinds him to the power these people possess. Piss them off long and often enough, and collectively, they will bring him down. But he can’t behave any other way because he is seriously mentally ill, and that will do him in as surely as meeting an alligator on his Florida golf course and poking it in the eye with a putter.

It’s already happening. When attacks on Biden’s age and apparent frailty resulted in Kamala Harris emerging as an unlikely unifier, Trump’s entire election strategy fell apart. She stole Trump’s limelight and made it clear that she’s not the least bit intimidated by him. Her rally in Atlanta was as loud and raucous as Trump’s was in Pennsylvania before some idiot took a shot at him. But there was a palpable difference: the energy at Trump’s rally was fueled by hate and bigotry; the energy at Harris’ rally in Atlanta was a celebration of love and unity.

While Trump blusters and rants incoherently, throwing insults and lies around indiscriminately, Harris smiles and mocks him. Her self-assured confidence and competence, and her ability to read and work a crowd have Trump panicked. She has already taken from him the thing he craves most – the attention of the media. He is raging with frustration, because even he senses he can’t win against an opponent who has burst on the scene with as much impact as Harris.

It’s no secret that Trump’s most loyal supporters are racists, haters, and losers, who Hillary Clinton characterized as a “basket of deplorables.” She was right, but in 2016, Americans weren’t yet ready to hear her. It’s also no secret that many people who vote for Trump despise him, but despise progressive Democrats even more. New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu made that clear, when he said he would hold his nose and vote for Trump because he still believed the Republican Party would return to its basic principles.

As a professional politician, Sununu has neither the courage nor the vision to abandon his party even though it’s been taken over by thugs and criminals. Contrast that with Geoff Duncan, the former Georgia Lieutenant Governor who personally faced down Trump’s attempt to overthrow the election results in his state. Duncan has endorsed Harris and speaks out regularly about the threat Trump poses.

We saw a Trump meltdown, yesterday, during an interview with three black, female journalists. To Trump, they were surrogates for everyone he has viciously attacked who are now aligning against him. He is so enraged by the reality that Kamala Harris, a black/Asian woman, is ready and able to take him on, that he came off petulant and pathetic. His performance was so awful, his handlers cut the hour-long interview off after thirty-six minutes.

If Trump had any real substance, if he were anything like the man he pretends to be, he might recover and regain his momentum. But he is neither. He will self-destruct because he has only one talent, spreading hate and discord. Reasonable Americans have had enough of him and are ready to send him packing.