The October Surprise
What has become a nerve-wracking guessing game every four years during a presidential campaign is what will be the October Surprise? Will it hurt one's own candidate or the other side? How devastating will it be -- or recoverable? And it's now November, and now we know. I was going to start out by saying, “Who would have expected that the October Surprise would be Trump?! Screwing himself” -- but then I realized that I have been expecting that and writing about it ever since he announced his candidacy.
Still, though, it’s pretty remarkable. Most especially since the centerpiece of his final meltdown came about at what he had long planned as his crown jewel event, a grand rally at Madison Square Garden. He began collapsing before that, but afterwards it’s been a cannonball downhill. Indeed, a poll showed that 8% more undecided voters have thus far committed to voting for Trump and Harris during the past week.
Surprise!
For the past year or so, I have been writing here and in numerous emails and online that not only does Trump have early dementia, but he was degenerating, and it’s getting worse, and that he’s going to say something in public that would be so egregiously horrible that it would offend too many people. And…well, here we are!
No, it’s not exactly the same thing. This wasn’t a dementia rant on camera. And some of collapse was caused by someone else, a comedian. But Trump could have easily turned things around and stopped the outroar by simply condemning the line about Puerto Rico being an “island of garbage." But instead, he doubled down, didn’t disown the “joke,” then tripled down, got a garbage truck, struggled to open the door and keep his balance, and wore his garbage workers vest all day – and far more to the point: Trump couldn’t condemn the joke because it used his own words, calling the U.S. a “garbage pail” only days before. And he couldn’t condemn the joke because his rally was filled with people saying vicious, sick things that were merely continuing the Trump positions.
And all of that came on the heels of his dementia meltdown just two weeks before, dancing at a Town Hall for 39 minutes. And then days later came his dementia meltdown talking about Arnold Palmer’s genitalia for 10 minutes. And then his rants about political opposition being “the enemy from within,” even naming Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff, and using the military against Americans.
And during this final two weeks, showing his age, wearing down, only able to spew anger, and the same repeated anger – which I’ve written about psychologists saying that such things can be dementia related, only being able at times to focus on the same things which then get relentlessly repeated. And tripling down on immigrants eating pet dogs and cats. And getting angrier and more dystopian and chaotic by the day.
And knowing that his poll numbers are terrible with women, knowing he somehow has to figure out some way to attract them to his campaign – yet outraging women even more by not only saying that he will defend women “whether they like it or not,” but acknowledging that his advisers tell him not to say that – but his dementia and sociopathic personality won’t let him not say it. It’s all he knows, it’s all he has in his mind to focus on.
And then talking about how he’d like to see Liz Cheney with nine guns in her face. And then two days later, yesterday, telling a rally that he “wouldn’t mind it” if the press got shot.
My friend Peter Carlisle was the Chief Prosecuting Attorney of Honolulu (basically the District Attorney) for about 18 years. And then elected mayor. He once told me that the two most important parts of a trial are the Opening Statement, when you focus the jury on what the trial is about, and the Closing Argument, the last thing the jury hears as you sum up your case.
And this last two weeks of utter bleakness and out-of-control fascist anger, insulting important voting groups has been Trump's Closing Argument.
No, it hasn’t been a single dementia-laden speech, but the last month – most especially the past two weeks – have been dementia wearing down on him, 78-year-old age wearing down on him, his malignant narcissism (where one is willing to burn everything down if they don’t get their way) wearing down on him -- and culminating in the truly terrible last week beginning at his Rally of Hate at Madison Square Garden.
Dementia is degenerative, and I’ve often quoted psychologist Dr. Jack Gartner, of Johns Hospkins, who’s written extensively about Trump and has said that “I tell people to look at Trump now, because it’s the best you will ever see him.” And so, it degenerates, it can’t help but be intensified not just from age, but also from the stress of an exhausting, combative presidential campaign and stress of fear of losing. Not to mention the stress of running against a Black woman. And it’s all come to a head, reminding people of his rape conviction and video of his “Access Hollywood” p*ssy tape that not only is going viral again, but being watched on Tik-Tok by young women and men in college who had never seen it before, being much too young when it came out – probably 10-12 years old, maybe even shielded from it by their parents – and now discovering it, sickened by what they see.
Will Trump melting down be a big enough October Surprise to affect the result of the election? Maybe, maybe not -- that's the case with every October Surprise. We'll find out, but we do know from that aforementioned poll that at the very least it's affected votes, and in a close election that's critical.
But in the end, for all those who expected the October Surprise to be some viral AI video by Russia, or some social media attack from Iran, or something else devastating in your imagination that kept you up at night -- nope. It was Trump. All by himself. Trump being Trump, as MAGOPs like to say. Though at this moment, perhaps not so much.
Surprise!
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