Tonight the U.S. will have an election debate and the media will accompany it with their usual horse race reporting.
The pre-debate attack on Donald Trump claims that his rambling way of public talking is a sign of his old age:
At 78, former President Donald J. Trump exhibits more energy and speaks with more volume than President Biden does at 81, but he, too, has mixed up names, confused facts and stumbled over his points. Mr. Trump’s rambling speeches, sometimes incoherent statements and extreme outbursts have raised questions about his own cognitive health and, according to polls, stimulated doubts among a majority of voters.
In 2016, during his first campaign, Trump also held rambling speeches, confused facts and stumbled over points. It was and is his special way of talking to crowds and his followers love him for it.
To now claim that this very unchanged style is a sign of old-age Trump is inconsistent with that history.
But the point will be repeated as soon as the debate is done.
Trump'ss program, as far as he has one, does not differ much from his previous one. Some social red meat for cultural conservatives and economic lunacies for libertarians. Add a few crud ideas he will soon forget about. I generally like his somewhat isolationist stand on foreign policy but there is little chance that any of it will be implemented should he win the election.
The be-partisan foreign policy blob which rules in Washington will sabotage any attempts to make peace with Russia and/or to discard NATO.
Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate, is an empty vessel. Voters have never liked her. I have seen her nicknamed Incitata. It fits. The favorite horse of Roman Emperor Caligula was named Incitatus (from Latin 'incitare' – 'to encourage'):
According to Suetonius, in the Lives of the Twelve Caesars (121 AD), Caligula planned to make Incitatus a consul, and the horse would "invite" dignitaries to dine with him in a house outfitted with servants there to entertain such events. Suetonius also wrote that the horse had a stable of marble, with an ivory manger, purple blankets and a collar of precious stones.
Calligula's idea was to mock the Senate.
The blob is doing likewise with the public by offering someone who has no initiative of her own but will faithfully defend the implementation of anything the blob will desire. She is the most more-of-the-same candidate I can think of.
Harris and Trump are the two politicians with the most negative public ratings. That they are the only choices available makes the whole theater a mockery of the public.
One can conclude that U.S. is some form of oligarchy with a facade that is supposed to look like – but is not – a democracy.