If media is so fixated on equivalence, where are the calls for Trump to step aside?

Almost incomprehensively, for months, while the media and commentators were calling out President Biden’s age, gaffes and gait, and increasingly questioning his mental competence, Donald Trump largely has had a pass.  

I continue with my split screen view of electoral politics with fewer than 90 days to go before Election Day.  There are any number of angles to focus on this past week, but one, in particular, so captures the essence of the choice voters will face in November.  I hesitate to refer to that choice as a “contest,” or even as a “race,” as those terms feed into the surreal narratives that all too often dominate the headlines and the airwaves.  Voters continue to be ill-served by the all-too-frequent default to equivalence that obscures reality and by the timidity in covering Donald Trump.  Atlantic editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, described this default as a “‘bias toward coherence’ that leads to careful circumlocutions instead of stunned headlines” writes Tom Nichols.

Following the June 27^th debate, the Democratic Party did what a responsible political party should do.  Party stalwarts realized that if Democrats wanted to win, it was time for the President to pass the torch to another generation, and that’s exactly what happened.  There was, however, a second aspect to this, namely the concern with the President’s ability to function effectively over the course of the next term.  Whether that was fair or not, there was the underlying perception that Biden would not be able to function effectively, and the debate did little to assuage the concerns.  Almost incomprehensively, for months, while the media and commentators were calling out President Biden’s age, gaffes and gait, and increasingly questioning his mental competence, Donald Trump largely has had a pass.  

Perhaps that is because over the years Trump routinely has rambled, has meandered, has mangled sentences, has made outlandish claims and has repeatedly lied.  That is the baseline we are all too familiar with, and more of the same is hardly a surprise, let alone newsworthy.  “Old news,” say many journalists.  But over the past months, even allowing for all his past antics, he appears to have stress tested that baseline.  Exhibit A is Thursday’s press conference, during the course of which one set of fact-checkers working for NPR cited 162 instances in which he lied or distorted the facts (in 64 minutes). 

The response of the Harris-Walz campaign to the press conference follows. That response reminds me of the following exchange from the 1988 film “A Fish Called Wanda”:

• Wanda: Now, was that smart? Was it shrewd? Was it good tactics? Or was it stupid?
• Otto: Don’t call me stupid.
• Wanda: Oh, right! To call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people! I’ve known sheep that could outwit you. I’ve worn dresses with higher IQs. But you think you’re an intellectual, don’t you, ape?
• Otto: Apes don’t read philosophy.
• Wanda: Yes, they do, Otto. They just don’t understand it. Now let me correct you on a couple of things, OK? Aristotle was not Belgian. The central message of Buddhism is not “Every man for himself.” And the London Underground is not a political movement. Those are all mistakes, Otto. I looked them up.

Trump’s performance begs the question as to why the Republican Party is incapable of emulating the Democrats.  Imagine the drubbing Biden would have taken had he done the same – Biden appeared old, but he did not subject the television audience to a constant stream of lies and distortions.  This regrettably has been the story of Trump from the outset – any one of thousands of outrages would have sunk the campaigns, let alone the political careers, of just about any other politician. 

But this is more than just lies, this was repeated failure to distinguish fact from fiction.  He claimed he was in a helicopter with then mayor of San Francisco Willie Brown that made an emergency landing (“Well, I know Willie Brown very well. In fact, I went down in a helicopter with him. We thought maybe this is the end. We were in a helicopter going to a certain location together and there was an emergency landing.”).  It never happened.  He was trying to make the point that Brown, a former boyfriend and political mentor of Harris’, had made negative comments about Harris, but in the process had convinced himself of something that did not happen – that is fiction.    

If the purpose of the press conference was to show that Trump was not rattled by the performance of Harris-Walz on the campaign trail and in the polling, and/or to convince voters he deserves their vote – he failed.  And just as the debate and the ensuring interviews with President Biden were an inflection point for how Democrats viewed him (and the Party quickly moved past the “it-was-a-bad-debate-night” view), so too should this press conference be seen as an inflection point for Trump.  While many of the lines were reprises of his grievance tour, some suggest a deeper downward spiral (this in no way is akin to Governor Walz’s statement that he had served in war).  Or are we simply seeing a candidate who, for the first time this cycle, is unnerved?     

So, where are the GOP stalwarts managing Trump off the political stage?  How can they not see, as Tom Nichols succinctly phrased it, “The Republican nominee, the man who could return to office and regain the sole authority to use American nuclear weapons, is a serial liar and can’t tell the difference between reality and fantasy.  Donald Trump is not well. He is not stable. There’s something deeply wrong with him.”  And what should be most terrifying to those closest to him is the combination of his state of mind, the enormous power a president can wield and the implications of the recent Supreme Court decision on immunity. 

Let’s assume the stalwarts and their donors believe Trump is going to win, though that conclusion was far easier to reach three weeks ago. But now?  Do they truly believe he has the capacity, should he win, to function effectively as the holder of the most powerful position in the world over the next four years, or are we missing something?  And then there is the small detail of the authoritarian agenda and the demonstrated willingness to upend the Constitution.  Again, are we missing something?

And, in the meantime, if the press conference is a harbinger of more to come, we can only hope Trump continues to unravel.  Most importantly, we must continue to talk about his fitness to serve.