October: Democratic Surprises, Trump’s Shock and Awe
Wikileaks has provided more hacked Clinton emails, but also that of Podesta. They are not really surprises so far, just reasonable politicos discussing normal political issues. It wasn’t much of a surprise that Trump continued to use Russian hacks of Democrats’ computers in an unpatriotic furthering of Russian interests to defeat Clinton. He also continues to oppose 17 US intelligence agencies in determining that Russia is the hacker.
With no hacking of Trump, we didn’t expect any October surprises concerning him. Little did we know that a single short video of him on the NBC lot in a working environment (not a locker-room) claiming to be a sexual predator would provide a shock to his whole campaign, without engendering any awe. It was the gift that keeps on giving, and not done to promote the interests of any antagonistic foreign government. That was followed by the awe (not the good kind) of how many ways and in how many settings Trump carried on his harassment and assaults of women with his attitude of entitlement, of his invulnerability, and of his capability of cowering anybody who came forth with charges against him.
There was also the revelation that his bankruptcy losses insulated him from paying federal income taxes, along with his low balling property values to escape most property taxes.
Then came his responses in climbing into deeper holes to escape: by shaming and denying his predator accusers and threatening to sue them; by trying to shame Bill Clinton before the second debate; by his parade of victims before the third debate; and by his claim that he is a genius for avoiding taxes.
Then he claims that there will be all manners of vote cheating against him, to motivate his second amendment followers to go to minority districts and intimidate voters, which is the grossest kind of vote cheating, tending to lead to serious confrontations.
Recognizing that the whole intelligent world of media, foreign countries, businessmen, investors, bankers, etc. are trying to defeat his candidacy bent on total disruption is not imaginary, but a natural response of those to Trump’s own craziness, which Trump himself engendered.
There are two weeks left, and we expect more revelations against Trump of the same kind with limited extra shock, in our tendency to make linear extrapolations. However, if Trump’s Autumn has taught us anything, it is to expect new types of Shock and Awe.
