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GELFAND’S WORLD - The countdown continues. All of a sudden, it is two weeks before the election. And over the past week, while my Democratic and liberal friends are quietly panicking, Donald Trump has gone into a clown act. We all saw (and wrote about) how he did the speechless dancing, but the remarks about Arnold Palmer's genitals give new depth and meaning to that Tim Walz word Weird. Mind you, Trump is not the only politician to have been a bit obsessed with the -- ahem -- male reproductive system. LBJ had a similar approach to life. But LBJ was careful to maintain self-control in public.
And there was Trump's recent reference to Kamala Harris as a "Shit vice president." Salty tongues are not unknown in the political sphere. But Trump has pushed the envelope, and at a time in the election runup that scandals have the worst effect.
So, what's going on with Trump and the Trump candidacy at this moment? I've got a couple or three ideas, different but not necessarily contradictory.
The first suggestion is that Trump is showing genuine changes in his ability to think and in his level of self-control, consistent with advancing dementia. This may even be complicated by drug use -- lots of people have passed along rumors that Trump has used stimulants for most of his adult life. (We haven't really seen the smoking gun.) Whichever and whatever is going on right now, you have to admit that Trump's behavior is different than it was previously. Yes, he was always a bully and always insulting and of course always a liar, but in the past, he at least tried to cover up scandals such as the event with Stormy Daniels. Right now, he seems content to create a new scandal on a day-to-day basis.
Another possibility is that Trump is just playing to his base. He knows that he has to keep his name in the headlines and that his followers expect him to insult the people that they themselves resent. But on top of that, he is expected to be surprising on a pretty regular level, and he has been falling behind in his outrages. What is going on might therefore just be catching up. The CNN website did an analysis similar to this one when it headlined a story, "To millions of his supporters, the ex-president's outlandish displays underscore his authenticity."
OK. Authenticity. But there is authenticity along the lines of "give 'em Hell, Harry" and then there is coming across as clinically insane. Or at least addled. But what we are seeing could conceivably involve Donald doing his best to come up with new and startling surprises at a time in his life when he has mostly run out of ways to "own the libs." Age and fatigue will catch up with anyone, and maybe it's his time.
I've got another idea which is a little more farfetched, but not entirely inconceivable.
Whether the Republicans like it or not, the polls continue to show a modest Harris lead both over the country as a whole and for several swing states including the so-called Blue Wall of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Oh sure, the Trump campaign continues to claim that they are doing fine (what all campaigns do) but they have to know they are in big trouble. And when the polls close on November 5, Trump is heading for both a defeat at the polls and then to his sentencing on multiple felonies.
It must be scary for him.
Trump is not the sort of guy who can stare a jail sentence in the eye without whimpering. What must he be thinking right now? As a guy who lives for revenge and projects his own malice onto everyone else, he must be considering that he did everything he could to insult the judge who will sentence him. Perhaps he figures that by looking senile, he can avoid actually going to the slammer. So, he's showing symptoms of going down that dementia pathway.
Does this make any sense? There are arguments pro and con. The con argument -- legally plausible -- is that Trump is a first-time offender for what is, after all, just a white-collar crime. There is even an argument that it's a fairly common practice to up-value and down-value your holdings in pursuit of larger loans and lower taxes. Somebody else might have gotten a fine and maybe a little community service. The pro argument is that Trump has complicated things by holding press conferences right outside the criminal court, where he said that the judge is unethical and conflicted. Even Trump must understand that this does not work to his advantage at sentencing time -- and Trump, who functions at the level of revenge and not much else, is probably projecting his own revenge fantasies on this judge.
So it is not inconceivable that Trump is simultaneously playing to his base by appearing wacky and aggressively abusive, while playing the doddering fool so that, in his worst-case scenario, his lawyers can make the argument that he is not capable of functioning in the jail environment.
A subway series, sort of
Back in the long agos, it was not only possible, but reasonably likely, that two New York City teams would meet in the World Series. The Yankees have appeared in the World Series 40 times, winning 27 of them. The New York Giants won 5 World Series. The Brooklyn Dodgers played in the World Series 8 times, winning 1 time against the Yankees in 1955.
A World Series between two New York City based teams was dubbed a Subway Series.
So, we have a sort of Subway-Series-once-removed starting on Friday. (OK, so the subway has to be 2900 miles in length, but it's still Yankees vs Dodgers.) Interestingly, the Dodgers vs Yankees matchup has occurred 11 times previously, so this year will make it an even dozen. Maybe we should call it the Egg Carton Series, or perhaps Baseball's Baker's Dozen.
I've learned a new baseball term this year. It's a Bullpen Game. It refers to a game in which the usual line of starting pitchers are not called on. Instead, relief pitchers start the game and get substituted out every inning or two. Going even 4 innings is viewed as heroic. I guess you have to have great faith in your bullpen and simply lack 4 healthy starters. Injuries and elbow surgeries will do that to a team.
But it's pretty amazing that a team without those 4 starters managed not only to make it to the playoffs but to win the pennant. And the Dodgers have beaten the Padres and the Mets convincingly.
Of course, the modern style is to demand that pitchers go all out from the very beginning, and they have to have the ability to throw those 96 mph fast balls alternating with wicked motion stuff that wears out your elbow ligaments. It seems to be more demanding than what earlier eras did to pitching arms.
Still, I think it is of interest to take a look back at the 1959 Dodgers, since this was the first Los Angeles pennant and the only Coliseum World Series. Here are some of the Dodger starting pitchers from that year:
The hero of the 1955 World Series, Johnny Podres
Roger Craig
Super-star Don Drysdale
Later super-star with multiple no-hitters and a perfect game, Sandy Koufax
World Series star Larry Sherry
Stan Williams
The combined starting staff won a total of 72 victories. Can you imagine a bullpen game in that era?
One other noteworthy fact: Two of the above 1959 starters are in the Hall of Fame. I don't think Dodger fans of the 1960s era realized quite how privileged they were, considering that on any given day, they had an even chance of seeing a Hall of Fame pitcher throwing to Willie Mays and listening to Vin Scully call it.
(Bob Gelfand writes on science, culture, and politics for CityWatch. He can be reached at [email protected])\
