By all accounts, Donald Trump’s new “CEO” of his campaign, Stephen Bannon, head of Breitbart News, is a nationalistic street fighter who hates all things establishment and supported Brexit. He is a proponent of “let Trump be Trump” and that Trump – the only Trump – is cut from Bannon’s cloth anyway, so Bannon just exaggerates that. Mix in the understanding that this Trump is also the real Trump and that newly deposed Fox News Chief Roger Ailes, another old Republican street fighter, is either officially or unofficially helping Trump prep for a debate with Hillary Clinton and Katie, bar that door.
For those of us who thought appointing Paul Manafort as his campaign leader was a sign of nasty politics to come, we may just look back on that appointment and say, “if only Manafort stayed in control.” As if anyone is ever in control of Trump.
What does it all mean? Who has known what anything has meant this year? But here's my guess:
Trump becomes even nastier than we thought he was before. The “pivot,” a phrase I hate, is not coming – if it ever was – and Trump definitely is “doubling down.” another phrase that drives me nuts, on his strategy of being an isolationist who overlooks bigotry and racism in favor of what he thinks are the right things to do for a country founded on “we the people” and freedom and justice for all (not “all, except”). We’ll never see his tax returns. He’ll never learn anything about foreign policy in the real world. His tax plan will always favor the rich. He will lie a thousand times more. He will never apologize. He will return to taking on every significant Republican elected official in America. My guess is he loses the election, big, but not before we go through the roughest, ugliest, most hurtful political moment in our country’s history. Bar none.
And, when it's over, we may face some violent protests over what Trump is calling a "rigged election" in a country where voter fraud is almost non-existent based on all the evidence.
And, if he ever appoints yet another campaign leader, it will be Vladimir Putin. OK, I’m kidding about that, I think.