Donald Trump's 38-minute dance party is his Joe-Biden-Debate moment

On the ethics and politics of a candidate's cognitive decline -- plus playlist notes

Trump in the Black Lodge, by Midjourney

For a long time, Republicans said that Joe Biden was too old to run for president, that he was in cognitive decline.  At first, this was mostly just posturing, but starting around February or March of this year, it became clear to many people that they were partly right.  Though a few journalists, most notably Ezra Klein, spoke out, the White House covered it up, and Democrats stuck by their man.

Then came the June 27 presidential debate, and Democrats couldn’t pretend anymore.

This week’s town hall in Pennsylvania, at which Donald Trump swayed silently to music for 38 minutes while a befuddled crowd looked on in uncertainty and dismay, is Trump’s June 27. 

This is the story of the moment, and we need to not let go of it. Because for centrist voters—not only the officially undecided but those who are wavering in their decision one way or the other—Trump’s manifest unfitness for office is as dramatic as Biden’s was three months ago.

If you want to watch the full spectacle, here it is on YouTube from the local Fox affiliate in Pennsylvania. However, since there’s been some confusion over the sequence events at that rally, my dedicated interns I have watched the whole thing to get the story right.

At first, the decision to play music made sense.  There were two minor medical incidents at the Trump rally, and after someone fainted, Trump decided to pause the conversation, which is appropriate.  He then requested that the sound crew play Pavarotti’s Ave Maria, apparently a favorite of his, which is also fine.  He swayed a little absurdly, but that’s Trump’s shtick.  The dog-killing Gov. Kristi Noem looked on awkwardly.  So far so good.

Then came a little banter, complaints about the heat (“Would anyone else like to faint?” Trump joked), and then Trump decided to abandon ship, saying “Let’s make this a little musical fest” at 1:47:20. 

So, after some more mispronunciations of Kamala Harris’s name and more fawning from Roem, came a very long goodbye, starting at 1:59, to a playlist including “Time to Say Goodbye” by Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman; James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World”; “YMCA” (Roem’s weirdness here is priceless); Rufus Wainwright’s version of “Halleluyah”; a remix of Sinead O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2U”; Elvis’s adaptation of “Dixie” (titled “An American Trilogy” but with most of the lyrics intact); the repulsive Trumpist anthem “Rich Men North of Richmond” by Oliver Anthony; and, believe it or not, the whole nine minutes of Guns n’ Roses “November Rain.”

All this time, Trump stood there swaying.  He finally, at 2:37, begins to exit the stage and shake hands, to, of all ironies, the Broadway recording of “Memory” from Cats (really, I’m not making this up – you can watch the video for yourself).  That’s 38 minutes of swaying.

Now, this isn’t the point of this article, but as an extremely devout music fan, I just can’t let this playlist pass without comment.  Obviously, no one is listening to the words of “Halleluyah”, which is about (quoting an essay I once wrote about it) “how, for some holy sinners, God and sex are intertwined.”  But the temerity to play the version – used without permission – by the proudly queer Rufus Wainwright?  Is that blissful ignorance or malicious trolling?  And juxtaposing the anti-Catholic and politically radical Sinead with Ave Maria and the reactionary patriotism of Oliver Anthony?  And, even worse, repurposing her cover of Prince’s beautiful love song as a paean to Trump himself?  (I dare you to watch Noem’s gestures during this part.)  Not to mention the gay subtext (or just text) of “YMCA.” I think the superficiality of these music choices says a lot about the sheer stupidity of this populist movement.

Oh, and playing “Dixie” not far from Gettysburg, site of one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War?  Alright, moving on.

As political junkies know, Trump swaying weirdly for half an hour is not the most erratic thing he’s said or done in the last few months, or even in the last few days. Here he is last week, at an October 10 speech to business leaders in Detroit:

I mean, you know, this isn’t like Elon with his rocket ships that land within 12 inches on the moon where they wanted to land. Or he gets the engines back, that was the first I realized—I said: ‘Who the hell did that?’ I saw engines about three, four years ago. These things were coming—cylinders, no wings, no nothing—and they’re coming down very slowly, landing on a raft in the middle of the ocean someplace with a circle. Boom. Reminded me of the Biden circles that he used to have, right? He’d have eight circles and he couldn’t fill ’em up. But then I heard he beat us with the popular vote. I don’t know, I don’t know—couldn’t fill up the eight circles. I always loved those circles, they were so beautiful. They were so beautiful to look at. In fact the person that did them—that was the best thing about his—the level of that circle was great. But they couldn’t get people, so they used to have the press stand in those circles, because they couldn’t get the people. Then I heard we lost, ‘Oh, we lost.’ Now, we’re never gonna let that happen again.

Dan Ladden-Hall at The Daily Beast has helpfully noted that Trump is probably referring to these circles used to maintain social distancing among reporters at Biden’s events in 2020:

Which, alright.  So Trump, who had been talking about tariffs, veers off into a bizarre discussion of Musk’s SpaceX rockets (which did not go to the moon) landing on a circular target, which ignites a synapse in Trump’s brain because circles, which reminds him of “the Biden circles.”  Meanwhile, let us not pass over this remark earlier at the same gathering :

They have more complaints about groceries.  The word ‘grocery’ – it’s a sort of simple word. It sort of means everything you eat. The stomach is speaking.  It always does, and I have more complaints about that — bacon and things like that going up, double, quadruple.

Which, yes, inflation is an issue, but “the stomach is speaking?” And, of course, there’s the “eating the dogs, eating the cats” moment from the presidential debate, already the subject of several viral videos.

But as incoherent and disturbing as these apparent brain drifts are, the silent dancing is more telling.  Because no healthy and neurotypical adult sways silently for 38 minutes, just standing there, staring into space.  I mean, maybe at a shoegaze rock concert, but not onstage at a political rally, just. . . standing there. 

Just as June 27 was for Biden, October 15 should be for Trump.  Biden at the debate showed that, alas, he is no longer the quick-witted and sharp politician he once was.  Trump at the town hall showed the same thing. 

Media commentators are on this story.  Marianne LeVine at the Washington Post did a great analysis.  CNN has covered it several times.  David Rothkopf described Trump as “addled and lost,” which seems exactly right.  The View went a little nuts. And not long before the 38-minute dance, the New York Times finally published a comprehensive analysis of Trump’s mistakes, digressions, and rambles as evidence of cognitive impairment.

Now, for liberals, this new evidence of Trump’s cognitive decline should be the source of further anxiety.  If JD Vance succeeds him, the president’s incompetence will no longer save us from his malevolence.  Vance is plenty competent, and can reasonably be expected to inflict even more damage to the American body politic than Trump would.

But it should also be the source of mobilization.  This is not some niche issue, like tariffs or tax policy.  It goes to the heart of Trump’s appeal: his strength, power, and masculinity. 

“Trump’s appeal is based on his performance of a certain kind of masculinity,” said Dan Cassino, a professor of Government and Politics at Fairleigh Dickinson, and the Executive Director of an FDU poll released today, October 16. “When voters don’t buy into that performance, his support plummets, even among Republicans.”

And whatever we may make of these constructions of masculinity, “real men” don’t sway silently for 38 minutes while anxious fans look on in confusion. Live by the masculine “sword,” die by the masculine sword: if Trump is going to stake his claim on the basis of his manly potency, then the decline in his abilities is a central campaign issue.

Now, as with Dianne Feinstein and Joe Biden before him, I’m not suggesting Trump be subjected to some name-calling, ageist pile-on.  Liberals don’t need to go as “low” as Republicans have, paraphrasing Michelle Obama, to make this point. We’re not talking about Trump wearing adult diapers or using makeup; we’re talking about whether the man with the nuclear codes, the commander in chief of the armed forces, should be someone who rambles incoherently and appears to simply “glitch out” for long stretches of time. This isn’t ageism; it’s about a candidate’s fitness for office, and as other commentators have also observed, it’s time to stop treating the issue of Trump’s cognitive decline as just some partisan talking point. Doing so does not serve the ideals of journalism, ethics, or patriotism

There are plenty of 78-year-olds who are in full possession of their faculties.  Trump just isn’t one of them. 

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Thanks to everyone subscribing; it’s a busy week here at Both/And headquarters, as the Jewish holiday of Sukkot is tonight and Yom Kippur was just a few days ago. Speaking of which, I wrote a Yom Kippur reflection on the “discourse” around Israel/Palestine for ARC Magazine. Trigger warning: dark theology.

Recommended:

• Thomas Zimmer
  strikes again this week, with a serious look at the term “fascism” and why it applies to Trump and the MAGA movement.

• And the immoderate and hysterical

  Jeff Tiedrich
  has a great take on conspiracy theories aimed at meteorologists.

Finally, this coming Sunday I’ll be giving a free online workshop — at a church! but also online — about how to work with the many strong emotions that reasonable people may have about the climate crisis, which was the subject of this newsletter last week. Details are here.

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