A few thoughts as this eventful summer draws to a close and our national election looms only 67 days away…

• At what point does Team Trump recognize that every time J.D. Vance speaks he makes it worse for their campaign. I’ve never in my life seen a candidate…including Trump…which is saying something…who is so consistently, relentlessly bad at basic politics. Like so bad that he reminds me of a friend who would always get lost by going in the exact opposite of the direction he should be going. Ultimately, his wife noticed and told him to see a doctor and it turned out he was dyslexic. Vance has dyspolitixia.

• There’s nothing funny about Trump’s desecration of Arlington National Cemetery. Except perhaps the image of clueless Trump smiling like a moron giving the thumbs up in front of row upon row of the grave markers of fallen warriors. I mean, it’s deeply offensive. Repugnant in the extreme. But it’s also the kind of dark cutting commentary on Trump’s zero I.Q. vileness that the best parodists in the world would be hard-pressed to imagine. He does this kind of thing alot, by the way. It’s because he is a monstrous person.

• If you gathered all the world’s best minds and asked them to devise an efficient way to identify the world’s stupidest humans, they would probably come up with Trump NFT “trading cards.” Not only are NFTs worthless and ridiculous but the content on these cards—heroic, muscular, Trump looking muscular and heroic—is absurd. By spending anything on them consumers are saying, “I’m it. I’m the ultimate sucker.” (Admittedly, people who buy and wear Trump sneakers in public are actively in contention for the same dubious distinction.)

• Wait, wait. I forgot. There’s also Trump Media stock. (After a while you can’t help but conclude that nature created the term Trump as a kind of universal warning that can be recognized by all creatures as a sign of something to be assiduously avoided. There’s actually a word for that. It’s “aposematic.” It refers to the phenomenon in nature by which poisonous creatures are easily identifiable by their color patterns. Thus, per Wikipedia, “the brighter and more conspicuous the organism, the more toxic it usually is.” Who does that make you think of?)

• I saw a story today that scientists have discovered 1700 ancient viruses frozen inside a glacier in Tibet and that those viruses are being thawed out. Have these people never been to a movie? Do they not know what happens next.

• It can’t be an accident that in the era of vulgar, over-the-top Trump we have ended up with the summer of demure, mindfulness. (He’s not that cutesy either.)

• I have been following the meetings between U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Chinese leaders closely. I’m glad he made the trip. If we have learned anything over time, it is that dialogue is essential in the world’s most important international relationships…especially if they are complicated. One bugaboo of mine is when reporters or analysts frame these stories like it is a sign of weakness to communicate with our rivals (especially when they are also our number three trading partner and play a vital role on a virtually every global issue that is important to us. Another is when they seem outraged that the Chinese would seek to increase their global influence. That’s what all countries do. We can seek to counter it. But we shouldn’t be surprised by it. And given our own behavior during the past century or so, we should recognize how hypocritical it is to condemn them for it.

• Trump economic proposals would, according to a recent, objective analysis, increase the deficit five times as much as Democratic proposals. That shouldn’t be a surprise. Trump increased the deficit while president. He increased the national debt by $8 trillion. In fact generally his economic track record is terrible both as president and in business. (See Trump Media reference above.) Any time someone tells you the economy would be better under Trump what they are saying is that the only thing they care about are tax cuts for the rich. Or they are trying to distract from the real reason they support Trump which, almost inevitably for those who aren’t in it for the greed, is racism.

• Well, that’s not entirely fair. Some Trump supporters are just unregenerate fascists.

Ok. Onward and upward. More tomorrow.