So many Americans are so very quick to write scandal-plagued former President Donald Trump off as unhinged, crazed, and demented — and rightfully so, in a sense, considering how he truly embodies every single one of those qualities, virtually every single time he opens his mouth.
But one panicked expert is warning voters not to take Donald’s unhinged demeanor at face value so quickly — chances are very likely that Donald J. Trump isn’t nearly as addled and unhinged as he comes across and, instead, knows exactly what he’s doing behind closed doors.
Penning a fiery piece in the New York Times, columnist Frank Bruni warned that while the former president regularly baffles the masses with unbelievable rants about sharks and electricity and boat batteries, and appears to have a deeply unhealthy and public obsession with fictional, cannibalistic villain Hanibal Lecter, there is another, much subtler side to Donald Trump’s coin that’s “less unhinged” and “much, much more” terrifying.
Bruni points out that the subtle, not-so-unhinged side of Donald J. Trump is far scarier for this nation because it shows that Trump has an understanding of what he’s doing.
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“It tells me that he understands what a turning point the June 27 debate was, realizes the virtue of stepping back while pundits pummel Biden and the Democratic Party reels, and can sporadically muster the discipline to do so,” the NYT columnist writes. “He smells victory in November in a way he’s never really smelled it before, and his nose isn’t off. As I said: terrifying.”
To make matters worse, this far more restrained version of the ex-president appears to signal that either Trump himself or his closest advisers have already identified his “vulnerabilities” and are trying to use this to win over key voters that Donald desperately needs to make his White House comeback in just a few short months.
Bruni points to the Republican Party’s recent shift in hot-button topics such as abortion and same-sex marriage, appearing to ease up on their staunch views — a strawman that’s meant to say, “Yoo-hoo, suburban women, you can safely park your votes here!”
Bruni warns Americans that it’s all false, but Donald J. Trump is a seasoned, professional liar who often leaves naive voters trusting him at his word. The columnist notes that if the ex-president is successful in pulling off what he’s dubbed a “costume change” over the next 4 months, while Biden steadily slips in national polls, this country is in grave danger.
Trump, for his part, may use that distraction to regroup and — to the very limited but potentially consequential extent possible — reintroduce himself to fitfully engaged voters as someone who doesn’t see a moat filled with reptiles as the answer to illegal immigration, whose real-world preoccupations don’t mimic the reel-world plots of ‘Jaws’ and ‘The Silence of the Lambs,’ who needn’t be the flamboyant center of attention every single minute of every single hour of every single day.”
Bruni’s unsettling column came at a particularly troubling time — as the Biden campaign is said to have quietly surveyed whether Vice President Kamala Harris had better odds of defeating Trump if she became the Democratic nominee as Joe faces increased calls from the likes of former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and world-renowned actor George Clooney to step aside, drop out of the race, and allow someone else to be installed as the 2024 Democratic nominee.
You can find Bruni’s full piece with the New York Times here.
Featured image via Political Tribune Gallery
