Why is Trump playing the clown again now?

GELFANDS WORLD – The countdown is on. Suddenly there are two weeks until the election. And while my Democratic and liberal friends have been quietly panicking over the past week, Donald Trump has been clowning. We’ve all seen (and written about) how he danced speechless, but the comments about Arnold Palmer’s genitals give new depth and meaning to that Tim Walz word “weird.” However, Trump isn’t the only politician who’s been a bit obsessed with the, ahem, male reproductive system. LBJ had a similar outlook on life. But LBJ was careful to maintain self-control in public.

And there was Trump’s recent reference to Kamala Harris as a “shitty vice president.” Salty tongues are no stranger to politics. But Trump has pushed the envelope, at a time in the run-up to the election when scandals have the worst impact.

So what’s going on with Trump and the Trump candidacy right now? I have a few or three ideas that are different but not necessarily contradictory.

The first indication is that Trump is showing real changes in his ability to think and his level of self-control consistent with advancing dementia. This can even be complicated by drug use – many people have passed along rumors that Trump has used stimulants for most of his adult life. (We haven’t actually seen the decisive evidence.) Whatever is going on, you have to admit that Trump’s behavior is different than before. Yes, he was always a bully and always abusive and of course always a liar, but in the past he has at least tried to cover up scandals like the Stormy Daniels incident. For now, he seems content to cause a new scandal every day.

Another possibility is that Trump is just exploiting his base. He knows that his name needs to stay in the headlines and that his followers expect him to insult the people who anger them. But beyond that, he’s expected to surprise on a fairly regular basis, and he’s fallen behind in his outrages. It could therefore be that what is going on is just catching up. The CNN website conducted a similar analysis when it headlined a story: “For millions of his followers, the ex-president’s outlandish portrayals underscore his authenticity.”

OK. Authenticity. But there’s authenticity in the sense of “Give ’em hell, Harry” and then it seems clinically insane. Or at least confused. But what we see could potentially mean that Donald is doing his best to think up new and startling surprises, at a time in his life when he has largely run out of options to “own the libraries.” Age and fatigue will catch up with everyone, and maybe it’s their time.

I have another idea that’s a bit far-fetched but not completely unimaginable.

Whether Republicans like it or not, polls continue to show Harris with a modest lead both nationwide and in several swing states, including the so-called blue wall of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Sure, the Trump campaign continues to claim they’re doing well (as all campaigns do), but they need to know they’re in big trouble. And when the polls close on November 5th, Trump faces both an electoral defeat and a conviction for multiple crimes.

It must be scary for him.

Trump is not the type of guy who can face a prison sentence without a whimper. What must he be thinking right now? As someone bent on revenge and projecting his own evil onto everyone else, he must remember that he has done everything to offend the judge who will sentence him. Maybe he thinks that by looking senile he can avoid actually going to the slammer. So he shows symptoms of dementia.

Does that make any sense? There are arguments for and against. The counterargument – legally plausible – is that Trump is the first offender who ultimately only committed a white-collar crime. There’s even an argument that it’s a pretty common practice to mark up and mark down your holdings to get bigger loans and lower taxes. Someone else might have gotten a fine and maybe some community service. The pro argument is that Trump complicated things by holding press conferences directly in front of the criminal court in which he said the judge was unethical and inconsistent. Even Trump needs to understand that this is not to his advantage at the time of sentencing – and Trump, operating on the level of revenge and not much more, is probably projecting his own revenge fantasies onto this judge.

So it’s not inconceivable that Trump is simultaneously exploiting his base by appearing crazy and aggressively insulting, while at the same time portraying himself as a bumbling fool so that, in a worst-case scenario, his lawyers can argue that he is unfit to operate in the country work prison environment.

A kind of subway series

A long time ago, it was not only possible but somewhat likely that two New York teams would meet in the World Series. The Yankees appeared in the World Series 40 times and won 27 times. The New York Giants won 5 World Series. The Brooklyn Dodgers played in the World Series eight times, winning once against the Yankees in 1955.

A World Series between two New York City-based teams was called the Subway Series.

So from Friday we have a kind of Subway series that has been removed once. (Okay, so the subway must be 2,900 miles long, but it’s still Yankees vs. Dodgers.) Interestingly, the Dodgers vs. Yankees matchup has already happened 11 times, so this year it will be an even dozen. Maybe we should call it the “Egg Carton Series” or maybe the “Baker’s Dozen” of baseball.

I learned a new baseball term this year. It’s a bullpen game. It refers to a game that does not use the usual starting line of pitchers. Instead, relief pitchers start the game and are substituted every inning or every other inning. It is considered heroic to last even 4 innings. I think you have to have a lot of confidence in your bullpen and you’re just missing 4 healthy starters. Injuries and elbow surgeries take such a toll on a team.

But it’s pretty amazing that a team without those four starters not only managed to make the playoffs, but also win the pennant. And the Dodgers beat the Padres and Mets convincingly.

The modern style, of course, is to demand everything from pitchers right from the start, and they have to be able to throw those 96 mph fast balls alternately with nasty moves that strain the elbow ligaments. It seems to be more demanding than what previous eras demanded of the limbs.

Still, I think it’s interesting to take a look back at the 1959 Dodgers, as that was Los Angeles’ first pennant and only Coliseum World Series. Here are some of the Dodger starting pitchers from this year:

1955 World Series hero Johnny Podres

Roger Craig

Superstar Don Drysdale

Later superstar with multiple no-hitters and a perfect game, Sandy Koufax

World Series star Larry Sherry

Stan Williams

The combined starting team achieved a total of 72 victories. Can you imagine a bullpen game during this time?

Another notable fact: Two of the aforementioned 1959 starters are in the Hall of Fame. I don’t think Dodger fans of the 1960s really realized how privileged they were, considering that on any given day they had an equal chance of seeing a Hall of Fame pitcher throw to Willie Mays , and hearing Vin Scully call it.

(Bob Gelfand writes about science, culture and politics for CityWatch. He can be reached at [email protected])\