in a piece at the Washington Post’s Plumline Blog titled Donald Trump just summed up his entire despicable campaign in 30 seconds (and I thank my spouse Leaves on the Current for pointing out this piece to me).
Here’s one part, which summarizes what happened yesterday:
Almost everything Trump is about and what he represents could be seen in his brief statement and what led up to it. To put it simply:
* He skillfully manipulated the media to maximize attention to himself.
* He told an obvious, indisputable lie about Hillary Clinton.
* He falsely took credit for something he didn’t do.
* He tried to evade responsibility for his successful efforts to foment and exploit racism.
And all in 30 seconds. It’s hard to imagine a more succinct summary of the Trump campaign than that.
Before going on, I want to provide some context to the notion of the impact of 30 seconds. One of the most psychologically important military actions of World War II was Jimmy Doolittle’s early bombing raid on Tokyo and a few other places in April of 1942. It demonstrated to the Japanese that they were not immune from American attacks, even at the peak of their power and the maximum expanse of their control. There was a book, and a movie, about that raid, both titled Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo. Thirty seconds can be a lifetime, half a minute can represent something that absolutely crystalizes what is otherwise still vague and unclear. This half minute was so blunt, and in the overall context of the event yesterday and what we have seen of the press’s reaction, this may be a crucial if however brief moment in this campaign season.
There are two somewhat longish paragraphs that I think are the heart of the piece: