Hello and happy Tuesday. There are 14 days until the election and today we are talking French fries and penis size.
Yes, we have passed the point of discerning reality from satire.
For example, did the speaker of the House really argue with a CNN host about whether it was appropriate that the former president talked about the size of the late golfer Arnold Palmer’s junk at a rally? Did I really just have to write that sentence?
That did happen over the weekend — along with many other bizarre things including Trump slinging fries (briefly) at a McDonald’s. Hopefully, you were outside touching grass, smelling the fall air, carving a pumpkin. I however, doom-scrolled Truth Social on your behalf, and even watched Fox.
So let’s break down the crazy you missed, and why it matters.
You’re reading the L.A. Times Politics newsletter
Anita Chabria and David Lauter bring insights into legislation, politics and policy from California and beyond. In your inbox three times per week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
The big swing
So Trump went to Latrobe, Pa., over the weekend, which is where golf legend Arnold Palmer was born. Trump began his speech with a rambling 12-minute biography of Palmer that I am not sure was entirely accurate, but was painfully boring. Until the end, where he threw in this gem:
“Arnold Palmer was all man and I say it with all due respect to women and I love women,” Trump said. “When he took showers with the other pros, they came out there, they said, ‘Oh, my God,’ that’s unbelievable. I had to say it. I had to say it. We have women who are highly sophisticated here.”
Ah, yes. I am currently eating my peanut butter and jelly sandwich with both pinkies lifted, fancy-lady style, so I can tell you with authority that sophisticated women love dick jokes, almost as much as fart jokes.
But you know who does love penis-funnies? MAGA men. Shortly after those remarks, Trump welcomed a contingent of steelworkers onstage.
“You like the Arnold Palmer story?” he asked one of them.
“Love it,” the fellow in a hard hat replied.
Which, to make a long story short, is all that matters to Trump.
Ketchup with those lies?
Then Trump went to a McDonald’s in Feasterville, Pa., for a photo opportunity that doubled as a middle finger to Kamala Harris (whom in another bit of vulgarity he called a “s— vice president,” during that Arnold Palmer event.)
Big Don put on a big apron and served fries to a hand-selected group of drive-thru guests. Later, he claimed there were 25,000 people lined up to be served by him. There were not.
But the event served to once again please his base. Harris, many of you know, has said she worked one summer during college at a McDonald’s, but has not offered proof. Trump says she is lying. His fry cooker appearance was a big ha-ha, in-your-face-type joke.
While all of this might seem juvenile or bonkers to the point of pointing toward dementia, as some have claimed, I think we’re missing the bigger picture by writing it off as “just Trump” or even cognitive decline.
Trump is many things, but he’s not stupid — especially when it comes to his base. Both his Palmer penis story and his minimum wage dress-up are forms of aggressive anti-intellectualism and anti-elitism that please his supporters to no end because the rest of us find it offensive.
The offense is the point.
Also at the Palmer event, Trump said this: The basic is easier to understand.
As we feverishly count down the days until the election and pundits debate what the “closing argument” of each candidate is, Trump is keeping it basic.
He’s doubling down on simple, aggressive populism — us vs. them, and them’s the dumb ones. The more he triggers his opponents, the more his supporters love it.
In MAGA world, he’s not the joke. We are.
What else you should be reading:
The must-read: As Trump Served Up McDonald’s Fries, Vitriol Boiled Outside
The get out the vote: They lost their homes and possessions. They’re showing up to vote in NC.
The L.A. Times special:Infant mortality in the U.S. worsened after Supreme Court limited abortion access
Stay Golden,
Anita Chabria
P.S. The “Central Park Five,” or “Exonerated Five” as they have become known, have sued Donald Trump for defamation for his remarks during the presidential debate. The five men were teenagers when they were falsely accused and convicted of a brutal assault on a jogger. They have since been cleared of the crime, but Trump, according to the suit, said at the debate that they had, “admitted — they said, they pled guilty. And I said, well, if they pled guilty they badly hurt a person, killed a person ultimately.”
Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here to get it in your inbox.