TRUMP / Vance / CATS and DOGS

Trump's last "trip" into some Lewis Carroll-type of fantasy is relentless. His narrative has become so grotesque that more serious observers start to wonder if there is, perhaps, a strategy lurking in this pool of relentless madness.

The MAGA crowd loves it. The Republican leftovers shun it. The Democrats try to make sense of his view of America, wherein illegals feast on dogs and cats (and ducks) that are stolen from the god-abiding citizens in the heartland. His equally bizarre running mate J.D.Vance is busy imagining some Orwellian fantasy society divided in sociological strata of cat ladies, singles, grandparents, illegals, with specific tasks, allocations or often drastic punishment.

Trump has a soft spot for the charms of Orban. Le Pen starts to sound and act almost rational in comparison. It is tempting to consider his verbal outings as fodder but there might be a strategy in this. As much as Robert Kennedy Jr. pretends to have been victim of a worm that got in his brain, Trump unleashed legions of earworms in the midst of his braindead MAGA crowd. His flock doesn't react to the Antony Blinken/Michel Barnier style. Neither have unflattering outings by lonely Republicans have any effect. The image of the sinner descending his gilded escalator sticks with the believers.

Kamala Harris still considers herself the underdog. She is right because the feeling of joy and relief is not something that affects the terminally sick, who cling to fraudulent prescriptions, god and guns. Trump has been compared to Hitler. Wrong, the Fuhrer was intelligent and the evil he orchestrated was chillingly efficient. At the onset his fans were found in all government circles in Europe and the USA. Trump's bombast is more Mussolini-like although the Duce, till Munich, showed a historical (flawed) short-lived sophistication. Trump is a narcissist who will never inspire art or literature. No need to look elsewhere for his image than in the gutter.

The French have a tradition of critical vivisection. Today's Emily in Paris gives a totally fake image of a society lost in clothes, cholesterol and not amusing bons môts. The sex comes easy, after all that is supposed to be as French as the baguette. There is another France that specializes in the nouveau: from Beaujolais, cuisine, to philosophes.  The political, often brilliant, bitchy commentators reduce Trump to an American amuse-bouche, that is as indigestible as the American meal that will follow. Maybe, but the ache will not disappear with an Alka Selzer.

Trump is a man of the past, with a Hugh Heffner problem, a gaudy taste and a humorless family out of an Addams Family sitcom. If he were president again, the world might as well run for cover. His major announcements are frightening and his Freudian obsession with "strong" leaders betray more insecurity than self-confidence. He cannot stand Kamala Harris because she is all he is not:  fun, smart, cynical, creative, American in the tradition of Ernst Lubitch, Billy Wilder, Lauren Weisberger, Gore Vidal.

There is hope for cats and dogs after the elections. The cat ladies and grandparents will breathe, childless couples will no longer be stigmatized. People will feel free to walk their own path. America can regroup...maybe.