Joe Biden is gone, Donald Trump is weakening, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are inspiring with their good humor. The new lightness among the US Democrats is even leading to slipperiness.
Penis jokes were not yet in the repertoire of the eloquent speaker Barack Obama. But things are at a critical point in the USA, and this presidential election campaign is unprecedented anyway. Simply because the incumbent only half-voluntarily stepped down in favour of his vice president, thus opening the door to euphoria again. And of course because of the conservative perennial candidate Donald Trump and his obsession with all kinds of quantities.
His is only so big
“There are the childish nicknames, the crazy conspiracy theories – and this weird obsession with the size of the event,” said a visibly amused Obama, moving his hands back and forth in Trump’s typical accordion manner and then stopping a few inches apart. The crowd in Chicago’s United Center immediately understood the gesture and cheered with delight.
“Strange obsession”: Obama pokes fun at Trump with penis joke
Now, thanks to Trump’s former lover Stormy Daniels, more is known about Donald’s Donald than most people would like – and his passion for crowds is actually nothing new either. Except perhaps that he has now lost all sense of proportion: He recently claimed that his speech on January 6, 2021 in front of a few thousand people attracted more viewers than Martin Luther King’s legendary “I have a dream” speech, which was attended by at least 250,000 people.
Democrats can also sink
Most Americans are used to this kind of boasting from their former president. Not so much, however, that the ruling Democrats are now more likely to abandon their noble reserve and hit back at a similar level – like former President Obama. To hell with his wife Michelle’s noble motto: “When they go low, we go high” – the lower they sink, the higher we climb.
Tim Walz, the running mate of presidential candidate Kamala Harris, has also had his slightly raunchy dad joke moment. “I can’t wait to debate him. That is, if he gets up off the couch and shows up,” the governor of Minnesota said in front of an enthusiastic audience in Philadelphia in early August with a broad grin and a “you know what I mean” gesture.
The couch rumor about JD Vance
The Democrat Walz is alluding to a bizarre fake news story that his Republican running mate JD Vance once had sex with a couch. In fact, none of this is mentioned in his famous book “Hillbilly Elegy,” but the rumor is now stuck to Vance like annoying candy wrappers.
Walz, the former teacher and football coach, was also the one who introduced the word “weird” into the election campaign for the Trump-Vance team – and it was a real hit. “Weird” means something like strange or odd. It is not aggressive, but clearly exclusionary. Nobody wants to be “weird”, not even “weirdos”. Since Walz first used the term, it has developed an incredibly gentle force to which even Trump, who is rarely at a loss for words, cannot find an answer.
Donald Trump is weakening
The cheerful, contemptuous tone that is taking hold among the Democrats towards Donald Trump no longer has much to do with the arrogant, contemptuous words that Hillary Clinton chose to fight Trump in 2016. Or the fatherly, statesmanlike tone that Joe Biden cultivates. Until now, it was the Republican who left his mark on the election campaigns with his gloomy, self-pitying and bizarre statements. But Trump, as everyone can see, is weakening.
This is precisely why the Democrats’ new and sometimes slippery lightness is working: the old baggage is gone (Joe Biden), the competition is tangled up in the thicket of the same old whining with increasingly implausible boasts, while the Democratic duo of Harris and Walz are spreading optimism with their very, very good mood.
Barack Obama pours water into the wine
Some are even reminded of the euphoria of 2008, when Barack Obama delighted half the world and became US President. But some are also reminiscent of 2016, when Donald Trump stumbled through the election campaign as an embarrassing joke figure and still became US President. Obama has not forgotten that and poured some water into the wine of democratic exuberance: “Make no mistake: This will be a fight, because the election will be a close race in a sharply divided country.”
Sources: NPR, North Jersey.com, Rolling Stone.com, AFP, Reuters
