“They’re eating the dogs. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people who live there.”
It may not have been Dan Quayle looking like a deer in the headlights when Lloyd Bentsen said he was no Jack Kennedy.
It may not have been Gerald Ford saying there was no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.
It may not even have been George H.W. Bush looking at his watch during a debate with Bill Clinton, but Donald Trump’s sudden obsession with Haitian immigrants and the house pets of Springfield, Ohio, will be serious fodder for comedians in the last two months of the 2024 campaign.
In fact, if Trump loses the election to Kamala Harris, last night’s debate doubtless will be regarded as one of the key moments. I would never have believed Harris could do such an amazing job of triggering Trump by prodding at his vulnerabilities or that Trump would react so badly so many times.
And while it amazes me that any good-hearted person of average intelligence or better could vote for Trump, I do recognize that there may still be even a 50-50 chance he will win. There are unfortunately a massive number of less than average intelligence who are also mean.
There are also people in numerous states, including the one in which I live, who go to great length to suppress the number of votes Democrats receive. That was certainly who Brian Kemp was elected governor over Stacey Abrams in 2018.He won by less than 55,000 votes after removing more than 300,000 African-American votes from the roles in his job as secretary of state.
Trump cannot win a legitimate election against Harris. Joe Biden beat him by 7 million votes in 2020 and there is more enthusiasm for Harris this time around. Trump hasn’t exactly distinguished himself during the last 3 1/2 years, amd he certainly came across as less than presidential in last night’s debate.
He even got an unfortunate twist of fate with the name of the city in the dogs and cats story. If it had been located 28 miles to the southwest in Dayton, the name of the city would have been nothing special. But Springfield? All of a sudden, all sorts of jokes about The Simpsons are in play.
All of a sudden Trump is saying those nasty immigrants are eating Snowball II and Santa’s Little Helper.
If there’s an irony in Trump fussing about pets being eaten, it’s that Trump has never had a pet — unless you count Eric. He has been quoted numerous times saying that owning pets is a low-class thing and that he never wanted to have a dog.
As for class, I’m reminded of something my lifelong friend Bill Madden once said. To paraphrase, Trump has Klass with a capital K.
I wonder what kind of pet he will have in Russia or Hungary or North Korea when he asks for asylum after losing the election.