The Trump Apocalypse Watch is a subjective daily estimate, using a scale of one to four horsemen, of how likely it is that Donald Trump will be elected president, thus triggering an apocalypse in which we all die.
It has lately become common to refer to Donald Trump’s disorganized presidential campaign as a dumpster fire. Today was the day that the fire department/Trump himself showed up to try to put the conflagration out; the giant hose he used to spray down the flaming trash of his recent misadventures was a speech about Hillary Clinton’s alleged corruption. And early reviews, I regret to tell you, indicate that the dumpster may now merely be smoldering. Wrote Slate’s Michelle Goldberg, who attended the garbage-hosing in person:
Donald Trump’s Wednesday morning speech about Hillary Clinton’s record is probably the most unnervingly effective one he has ever given … Like all skillful demagoguery, Trump’s speech on Wednesday interwove truth and falsehood into a plausible-seeming picture meant to reinforce listeners’ underlying beliefs.
“For at least one morning,” Goldberg concluded, “Trump did his best not to terrify his own party, and it was terrifying to watch him succeed.” And thus does our danger level tick back upwards.
Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Getty Images, Wikimedia Commons
