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.
Trump has crept close to Hillary Clinton in the polls in the last two weeks, and Slate campaign blogger Josh Voorhees writes that this has probably happened because he’s been restraining himself rhetorically while Clinton is suffering through news cycles about the access that her State Department gave to Clinton Foundation donors. But in the backlash to Trump’s recent praise of Vladimir Putin and appearance on a Russian propaganda network, one sees the kind of potential gaffe quagmire that Trump has previously been unable to resist being drawn into. The next few days will be a test for him: Will he fan the flames by saying something even more egregiously sycophantic about Putin’s authoritarian regime? Or will he truly embrace the Pivot and learn to redirect questions about Putin into anodyne answers about Hillary Clinton and the importance of a strong military and bla bla bla something something the issues that matter to the American people? For the American people’s sake, let’s hope it’s the former!
Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Getty Images, Wikimedia Commons
