Eeeeeeeeemoluments And How Bad Bruce Springsteen Is

I have almost never watched through a Trump speech to one of his rallies, but I was curious what he would say at the first one after the impeachment inquiry officially started, which he held a few days ago in Minneapolis, supposedly trying to take MN away from the Dems in 2020.  I missed the opening, but listened to all of it after that. 

Much of it was just boilerplate stuff he says all the time, much of it blatant falsehoods, but whart we have heard.  News reports focused on his especially nasty remarks about Ilhan Omar, who iis from Minnesota, so he made a special point about denouncing her and those supporting her pretty harshly.  But I want to mention are two odd items I saw no reports on, but that strike me as signs of Trump losing it, setting himself up for trouble in both the impeachment and if he survives that in the election next year.

The first involves the emoluments clause, something I would think he would not be saying anything about.  But he has long seemed to deal with problematic matters by essentially admitting the problems and then just doing a "So what? No big deal" line that he then tries to get established as the line for his followers at Fox News and elsewhere to spout and spread.  However, as with releasing the summary of the phone transcript with Zelensky, I think this may not work out so well for him as this is potentially another article of impeachment.

So there he went.  I do not remember what immediately preceded it, but then he said the word in this long drawn-out way as if to ridicule it: "Eeeeeeeeemoluments?  Then he said, "Whoever has even heard of this word?" (more attempted ridicule)  He then effectively admitted guilts, sort of, but clearly in a way to dismiss it.  "So what if some people I do not even know stayed in some of my hotels?"  Yes, this red shirt-wearing audience ate it up, if not perhaps as raucouslyi and enthusiastically as some other lines.  But there it was, and, of course, they ate up anything and everything he said.

I can kind  of understand this one as perhaps a strategic matter, getting ahead of something that is coming out and trying to frame it and brand it for his followers.  But the next one I really do not get.

He went after Bruce Springsteen, saying his name several times over with clear disgust and actually declaring him to be a "bad man." Really.  Now probably that is not going to be fatal to him, and he might even convince some of his followers not to like Bruce Springsteen, although his support of Dem candidates has been going on for quite some time, since long before Trump came along.  But offhand this strikes me as basically a stupid thing to do.  He really should have said nothing on this.  Springsteen is not only very popular, but he has that working class cred and all-American appeal from his "Born in the USA" days.  I mean really.  This is the sign he is losing it that he thinks he is going to gain anything by denouncing Springsteen.  This is just dumb, very dumb.  But there you go.

Barkley Rosser