Impromptus

Trump’s daisy ads, &c.

By
President Johnson’s ‘Daisy Ad’ in September 1964 (Public domain / Wikimedia)
On a style of campaigning; RFK Jr. and the GOP; Viktor Orbán and the West; Tim Walz’s son, Gus; Shohei Ohtani; Ronda Rousey; and more

A move of Donald Trump’s is to say that his opponent will get us into a nuclear war. A year ago, speaking of President Biden, Trump said, “This guy is gonna get us into a nuclear war. He’s gonna really do it. He’s gonna get us right into a nuclear war.”

Two days ago, Trump wrote, “There will be no future under Comrade Kamala Harris, because she will take us into a Nuclear World War III!”

These are Trump’s daisy ads, you might say. The “daisy ad” was a superweapon in the arsenal of the Lyndon B. Johnson campaign in 1964. It clobbered Barry Goldwater in September, implying that Goldwater would get us into a nuclear war.

To read the Wikipedia entry about this matter, go here.


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I remember the accusations against Ronald Reagan in 1980, too. He was a “nuclear cowboy,” people said. There was also a nickname: “Ronald Raygun.”

• Readers of this column are well familiar with Félix Maradiaga, the Nicaraguan democracy leader and former political prisoner. I have written about him, and podcasted with him, several times. For a piece published in March 2023, shortly after Félix was released from prison, go here.

There is news from Nicaragua, bad as usual. Here is Maradiaga, speaking about it:

• Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has locked arms with Donald Trump in the presidential race. This is no surprise. RFK Jr., whatever his pedigree, is an utterly natural Republican (or so it seems to me). He fits right into the party that is Trump’s instrument. Kennedy is anti-Ukraine, anti-vaccine, prone to conspiracy theories, generally zany. He is at one with Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Kari Lake — the whole show.

The headline over an article from Sunday reads, “Kari Lake calls RFK Jr. ‘a perfect addition to our movement.’” I could not agree more.

On some days, the GOP appears to be a mixture of George Wallace, Henry Wallace, and Lyndon Larouche. It would be comical if it weren’t so tragic.

• A word from Lauren Boebert — Congresswoman Lauren Boebert (R., Colo.):

True?

• A declaration by Donald Trump:

Something to think on.

• The Wall Street Journal published a column headed “America’s Right Got Hungary’s Viktor Orbán Wrong.” The subheading: “We overlooked his government’s conscious coupling with the Chinese Communist Party.” The column is about Orbán’s relations with China. There is no mention of his relations with Putin and the Kremlin. But if Orbán’s relations with China give our Right pause — that is progress, as I see it.

Relatedly, here is a news story from Saturday. The headline: “Hungary’s debt to China skyrockets, raising financial concerns.”

• Earlier this month, Senator Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) was asked about Viktor Orbán. He responded:

“He’s the one member of NATO who’s essentially turned his country over to the Chinese and the Russians, has been looking for ways to undermine NATO’s effort to defeat the Russians in Ukraine. So Viktor Orbán, I think, has now made Hungary the most recent problem in NATO. We used to think of the Turks as sort of being never quite with the team. I think Orbán has replaced the Turks and is clearly the weakest member of NATO.”

(To see this exchange, go here.)

• By now, many people know about Gus Walz, the son of Governor Tim Walz. Gus is 17. He got emotional during his father’s speech at the Democratic convention, accepting the vice-presidential nomination. Gus came in for a lot of online abuse and mockery.

He is “on the spectrum.” (I dislike that phrase, but I suppose it will have to do.)

In response to the abuse and mockery, Tina Brown penned a column about her own son, Georgie, “a 38-year-old on the spectrum who still lives with me.” It is a candid, somewhat painful column.

I had no idea that Tina Brown and her late husband, Sir Harold Evans, had had such a son.

• What a privilege, to live in the age of Shohei Ohtani. An article from Saturday begins,

Shohei Ohtani entered the 40/40 club in grand fashion Friday night, hitting a walk-off grand slam in the bottom of the ninth inning to reach 40 home runs for the season . . .

Ohtani stole his 40th base earlier in the game . . .

He is the fastest player in major league history to reach the vaunted 40/40 mark  . . .

A talent barely fathomable.

And here is really good news, published the next day:

One day after he made history with a wild walk-off grand slam, Shohei Ohtani returned to the mound.

Ohtani threw 10 pitches in a bullpen session at Dodger Stadium  . . .  While the session was brief, it marked Ohtani’s first from the mound since his elbow surgery last fall.

If he were a hitter, only . . . If he were a base-stealer, only . . . If he were a pitcher, only . . .

• “Armand Duplantis breaks his own world record in pole vault — three weeks after setting it at the Olympics.” For that article, go here. Years and years ago, I was around several track-and-field coaches (for reasons I could get into). I remember their saying: “Almost no one realizes how good an athlete a pole vaulter is.”

• A word from Donald Trump:

In fact, assistant coaches are coaches — like head coaches. Doesn’t everyone know this? “Joe D” — Joe D’Alessandris, the Baltimore Ravens’ offensive-line coach — died on Sunday. People have been saying what a great coach he was. The Ravens’ head coach, John Harbaugh, has been saying it. Of course Joe D was a coach. Doesn’t everyone know that?

Only one man in history has been nominated for president by the Republican Party three times in a row. That honor has gone to Donald Trump. Amazing.

• I had never heard of Ronda Rousey. I have now. As Wikipedia says, she is “an American professional wrestler, actress, and former judoka and mixed martial artist.” She also has 3.2 million Twitter followers, this lady.

She has issued an apology, which begins,

I can’t say how many times I’ve redrafted this apology over the last 11 years. How many times I’ve convinced myself it wasn’t the right time or that I’d be causing even more damage by giving it. But eleven years ago I made the single most regrettable decision of my life. I watched a Sandy Hook conspiracy video and reposted it on twitter.

To read the whole thing, go here. A stand-up woman, Ms. Rousey.

• Throw a little music at you? For a review of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, under Manfred Honeck, playing at the Salzburg Festival, go here.

• At the festival, I talked with an English gent who had received an honor from Queen Elizabeth. He had misread the date — the date on which he was to receive the honor from the Queen. He showed up at the palace, on the wrong date, and a guard said to him, “Bit early, mate.” The guard fetched a secretary, an elegant lady, who came out and said, “I can fit you in.”

Fit him in, she did.

I wish you could hear the story in the gentleman’s own voice — especially his imitation of the guard: “Bit early, mate.”

• “What a privilege,” I said, “to live in the age of Shohei Ohtani.” Well, what about this?

• Let’s have a little language. Bear with me. The English pronounce “Heathrow” differently than we do — than we Americans do. (Do you approve of “differently than”? We can get into that some other time.) We split the word as follows: “Hee-throw.” They say “Heath-row” — which is why it sounds different.

Okay, “Wisconsin.” Everyone from outside Wisconsin splits the name this way: “Wis-con-sin.” But Wisconsinites themselves say “Wi-scon-sin” — which sounds different.

Go with me to Austria, or Germany, or wherever they speak German. We English-speakers pronounce the composer’s name “Bay-thoven.” But the composer’s fellow German-speakers say “Bayt-hoven.” That’s why it sounds different — slightly different — out of their mouths. “Beet” is one part of the name, “hoven” the other.

• Want to see Ford Motor’s outpost in Salzburg? The only reason for sharing this picture is — the sky is pretty good, isn’t it?

Later, my friends.

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