Trump pantomimes oral sex at rally

I don’t know how to say this gently or tastefully, so I’ll describe specifically what happened last night in Milwaukee, Wisconsin: The former president of the United States held a rally, during which used a microphone stand on the podium to pantomime the act of fellatio.

I could have said it differently. I could have said “a cognitively impaired man who has long shown signs of severe emotional instability and has a history of sexism and racism engaged in gross behavior in front of a large audience.” But that would not capture an important reality:

This deeply troubled man is tied in the race to become the next president and could hold the codes to America’s nuclear arsenal in less than three months.

I don’t know if this bizarre display will take votes away from Trump. Nothing seems to affect the loyalty of his base. Trump voters are resolute in their determination to minimize or even erase their gruesome battles from their minds. (As a commenter Put L on social media today, Trump’s new mantra might be, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and blow someone up and I wouldn’t lose any voters, okay?”)

Plus, it’s always difficult to single out a terrible moment at a Trump rally when there are so many to choose from. Last night, for example, he insisted that he won Wisconsin twice. (He didn’t.) He, too taken a veiled racist shooting of Milwaukee Bucks basketball player Giannis Antetokounmpo, who is black. “Your team is very good,” Trump told the crowd. “I would say the Greek is a very good player. Do you agree? And tell me, who has more Greek in him, the Greek or me? I think we have a lot in common, don’t we?” Antetokounmpo is of Greek and Nigerian descent and was born in Athens. I’m half Greek (my mom was Irish-American) and the Bucks star is as Greek as I am, but we all get the joke: A black Greek! take it? He’s Greek… and black!

Trump is white and we know that, by the way, because he told us so. During a stop in Michigan before arriving in Wisconsin, Trump explicitly that he could have lived an easier life on the golf course if he had chosen not to run for president:

It wasn’t the first time Trump made comments about his skin. But I digress, because I’d rather talk about Trump’s clumsy racism than his hummer on a mic stand.

Look, my Greek father lived to be 94. Maybe a Greek Greek basketball player thought the idea was funny and could have laughed about it among his poker buddies. My dad was a working-class, hard-drinking guy who said more than his share of sexist and racist jokes.

But if my father, in his late 70s, had faked a plug in a mixed company—never mind in front of an audience that included children—I would have brought him in for a full neurological exam. Despite the ability to swear that rivaled the Old in the movie The Christmas storydeeply disapproved of men who swore or were rude to women and children. When I went out drinking with him, I would occasionally see him pass by and warn other men whose language was getting out of hand. (He was an ex-cop and worked as a bouncer for a while.) Dad wasn’t exactly Emily Post, but there were limits.

Trump, by most reports, has always been a vulgar and ignorant man. This horrifying moment in Milwaukee will add to our national and international humiliation if reinstated. But more importantly, exhibiting this kind of uninhibited behavior in public is increasingly a warning sign that he just isn’t stable enough to sit in the Oval Office.

I don’t know if Trump’s erratic behavior, his apparent physical decline, his bizarre ramblings and their mental cul-de-sac are part of a larger disease. Trump’s critics say he has dementia and other conditions. I am not a doctor and cannot come to this conclusion. But I do know this much: If Donald Trump were your father, or your husband, your brother, your uncle, or just your friend, you would insist that he see a doctor and probably protect him from large gatherings where he might become a ridiculous object. You could even suggest that family or friends watch it more often.

Whatever little mercies and considerations you might give a man who behaves like Trump, you certainly wouldn’t put him in positions of pressure or responsibility, or challenge him to make decisions fast and important. You certainly wouldn’t make him the commander-in-chief of the most powerful military on the planet and put the safety of billions of innocent people in his hands.

The crowd at the rally, ever faithful and willing to do their part, laughed as Trump pretended to enjoy a piece of equipment. But for the rest of us, the laughing has to stop and the horror of what could happen in a few days has to take its place.