The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

 

The good:

The Villages, one of the world’s largest retirement communities, has long been known as a conservative stronghold. In the past, left-leaning residents of the central Florida enclave tended to keep their views to themselves, fearing they might be kicked out of their golf group, excluded from the mahjong club, or disinvited from a neighborhood pool party.

But Vice President Kamala Harris’ emergence as the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate has given the small, but enthusiastic group a boost of confidence and a push into the light.

“They are beginning to realize that they have a voice and they can use it,” said Diane Foley, president of the Villages Democratic Club, which has seen its membership nearly double since the 2020 election cycle, to around 1,500 people.

Prior to that time, she noted, “Democrats have been inclined to be quiet and to not broadcast their political preferences because we were so overwhelmed by the Republican party.”...

Some think Florida is in play.  Maybe.  Certainly the highly unpopular MAGAt Republican Sen. Rick "Nosferatu" Scott is toxic and may well lose to Democrat Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell.  But there are both short- and long- term reasons why Florida may someday return to the Democratic fold (see below, for example).  Also, is this maybe another sign?

The bad:

Florida is bracing as Hurricane Milton rapidly intensified into a Category 1 storm on Sunday, days before it’s expected to make landfall on the state’s Gulf Coast while communities are still dealing with the effects of Hurricane Helene.

While the state is clearing debris from Helene — which made landfall September 26 on Florida’s Big Bend as a Category 4 and created a 500-mile path of destruction with catastrophic flooding and damaging winds — it will now contend with Milton.

The storm is boasting top sustained wind speeds of 80 mph, according to the 2 p.m. ET advisory from the National Hurricane Center. At that time, the storm was about 815 miles west-southwest of Tampa, Florida.

It is expected to make landfall on Wednesday on the Gulf Coast of Florida as a destructive and life-threatening Category 3 with 120 mph winds between Cedar Key and Naples, which includes the entire Tampa Bay area. Hurricane and storm surge watches will likely be issued for parts of the western Florida coast on Sunday — with dangerous storm surge expected for some areas just slammed by Helene.

Miami, Orlando and Tampa are each forecast to receive four to eight inches of rain through Thursday. That would be the equivalent of an entire month’s worth of rain for Miami, two months’ worth of rain for Orlando and three months’ worth of rain for Tampa. Locations within the state’s interior could see more than 10 inches of rain total...

Not what Florida needed, even though it's projected to hit a different area of the state than Helene. Meanwhile, MAGAt Republican Speaker of the House MAGA Mike Johnson refuses to bring back the House to pass emergency disaster relief.  That the states that have been most affected by hurricanes in recent years -- Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas -- routinely send Senators and Representatives to Washington to vote against legislation addressing climate change shouldn't pass without notice.

The ugly: 

... He rambles, he repeats himself, he roams from thought to thought — some of them hard to understand, some of them unfinished, some of them factually fantastical. He voices outlandish claims that seem to be made up out of whole cloth. He digresses into bizarre tangents about golf, about sharks, about his own “beautiful” body. He relishes “a great day in Louisiana” after spending the day in Georgia. He expresses fear that North Korea is “trying to kill me” when he presumably means Iran. As late as last month, Mr. Trump was still speaking as if he were running against President Biden, five weeks after his withdrawal from the race.

With Mr. Biden out, Mr. Trump, at 78, is now the oldest major party nominee for president in history and would be the oldest president ever if he wins and finishes another term at 82. A review of Mr. Trump’s rallies, interviews, statements and social media posts finds signs of change since he first took the political stage in 2015. He has always been discursive and has often been untethered to truth, but with the passage of time his speeches have grown darker, harsher, longer, angrier, less focused, more profane and increasingly fixated on the past.

According to a computer analysis by The New York Times, Mr. Trump’s rally speeches now last an average of 82 minutes, compared with 45 minutes in 2016. Proportionately, he uses 13 percent more all-or-nothing terms like “always” and “never” than he did eight years ago, which some experts consider a sign of advancing age.

Similarly, he uses 32 percent more negative words than positive words now, compared with 21 percent in 2016, which can be another indicator of cognitive change. And he uses swearwords 69 percent more often than he did when he first ran, a trend that could reflect what experts call disinhibition. (A study by Stat, a health care news outlet, produced similar findings.)...

Many more examples, as if more were needed, at the link.

At long, long last attention is being focused on the cognitive decline/ dementia of the Malignant Loser, specifically by a . Will it matter to MAGAts?  No.  It's long been obvious to any sentient person that he's not only an ignorant buffoon, but that he's a diminished ignorant buffoon... and his cultists still love it.  And there's not an insignificant chance his cultists, along with some low- information voters, will elect him to the most powerful position on Earth.