OPINION:
It may be true that Donald Trump campaigns like a carnival barker.
He flies in on a giant plane painted in American flag colors with his name emblazoned on the side. He instructs his pilots to tip their wings to the crowds of thousands gathered below hours early for a taste of what is to come.
And he never disappoints.
Comedy, insults, politics, impersonations and even a little religion — it’s a three-ring circus traveling variety show, and Mr. Trump is the rollicking master of ceremonies.
Professional politicians watch in disgust. Doesn’t he know you are supposed to be all serious and decorous and pious as you go about selling the country out to China, Mexican warlords and the mullahs of Iran?
Any domestic argument these days between husband and wife — no matter what it might be about — that does not end with one of you shouting, “They’re eating the cats! They’re eating the dogs!” is a lost argument.
Meanwhile, the professional politicians are trying to catch up after their last lifetime politician short-circuited and now spends his days planted in a beach chair on the sand, sleeping in front of rolling cameras.
It is the one area, Mr. Trump concedes, where President Biden is better than he is: sleeping in public.
“Who the hell wants to sleep?” Mr. Trump rants incredulously. “And who wants to sleep in public?”
The pair of new fake political droids Democrats have fielded in Mr. Biden’s place may be even worse. They are so fake even their biggest supporters cannot keep up the mirage.
If Donald Trump is a carnival barker touring the country in a traveling variety show, Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz are a traveling freak show.
Nothing is real about them. Whenever you see them, you think you are on a bad psychedelic trip. And then, when you try to make sense of their policy prescriptions, you become terrified.
Now we know why they jumped out of the gate calling Mr. Trump and J.D. Vance “weird.” It is a typical projection technique that is the only campaign tactic left for Democrats.
The senator from Ohio is “weird” because he grew up poor in Appalachia, raised by his tough, foulmouthed grandmother because his mother was addicted to drugs.
Well, every time Mr. Walz steps out on stage, he looks like he was just released from the funny farm, waving his hands over his head with his tongue hanging out of his round, pudgy face below bulging eyeballs. It has been widely observed that he looks like the clown-face emoji on the texting device.
Until somebody asks him a question. Then his face turns ashen, and he recedes into a hooded cloak, suddenly looking more like Emperor Palpatine in “Star Wars.” Except this guy has no working lightsaber and could not slay even an Ewok.
Ain’t the freak show grand?
The top of the Democratic ticket is even more ridiculous.
Even supporters were concerned when Ms. Harris decided to grant a rare interview with “Call Her Daddy,” a podcast known for reviewing the best sexual intercourse positions and how party girls can best conceal various sexually transmitted diseases.
Her decision to do this show was particularly curious because it took place just as her administration announced it had run out of rescue money for American citizens after historic flooding in the mountains of Georgia and North Carolina — even as her administration boasted they had also just mailed a check for $157 million to the country of Lebanon, which is governed by a terrorist organization called Hezbollah.
Perhaps it was not the best idea for Ms. Harris to do the “Call Her Daddy” podcast, but at least she is an expert at screwing over a country.
From there, she proceeded to “60 Minutes” on CBS, also known as “Call Her Granddaddy.”
There, she was confronted by a kindly old reporter named Bill Whitaker, who looked like Sam the Snowman in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’s Christmas cartoon. He asked basic, straightforward questions, which she struggled mightily to evade.
It was so bad that “60 Minutes” had to edit her answers to make them sound less ridiculous.
Such are the trials of the traveling freak show that the political press is desperate to promote into the White House.
• Charles Hurt is the opinion editor at The Washington Times.
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