There are few institutions as establishment as The Atlantic. At its best, it publishes some outstanding articles. At its worst--and it is almost always at its worst when it comes to anything Trump--it perpetrates hoaxes in the service of the greater good as they see it. 

At a campaign event last night, Trump got bored and “just played music for almost 40 minutes, scowling, smirking, and swaying onstage,” writes @GrahamDavidA. “To watch the event is to see signs of someone having a breakdown”: https://t.co/nmFQ0MSpbn

— The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) October 15, 2024

You may have seen the story about the Trump event where two people had "medical events," and the former president decided to stop his Q&A session and hold an impromptu musical party. Jazz wrote about it earlier, and it has gotten some traction online. This is especially so with the Harris influencers, who are portraying it as an example of how mentally deranged Trump has become. 

I ran across many leftfluencers (I just invented that word and am trying it out) who have piled onto the Harris campaign's message that Trump is too old and senile to run for president. It's a rich argument coming from the "sharp as a tack" people, but this being politics and them being Democrats, it's predictable that being consistent is not a high priority. 

As usual, the whole affair was a hoax being perpetrated by the left. Far from this being an example of Trump drifting off into la-la land, it was a typically Trumpist move to shape the mood and keep people upbeat in a trying circumstance. ABC's Terry Moran, who was covering the event, found the whole thing refreshing and even intimate. 

Even ABC admits the Trump Townhall in PA was a special moment that DJT shared with his supporters.

This is why we support him so passionately. He is a cool dude who knows how to have fun with folks like us unlike Kamala, who is a tool for the machinepic.twitter.com/BG7cj87lPg

— Shawn Farash (@Shawn_Farash) October 15, 2024

You expect the leftfluencers and many of the MSM outlets to turn this into a fake scandal, but ABC gave nice coverage to it that I thought was generous and fair. 

You might expect the nation's oldest and most prestigious magazine to at least want to get the facts right. 

But no, the Trump hatred is strong in them, so factuality or fairness is optional. In this case, the MSM was better at covering it than The Atlantic. And they aren't exactly Trump fans. They understood that this was Trump having fun. 

To watch the event is to see signs of someone having a breakdown. Like Joe Biden’s disastrous debate against Trump in June, when the president’s fumbling performance and struggle to get sentences out made it impossible to believe he was up to the task of serving for four years, Trump’s rally last night would force any reasonable person to conclude that he is not up to the grueling task of leading the world’s greatest nation, handling economic crises, or dealing with foreign adversaries.

Which isn’t to say that some people didn’t try to reason through it. Reporters still seem unsure of how to deal with Trump’s stranger behaviors. Journalists are trained to take information and make sense of it, even amid chaos. The problem is that doing so conjures logic where none exists.

Here’s how The New York Times described the night: “Mr. Trump, a political candidate known for improvisational departures, made a detour. Rather than try to restart the political program, he seemed to decide in the moment that it would be more enjoyable for all concerned—and, it appeared, for himself—to just listen to music instead.” ABC News: “Former President Donald Trump’s town hall in Oaks, Pennsylvania, on Monday evening was interrupted twice by medical emergencies in a very warm Greater Philadelphia Expo Center and Fairgrounds before he cut the program short.” NBC News: “Former President Donald Trump turned a town hall event … into an impromptu listening party Monday night, playing an unlikely selection of tunes for more than 30 minutes after the event was paused for medical emergencies.” The Associated Press: “Donald Trump’s town hall in the Philadelphia suburbs turned into an impromptu concert Monday after the former president was twice interrupted by medical emergencies in the room.”

The Harris campaign ran on nothing but amorphous JOY!!!! for months, and the media went along. Trump decided to have a party with his supporters, and it is suddenly a sign of dementia. 

What do you expect, I guess. All these outlets are trying to pretend Harris isn't a vapid idiot and that Trump is a dictator-in-waiting. It's what they do. 

Trump is many things, but suffering from dementia, he is not. This line of attack is desperate, and the problem his critics have is that nobody is listening to them anymore. They have thrown everything at him, including bullets, and he remains standing. 

I easily understand why people oppose Trump. But we all support him at least partly because they hate him so much and commit so many hoaxes. The lawfare hurt Democrats. The lies hurt Democrats. The hoaxes have collapsed the media's credibility. 

They hate him because they hate us. We quit listening. The only people left who eat this stuff up already believe the worst of Trump. Nobody else cares what they think.