![](/img/icon/fonts.png)
Donald Trump drowns out his own closing argument
Donald Trump is broken and no one can put Humpty Trumpty back together again.
This thought occurred to me at a truck stop in rural Nevada. Less than two weeks away from the presidential election which could determine the survival of our species, I decided to visit as many swing, red and blue states as possible. I wanted to talk to people, one-on-one, as many as possible and without the blinding glare of a television camera by my side. I visited 15 states in 21 days; Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and California. The bulk of the trip found me in 12 states in 14 days.
On the seventh day, I rested and visited with the seventh son of a seventh son, sipping 7-Up and eating a seven-layered bean dip on a front porch in rural Pennsylvania. “You’re an idiot,” my host told me.
“I don’t disagree, but what makes you say so?” I asked.
The only conclusion I draw from my trek is that we in the media have long misunderstood and woefully underreported the sense of frustration in this country over a democracy that has been usurped by the donor class.
“That’s a lot of places to travel to in order to find out an answer you should already know,” he said as I explained my travel plans. “And it’s easy enough. Trump’s going to win. All politicians are crazy crooks, but he’s crazy in the right way.”
“I didn’t know there was a right way to be crazy, but I agree with you,” I said.
“You do?” He asked.
“Yes,” I said. “He is definitely crazy.”
In suburban Maryland, I found few who were buying Trump’s brand of b.s. In Gaithersburg, I saw one yard sign for Trump and it was surrounded by eight signs declaring allegiance to Harris/Walz in the yards of the nearest neighbors.
“Trump is insane and is becoming more so every day,” I was told as I sat for a drink at Hershey's, a local Gaithersburg watering hole famous for great fried chicken and good rock n’ roll. (Full disclosure, my band has played there.)
On my trek west from there, I stopped in West Virginia where at a grocery store I ran across a large man working behind the counter who said, “Even a tweaker knows better than to vote for Trump.” But, he explained, “The economy was better when he was in office, so you know he’s going to win West Virginia real easy. No one around here is for Harris.”
Related
I had a hard time getting around the fact that, according to this grocery store sales clerk, meth addicts know better than to vote for Trump, but according to that same West Virginia native, apparently, no one living in West Virginia knows better than a meth addict.
By the time I reached the Blue Grass state, I was tired. While everyone........
© Salon
![](/img/icon/go.png)
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3c/Download_on_the_App_Store_Badge.svg/203px-Download_on_the_App_Store_Badge.svg.png)
![Get it on Google Play](/img/icon/google.play.220.png)