If Donald Trump really wants to go through with this “CNN town hall” and finish himself off more quickly, then so be it

| 3:00 pm EDT May 2, 2023
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It’s disgusting that CNN is holding a “New Hampshire town hall” next week with Donald Trump, a criminal defendant who’s only pretending he’s going to be a candidate in a future election. But every time Trump appears in public these days, the general public sees just how far gone he is, and it hurts him and helps us.

This is a desperation move on Trump’s part. With Mike Pence having now testified, Trump knows that the DOJ could indict him for espionage any day now, and he’s afraid the general public will see him as a criminal defendant, not some candidate.

Once the general public stops seeing him as a candidate, the media will no longer be able to get ratings by scaring the public into thinking “Trump 2024” is a real thing. At that point the media will stop hyping his imaginary campaign, and he’ll lose his ability to keep fundraising for that imaginary campaign. And so Trump has to go out there and present him as a “candidate” to a mainstream television audience, in the hope of convincing the public (whether they’re for or against him) that he’s actually a candidate.

But there’s a reason Trump’s handlers have tried to keep him out of the public eye as much as possible these past two years. When he does occasionally appear on mainstream television, the general public sees that he’s a senile confused goner, and realizes he’s not going to be part of 2024.

This is not at all about Trump’s irrelevant base (never has been, never will be). This is about the general public figuring out that Trump is a senile goner. They weren’t going to vote for him anyway. But Trump needs the general public to believe and fear that he’ll be viable for 2024, or else the entire grift falls apart.

But like all declining narcissists, Trump is grossly overestimating his remaining abilities. He believes he can go on CNN and knock it out of the park, and convince mainstream audiences (whether they’re for or against him) that he’s a serious 2024 candidate. So he’s going to go embarrass himself on live national television.

The kicker is that ratings for this “town hall” will likely be weak. Trump’s base is tired. They don’t even show up to his occasional rallies anymore. The last thing they want to do is tune in to CNN, a network they hate, just to be reminded of how senile he is by watching him on TV. And nobody else really cares. No one is going to watch.

But we’d be better off if a lot of people did tune in. You want everyone to see the actual Donald Trump – not the fictional, omnipotent version that the media (on both sides) keeps hyping for ratings. You want the general public to see actual senile blob that he’s become, so they’ll figure out sooner that there isn’t going to be a “Trump 2024” and we can get the public to start focusing on the actual threats the nation is facing.