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Old Man Trump

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August 2, 2024 4:25 p.m.
WATERFORD, MICHIGAN - FEBRUARY 17: Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks to supporters during a rally on February 17, 2024 in Waterford, Michigan. The Michigan primary election is sch... WATERFORD, MICHIGAN - FEBRUARY 17: Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks to supporters during a rally on February 17, 2024 in Waterford, Michigan. The Michigan primary election is scheduled for February 27. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) MORE LESS

Here’s one thing that’s been in the back of my mind for some time and with a greater focus since Joe handed the football off to Kamala. Donald Trump is old. If you look, he’s much older than in 2016 and 2020. People say these kinds of things as part of the rather dismal “who’s older?” scuffling that’s been going back and forth all year between the two candidates. Here though I mean it in a basic descriptive sense. The difference between being 70 and close to 80 is a big one. It happens to everyone.

Trump doesn’t get held to these standards as much because his raging gives a feeling of focus and edge that Biden lacked. But just in a basic sense, he is not the candidate he was in 2016, not even the one he was in 2020. This was hidden in a way so long as Biden was the nominee and it was hidden or perhaps rendered meaningless as long as Trump was ahead. If your candidate is old but he’s winning … well, whatever. If Joe Biden had spent the last year sitting on a five point lead, the whole campaign, clearly, would have gone quite differently.

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