Donald Trump is ready for his closeup

On Tuesday evening Fox News aired a Donald Trump town hall which made clear that Trump is now so senile, he can’t come off decently even when a friendly host is trying to put good sounding answers in his mouth. Trump spent the town hall getting people confused, making up words, and incoherently ranting about not being able to take a shower.

The whole thing had to be a net negative for Trump. Even his own base has to be getting uncomfortable watching him descend into senility. And the general public – the persuadable people whose votes decide competitive elections – can’t possibly be seeing Trump as anything other than a walking corpse at this point.

Yet after the debacle, Trump went on social media and bragged about how high the ratings were for the town hall. Yes, ratings. Trump thinks this town hall was a success for him because of how many people watched it. His fading mind has clearly regressed back to his Apprentice days, where his success was measured by ratings and not by respectability.

But it’s a different world when you’re out on bail awaiting prison, and pretending to run for President in an attempt at distracting everyone from the fact that you’re on your way to prison. It’s not enough to attract attention. You have to come off well. And Trump is coming off as deeply unwell.

Trump is in a situation where he’d be better off if fewer people were watching him. He should be making as few public appearances as he can get away with, so as not to keep advertising his senility. Instead he’s out there destroying his political viability with his every public appearance, and bragging about how many people tuned in to watch him embarrass himself.

In that sense Donald Trump is roughly as far gone as the woman in the movie Sunset Boulevard who announces that she’s ready for her closeup, without understanding that her life is effectively over. Come to think of it, she was also on her way to prison.