Khan and the incompetence of Trump

I am working my way through the major and a few of the minor speeches at the DNC since I had to work through most of them, so far I am not as impressed with Michelle Obama's as I thought I would be based on the transcript and articles I read about it. I thought it was fine and delivered well, but I don't think her heart was really into it. Especially compared to her 2012 speech, or course that one was about her husband so that makes sense, but still, meh. Head and shoulders above anything at the RNC of course, and it wasn't plagiarized, so there is that.

I skipped ahead a bit for Khizr Khan, because damn, I mean, damn. There might not be one that tops it for raw emotion, if you haven't seen it, do so.

As possibly the most effective speech, certainly the most quoted so far, Trump had a couple of options to respond, the first would be to say nothing and deflect if asked questions. He chose not to do that. Another option would be to agree with him! "You are correct, I haven't sacrificed like you and your son have to make this country safe, however I am running to make yours be among the last to sacrifice and prevent Hillary Clinton from getting us into more wars that we do not need."
Clinton can justifiably be considered at least a little bit responsible for the casualties overseas in the last few years as she worked closely with the Obama administration and her fate is largely tied to the perception of that administration.

Trump... did not choose that option either, instead he claimed to have sacrificed, then literally in the very next sentence fragment, went on to talk about how wealthy he is and how many jobs he created, also asked why Ghazala Khan never spoke, implying that it was a religious issue as she is a woman, rather than being a grieving mother who just wasn't up to talking about her hurt in front of millions. This is killing him in public perception and I don't see any way it doesn't result in a polling issue either.

They are so fucking bad at this it is insane, it isn't just Trump! Paul Manafort is supposed to actually be good at this, but he never made any kind of coherent response either, nor have any of Trump's supposed supporters who theoretically know what they are doing, this could have been an opportunity to open a bit of a wedge issue to work Clinton over, or at least to do effective damage control, and they completely blew it. Coming on the heels of a massively successful Democratic convention and what looks to be a pretty solid poll bounce for the Dems, they can't afford to miss chances like that.

Politics is all about perception, and the perception they are giving is utter incompetence, the refrain for much of the election until now is "nothing matters" but it's kind of starting to, fear and incompetence can't really make up for a lack of coherent message or even campaign infrastructure.

It shouldn't bother me that the other side is so bad at this, but it really does for some reason, yeah I am encouraged and expect Clinton to win with 400+ EVs this fall, but something inside me is offended that they are trying to convince us with such a shitty operation. That if nothing else shows Trumps true regard for the American people, he thinks we are so stupid he doesn't have to make an effort. He thought the primaries proved him right, but I just can't find it in myself to think the general population will continue that trend.