Gold Star Trap

So Donald took the bait, as they must have known he would. 

This has all the hallmarks of a deliberate ruse and falling for it so publicly has already cost Trump 8 points according to a CNN poll released today. 

There's no doubt that the Democrats know that they can keep setting these booby traps and the GOP candidate will surely keep triggering them, but it's hard to imagine that they have a better ambush device up their sleeve than Mr and Mrs Khan. 

It's a shame in a way, because some swing voters may have forgotten what a total idiot he has just made of himself come November. 

In truth, Obamas aside, almost all the headline speakers at the DNC, especially all the various Clintons, were lacklustre, but this didn't matter so much, because the job of composing the underlying, almost subliminal message was handled with real aplomb. 

Crucially the Democratic strategists have demonstrated an understanding that zombies, once turned, cannot easily be turned back into ordinary human beings capable of generally independent, non-herd-like ratiocination, at least not until someone comes up with a general cure. 

So, as a bullet to the head is politically non-viable, the only way to handle the likes of Trump zombies and Brexit zombies is to confuse and slacken them a bit by presenting as a lure some alternative basic impulses for them to slaver over. 

So the plan unveiled in Philadelphia was to take all these newly-turned Trump zombies and see if they could be retro-fitted into either 'Patriotism' or 'Praise the Lord' zombies: the sort that have been around a lot longer in US politics, but never quite threatened a complete apocalypse. It may well work.