Lazy Caturday Reads

Happy Caturday!!

By Eileen Mayo, New Zealand artist, 1906-1994

Trump’s Arlington National Cemetery scandal is still alive and kicking. This is unusual for Trump. The media generally works to normalize even his grossest violations of laws and norms. In fact, the major media have mostly ignored this episode too, but independent outlets and social media have kept it going. So I’m still reading, thinking, and writing about it.

Yesterday, I read a very good piece about it by Noah Berlatsky at his Substack Everything Is Horrible: Trump’s Arlington Photoshoot Shows That Fascism is Here.

Berlatsky’s argument is that we may not yet be at the point of being ruled by a dictator, but people are acting as if fascism is already here, because they are afraid of standing up to Trump. hey know he and his thugs will make their lives a living hell. Berlatsky writes that “Fascist vigilante harassment chills resistance.”

This week, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump oozed orangely into Arlington National Cemetary to take a picture of himself standing over veteran’s graves with an oleaginous smile and a big thumb’s up.

You may think this is tasteless. And you’d be correct. It’s also illegal. It’s against federal law to campaign in Army National Military Cemeteries.

An Arlington official attempted to enforce the rules, and told Trump he couldn’t take his grotesque pictures there. Trump campaign thugs then verbally abused the official and pushed them. When the official filed an incident report, the Trump campaign issued a statement insulting them and claiming they were mentally ill.

The official decided not to press charges, because they were afraid that if they did, they would be targeted, harassed, and worse by Trump supporters, according to the New York Times.

Again, an Arlington official, doing their job, tried to enforce rules that are supposed to apply to all. They were roughed up and insulted. And they are afraid to stand up to Trump and his campaign because they know that if their opposition to Trump becomes public, their life will be destroyed.

This isn’t an idle fear. Trump has sicced his fascist dittohead minions on election workers whose only crime was refusing to throw the election for Donald Trump. They were doxed and harassed at their home, and one had to go into hiding. Trump also organized a violent coup, in which his supporters attacked the capital building, terrorizing representatives and workers, and five people died. News organization have found a list of incidents in which Trump supporters committed violence explicitly in his name.

Standing up to Trump is frightening. If he singles you out, his supporters will try to hurt you and your loved ones.

Trump and his campaign flaks are quite aware of this dynamic, and they use it to their advantage. The campaign said it could release video backing up its version of events. It hasn’t done so, probably because the video shows that the Arlington worker was in the right. But if the video shows the Arlington worker’s face, that worker will be tracked down by Trump supporters. “We have video” isn’t evidence; it’s a threat.

And Trump’s threats, implied and otherwise, worked. The official was scared to challenge the leader of a fascist movement for fear of fascist abuse.

Berlatsky argues that “the press is intimidated too.” Is that why the fact checkers have been bending over backwards to explain away Trump’s false claims? I hope you’ll read the rest at the Substack link above.

Of course, the violation of a military cemetery is shocking to most Americans. Michael Powell at The Atlantic: Why Trump’s Arlington Debacle Is So Serious.

The section of Arlington National Cemetery that Donald Trump visited on Monday is both the liveliest and the most achingly sad part of the grand military graveyard, set aside for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Section 60, young widows can be seen using clippers and scissors to groom the grass around their husbands’ tombstones as lots of children run about.

I like your hair, by Natalia Shaloshvili

Karen Meredith knows the saddest acre in America only too well. The California resident’s son, First Lieutenant Kenneth Ballard, was the fourth generation of her family to serve as an Army officer. He was killed in Najaf, Iraq, in 2004, and laid to rest in Section 60. She puts flowers on his gravesite every Memorial Day. “It’s not a number, not a headstone,” she told me. “He was my only child.”

The sections of Arlington holding Civil War and World War I dead have a lonely and austere beauty. Not Section 60, where the atmosphere is sanctified but not somber—too many kids, Meredith recalled from her visits to her son’s burial site. “We laugh, we pop champagne. I have met men who served under him, and they speak of him with such respect. And to think that this man”—she was referring to Trump—“came here and put his thumb up—”

She fell silent for a moment on the telephone, taking a gulp of air. “I’m trying not to cry.”

For Trump, defiling what is sacred in our civic culture borders on a pastime. Peacefully transferring power to the next president, treating political adversaries with at least rudimentary grace, honoring those soldiers wounded and disfigured in service of our country—Trump long ago walked roughshod over all these norms. Before he tried to overturn a national election, he mocked his opponents in the crudest terms and demeaned dead soldiers as “suckers.”

But the former president outdid himself this week, when he attended a wreath-laying ceremony honoring 13 American soldiers killed in a suicide bombing in Kabul during the final havoc-marked hours of the American withdrawal. Trump laid three wreaths and put hand over heart; that is a time-honored privilege of presidents. Trump, as is his wont, went further. He walked to a burial site in Section 60 and posed with the family of a fallen soldier, grinning broadly and giving a thumbs-up for his campaign photographer and videographer….

A cemetery employee politely attempted to stop the campaign staff from filming in Section 60. Taking campaign photos and videos at gravesites is expressly forbidden under federal law. The Trump entourage, according to a subsequent statement by the U.S. Army, which oversees the cemetery, “abruptly pushed” her aside.

Trump’s campaign soon posted a video on TikTok, overlaid with Trump’s narration: “We didn’t lose one person in 18 months. And then they”—the Biden administration—“took over, that disaster of leaving Afghanistan.”

Trump was unsurprisingly not telling the truth; 11 soldiers were killed in Afghanistan in his last year in office, and his administration had itself negotiated the withdrawal. But such fabrications are incidental sins compared with what came next. A top Trump adviser, Chris LaCivita, and campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung talked to reporters and savaged the employee who had tried to stop the entourage. Cheung referred to her as “an unnamed individual, clearly suffering a mental-health episode.” LaCivita declared her a “despicable individual” who ought to be fired.

Once again, I have to ask why anyone would vote for this repulsive creature for any office, much less president?

Of course, Trump has taken no responsibility whatever for his disgusting behavior. In fact, yesterday he even claimed that he had no idea who posted the video ad on his TicTac account. He suggested that the gold star families who invited him may have done it–or maybe it was Vice President Harris’ campaign!

By Rakhmet Redzhepov

Rep. Jamie Raskin is now demanding answers about the events in Arlington Cemetery.

Raw Story: Top Oversight Committee Dem seeks ‘full account’ from Army secretary on Arlington incident.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, demanded Friday a “full account” of a reported incident between Donald Trump and his campaign and their collective appearance this week at Arlington National Cemetery.

Trump and his campaign faced intense backlash following a reported physical altercation with a cemetery official and faced questions over whether they may have violated federal law banning campaign materials from being photographed or filmed in certain sections of the cemetery.

A TikTok video showed Trump in Section 60, where the altercation purportedly occurred, smiling and giving a thumbs-up. Trump has said the family of a soldier laid to rest in the section invited him, and his campaign has said they were allowed to ring a photographer.

“The fact is that a private photographer was permitted on the premises and for whatever reason an unnamed individual, clearly suffering from a mental health episode, decided to physically block members of President Trump’s team during a very solemn ceremony,” spokesman Steven Cheung said in the statement.

laws were violated.

In a letter to Christine Wormuth, secretary of the Army, Raskin referenced reports of a “verbal and physical altercation” between members of the Trump campaign and cemetery staff.

“It appears that the Trump campaign refused to abide by Arlington National Cemetery’s absolute prohibition on ‘filming for partisan, political, or fundraising purposes’ and ‘abruptly pushed aside’ Cemetery staff trying to ‘ensure adherence’ to these rules,” he said in the letter obtained by Punchbowl News.

In doing so, he asked the Army secretary to hand the committee an incident report and deliver a briefing on what happened, “including whether Trump campaign staff violated federal law or Cemetery rules and whether the Trump campaign informed the families of servicemembers buried at the Cemetery that their gravestones would be used in Mr. Trump’s political campaign ads.”

Here’s an example of how Trump intimidates the media. At a rally in Pennsylvania yesterday a Trump supporter actually broke down the barriers to the press area.

AP: Police use Taser to subdue man who stormed media area of Trump rally in Pennsylvania.

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. (AP) — A man at Donald Trump’s rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, stormed into the press area as the former president spoke and was surrounded by police and sheriff’s deputies before eventually being subdued with a Taser.

The incident Friday came moments after Trump had criticized major media outlets for what he said was unfavorable coverage and dismissed CNN as fawning for its interview Thursday with his Democratic rival Kamala Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz….

The man made it over a bicycle rack ringing the media area and began climbing the back side of a riser where television reporters and cameras were stationed, according to a video of the incident posted to social media by a reporter for CBS News. People near him tried to pull him off the riser and were quickly joined by police officers.

The crowd cheered as a pack of police led the man away, prompting Trump to declare, “Is there anywhere that’s more fun to be than a Trump rally?”

Moments later police handcuffed another man in the crowd and led him out of the arena. It was not immediately clear whether that detention was related to the initial altercation.

Here’s a bit more on the incident from The Daily Beast:

At the time of the incident, Trump was criticizing the media for its coverage of his campaign and the election more broadly—and, in particular, attacking CNN’s recent interview with his opponent, Kamala Harris.

As the man was detained and removed from the rally, the former president quipped, “Is there anywhere that’s more fun to be than a Trump rally?” per the Associated Press.

Trump is right to be worried about the Harris-Walz interview on CNN. It got great ratings.

The Daily Beast: Harris-Walz Interview Ratings Nearly Double Trump’s Last Big CNN Sit-Down.

The first joint interview with Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz was watched live by nearly 6 million viewers on CNN Thursday night, according to the Nielsen data—far outpacing the viewership that tuned the last time Donald Trump appeared on that network.

It was a strong night for CNN, which has struggled recently to reach the ratings of Fox News or MSNBC. Although it’s a much lower audience rating than Harris and Walz’s big DNC speeches, it’s still a promising stat for the Harris campaign, continuing a trend of her events receiving higher viewership than those of her opponent.

When Trump gave a town hall on CNN in May 2023, one of his first proper campaign events of the 2024 election cycle, only 3.3 million viewers tuned in. And more recently, when Trump did his first joint sit-down with running mate JD Vance in July, they drew an estimated 4 million viewers. All of those cable ratings, however, still trail the average audience for the network’s nightly news broadcasts, which tend to bring in around 7-8 million viewers.

The Harris-Walz campaign can also boast a more popular national convention this year; 20.1 million people tuned into the third day of the DNC where Walz gave his speech, for instance, while only 17.9 million viewers turned in for JD Vance’s big moment….

The ratings gap seemed particularly disappointing for Trump, considering how much pride he openly took in his RNC ratings. After his speech this year, he posted on Truth Social that his ratings were the “best and most successful in history,” even though viewership was trailing behind both his 2020 and 2016 performance.

Meanwhile, Harris’ convention ratings actually outdid Joe Biden’s in 2020. It’s a performance that gives credence to the idea that the Harris-Walz campaign has more energy and enthusiasm behind it, whereas that long-speculated Trump fatigue might have finally started to set in.

Trump fatigue set in for me long ago. If only he would just disappear.

There are a couple of interesting articles on J.D. Vance today. I got into the NYT even though I cancelled my subscription, apparently because I clicked the link at Memeorandum.

Michael C. Bender at The New York Times: JD Vance’s Combative Style Confounds Voters but Pleases Trump.

Donald J. Trump knew that JD Vance could take a punch. But during their first week together on the campaign trail, the former president wondered just how many hits his new running mate could absorb.

The volume and velocity of attacks from Democrats stunned even Mr. Trump. He was unaware of the most incendiary remarks that opponents were rapidly unearthing from Mr. Vance’s past, and the former president told allies that he was troubled by the idea that more comments would come to light as Democrats savaged his heir apparent as weird and anti-women.

A month later, polls show that the number of Americans who dislike Mr. Vance continues to grow — but Mr. Trump could not be happier.

The reason: Mr. Vance’s relentless pace of full-throttle performances as Mr. Trump’s well-trained attack dog has pleased the former president and instilled a sense of stability inside a campaign still shaken by President Biden’s sudden exit from the race.

Mr. Trump had instructed his young sidekick to fight forcefully through those initial attacks, and later said Mr. Vance’s execution exceeded his expectations, according to three allies who insisted on anonymity to discuss private conversations.

In a quintessentially Trumpian display of bravado, the former president has privately praised Mr. Vance by comparing himself to Vince Lombardi, telling people that his eye for political talent was now on par with the Hall of Fame football coach’s ability to find Super Bowl-caliber players.

But beyond Mar-a-Lago, early returns on Mr. Vance are less enthusiastic. Polls show that he effectively amplifies Mr. Trump’s political strengths but that he also magnifies his weaknesses. Mr. Vance’s approval rating improved by nearly double digits among the nation’s least educated and poorest voters since joining the Republican ticket — but plunged by even wider margins among college graduates and independent women, according to an NPR/PBS News/Marist poll.

How those conflicting opinions either resolve themselves or become further inflamed will help determine whether Mr. Trump ends the race in less than 10 weeks with a second presidential term or a second electoral defeat.

There’s more at the link, if you can get past the paywall.

Jason Wilson at The Guardian: ‘Dangerous and un-American’: new recording of JD Vance’s dark vision of women and immigration.

Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, said that professional women “choose a path to misery” when they prioritize careers over having children in a September 2021 podcast interview in which he also claimed men in America were “suppressed” in their masculinity.

The Ohio senator and vice-presidential candidate said of women like his classmates at Yale Law School that “pursuing racial or gender equity is like the value system that gives their life meaning … [but] they all find that that value system leads to misery”.

Vance also sideswiped the Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a one-time Somali refugee, claiming she had shown “ingratitude” to America, and that she “would be living in a craphole” had she not moved to the US.

In an emailed response to the Guardian, Omar slammed what she called the “ignorant and xenophobic rhetoric spewed by Mr Vance” as “dangerous and un-American”.

Ever since he was picked by Trump, Vance has been hit by scandals over his past comments, especially those concerning women and his perception of their role in society.

Ever since he was picked by Trump, Vance has been hit by scandals over his past comments, especially those concerning women and his perception of their role in society.

Last week his campaign was rocked by previous comments blasting a teachers union president for not having “some of her own” children. His previous characterizations of Democratic leaders as “childless cat ladies” have also troubled the Trump campaign’s efforts to appeal to suburban women.

On the newly found interview:

In the 2021 interview Vance also claimed men and boys in the US were “suppressed” in their masculinity and made racially charged remarks about American cities and his political opponents.

By Sharyn Bursiic

Of Afghans who assisted US troops during the occupation of that country who were now seeking to come to America, Vance asked whether “certain groups of people can successfully become American citizens”, and said those hostile to Minneapolis’s Somali American community “don’t like people getting hatcheted in the street in [their] own community”.

At the same time, Vance claimed that “the left uses racism as a cudgel”, and that he had been a “little too worried” in the past about such accusations because they can be “career-ending” and “destroy a person’s life”.

Sophie Bjork-James, an assistant professor at Vanderbilt University who has written extensively on topics including US evangelicals and populist politics, said: “Vance represents a new articulation of rightwing politics that is bridging the Christian right and a tech-influenced hypermasculine conservatism.

“He appeals to evangelicals with the message that we find happiness by fulfilling traditional gender roles, which is a cornerstone of white evangelical Christianity. He also speaks to a misogynist trend emerging out of the tech world among people who would prefer not to talk about any kind of diversity at all.”

“What they share is the view that women shouldn’t be in paid work: they should be in the home and rearing children. But the public line isn’t ‘we hate women’, it’s ‘women will be happier if they stay at home’,” she added.

I can see why Trump likes Vance. They both hate women. There’s more at the link, and The Guardian doesn’t have a paywall.

Those are my recommended reads for today. What’s on your mind?