Wednesday Reads

Good Afternoon!!

Yesterday, Trump was hit with a couple of October surprises. I have no idea whether they will make a difference, but it was a pretty good one-two punch. First The Atlantic published an article by editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg about Trump’s dismissive attitude toward the members of the U.S. military. Second, The New York Times’ published an interview with Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly, by Michael Schmidt in which Kelly says that if elected, Trump “would rule like a dictator.” 

Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic: Trump: ‘I Need the Kind of Generals That Hitler Had.’

Goldberg opened his article with an anecdote about a woman soldier Vanessa Guillén, who was murdered.

In April 2020, Vanessa Guillén, a 20-year-old Army private, was bludgeoned to death by a fellow soldier at Fort Hood, in Texas. The killer, aided by his girlfriend, burned Guillén’s body. Guillén’s remains were discovered two months later, buried in a riverbank near the base, after a massive search.

Guillén, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, grew up in Houston, and her murder sparked outrage across Texas and beyond. Fort Hood had become known as a particularly perilous assignment for female soldiers, and members of Congress took up the cause of reform. Shortly after her remains were discovered, President Donald Trump himself invited the Guillén family to the White House. With Guillén’s mother seated beside him, Trump spent 25 minutes with the family as television cameras recorded the scene.

In the meeting, Trump maintained a dignified posture and expressed sympathy to Guillén’s mother. “I saw what happened to your daughter Vanessa, who was a spectacular person, and respected and loved by everybody, including in the military,” Trump said. Later in the conversation, he made a promise: “If I can help you out with the funeral, I’ll help—I’ll help you with that,” he said. “I’ll help you out. Financially, I’ll help you.”

A subsequent investigation by the Army found a number of problems at Fort Hood.

Five months later, the secretary of the Army, Ryan McCarthy, announced the results of an investigation. McCarthy cited numerous “leadership failures” at Fort Hood and relieved or suspended several officers, including the base’s commanding general. In a press conference, McCarthy said that the murder “shocked our conscience” and “forced us to take a critical look at our systems, our policies, and ourselves.”

According to a person close to Trump at the time, the president was agitated by McCarthy’s comments and raised questions about the severity of the punishments dispensed to senior officers and noncommissioned officers.

In a meeting to discuss the investigation Trump asked about the funeral and how much it had cost.

According to attendees, and to contemporaneous notes of the meeting taken by a participant, an aide answered: Yes, we received a bill; the funeral cost $60,000.

Trump became angry. “It doesn’t cost 60,000 bucks to bury a fucking Mexican!” He turned to his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and issued an order: “Don’t pay it!” Later that day, he was still agitated. “Can you believe it?” he said, according to a witness. “Fucking people, trying to rip me off.”

Goldberg’s conclusions from this episode:

The personal qualities displayed by Trump in his reaction to the cost of the Guillén funeral—contempt, rage, parsimony, racism—hardly surprised his inner circle. Trump has frequently voiced his disdain for those who serve in the military and for their devotion to duty, honor, and sacrifice. Former generals who have worked for Trump say that the sole military virtue he prizes is obedience. As his presidency drew to a close, and in the years since, he has become more and more interested in the advantages of dictatorship, and the absolute control over the military that he believes it would deliver. “I need the kind of generals that Hitler had,” Trump said in a private conversation in the White House, according to two people who heard him say this. “People who were totally loyal to him, that follow orders.” (“This is absolutely false,” Pfeiffer wrote in an email. “President Trump never said this.”)

A desire to force U.S. military leaders to be obedient to him and not the Constitution is one of the constant themes of Trump’s military-related discourse. Former officials have also cited other recurring themes: his denigration of military service, his ignorance of the provisions of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, his admiration for brutality and anti-democratic norms of behavior, and his contempt for wounded veterans and for soldiers who fell in battle.

Retired General Barry McCaffrey, a decorated Vietnam veteran, told me that Trump does not comprehend such traditional military virtues as honor and self-sacrifice. “The military is a foreign country to him. He doesn’t understand the customs or codes,” McCaffrey said. “It doesn’t penetrate. It starts with the fact that he thinks it’s foolish to do anything that doesn’t directly benefit himself.”

There’s much more at the Atlantic link. There’s no paywall on this article, so I hope you’ll read the whole thing if you haven’t already.

Michael S. Schmidt at The New York Times: As Election Nears, Kelly Warns Trump Would Rule Like a Dictator.

Few top officials spent more time behind closed doors in the White House with President Donald J. Trump than John F. Kelly, the former Marine general who was his longest-serving chief of staff.

With Election Day looming, Mr. Kelly — deeply bothered by Mr. Trump’s recent comments about employing the military against his domestic opponents — agreed to three on-the-record, recorded discussions with a reporter for The New York Times about the former president, providing some of his most wide-ranging comments yet about Mr. Trump’s fitness and character….

In the interviews, Mr. Kelly expanded on his previously expressed concerns and stressed that voters, in his view, should consider fitness and character when selecting a president, even more than a candidate’s stances on the issues….

He said that, in his opinion, Mr. Trump met the definition of a fascist, would govern like a dictator if allowed, and had no understanding of the Constitution or the concept of rule of law.

He discussed and confirmed previous reports that Mr. Trump had made admiring statements about Hitler, had expressed contempt for disabled veterans and had characterized those who died on the battlefield for the United States as “losers” and “suckers” — comments first reported in 2020 by The Atlantic.

Kelly agreed to make the audio of his comments available.

Some excerpts:

In response to a question about whether he thought Mr. Trump was a fascist, Mr. Kelly first read aloud a definition of fascism that he had found online.

“Well, looking at the definition of fascism: It’s a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy,” he said.

Mr. Kelly said that definition accurately described Mr. Trump.

“So certainly, in my experience, those are the kinds of things that he thinks would work better in terms of running America,” Mr. Kelly said.

He added: “Certainly the former president is in the far-right area, he’s certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators — he has said that. So he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure.”

Kelly said Trump chafed at limitations on his power.

“He certainly prefers the dictator approach to government,” Mr. Kelly said.

Mr. Trump “never accepted the fact that he wasn’t the most powerful man in the world — and by power, I mean an ability to do anything he wanted, anytime he wanted,” Mr. Kelly said.

“I think he’d love to be just like he was in business — he could tell people to do things and they would do it, and not really bother too much about whether what the legalities were and whatnot,” he said.

Trump on “his generals” and Hitler, according to Kelly:

“Certainly, a big surprise for him, again, was if you remember at the beginning of the administration, he would talk about ‘his generals,’” Mr. Kelly said. “I don’t know why he thought that — but then a very big surprise for him was that we were — those of us who were former generals and certainly people still on active duty — that the commitment, the loyalty was to the Constitution, without question, without second thought.”

Mr. Kelly added: “That was a big surprise to him that the generals were not loyal to the boss, in this case him.”

Trump told him that “Hitler did some good things.”

Mr. Kelly confirmed previous reports that on more than one occasion Mr. Trump spoke positively of Hitler.

“He commented more than once that, ‘You know, Hitler did so me good things, too,’” Mr. Kelly said Mr. Trump told him.

Again, there’s much more. Some of the comments are familiar, such as Trump’s distaste for wounded veterans and his inability to understand why anyone would choose to serve in the military and risk injury or death fighting for the country and the values in the Constitution. Here is gift link to the article.

Another story with warnings about the threat of another Trump presidency by David Folkenflik at NPR: Jailed reporters, silenced networks: What Trump says he’d do to the media if elected.

Former President Donald Trump often basks in the glow of press attention. Just as often, he trashes the press and threatens journalists.

On the campaign trail and in interviews, Trump has suggested that if he regains the White House, he will exact vengeance on news outlets that anger him.

More specifically, Trump has pledged to toss reporters in jail and strip major television networks of their broadcast licenses as retribution for coverage he didn’t like.

“It speaks directly to the First Amendment — and the First Amendment is a cornerstone of our democracy,” Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democrat, tells NPR.

To be clear, the government does not license national networks like those targeted by Trump, but the FCC does license local TV and radio stations to use the public airwaves….

Trump’s declarations arrive at a time of increasing concern about his more autocratic impulses. And press advocates say he is intentionally fueling a climate hostile to independent reporting….

a new survey of hundreds of journalists who received safety training from the International Women’s Media Foundation finds 36% say they have faced or been threatened with physical violence on the job — and they have felt especially threatened at Trump campaign rallies.

“Journalists reported feeling at high risk while covering Trump rallies and ‘Stop the Steal’ protests, especially when some Trump supporters and protestors openly carry weapons,” the report states.

While campaigning for Republican congressional candidates in 2022, Trump repeatedly pledged to jail reporters who don’t identify confidential sources on stories he considered to have national security implications….

Last year, Trump called for NBC News to be investigated for treason over its coverage of criminal charges he faces. After his lone debate with Vice President Harris this summer, it was ABC’s turn to face Trump’s wrath. Trump expressed anger over moderators’ decision to fact-check him. He popped up on Fox & Friends the next day with a warning.

“I think ABC took a big hit last night,” Trump said. “I mean, to be honest, they’re a news organization. They have to be licensed to do it. They oughta take away their license for the way they do that.”

This month, Trump has been back at it, slamming CBS repeatedly over its handling of the vice presidential debate and of the network’s interview with Harris on 60 Minutes. He pointed to two versions of an answer Harris had given — one that aired on 60 Minutes and the other on the show Face the Nation — to argue CBS was deceiving viewers to aid the Democrat.

“Think of this,” Trump told attendees at a rally in Aurora, Colo., this month. “CBS gets a license. And a license is based on honesty. I think they have to take their license away. I do.”

And on Sunday, Trump repeated his complaint to Fox News’ Howard Kurtz. “It’s the biggest scandal I have ever seen for a broadcaster,” Trump said. “60 Minutes, I think it should be taken off the air, frankly.”

There’s much more at the link.

Joseph Goebbels and Stephen Miller resemble each other.

It’s difficult to understand how this election could be so close, according to the polls. I suppose one reason is that the MAGA faithful do not read The Atlantic or The New York Times–they only watch Fox News and other right wing outlets. But still, they hear Trump saying these things in his rallies, so they much approve of his attitudes and his crass beha

Stephen Robinson writes at Public Notice: How the hell is this even close?

The presidential election remains a coin toss, which in and of itself isn’t unusual. Most presidential elections since 2000 have been very close. Even 2008, the lone blowout, was a nail-biter until the very end of the campaign.

What makes this election so nerve-wracking are the stakes: Donald Trump is an adjudicated rapist and a convicted felon. He’s currently free on bail after being convicted of 34 felonies and under indictment in multiple jurisdictions. An embittered, increasingly radical, and obviously decompensating Trump openly campaigns on racial scapegoating and retribution against his political enemies. He makes no effort to hide his authoritarian and dystopian vision for a second term.

Trump is also unraveling before our eyes. His rally speeches are increasingly meandering and incoherent even by their previous low standards. His race his redder and his makeup worse than ever. During a Pennsylvania rally last weekend, Trump rambled for more than 10 minutes about the late golfer Arnold Palmer, with a bizarre focus on his penis size. Meanwhile, on social media, Trump rants like an online troll you’d immediately block….

Yet the race remains more or less tied because about 46 percent of voters think Trump is a canny businessman and masterful negotiator who’ll revitalize the economy and stand up to Vladimir Putin. Or something. Maybe they just believe they have nothing to lose and want to make the libs cry. In any event, Trump’s enduring appeal to a large swath of the electorate is evidence something is deeply wrong in our politics.

Robinson argues that there’s still hope:

Democrats who later went on to win commanding Electoral College victories often performed worse in the polls than Kamala Harris has. During the summer of 1992, Bill Clinton trailed both President George H.W. Bush and Ross Perot. Even Barack Obama’s 2008 election was not a certainty — at one point, John McCain had a five-point national lead. In August of that year, Politico declared that Obama had “hit a ceiling in public opinion polling” because he’d consistently failed to cross the 50 percent threshold of support. (He’d eventually win 53 percent of the popular vote.)

Politico argued that Obama should’ve been running away with the election because of the fundamentals: Incumbent President George W. Bush had about 30 percent approval at the time. Eight in 10 Americans believed the country was on the wrong track. The economy was in free fall with unemployment at six percent and rising.

“If everything is so good for Barack Obama, why isn’t everything so good for Barack Obama?” asked ABC News’s Gary Langer. Fast forward 16 years, and New York Times columnist David Brooks raised a similar question last week about Harris in his op-ed headlined, “Why the heck isn’t she running away with this?”

Robinson offers a number of explanations, but this is the most convincing:

A major reason that Harris isn’t “running away with this” is because an overwhelming majority of white voters don’t find Trump’s malicious nature and fundamental unfitness disqualifying.

An Emerson College poll from last Friday has Harris with a slim one-point lead over Trump, but the demographic breakdown is telling: Harris leads with Hispanic voters 61 to 35 percent and Black voters 81 to 12 percent. However, Trump carries white voters 60 to 38 percent. For context, Mike Dukakis had better numbers among white voters against George H.W. Bush in 1988. (The white electorate was smaller then.)

Obama’s white voter support dropped from 43 percent against McCain to 39 percent against Romney. If Trump lost comparable ground among white voters, this nightmare would be over.

This goes beyond rigid partisanship — Republicans just flat out love Trump. Consider that his primary challengers earlier this year were major players, not the Republican equivalents to Dean Phillips or Marianne Williamson. And those challengers had fully embraced almost all the MAGA positions except perhaps for Trump’s obsession with the big lie.

Still, Trump, while under criminal indictment, soundly defeated Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, once lauded as Trump without the baggage. In fact, primary exit polls in New Hampshire and South Carolina revealed that GOP voters actually like his baggage. The majority claimed Trump “shared their values,” and it wasn’t as if they were uninformed about his criminal charges. They just didn’t care, with an overwhelming majority in both states saying they still considered him fit to serve even if convicted of a crime.

If Harris wins, it’s because just enough voters accept the rule of law and reality itself. That’s probably why we remain so nervous about the outcome. The election won’t merely determine the next president. It’ll define who we are as a nation.

Again, there’s much much more at the link, and there’s no paywall.

At The New Republic, Greg Sargent and Michael Tomasky write: “Red Wave” Redux: Are GOP Polls Rigging the Averages in Trump’s Favor?

Last month, a GOP-friendly polling firm presented itself, and its data, in a highly unusual way. Rather than maintain a nominally neutral public-facing profile, this pollster acted more like a cavalry brigade for Donald Trump’s campaign. And the firm did so explicitly, openly, and proudly.

It all went down in mid-September, at a time when the FiveThirtyEight polling averages showed the slightest of leads for Kamala Harris in North Carolina, a must-win state for Trump. Her edge was short-lived: The averages moved back to favoring Trump. And Quantus Insights, a GOP-friendly polling firm, took credit for this development. When a MAGA influencer celebrated the pro-Trump shift on X (formerly Twitter), Quantus’s account responded: “You’re welcome.”

The implication was clear. A Quantus poll had not only pushed the averages back to Trump; this was nakedly the whole point of releasing the poll in the first place.

To proponents of what might be called the “Red Wave Theory” of polling, this was a blatant example of a phenomenon that they see as widespread: A flood of GOP-aligned polls has been released for the precise purpose of influencing the polling averages, and thus the election forecasts, in Trump’s favor. In the view of these critics, the Quantus example (the firm subsequently denied any such intent) only made all this more overt: Dozens of such polls have been released since then, and they are in no small part responsible for tipping the averages—and the forecasts—toward Trump.

Coming at a time when right-wing disinformation is soaring—and Trump’s most feverish ally, Elon Musk, is converting X into a bottomless sewer pit of MAGA-pilled electoral propaganda—these critics see all this as a hyper-emboldened version of what happened in 2022, when GOP polls flooded the polling averages and arguably helped make GOP Senate candidates appear stronger than they were, leading to much-vaunted predictions of a “red wave.” Most prominently, Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg and data analyst Tom Bonier, who were skeptical of such predictions in 2022 and ultimately proved correct, are now warning that all this is happening again. 

In their telling, GOP data is serving an essential end of pro-Trump propaganda, which is heavily geared toward painting him as a formidable, “strong” figure whose triumph over the “weak” Kamala Harris is inevitable. This illusion is essential to Trump’s electoral strategy, goes this reading, and GOP-aligned data firms are concertedly attempting to build up that impression, both in the polling averages and in media coverage that is gravitationally influenced by it. They are also engaged in a data-driven psyop designed to spread a sense of doom among Democrats that the election is slipping away from them.

Of course, even if Harris wins the Electoral College, there’s no doubt that Trump will contest the election. I’ve read a number of scenarios about what could happen, and I don’t even like to think about them. Yesterday Harris was asked about one such scenario in an interview with NBC’s Hallie Jackson. Alex Seitz-Wald at NBC News: Harris says ‘of course’ her team is prepared if Trump declares victory before votes are counted.

In an interview with NBC News’ Hallie Jackson on Tuesday, Vice President Kamala Harris said she’s preparing for the possibility that former President Donald Trump declares victory before the votes are counted next month.

Sitting down at her official residence in the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., Harris said that her campaign is prepared for the possibility that the Republican former president tries to subvert the election, but that she’s focused on trying to beat him first.

“We will deal with election night and the days after as they come, and we have the resources and the expertise and the focus on that,” Harris said.

When pressed on the possibility that Trump will try to declare victory before the votes are counted and a winner is projected by the news networks and other media outlets, Harris said she is concerned.

“This is a person, Donald Trump, who tried to undo the free and fair election, who still denies the will of the people who incited a violent mob to attack the United States Capitol, and 140 law enforcement officers were attacked, some who were killed. This is a serious matter,” Harris said, referring to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol where Trump supporters tried to prevent the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.

“The American people are, at this point, two weeks out, being presented with a very, very serious decision about what will be the future of our country,” Harris added.

Read more at the NBC News link.

That’s where things stand in the election today, as I see it. What do you think?