Wednesday Reads: Remember When Following Politics Was Fun?

Posted: August 7, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: 2024 presidential Campaign, Donald Trump, Kamala Harris 2024 | Tags: , , , | 8 Comments
Joie de Vivre (Antipolis), Pablo Picasso, 1946.

Joie de Vivre (Antipolis), Pablo Picasso, 1946.

Good Morning!!

I hope you were able to watch the Harris-Walz rally in Philadelphia last night. It was so positive and uplifting. One famous quote that emerged from the event was vice presidential candidate Tim Walsh saying to Kamala Harris, “Thank you for bringing back the joy.” Harris, Walz, and the huge audience were joyful, enthusiastic, and loud. It has been a very long time since this country has seen a rally like this.

Serena Lin at Mother Jones: At Harris Rally in Philadelphia, the Return of “Joy.”

On Tuesday evening, Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minn.) began his speech by turning back to his new running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris, and said, “Thank you for bringing back the joy.”

At the rally in Philadelphia, there was a Democratic excitement that was palpable. Despite the potential for disarray from President Joe Biden dropping out of the race, the party quickly assembled behind a candidate. One could see the common stereotypes of the Democratic voter outside the Liacouras Center at Temple University—even in shirt selection: a sea of union apparel appeared (most notably, dozens of people donning bright purple SEIU shirts); a few “Kamala is brat” ones; many women calling out Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) for his comments about “childless cat ladies.”

Most everyone I spoke with was very happy that Biden had dropped out. In fact, thrilled. But that did mean, for many, much more than standing the Democratic party as a whole with an easier candidate to back. Harris was still introducing herself to them as a candidate in 2024.

Michael Parella, a student at the University of Pennsylvania, saw Harris as a dramatic improvement over Biden, whose candidacy felt like a “losing ballot.” Parella had been a Harris supporter in 2020, when she was a contender in a crowded primary candidate. Now, he said, “the crowd is standing behind her.” [….]

Many of the young attendees with whom I spoke were excited by Walz’s selection. Makayla Speers, a student from Delaware, said that she felt Harris’ choice of Walz over Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro was an indication that she’s listening to young voters—and that Harris may take more action regarding Israel’s war in Gaza. (As I previously reported, some critics knocked Shapiro for his comments on student protesters.)

Shapiro, who was reportedly the other finalist in the veepstakes, side-stepped the elephant in the room when he spoke, promising to help Harris win Pennsylvania. And Walz and Harris, who both have described Shapiro as a friend, took care to thank him in their remarks. 

Salon’s Amanda Marcotte attended both the sad JD Vance appearance (for some reason, he is following Harris around the country) and the huge Harris-Walz rally. Here’s her report: “Bringing back the joy”: Kamala Harris’ rally blows away JD Vance’s weird appearance across town.

He’s so weird! He’s so weird!” the crowd chanted in a sing-song, taunting voice that echoed across Temple University’s packed basketball stadium Tuesday evening. Gov. Josh Shapiro, D-Penn., was the first person to mention Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, to the crowd that had packed the overflowing Philadelphia rally for Vice President Kamala Harris, as she introduced her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn. The spontaneous chant cracked Shapiro up, causing him to pause momentarily before laying back into the authoritarian threat posed by Donald Trump’s “weird” and beardy running mate. 

The chanters didn’t know the half of it. Hours earlier, I had been at a South Philly venue where Vance spoke briefly to about 200 supporters and a group of bored journalists. Vance’s event was small, mean, and yes, weird, featuring the unjustified sarcasm of the candidate and a desperate feeling reminiscent of the mood at a strip mall shot bar at 2 AM on “ladies’ night.” 

Meanwhile, the Harris/Walz rally felt like a rousing speech by Coach Eric Taylor of “Friday Night Lights” combined with the front row at Coachella. The cheers were so loud that I regretted not bringing my earplugs. The mood was jubilant, even though folks had to wait hours in the heat and humidity to even get into the place. The campaign claimed over 12,000 people showed up, which is not an exaggeration. Even as Harris and Walz gave the final speeches of the evening, the line to get into the overflow room — just to watch the event on TV — went on for multiple city blocks. 

Rythme, Joie de vivre, Robert Delaunay, 1930.

Rythme, Joie de vivre, Robert Delaunay, 1930.

“Thank you for bringing back the joy,” Walz said, to a thunderous reception. A simple line, but it brought the house down because of the plain-spoken truth Walz has swiftly become famous for. “Joy” was the word of the night. People in the stands practically vibrated with it. In the air was a visceral hope that this campaign would be the end of the long national nightmare that is Trump and the MAGA movement….

The crowd was so exuberant that Harris and Walz could have done shadow puppets and the place would have erupted. Even before they spoke, DJ Diamond Kuts had the crowd repurposing classic hip-hop lyrics into political chants, with the funniest being “move, Trump, get out the way” rather than the expletive used in the original Ludacris tune. But both brought their A-game. Harris drew ecstatic applause with her promises to end Trump’s criminal career. Walz has honed “Minnesota nice” into a deadly rhetorical weapon, both making his desire to help people sincerely felt while also making “weird” burn like Dorothy Parker’s ghost had insulted you. 

Vance’s speech, on the other hand, wasn’t just underwhelming but a little uncanny. Despite using room dividers to shrink the space, the campaign could not hide that the crowd felt like a medium-sized wedding, albeit a pathetic one where no one cares for the couple. Vance, perhaps recognizing charisma isn’t his strong suit, spoke briefly before bringing up a series of local citizens ready to blame Mexicans for their familial tragedies of drug addiction. He spoke for a couple more minutes, before taking the reporters’ questions about cat ladies. 

Even in his short speech, it seemed Vance — like the Trump campaign overall — is still struggling to accept that they are running against Harris and not President Joe Biden. It felt like the speechwriter had typed Ctrl-F “Biden” and replaced every instance with “Harris,” whether it made sense or not. Vance accused Harris of hiding from the press with a “basement campaign.” Never mind that Harris is now the young and spry candidate who can keep up with an aggressive schedule, while Trump is the tired old man who can barely campaign between naps. 

Read the whole thing at Salon.

At The Daily Beast, Josh Fiallo noted an embarrassing “signage gaffe” at the Vance “rally.”: J.D. Vance’s Backdrop Makes It Look Like He’s Campaigning for ‘Kamala.’

J.D. Vance delivered a rally speech Tuesday in Pennsylvania with a backdrop that made it appear he was campaigning for his arch nemesis, Kamala Harris.

The unfortunate signage appeared to stem from the event’s advance team not accounting for its crowd blocking half of a gigantic poster that sat directly behind Vance, which appeared to read in full, “KAMALA CHAOS.”

For those watching on Fox News and other broadcasts, however, the only words clearly visible—in white text on a blue background, in all caps—was simply “Kamala.”

The apparent gaffe quickly went viral on X, where many joked that Harris’ VP choice in Tim Walz, which was announced just prior to Vance’s rally speech, had convinced Trump’s running mate to switch teams….

“Kamala Harris has been such a disastrous vice president of this country that everywhere she goes, chaos and uncertainty follow,” he said, leaning into what his backdrop’s full text read.

It appears the Trump campaign may be attempting to link Harris to the word “chaos” in the same way Democrats, starting with Walz himself, began characterizing Trump, Vance, and the MAGA movement as “weird.

WHYY, a local NPR station in Philadelphia, reported that Vance’s rally had about 200 attendees, which included local Republican leadership from around Philadelphia.

This man is definitely not ready for prime time.

Joie de Vivre, Max Ernst, 1936.

Joie de Vivre, Max Ernst, 1936.

More on the Harris-Walz rally from Lauren Gambino and Melissa Hellmann at The Guardian: Kamala Harris introduces running mate Tim Walz at raucous Philadelphia rally.

Kamala Harris introduced her running mate, Tim Walz, as “the kind of vice-president America deserves” at a raucous rally in Philadelphia that showcased Democratic unity and enthusiasm for the party’s presidential ticket ahead of the November election.

Casting their campaign as a “fight for the future”, Harris and Walz were repeatedly interrupted by applause and cheering as they addressed thousands of battleground-state voters wearing bracelets that twinkled red, white and blue at Temple University’s Liacouras Center – a crowd Harris’s team said was its largest to date.

“Thank you for bringing back the joy,” a beaming Walz told Harris after she debuted the little-known Minnesota governor as a former social studies teacher, high school football coach and a national guard veteran.

“We’ve got 91 days,” he declared. “My God, that’s easy. We’ll sleep when we’re dead.” [Walz is a Warren Zevon fan!] [….]

Arriving on stage to Beyoncé’s Freedom, the newly minted Democratic ticket rode a weeks-long wave of momentum from an unusually exuberant party happy to be looking forward.

“He’s the kind of person who makes people feel like they belong and then inspires them to dream big,” Harris said. “That’s the kind of vice-president he will be. And that’s the kind of president America deserves.”

Walz shared more of his biography, casting himself as a politician who learned to “compromise without compromising my values” and a midwesterner who lives by the “golden rule” when it comes to personal choice: “Mind your own damn business.” Drawing a personal connection to one of the most searing issues of the election cycle, Walz said he and his wife had two children through in vitro fertilization (IVF) after years of struggling with infertility. “When we welcomed our daughter into the world, we named her Hope,” he said.

Then he turned to his Republican opponents, who he has branded “weird” in a line of attack that has resonated widely, especially among Democrats. “These guys are creepy and, yes, just weird as hell,” he said, setting off a new round of whoops and cheers.

Noah Berlansky at Public Notice: Kamala Harris’s inspired choice. Democrats often use their running mate to pivot to the center. But not this time.

Kamala Harris’s choice of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her runningmate is, in some respects, a standard, safe choice. Like most of her potential picks, Walz is a white man. He’s a popular Democratic governor with deep roots in the party. He’s by no means an odd or risky selection.

And yet, at the same time, Harris’s choice of Walz is unusual, exciting, and even inspirational. Over the last forty years, Democrats have generally used the VP pick to try to cater to centrist swing voters. Some of Harris’s leading choices, like Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, were in that mode.

Instead, Harris chose Walz — a candidate who has a good deal of potential bipartisan appeal, but who is also well-positioned to excite Democrats, and particularly progressives. As such, Walz’s rise is a promising indication that Harris plans to continue and expand upon the approach of President Biden, who’s embraced progressive ideas and legislation as a way to unify and inspire Democratic voters.

Au Temps d’Harmonie (La Joie de Vivre – Dimanche au Bord de la Mer), Paul Signac, 1895-96.

Au Temps d’Harmonie (La Joie de Vivre – Dimanche au Bord de la Mer), Paul Signac, 1895-96.

It’s easy to make the case for Walz as a safe, sturdy, and conventional pick for VP. He served in the National Guard for 24 years; he’s now the vice presidential candidate with the longest military career.

In 1996 he left the military to to work as a high school history teacher in Mankato, Minnesota. He ran for Congress in 2006, a strong year for Democrats, and defeated six-term Republican Gil Gutknecht. He held the rural district through 2010 and 2014 — two red wave years — and even held on in 2016, when Trump won the district by 15 points. In 2018, he ran for governor and won. He won a second term in 2022.

This is an impressive record, and one that seems almost custom-made for a vice presidential resume.

Walz’s military record should appeal to at least some conservative voters, who tend to value military service in candidates. His strong record in a rural Trump district also testifies to his ability to reach out to red voters….

On the other hand, Walz’s experience as a teacher should play well with educators — a core Democratic constituency — and with teacher’s unions. He’s also shown himself to be exceptionally skilled at attacking Republicans. After he called Republicans “weird” on MSNBC, Democrats as a whole seized on the word to define the abortion-hating, single-women hating, book-hating weirdos in the GOP.  

Walz’s conventional qualifications and strengths have made him acceptable within, and popular with, the mainstream of the Democratic Party, as evidenced by the wave of enthusiasm from mainstream party leaders.

There’s much more at the the link.

More background on Tim Walz, links only:

Steven Greenhouse at Slate: Why Harris’ VP Choice Is Good News for Workers.

Julia Metraux at Mother Jones: Tim Walz Is Leading the Way on Long Covid Funding.

Miranda Nazzaro at The Hill: Why Trump supporters are calling Walz ‘Tampon Tim.’

Erin Reid at Erin in the Morning: Tim Walz Took Historic Action To Protect Trans People, Now He’s The Dem VP Choice.

Time: What to Know About Tim Walz’s Relationship With China.

Animals 24-7: Demo VP nominee Tim Walz hunts, but loves cats & is hated by gun lobby.

Distractify: Tim Walz Advocates for Rescuing Pets — Let’s Meet His Adorable Animals.

So what’s happening with stodgy old Grandpa Trump? Not much. He’s only making one appearance this week–in Montana–and it’s not a campaign event. He’s really freaking out about Kamala Harris and all the excitement around her candidacy.

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo: Kamala Goes Electric and Trump Melts Down.

Last Thursday the Harris campaign began offering tickets for a campaign rally in Detroit the following Wednesday (tomorrow, August 7th). Over the first 24 hours they received 47,000 requests for tickets. 47,000. That spurred a multi-day search for a Detroit area venue that could handle the demand to see the Vice President. As Donald Trump never grasped, there’s no straight-line connection between rally attendance and votes. But at that scale they signal enthusiasm and energy that neither campaign (Trump or Biden) has seen at any time in this cycle. They demonstrate a purchase into the larger popular culture that President Biden never had and Donald Trump, for all his greater currency on social media, doesn’t either.

the-joy-of-life-1906-624x449

The joy of life, by Henri Matisse, 1906

It’s that disconnect between the attention currency of the two campaigns that is driving Trump’s current meltdown likely much more than the polls which have shown Harris go from one or two points behind two weeks ago to two to three points ahead today. Trump’s approach to a political campaign is to grab hold of media dominance, dominate the attention economy and then try to maintain the initiative of the campaign from there. Media dominance doesn’t always work for him. As often as not, once he’s holding the national attention, he’s offending people and losing support. But without that, as a campaigner, he’s lost. He tried to get that back with his Black/Indian tirade at the NABJ conference. And it worked, until it didn’t, which was quickly. 36 hours later the attention had shifted back to Harris.

I don’t entirely understand it yet. But Harris’s campaign is reaching out beyond the ordinary political ecosystem, even the expanded one we know from the final months or a general election and into the broader popular culture. Some of that is energizing an array of celebrities, music artists and influencers who are adding excitement and attention to the campaign. But it’s not only that, not even primarily that. That’s more consequence than cause. Her campaign, at least for the moment, is operating in a much larger cultural space than conventional politics. Trump’s political magic has always been his ability to access a larger cultural space, even if it’s often negative attention. But Harris’s campaign is accessing something much larger. For the moment he cannot keep up.

Kelly Rissman at The Independent: Republicans worry Trump is having a ‘public nervous breakdown.’

Republicans are concerned that party leader Donald Trump is having a “public nervous breakdown” after he made a series of offensive outbursts about Vice President Kamala Harris as he slips behind her in the polls.

The former president has made a number of insulting personal attacks against his Democratic rival since she moved to the top of the ticket. Last week, Trump questioned Harris’s racial identity at the National Association of Black Journalists conference. Over the weekend, he accused Harris of having a “low IQ.”

New polls indicate Trump is slipping behind the vice president in the popular vote and races are tightening in battleground states.

“This is what you would call a public nervous breakdown,” Matthew Bartlett, a Republican strategist and former Trump state department appointee, told Politico.

“This is a guy who cut through the Republican primary like a knife through butter. This is a guy who pummeled a semi-conscious president in a debate and literally out of a race. And now this is a guy who cannot come to grips with a competitive presidential race that would require discipline and effective messaging,” Bartlett continued. “And we’re seeing a candidate and a campaign absolutely meltdown.”

Chair of the Vermont Republican Party, Paul Dame, predicted that Trump allies will start to wane in their defense of the former president.

“I think we’re starting to see the old Trump that a lot of Republicans got tired of in 2020, got tired of defending him,” Dame told USA Today. “If the next three months is defined by more examples like this I think he’s going to see some of that soft centrist support deteriorate.

Read the rest at The Independent.

Griffith, Arthur R., 1904-1992; Joie de vivre

Griffith, Arthur R.; Joie de vivre, 1904-1992

One more sign of panic from The Guardian: Project 2025 leader’s book with JD Vance introduction delayed until after election.

A JD Vance-introduced book by a leader of Project 2025, the vast and controversial hardline rightwing plan for a second Trump administration, will be delayed until after the 2024 election.

“There’s a time for writing, reading, and book tours – and a time to put down the books and go fight like hell to take back our country,” the book’s author, Kevin Roberts, told RealClearPolitics, which first reported the news.

“That’s why I’ve chosen to move my book’s publication and promotion to after the election.”

Roberts is president of the Heritage Foundation, a hard-right Washington thinktank. His book, Dawn’s Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America, was due to be published in September. It will now come out on 12 November, a week after Donald Trump and Kamala Harris square off on election day.

As Project 2025 has attracted sustained fire from Democrats, over its 900-plus pages of plans for far-reaching government reform including attacks on reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights, labor rights and other progressive priorities, so Roberts’s book quickly became a magnet for controversy of its own.

Trump and his campaign have sought to distance themselves from Project 2025 – efforts undermined when it became known Vance, the hardline populist Ohio senator Trump picked as his running mate, had written an introduction to Roberts’s book.

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

Lazy Caturday Reads

Posted: August 3, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: 2024 presidential Campaign, cat art, caturday, Donald Trump, Kamala Harris 2024 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 13 Comments

Happy Caturday!!

Woodcut by Gustav Vigeland

Woodcut by Gustav Vigeland

The presidential campaign is taking off in earnest now that Kamala Harris has been acknowledged by the DNC as the official Democratic nominee. AP: Harris has secured enough Democratic delegate votes to become their party’s nominee, chair says.

Vice President Kamala Harris has secured enough votes from delegates to become her party’s nominee for president, Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison said Friday.

The announcement was made before the online voting process ends on Monday, reflecting the breakneck speed of a campaign that is eager to maintain momentum after President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid and endorsed Harris as his successor less than two weeks ago.

Harris is poised to be the first woman of color at the top of a major party’s ticket, and she joined a call with supporters to say she is “honored to be the presumptive Democratic nominee.”

“It’s not going to be easy. But we’re going to get this done,” she added. “As your future president, I know we are up to this fight.”

Harrison pledged that Democrats “will rally around Vice President Kamala Harris and demonstrate the strength of our party” during their convention in Chicago later this month.

The Democratic National Committee did not provide details of the delegate vote count, including a number or state-by-state breakdowns, during a virtual event that had the flavor of a telethon, with campaign officials keeping tabs on a delegate-counting process whose result is a foregone conclusion.

No other candidate challenged Harris for the nomination, and she swiftly solidified Democratic support in the days after Biden endorsed her.

Democrats still plan a state-by-state roll call during the party’s convention, the traditional way that a nominee is chosen. However, that will be purely ceremonial because of the online voting.

Harris has been increasing the size of her campaign staff and has hired a number of former staffers. The Hill: Harris beefs up campaign staff with Obama veterans.

Multiple former senior campaign staffers for former President Obama are joining Vice President Harris’s campaign as she reshapes the organization following President Biden’s decision to end his candidacy.

The Harris campaign said it is retaining the leadership that ran Biden’s campaign until he dropped out roughly two weeks ago, with Jen O’Malley Dillon continuing to serve as the campaign chair and reporting directly to Harris. But there are several new hires and others who are getting expanded portfolios that reflect how Harris is making her election bid her own as she becomes the party’s nominee.

David Plouffe, who worked as a strategist on Obama’s 2008 and 2012 bids, will join the Harris campaign as a senior adviser. A source familiar with the matter said Plouffe would end his consulting work with TikTok and his podcast he’d started with former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway as he joins the Harris campaign.

Stephanie Cutter, who served as Obama’s deputy campaign manager in 2012, will join the Harris campaign as a strategic adviser.

Others joining or taking on expanded roles in the Harris campaign include Mitch Stewart, who led Obama’s grassroots efforts, and David Binder, who oversaw Obama’s public research operation.

Jennifer Palmieri, who did a stint as communications director in the Obama White House and worked on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, will join the Harris campaign as a senior adviser to second gentleman Doug Emhoff.

The campaign said Julie Chavez Rodriguez will continue in her role as campaign manager, and she will focus more on the sun belt states of Arizona and Nevada, as well as Latino voters. Polling has shown Harris is more competitive in those states than Biden was against Trump.

Kyoshi Saito woodcut

Woodcut by Kyoshi Saito

Harris has been challenging Trump to show up for the scheduled debate on ABC on September 10. Now Trump is pretending that the plans have changed and the debate will be on September 4 on Fox News, with Fox moderators, no fact-checking, and a large audience. But of course, didn’t bother asking Harris what she thinks. Here’s the latest:

From The Hill on Friday: Harris campaign calls Trump ‘too scared’ to debate, says he ‘needs to man up.’

Vice President Harris’s campaign painted former President Trump as too scared to debate her after his latest remarks questioning why he should participate in a debate.

Trump told Fox Business Network host Maria Bartiromo this week that he wants to debate his likely Democratic opponent, but added, “I mean right now I say, why should I do a debate? I’m leading in the polls. And, everybody knows her, everybody knows me.”

Harris for President co-Chair Cedric Richmond responded to the comments, saying Trump “needs to man up.”

“He’s got no problem spreading lies and hateful garbage at his rallies or in interviews with right-wing commentators. But he’s apparently too scared to do it standing across the stage from the Vice President of the United States,” Richmond said. “Since he talks the talk, he should walk the walk and – as Vice President Harris said earlier this week – say it to her face on September 10. She’ll be there waiting to see if he’ll show up.”

Harris remarked that Trump should “say it to my face” during a rally in Atlanta on Tuesday. She has been ramping up the pressure for Trump to debate, exchanging barbs with him over the past week about the prospects of a general election debate.

The Democratic National Committee announced it is launching a digital homepage takeover starting Saturday to slam Trump for being “afraid to debate.” The takeover will start in Atlanta and continue with newspapers across battleground states.

So now Trump is trying to change the ground rules without discussing them with Harris. He posted on Truth Social that he has “agreed to” a completely different debate. The New York Times reported this in their headline as if it were a fait accompli. I’m so glad I cancelled my subscription. Here’s a better headline and story from HuffPost: Trump Says He’s Agreed To Fox News Debate, In Apparent Attempt To Avoid Harris On ABC.

Former President Donald Trump said on social media late Friday that he’s agreed with Fox News to take part in a Sept. 4 presidential debate against Democrat Kamala Harris, before suggesting that the vice president hasn’t OK’d such a faceoff.

“If for any reason Kamala is unwilling or unable to debate on that date, I have agreed with Fox to do a major Town Hall on the same September 4th evening,” the Republican presidential nominee wrote in a since-deleted post on his Truth Social platform.

Trump — who has pushed for the next debate to take place on Fox News after Harris took President Joe Biden’s spot at the top of the Democratic ticket — later reposted his debate message on Truth Social, but without the talk of a town hall-style event….

Harris, who secured enough support from Democratic convention delegates to become her party’s presumptive nominee Friday, has said that she’d take Biden’s place in the Sept. 10 event and has emphasized that she’s “ready” to debate Trump.

The Republican nominee wrote on Friday that the ABC News debate has been “terminated in that Biden will no longer be a participant.” He also cited an ongoing lawsuit against the network as a reason for the change, despite the fact that Trump was already engaged in litigation with ABC News in May when he agreed to the faceoff.

Sitting Cat, by Juli de Graag

Sitting Cat (1918) by Julie de Graag (1877-1924).

Here’s the Harris campaign’s response as of this morning, according to Deadline: Kamala Harris’ Campaign Says Donald Trump “Needs To Stop Playing Games” As He Floats Fox News Debate Rather Than ABC News Event — Update.

UPDATE, with Harris campaign comment: Donald Trump says he will do a Sept. 4 debate on Fox News, albeit at a different date than the network publicly proposed, while he’s declared ABC News’ plans for a Sept. 10 face off with Kamala Harris “terminated.” [….]

Fox News and ABC News have yet to comment on Trump’s post. The Fox News debate, Trump wrote, would be an arena event and held in Pennsylvania, a key swing state….

Harris has confirmed that she would participate in a Sept. 10 debate on ABC News, plans that Trump originally agreed to when Joe Biden was the nominee. But Trump has yet to recommit to that date, and Harris has hammered him on it.

“If you’ve got something to say, say it to my face,” Harris said this week, shortly after Trump had questioned whether she was really Black.

This morning, Harris’ campaign said in a statement that Trump was “running scared and trying to back out of the debate he already agreed to and running straight to Fox News to bail him out.” The campaign said that Harris “will be there one way or the other to take the opportunity to speak to a prime time national audience.”

In April, Trump called for Biden to debate “anytime, anyplace.” “We’ll do it anywhere you want, Joe,’ he said.

That’s where it stands for now.

Yesterday, The Washington Post reported on a story that has been around for years–that Donald Trump may have received $10 million from Egypt to help his 2016 campaign. According to the WaPo, there was a secret DOJ/FBI investigation and it was shut down by Bill Barr.

I cancelled my WaPo subscription too, but This is a report on the story from Martin Pengelly at The Guardian: Report reveals secret US inquiry into alleged 2016 Egyptian $10m gift to Trump.

According to the Post, five days before Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, an organisation linked to Egyptian intelligence services withdrew $10m from a Cairo bank.

“Inside the state-run National Bank of Egypt,” the Post said, “employees were soon busy placing bundles of $100 bills into two large bags.”

Four men “carried away the bags, which US officials later described in sealed court filings as weighing a combined 200 pounds and containing what was then a sizable share of Egypt’s reserve of US currency”.

According to the Post, US federal investigators learned of the withdrawal in 2019, by which time they had spent two years investigating CIA intelligence that indicated Sisi sought to give Trump $10m.

Such a contribution would potentially have violated federal law regarding foreign donations….

Fumi Yanagimoto

Woodcut by Fumi Yanagimoto

According to the Post, US investigators who discovered the $10m Cairo withdrawal “also sought to learn if money from Sisi might have factored into Trump’s decision in the final days of his run for the White House toinject his campaign with $10m of his own money”….

While in office, Trump repeatedly praised Sisi, over objections from US politicians concerned about the Egyptian’s authoritarian rule.

As described by the Post, the US investigation which uncovered the Cairo withdrawal was questioned by William Barr, Trump’s second attorney general. Ultimately, a prosecutor appointed by Barr closed the inquiry without criminal charges being filed.

Later, as the 2020 election approached, CNN reported that a mysterious DC courthouse hearing in 2018 – involving prosecutors working for Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election – concerned an Egyptian bank….

An anonymous government source told the Post: “Every American should be concerned about how this case ended. The justice department is supposed to follow evidence wherever it leads – it does so all the time to determine if a crime occurred or not.”

If it involved any other politician, this story would be a bombshell. For Trump, it’s just another scandal to add to the hundreds of others.

A new report on mistakes by the Secret Service related to January 6, 2001, has become available and some powerful folks are not happy. 

Politico: DHS leaders clashed with watchdog ahead of report on Secret Service’s handling of Jan. 6.

An internal watchdog for the Department of Homeland Security accused department leadership of attempting to suppress a highly anticipated report focused on the Secret Service’s response during the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.

Inspector General Joseph Cuffari’s accusation drew a sharp response from DHS’ top lawyer, Jonathan Meyer, who aggressively rejected the allegation, according to a previously unreported June 25 letter reviewed by POLITICO.

In the letter to Cuffari, Meyer wrote that the DHS watchdog “misread” their intentions. The department does not want to withhold the entire report from Congress but does intend to redact “security sensitive” information that might reveal aspects of the Secret Service’s operations, Meyer wrote.

Meyer also rejected the suggestion that there has been an internal clash between the Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security’s leadership.

It’s the latest twist in the long-running effort by the inspector general’s office to release a comprehensive report on efforts by the department — and specifically the Secret Service — to prevent violence on Jan. 6 and respond during the attack. The department played a role in intelligence gathering, security and overseeing the movements of then-President Donald Trump and his vice president, Mike Pence, on the day of the riot.

Other investigations, including by Congress’ Jan. 6 select committee, have raised significant questions about whether the Secret Service had adequately disseminated evidence of threats in Trump’s Jan. 6 rally crowd.

The dispute over the release of the report to lawmakers is another example of friction between Cuffari and DHS leadership amid intense scrutiny of the Secret Service’s handling of the Jan. 6 attack and other sensitive matters. That tension reemerged just as the Secret Service has faced a new and far more intense round of public examination following failures that led to the near-assassination of Donald Trump. Cuffari has also faced allegations of ethical lapses that he has strenuously denied.

More on the controversy at the link.

Kyoshi Saito2

Woodcut by Kyoshi Saito

One very significant finding that I have heard about previously is that Vice President Kamala Harris could have been in mortal danger that day because of Secret Service failings. 

ABC News: New DHS watchdog report details how close Kamala Harris came to ‘viable’ pipe bomb on Jan. 6.

The U.S. Secret Service faced an array of challenges — and made some potentially dangerous mistakes — while trying to protect the president, vice president and vice president-elect on Jan. 6, 2021, the day a mob supporting then-President Donald Trump violently stormed the U.S. Capitol, according to a new report from the Department of Homeland Security’s internal watchdog.

The report, a copy of which was obtained by ABC News, offers an official and detailed account of how Kamala Harris, then the incoming vice president, ended up within feet of a “viable” pipe bomb that had been planted in the bushes right outside the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters.

“The pipe bomb had been placed near the building the night before, but … [a]dvance security sweeps by the Secret Service at the DNC building did not include the outside area where a pipe bomb had been placed,” says the report from inspector general Joseph Cuffari, which was shared with members of Congress on Thursday.

The report describes how two Secret Service canine teams assigned to sweep the building were “surprised” to learn the morning of Jan. 6 that more assets weren’t being provided to help with the sweep — but the report also notes that Secret Service policies and procedures at the time required fewer assets for protectees who had been elected to an office but not yet sworn in.

“[Harris], traveling in an armored vehicle with her motorcade, entered the DNC building via a ramp within 20 feet of the pipe bomb,” the report said.

According to the report, the pipe bomb was found an hour and 40 minutes after Harris arrived at the DNC building. The report suggests it took the Secret Service 10 minutes to evacuate her, saying that she spent a total of about one hour and 50 minutes inside the building.

The Secret Service has since updated its policies to include more assets for “‘elect’ protectees,” according to the report, which is heavily redacted.

Read the more about the pipe bombs and efforts to find the perpetrator at ABC News.

Trump’s January 6 election interference case is back with Judge Tanya Chutkan in DC. Maybe we will see some movement in the case now.

Kyle Cheney, Josh Gerstein, and Erica Orden at Politico: 

The stalled criminal case against Donald Trump for seeking to subvert the 2020 election is starting to move.

The Supreme Court’s landmark ruling on presidential immunity — a breathtaking legal victory for Trump’s bid to sideline his criminal prosecutions — had kept the election-subversion case on ice for months. Even after the July 1 ruling, the high court’s rules required a one-month delay to give prosecutors the chance to ask the justices to reconsider the outcome.

Patience,, by Iwao Akiyama

Patience,, by Iwao Akiyama

On Friday, that window closed. The case was returned to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which took just minutes to send the matter back to the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who has been in a holding pattern since December awaiting the outcome of the immunity fight.

On Saturday, Chutkan took her first steps in the case in months, setting an August 16 hearing to consider setting a new schedule. She has asked for prosecutors and Trump to offer their own thinking on the matter in writing by August 9. The court session won’t force Trump off the campaign trail, since Chutkan said she won’t require him to be present.

Still, the flurry of actions signals new life for the gravest of the four criminal cases against Trump — and it comes at a time when other Trump cases have stalled. Special counsel Jack Smith charged the former president in August 2023 with four counts, alleging a sweeping conspiracy to disenfranchise millions of voters and pressure government officials to overturn the legitimate 2020 election results.

There appears to be no real prospect of a trial in the case before the November election, but some Trump critics have been eagerly awaiting the Supreme Court’s ministerial action of returning the case to the trial court, hoping that it results in a series of swift decisions from Chutkan that could again put Trump on the defensive.

The Supreme Court ruled that former presidents have immunity from prosecution for many of their “officials acts,” and it said that some of Smith’s allegations in the election case must be tossed out. But it’s not yet clear how, or whether, the special counsel can proceed with other portions of his indictment.

Some Trump critics have urged Chutkan to hold a hearing to assess the effect of the immunity ruling on the evidence Smith intends to present. That proceeding could feature witness testimony from key figures in the case.

Trump opponents hope this “mini-trial” would showcase Trump’s ties to the violence that unfolded on Jan. 6, 2021, and remind voters of the most chaotic day of Trump’s presidency, even if it doesn’t carry the same stakes as a jury trial.

This could get interesting.

More stories to check out:

Ruth Ben-Giat at Politico Magazine: Opinion | Mussolini, Trump and What Assassination Attempts Really Do.

Adam Serwer at The Atlantic: What Trump’s Kamala Harris Smear Reveals.

The New Republic: Elon Musk’s Insidious New Strategy to Help Trump Win. Elon Musk is collecting personal data from people in swing states under the guise of helping them register to vote.

AP: Defense secretary overrides plea agreement for accused 9/11 mastermind and two other defendants.

NPR: U.S. deploys ships and fighter jets to Middle East as Israel braces for Iran attack.

CNN: Children of undercover Russian spy couple only learned their nationality on flight to Moscow.

Caitlin Dickerson at The Atlantic: There’s No Such Thing as a Border Czar.

That’s it for me today. What’s on your mind?

Wednesday Reads

Posted: July 31, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: 2024 presidential Campaign, Donald Trump, Kamala Harris 2024 | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Say it to my face

Good Morning!!

Kamala Harris held a joyful, boisterous rally last night in Atlanta. What a contrast to old sad sack Grandpa Trump! The enthusiastic crowd filled a 10,000-seat auditorium, cheering as she directly challenged Trump.

CBS News: Harris dares Trump to debate her as she campaigns in Atlanta: “Say it to my face”

Vice President Kamala Harris taunted former President Donald Trump to meet her on a debate stage before the November election while she campaigned in Atlanta on Tuesday night. 

“He won’t debate, but he and his running mate sure seem to have a lot to say about me,” Harris said. “Well, Donald, I do hope you’ll reconsider to meet me on the debate stage because, as the saying goes, if you got something to say, say it to my face.” 

A debate between Trump and Mr. Biden was planned for Sept. 10 before the president dropped out of the race. On Monday, Trump told Fox News he wanted to debate but that he could also “make a case for not doing it.” 

Harris portrayed herself as the underdog in the race against Trump but said the “momentum in this race is shifting and there are signs that Donald Trump is feeling it.” 

It’s Harris’ first visit to Georgia since President Biden ended his reelection campaign. Her campaign is trying to keep the battleground state in play. Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee, noted the importance of the state moments into her speech. 

“I am very clear: The path to the White House runs right through this state,” Harris said. “You all helped us win in 2020 and we are going to do it again in 2024.” [….]

Harris also laid out some priorities for her potential administration, including bringing back a bipartisan border bill that Trump lobbied Republican members of Congress to sink, taking on price gouging, and capping “unfair rent increases” and prescription drug costs….

More than 10,000 people attended the event, according to the campaign, which said it was her largest rally to date.

George Chidi at The Guardian: Atlanta rally: Harris tells Trump to ‘say it to my face’ and challenges him to debate.

Three weeks ago, the political commentariat was writing off Georgia and talking of narrow pathways for Joe Biden to hold the White House. Georgia was a desert. On Tuesday evening, an Atlanta crowd greeted Kamala Harris like she backed up a truck full of sweet tea to that desert.

It’s probably too early – nine days since the president’s withdrawal and the vice-president’s ascension – to know if sentiment in Georgia had shifted enough to justify jubilation. But the crowd in Atlanta treated the new presumptive presidential nominee as a reason to celebrate after months of her quieter campaigning in the city as the vice-presidential nominee.

“As many of you know, before I was elected vice-president … I was an elected attorney general and an elected district attorney,” Harris said after taking the stand. “Hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump’s type, and I have been dealing with people like him my entire career.” [….]

30election-live-header-update-kthf-square640Harris addressed a crowd of 10,000 who filled the Georgia State Convocation Center, with people waiting outside for a seat. She touted her prosecution record and referenced Trump’s criminal convictions and the findings of fraud in his businesses.

“As an attorney general, I held big Wall Street banks accountable for fraud. Donald Trump was found guilty of fraud,” Harris said. “In this campaign, I will proudly put my record against his any day, including on the issue of immigration.”

Harris spoke of walking underground tunnels at the California border and prosecuting traffickers, and pledged to bring back the border security bill that was tanked in Congress by Republicans to preserve the issue in the campaign.

Referencing a Migos song – popular as an Atlanta group – she said: “He does not walk it as he talks it.” [….]

Harris is expected back in the state next week, and will debut her running mate on a seven-stop swing state tour, according to details confirmed by her campaign. Politico reported Harris will hold the first rally in Philadelphia on Tuesday. Harris said she as of today had not picked the candidate.

For the last two years, Harris has been Joe Biden’s chief campaign surrogate in Georgia, making deliberate connections with campaign organizers and Black community leaders, a weapon in the Democratic arsenal that Republicans have not been able to match.

Harris is planning to announce her running mate soon, and they will appear together at a rally in Philadelphia on Tuesday. People are speculating that the location indicates her pick will be Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro. We’ll find out soon.

Politico: Harris to hold first rally with running mate Tuesday in Philadelphia.

Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to announce her running mate by Tuesday, when she will hold her first rally with her pick in Philadelphia.

The two will barnstorm cities in seven swing states in four days. In addition to Philadelphia, they’ll hit western Wisconsin, Detroit, Raleigh, Savannah, Phoenix and Las Vegas.

The stops will mark the first major campaign swing the presumptive ticket will make since Harris became the all-but-certain Democratic presidential nominee following President Joe Biden’s sudden departure from the race. The tour also underscores that the campaign believes the electoral map has expanded since Biden passed the baton to Harris.

The details of Harris and her running mate’s schedule were first shared with POLITICO by the campaign.

Harris’ decision to kick off her tour in the biggest city in Pennsylvania is sure to set off speculation about her vice presidential pick. One of the top contenders being vetted by Harris’ team is Josh Shapiro, the governor of the swing state.

If Harris chooses Shapiro as her running mate, Philadelphia would make an obvious place to roll out the news, given that he hails from the area’s suburbs. But it’s also a diverse, vote-rich city that every presidential nominee must tend to thanks to the state’s 19 electoral votes, and it’s possible Harris’ plans don’t signal anything beyond that.

A Harris campaign aide cautioned against reading too much into the first city chosen for the tour.

Harris said a decision about her No. 2 spot on ticket has not been finalized. Asked by reporters on Tuesday if she has selected her running mate, she said “not yet.”

Harris is planning to interview potential vice presidential nominees in the upcoming days, said people familiar with the vetting process and granted anonymity to speak freely. Other names in the mix include Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

Personally, I like Tim Waltz, but Minnesota will be in the Democratic column either way. Pennsylvania may be more problematic. 

David M. Perry, who bills himself as a journalist and historian, advocates for Walz at MSNBC: I didn’t vote for Tim Walz originally. Now I’m completely Walz-pilled.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz thinks the leaders of the modern Republican Party — especially but not exclusively former President Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance of Ohio — are extremely “weird.” He has been saying so for months, but ever since Vice President Kamala Harris emerged as the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, he has become one of her most effective messengers, doing the dirty work of attacking the Republicans so Harris can focus on a positive message — “Freedom.”

Harris4It has become easy to imagine Walz as the next Democratic nominee for vice president, one of a handful of politicians who have emerged as front-runners for the honor. If it happens, I’ll be thrilled. I’m a Minnesotan and have watched Walz since he started running for governor in the 2018 election. Before that, he was just a “downstate” congressman and not so much on my radar. 

But much to my surprise, I’ve become fully “Walz-pilled,” not so much because of the viral clips, but because when he has had the opportunity, he has done everything he can to make Minnesota a better place for everyone.

Frankly, I’m surprised at my own enthusiasm, because I wasn’t a Walz supporter when he ran for governor in 2018. This is inside baseball for Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor politics (not technically the Democratic Party), but Walz came into the race as the more electable, more conservative major candidate for governor. He seemed fine but boring, and it felt like in the coming blue wave anti-Trump election cycle, Minnesota could do better. 

Why has Walz captured his support?

Walz’s first term was fine, marked by generally solid health-related leadership during Covid and some questionable decisions during the 2020 George Floyd uprising, but it was last year that everything changed. 

In the 2022 elections, Democrats won a trifecta, taking full control of state government, but with a Senate majority of only one seat. DFL leaders never hesitated, taking advantage of a large budget surplus to quickly enact a wide range of progressive policies across the board that changed our state for the better. 

They made Minnesota a safe haven for the trans community. They affirmed abortion as a fundamental right and removed restrictions that limited access. They legalized recreational cannabis use and passed laws for driver’s licenses for all Minnesotans regardless of immigration status, automatic voter registration, paid family and medical leave, tax rebates for people making less than $75,000 and new climate goals, and they phased out parental fees for families with kids on Medicaid. This last one is perhaps narrower than the others, but my son has Down syndrome and is on Medicaid, so I sure paid close attention to this….

I’m less interested in the identity politics surrounding Walz, though I recognize that as a Midwestern white dad, a veteran, a former social studies teacher and football coach and a dad from a small rural town, he has a background very distinguishable from Harris’. 

But there’s an advantage to this. He can argue, as he did on MSNBC, that the genuine problems facing small-town white Americans are the fault of plutocrats — the Trumps of the world, venture capitalists like JD Vance and their backers. Because the problem isn’t just that they are weird creeps, but that they’re genuinely making lives worse for more people.

Walz believes Democratic policies make lives better. At the end of the 2023 legislative session, Walz gave the memorable quote “Minnesota is showing the country you don’t win elections to bank political capital — you win elections to burn political capital and improve lives.” 

As we’ve noted previously, Trump has been going around saying threatening things about voting. At rallies, he has told supporters he doesn’t need their votes, because he already has plenty of votes. He has also told “christians” they need to vote just this time, and after that they’ll never have to vote again. What does he mean? I think he means he’ll be a dictator and then he will abolish elections. Republicans claim he’s just “joking.” Yesterday, Fox News’s Laura Ingraham asked him to explain.

The Hill: Ingraham presses Trump on telling Christians ‘You won’t have to vote anymore’ in 4 years.

Fox News host Laura Ingraham repeatedly prodded former President Trump on Monday over his comments at a conservative Christian summit, where he told attendees they won’t have to vote anymore after November.

Trump did little to push back on the backlash over his remarks, as some Democrats have suggested the former president was saying there would be no more elections if he won. Instead, Trump repeatedly argued his comments were because Christians do not vote in large numbers, and he offhandedly questioned Jewish voters who support Democrats.

“That statement is very simple. I said, ‘Vote for me, you’re not going to have to do it ever again.’ It’s true, because we have to get the vote out. Christians are not known as a big voting group,” Trump said.

“This time, vote. I’ll straighten out the country, you won’t have to vote anymore. I won’t need your vote. You can go back to not voting,” he added.

“You meant you won’t have to vote for you because you have four years in office. Is that what you meant?” Ingraham asked.

When Trump did not directly answer, Ingraham pointed out that some liberals were interpreting Trump’s original remarks to mean there would not be another election. Trump said he had not heard that criticism previously, and he repeated his argument that Christians tend not to vote in large numbers….

“’Don’t worry about the future,’” he continued. “’You have to vote on Nov. 5. After that, you don’t have to worry about voting anymore. I don’t care, because we’re going to fix it. The country will be fixed … We won’t even need your vote anymore because, frankly, we will have such love.’”

Harris1Moustafa Bayoumi at The Guardian: Donald Trump sure makes a lot of ‘jokes’ about ruling as a dictator, doesn’t he?

Last Friday, Donald Trump told an audience of Christian conservatives to “get out and vote, just this time. You won’t have to do it any more. Four more years, you know what? It’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote any more, my beautiful Christians.”

Selling the idea to US citizens that their next vote will be their last one just doesn’t seem like a winning proposition to me, but what do I know? I’m not running to be elected dictator on day one of my second presidency.

That campaign pledge is of course what the former president told Sean Hannity last December. Hannity posed a question to Trump, who weeks earlier had called his political opponents “vermin”. “You are promising America tonight, you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?” Hannity asked.

“Except for day one,” Trump responded. “I want to close the border, and I want to drill, drill, drill.”

Democrats rang all the alarm bells then, as they are ringing them now, responsibly warning us of our impending authoritarian future under Trump. And Trump’s supporters? They just thought he was kidding. “Of course he’s joking,” one attendee who’s been to more than a dozen Trump events told the Washington Post last December. “You can’t be a dictator with a constitutional republic.”

Whether this attendee is right isn’t the point. The issue is how one side hears jackboots marching just over the hill, ready to trample on our democracy. And the other side hears only guffaws.

And this disconnect continues, day by day, week by week, month by month. After Trump’s comments on Friday, the prominent Democrat and California representative Adam Schiff stated: “Democracy is on the ballot, and if we are to save it, we must vote against authoritarianism.” Meanwhile, on CNN’s State of the Union, Senator Tom Cotton dismissed any worry about Trump’s call to end voting by 2028 by saying that Trump was “obviously making a joke”.

I don’t find Trump’s jokes funny, but what’s really missing from this conversation is how much Trump’s so-called sense of humor draws from the information strategies of the contemporary far right, and how much the Democrats end up playing right into his hands.

Bayoumi’s reasoning is interesting, considering the Democrats’ attacks on Trump and Vance for being weird. 

Today’s right wing… “weaponizes irony to attract and radicalize potential supporters”, according to media studies scholar Viveca Greene. She argues that today’s far right uses irony and humor “to challenge progressive ideologies and institutions”, and in so doing, the right is able “to create a toxic counter public”.

Greene is mostly concerned with the alt-right – that is to say, the more extreme elements of the right wing – but Trump’s signature contribution to this discourse is to mainstream alt-right communication strategies on to a national stage. And a kind of plausible deniability plays an enormous role in this rhetorical ecosystem.

Did Trump just call for democracy to end in the next election cycle? Oh, come on. He’s just being funny! (But yes, he did.) Did Trump guarantee to root out the “radical left thugs” that “live like vermin” in our country? That’s hilarious! (He said he will.) Did Trump promise that he will be president for three terms? Stop! My sides are aching! (You bet he did.) Will Trump “terminate” the US constitution if he’s elected? So funny! It’s like he’s saying: “You’re fired!” to a piece of paper! (It’s on the record.)

Bayoumi suggests that making fun of Trump and his threats might work better.

Wouldn’t it be smarter to draw attention to Trump’s ridiculousness rather than his threats? Isn’t there some cliche out there about choosing honey over vinegar? Can the Democrats rediscover the extraordinary political power of satire before it’s too late? The demands on humor on a national stage have never been greater, and that’s no laughing matter.

And that is just what Tim Walz started by calling Republican ideas weird. This week, the Harris campaign and many other Democrats took up that argument and it’s working! Let’s hope they keep coming up with more ways to make fun of Trump. He hates being laughed at, especially by women.

The attacks on Project 2025 are working too. Trump has tried very hard to distance himself from the Heritage Foundation project, but it’s not working because so many former Trump administration people are working on it. Not only that, JD Vance wrote the introduction to the Project 2025 book! 

Rolling Stone: Trump Flipped Out That ‘Lunatic’ Project 2025 Could Tank His Campaign.

As he entered the final stretch of the 2024 presidential race, Donald Trump spent much of this month trying to disown the highly Trumpy, Heritage Foundation-led Project 2025 — to the point that he even got his fans to boo the initiative during a recent campaign rally. His protracted freakout over the conservative project — to which he has multiple direct ties, and which is only as extreme as it is largely because of his influence — is driven almost entirely by Trump’s fear over one thing.

Harris2When the twice-impeached ex-president and convicted felon took to social media in early July to make the (patently absurd) claim that “I know nothing about Project 2025 [and] I have no idea who is behind it,” he added, “I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal.” He did not specify what “things” he meant.

But according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter, shortly before he posted that brief message, Trump had been privately — and very bitterly — complaining about the abortion policies laid out in the lengthy Project 2025 manifesto, and trashing the Project 2025-linked “lunatics” who keep demanding unpopular abortion bans and restrictions. Among the policy proposals in Project 2025’s policy roadmap are plans to end federal approval for abortion pills, use federal agencies for expanded “abortion surveillance,” restrict access to emergency contraception, end the federal requirement that hospitals provide medically necessary emergency abortion care, and revive a 150-year-old law that could serve as a de facto national abortion ban. 

For what it’s worth, some of the people who helped author Project 2025’s abortion provisions were appointed under Trump to influential federal posts during his first stint in the White House — including Roger Severino, who headed the HHS’ Office of Civil Rights under Trump, and Gene Hamilton, who worked in Trump’s Justice Department and Homeland Security Department. 

Trump, now the 2024 GOP presidential nominee, vented that the abortion policies could badly damage his chances at retaking the White House, even at a point in the election cycle when Trump was riding high on strong polling numbers against President Joe Biden. (In the time since, Biden has dropped out of the 2024 contest, with Vice President Kamala Harris now the presumptive Democratic nominee.)

Of course, it was Trump himself who made the hard-right, ambiently unpopular abortion policies embedded in Project 2025 possible at all, as it was Trump’s Supreme Court nominees who were necessary to destroy Roe v. Wade in the first place. 

The Daily Beast: Trump Forces Out Project 2025 Mastermind.

The Trump campaign forced the architect of the ultraconservative Project 2025 manifesto out of his job on Tuesday as it sought political cover from a controversy dogging Republicans, the Daily Beast can report exclusively.

Trump campaign manager Chris LaCivita “put the screws” to mastermind Paul Dans in an effort to force him out and shut down the right-wing shop behind Proejct 2025, a sprawling blueprint that sought to overhaul the federal government and implement an array of far-right policies for a potential second Trump administration, a well-placed source told the Daily Beast.

The president of Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank that employed Dans and conceived of the controversial handbook, fired back on X, formerly Twitter, that Project 2025 is going nowhere.

“Project 2025 will continue our efforts to build a personnel apparatus for policymakers of all levels—federal, state, and local,” Heritage President Kevin Roberts said, adding that he was “extremely grateful” for Dans’ work on the policy platform and his “dedication to saving America.” [….]

His departure hinted that Heritage was shutting down its work on the initiative more than a year after Project 2025 produced its cornerstone 900-page policy mandate that came to define the MAGA movement. The manifesto attracted widespread criticism in recent weeks over its extremist proposals that would demand fealty from federal workers, promote Christian nationalism and overhaul policies from abortion to civil liberties and climate and restructure the departments of Justice and Defense, among other agencies.

As the project backfired politically, Trump sought to distance himself from the group despite its naked ties to his first administration, with Project leadership boasting a number of senior Trump aides and close advisers.

e1e3f2060613a7e12bb04b6173a7a082Of course everyone with half a brain knows that Project 2025 is still the plan for a second Trump administration.

Trump’s campaign staff are worried about his expected sexist and racist attacks on Kamala Harris.

The New Republic: Team Trump Panics About His Attacks on Kamala Harris Backfiring.

As Republicans begin developing lines of attack against Vice President Kamala Harris, many on Team Trump worry that those on their side—including Trump himself—will make disparaging comments about Harris’s identity, alienating key voters.

On Tuesday, The Washington Post reported that Trump’s allies believe attacks on Harris’s political record are more effective than personal insults, but “they also worry that Trump and some of his more extreme supporters will be unable to refrain from deploying sexist and racially fraught language, which they fear will hurt him with crucial voting blocs.”

A source “familiar with the Trump campaign’s thinking” who spoke with the Post “on the condition of anonymity to share candid views,” seemed to think that it’s all but inevitable that Trump will make problematic comments toward Harris. “We hope he doesn’t act like a crazy racist and sexist person, but we can’t control him,” the source said. “There are probably dog whistles and racist and sexist tropes he’ll stumble into. His campaign is going to try to keep him out of that rhetoric, but it’s going to be difficult.”

This isn’t the first time that Republicans have fretted about the bigotry in their own ranks affecting their electoral prospects. Last week, Politico reported that leading House Republicans had to tell “lawmakers to focus on criticizing [Harris’s] record without reference to her race and gender,” following “a series of comments by their members that focused on Harris’ race as well as claims she is a ‘DEI’ pick.”

Over the weekend, several Republican lawmakers and Black Trump supporters told Reuters they worried about “demeaning racist and sexist attacks” and “whether the onslaught could harm Republicans at the ballot box.”

Good luck trying to control him. He can’t control himself.

One more on Trump’s weird VP pick.

The Daily Beast: Michael Ian Black: J.D. Vance’s Obsessions Are Way Creepier Than Being Childless.

[W]hether somebody has children or doesn’t have children isn’t a reflection of their values, their patriotism, or their commitment to the nation.

So why won’t J.D. Vance shut up about children? The man is child-obsessed. CNN published an article Tuesday, “It’s not just ‘cat ladies’: J.D. Vance has a history of disparaging people without kids.” The piece highlights Vance’s obsession with the childless dating as far back as 2020.

One series of fundraising emails that authors Andrew Kaczynski and Em Steck uncovered include lines like, “We’ve allowed ourselves to be dominated by childless sociopaths—they’re invested in NOTHING because they’re not invested in this country’s children.”

What?!?

Those without children are sociopaths? Dolly Parton is a sociopath? Lindsey Graham isn’t invested in the country? Elon Musk, father of God knows how many, is somehow preferable as a person to Taylor Swift? Why? Who the hell is J.D. Vance to make these kinds of broad, grotesque statements? [….]

The childless are people without children. That’s it. Why must any other inference be drawn, unless you’re just a creepy fuck who wears too much eyeliner at all the wrong events?

And it’s not as if the childless are somehow an aberration. A Pew Research Study published just a few days ago reveals that 47 percent of Americans under the age of 50 do not have children. If almost half of the country is sociopathic, as Vance believes, we’ve got bigger problems than the current election cycle.

But, of course, the narrative that childless people are somehow sinister is absurd on its face. Jesus didn’t have any kids. Neither does the Pope. I don’t know if either of them had/have cats, which is J.D. Vance’s one-two whammy of degeneracy, but I’d be hard-pressed to make the argument that Jesus F. Christ didn’t care about the future.

As stupid as the argument may be, I think it speaks to something more subtle about the Republican Party. Under the leadership of Donald Trump (and before, but I’ll confine this piece to the current Republican Party), the GOP has become a shell company for investors attempting to strip-mine the nation of its value, and grab as much as they possibly can for themselves. Why do you think Trump supports Putin so much? Because Putin has already implemented this model in Russia to great success—for Putin….

In this Hobbesian model of America, the contest between the political parties is a blood sport in which to the victors go all the spoils. The “spoils” can be financial and/or cultural, but it’s a fundamentally anti-democratic and anti-American view of political power. And it very much involves children because children give them the moral license to conduct their snatch-and-grab.

Reducing expenditures on social programs, which Republicans support, will certainly hurt other people’s children but will lower public expenditures for themselves and their children. It is for the children that they wreak havoc on the American experiment and call it pro-family. Book bans, school vouchers, anti-LGBTQ legislation, anti-abortion legislation. All of it “for the children.”

No. Fuck you.

Read the rest at The Daily Beast.

That’s it for me today. What’s on your mind?

Lazy Caturday Reads

Posted: July 27, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: 2024 presidential Campaign, abortion rights, American Fascists, cat art, Cats, caturday, Donald Trump, Kamala Harris 2024, misogyny | Tags: , , , , , , , | 19 Comments

 

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Happy Caturday!!

Yesterday Trump gave a speech in Florida to Turning Point Action, a right wing christian group. During the speech, Trump gave this rant: 

Trump’s plea to voters last night: “Get out and vote just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, it will be fixed. It’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore … In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good you’re not going to have to vote.”

In that quote from MSNBC’s Kyle Griffin, there is an ellipsis to skip over Trump saying what sounds like “I’m not a christian.” Some are claiming he said “I’m a christian.” That’s not what I heard. You can watch the clip from @Acyn here.

I took this to mean that if Trump is elected, there won’t be any more elections. Some people on Twitter tried to twist it to mean something else or claimed it was a “joke.” After all we have experienced with Trump, those claims just don’t pass muster. Here are some reactions from Twitter.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat @ruthbenghiat: Media: this should be *the* A1 story. I have studied dictatorship for decades and this is it-“you won’t have to vote anymore.” Trump will never leave office if he wins in November.
 
 
Pramila Jayapal @PramilaJayapal: This. Is. Terrifying. We cannot let this be the case.
 
Armando @ArmandoNDK: I don’t know what Trump was trying to say with his no more voting line. He is a moronic inarticulate narcissist. I do know what he’s done. And based on that, if he can get away with it- he would become a dictator. Anyone who doubts Trump is capable of trying is just stupid.
 
Simon Rosenberg @SimonWDC: There is a reason the Trump campaign has been keeping Trump from the trail – every time he speaks it gets harder for them to win. This promise, in very clear language, to end American democracy for all time is now a major part of the 2024 campaign.

Wednesday Reads: Kamala for President

Posted: July 24, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: 2024 presidential Campaign, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris 2024 | Tags: , , , | 11 Comments

Good Morning!!

I feel like I’m pretty much over my cold, but I’m still very tired and keep dozing off in the daytime. Then I realized that my mother died a year ago yesterday, so maybe that partially explains why I’m feeling sad and tired. At least I’m no longer going through box after box of Kleenex. Despite everything, I’m very excited about Kamala Harris and I really believe we have a shot at beating Grandpa Trump.

500823ea0e484604b9a4ec58b929c7fcReuters: Exclusive: Harris leads Trump 44% to 42% in US presidential race, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds.

Vice President Kamala Harris opened up a marginal two-percentage-point lead over Republican Donald Trump after President Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign and passed the torch to her, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found.

That compares with a marginal two-point deficit Biden faced against Trump in last week’s poll before his Sunday exit from the race.

The new poll, conducted on Monday and Tuesday, followed both the Republican National Convention where Trump on Thursday formally accepted the nomination and Biden’s announcement on Sunday he was leaving the race and endorsing Harris.

Harris, whose campaign says she has secured the Democratic nomination, led Trump 44% to 42% in the national poll, a difference within the 3-percentage-point margin of error.

Harris and Trump were tied at 44% in a July 15-16 poll, and Trump led by one percentage point in a July 1-2 poll, both within the same margin of error.

Ali Vitali at NBC News: Democrats are cautiously optimistic that they finally have the first female president.

In Vice President Kamala Harris’ quick, if unorthodox, rise to the top of the Democratic ticket, elected officials, activists and operatives see in her a new chance to beat Donald Trump and make history in one swoop.

Eight years after Trump beat Hillary Clinton, Harris could be the first female president and the first Black woman to hold the nation’s top job, as well.

Democrats are somewhat optimistic, now set in a landscape they didn’t have in 2016: a messenger in Harris who is uniquely positioned to energize voters following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn national abortion rights, more proof from the ballot box that women can win in battleground areas and the knowledge that Trump himself is beatable — if still politically dangerous.

“The lessons that still apply [from 2016] are that people need to take Trump and his supporters seriously,” Shaunna Thomas, who co-founded and runs the pro-women group Ultraviolet, told NBC News. “That’s even more of a top-line message than whether or not a woman can win the presidency.” [….]

Now, many of the party operatives and groups who pushed for Clinton to be the first female president are working, to borrow a phrase from President Joe Biden, to “finish the job.”

“‘Let’s finish the job’ is actually for us, too, from 2016,” said Mini Timmaraju, who leads the pro-abortion-rights group Reproductive Freedom for All and was the women’s vote director on Clinton’s 2016 campaign. “We ran and lost against Donald Trump and we suffered an incredible, horrific loss nationwide overturning Roe and so much damage to our country that this is sort of the ultimate fight back for us.”

A Harris victory in November would mean finishing the job that many of those operatives started with Clinton, one that extends further back to Shirley Chisholm, of New York, the first Black woman in Congress, who ran her own historic long-shot presidential bid in 1972.

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice,” Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., who once worked to elect Chisholm and now backs Harris, told NBC News.

05530c17e95c66c76a6eb8e17e664616Hillary Clinton speaks for herself at The New York Times this morning: How Kamala Harris Can Win and Make History.

History has its eye on us. President Biden’s decision to end his campaign was as pure an act of patriotism as I have seen in my lifetime. It should also be a call to action to the rest of us to continue his fight for the soul of our nation. The next 15 weeks will be like nothing this country has ever experienced politically, but have no doubt: This is a race Democrats can and must win.

Mr. Biden has done a hard and rare thing. Serving as president was a lifelong dream. And when he finally got there, he was exceptionally good at it. To give that up, to accept that finishing the job meant passing the baton, took real moral clarity. The country mattered more. As one who shared that dream and has had to make peace with letting it go, I know this wasn’t easy. But it was the right thing to do.

Elections are about the future. That’s why I am excited about Vice President Kamala Harris. She represents a fresh start for American politics. She can offer a hopeful, unifying vision. She is talented, experienced and ready to be president. And I know she can defeat Donald Trump.

There is now an even sharper, clearer choice in this election. On one side is a convicted criminal who cares only about himself and is trying to turn back the clock on our rights and our country. On the other is a savvy former prosecutor and successful vice president who embodies our faith that America’s best days are still ahead. It’s old grievances versus new solutions.

On the attacks Harris will face:

Ms. Harris’s record and character will be distorted and disparaged by a flood of disinformation and the kind of ugly prejudice we’re already hearing from MAGA mouthpieces. She and the campaign will have to cut through the noise, and all of us as voters must be thoughtful about what we read, believe and share.

I know a thing or two about how hard it can be for strong women candidates to fight through the sexism and double standards of American politics. I’ve been called a witch, a “nasty woman” and much worse. I was even burned in effigy. As a candidate, I sometimes shied away from talking about making history. I wasn’t sure voters were ready for that. And I wasn’t running to break a barrier; I was running because I thought I was the most qualified to do the job. While it still pains me that I couldn’t break that highest, hardest glass ceiling, I’m proud that my two presidential campaigns made it seem normal to have a woman at the top of the ticket.

Ms. Harris will face unique additional challenges as the first Black and South Asian woman to be at the top of a major party’s ticket. That’s real, but we shouldn’t be afraid. It is a trap to believe that progress is impossible. After all, I won the national popular vote by nearly three million in 2016, and it’s not so long ago that Americans overwhelmingly elected our first Black president. As we saw in the 2022 midterms, abortion bans and attacks on democracy are galvanizing women voters like never before. With Ms. Harris at the top of the ticket leading the way, this movement may become an unstoppable wave.

Time is short to organize the campaign on her behalf, but the Labour Party in Britain and a broad left-wing coalition in France recently won big victories with even less time. Ms. Harris will have to reach out to voters who have been skeptical of Democrats and mobilize young voters who need convincing. But she can run on a strong record and ambitious plans to further reduce costs for families, enact common-sense gun safety laws and restore and protect our rights and freedoms.

Read more at the link. I got past the paywall by using the link at memorandum.com.

f1dabd03911d460d740760b2d736e117Noah Berlatsky at Public Notice: The Kamala Harris hype is real.

Just three days after President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, Harris has already secured enough delegates to be the presumptive Democratic nominee. The speed with which the party came together around her is inspiring.

Harris has been endorsed by almost everyone who matters in Democratic politics — senators, governors, key organizations, unions. She’s also raised some $100 million and counting from more than 880,000 small donors, more than 60 percent of whom hadn’t contributed before this cycle. If anyone was on the fence about whether Biden stepping aside was the right move, they probably aren’t now.

The past three days have been a remarkable display of Democratic consensus and unity after a bitter intra-party argument over whether Biden should be the nominee. The rush to support Harris also indicates that the party believes she can beat the Republican candidate — giant orange fascist blight Donald Trump.

New Harris-Trump polling started trickling out yesterday, and it contained good news for Democrats. A Reuters/Ipsos poll taken entirely after Biden announced his decision to step aside showed Harris up two points nationally (and up four points when RFK Jr. is included). Another poll showed Harris and Trump tied.

Given that Harris just had her first rally as the presumptive candidate yesterday, we’ll need more time to figure out exactly how the race has changed. But there are already a number of reasons to be hopeful about her prospects of winning this November.

Of course there are risks.

Unifying looked easy. It’s not.

The first indication of Harris’s strength is … well, pretty much everything that’s happened since Sunday.

Harris has been pilloried over the last four years as a middling politician, largely on the grounds that she suspended her 2020 presidential campaign before Iowa. The reliably confused Pamela Paul at the New York Times, for example, argued this week that “Harris is a fundamentally weak candidate” who “fizzled out” in the presidential race.

As political scientist Jonathan Bernstein points out, though, Harris’s candidacy didn’t fizzle out. She had solid endorsements and decent polling — but she figured out that Biden was too far ahead to beat in a very crowded field and dropped out early. That allowed her to stay on good terms with party actors and put her in a position to get the vice presidency. That’s not losing. It’s winning.

We have even better recent evidence that Harris is a skillful politician, though. Namely, she just nailed down the presidential nomination in around 48 hours and raised $100 million.

The rush to endorse Harris and the flood of donations was so speedy and so uniform that it looked easy. But there was no guarantee it would go so well. AOC warned last week before Biden stepped down that many donors “do not want to see the VP be the nominee.” Some leading Democrats, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, were calling for an open process or some kind of mini primary.

Harris certainly benefited from the fact that Democrats are sick of division and eager to move on to uniting against Trump. But her strength also indicates that she has used her vice presidency to solidify her standing with most party actors and interest groups — not least with Joe Biden himself. Harris engineered an unprecedented victory immediately following an unprecedented moment of uncertainty for the party. That’s the work of a talented politician.

Read more specifics at Public Notice.

Jill Filipovic from her Substack: It’s Fun When Politics Are Fun.

Going with Harris also more or less splits the difference in risk aversion within the party. The core of the debate over whether Biden should drop out hinged on one’s perception of where the biggest risks sat: Were they primarily vested in the candidate himself? Or were they in the potential for chaos?

Harris buttonThe Democrats who thought the risks sat with the candidate got their way when Biden dropped out. Those who feared chaos are getting their way now, as the party rallies around Harris and avoids an open primary. It’s not how I would have chosen to do things, but there’s nevertheless a lot to recommend it.

Also: This is fun, isn’t it?

The Biden-Trump debate and the attempted Trump assassination and the days after were very much not fun; they were dreadful, scary, and divisive, and I was ultimately feeling pretty resigned to four more years of a Trump presidency. It frankly didn’t seem like Republicans were having much fun either. And not that politics need to be entertainment or a party — I frankly wish more people would elect boring highly competent technocrats — but also, people like parties because parties are fun.

For the first time this cycle, the election feels fun. The memes are not dark. The soundtrack is good. Harris is inspiring people not because she promises to stick it to Trump, but because she promises something better. Republicans are mocking her laugh, but god, how good does it feel to have a candidate who really laughs? Her dorky mom-isms feel sweet and endearing. The girls and the gays love her, and the youngs are talking about her in ways I frankly don’t understand, and isn’t that great. Sure, we danced in the streets when Biden won in 2020 because it was such a relief to see four years of Trump come to an end and also we had been so cooped up inside thanks to Covid. But no one was dancing at a Biden rally. Harris, on the other hand, is the chief executive of Brat Summer.

No, fun alone doesn’t win elections. But it sure doesn’t hurt. And Trump knows this as well as anyone.

Max Burns at The Hill: It’s time to talk about Donald Trump’s age.

At 78, former President Donald Trump is now the oldest presidential nominee in American history. If he wins re-election in November, Trump will end his term just a few months shy of his 83rd birthday, making him two years older than President Joe Biden is now. 

In short, Donald Trump has a serious age problem.  

The media and Republican political leaders should treat concerns about Trump’s advanced age every bit as seriously as they did in Biden’s case. Trump can put those concerns to rest by making good on his promise to take a public cognitive test. Is he still willing to “do it for the good of the country,” as he said back on July 12? 

After all, comparing footage from Trump’s 2015 presidential announcement to footage from earlier this year shows that Trump isn’t quite the man he used to be. The former president now routinely confuses names when speaking off the cuff — including the name of his own doctor — and struggled to finish his sentences during a Nashville rally earlier this year. How can the American people be sure Trump’s stumbles aren’t part of a sustained pattern of cognitive decline?  

Trump has repeatedly said he believes all presidential candidates should be “mandated to take a cognitive test” regardless of age. There’s no time like the present, because the concerning evidence of Trump’s mental decline has been mounting for years.  

His memory problems are well-documented; the former president doesn’t seem able to recall what he was doing or who he spoke to for most of the day on Jan. 6, 2021. He also regularly forgets who the sitting president is, often confusing Joe Biden and Barack Obama during unscripted remarks. That seems pretty important. 

Concerns about how Trump’s age could weigh on the Republican ticket aren’t exclusive to Democrats like me. Sixty percent of voters now believe Trump is too old to serve, according to a post-debate ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll. That’s up from 44 percent a little over a year ago. Of voters who watched Trump’s rambling debate performance last month, fully 50 percent believe the former president should withdraw from the race and focus on his mental health. 

Hahaha! Trump looks really old compared to Kamala, who is extremely energetic and enthusiastic. 

97c594d951f947411fb352923f1e38c0You probably heard about the Fortune scoop yesterday about Elon Musk donating to Trump. The story is behind a paywall, but here’s the gist from The Guardian: Elon Musk denies report he will donate $45m a month to Trump Super Pac.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has denied reports that emerged last week that he was planning to donate $45m a month to a Super Pac focused on getting Trump elected.

On Tuesday, Musk appeared on Jordan Peterson’s show, where he said the claim was “simply not true”. “I am not donating $45m a month to Trump,” he said.

“Now what I have done is that I have created a Pac or Super Pac or whatever you want to call it,” he said. It is called the America Pac.”

Super Pacs, short for Political Action Committees, are independent political organisations to which donors can give unlimited amounts of money, while donations to individuals or non-Super Pacs are capped.

After the Peterson interview, Musk replied on X to a clip from the interview saying, “Yeah”, and to another tweet referencing the reports saying, “Yeah, it’s ridiculous. I am making some donations to America PAC, but at a much lower level and the key values of the Pac are supporting a meritocracy & individual freedom. Republicans are mostly, but not entirely, on the side of merit & freedom”.

The denial comes days after Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential race, endorsing his vice-president Kamala Harris, who now has enough delegates to claim the Democratic nomination in August.

Also on Tuesday, the New York Times reported that the Super Pac was being staffed by former aides to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign. “The Super Pac has acquired an air of mystery in the Trump orbit, with other outside groups largely in the dark about its plans,” the Times reported….

“The intent is to promote the principles that made America great in the first place,” Musk said on Peterson’s show. “I wouldn’t say that I’m for example Maga,” he added, referring to the Trump catchphrase. “I think America is great. I’m more M-A-G, make America greater.”

It sounds like Trump probably couldn’t use this money for legal expenses.

Amanda Marcotte at Salon: Kamala Harris makes Donald Trump do the one thing he fears most: Get up and get out.

The joyful reception that Vice President Kamala Harris received from Democrats when President Joe Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed her was rooted largely in the contrast between the relatively youthful 59-year-old woman and the increasingly frail 81-year-old president. She gives good speeches! She’s fun and energetic! And she can campaign aggressively, especially with Biden remaining president, allowing Harris to make campaigning her full-time job. People in focus groups frequently say they haven’t seen much of Harris these past four years. Well, that’s about to change, since she is well-positioned to give endless interviews, attend frequent events, and give oh-so-many speeches. The contrast with Biden, who struggled to find the energy to campaign on top of running a country, will be notable. 

Kamala1The contrast stands not only with her boss but with her new opponent. It isn’t just Biden who has to limit public appearances, lest he get tired and cranky. Donald Trump, at age 78, has also been mostly absent from the traditional campaign rigamarole. He goes to occasional rallies, where his fans swoon over him, but which get relatively little press. There’s no incentive to cover his usual incoherent stump speech because he doesn’t break any news. He gives interviews to right-wing outlets, which mostly ask him how he got to be so darn perfect while avoiding topics that might draw interest from the larger public. He unloads his far-right venom on Truth Social, but since most journalists ignore that, he might as well be blogging into the void. He golfs a lot and, of course, had to sit in the untelevised trial in May, which resulted in 34 felony convictions. But to average Americans, especially swing voters who will decide the race, Trump is mostly out of sight and out of mind. 

This appears very much by design. While they are being graded on a steep curve, Trump’s campaign managers are, as reported, more professional and competent than his previous hires. They’re no doubt aware that the biggest obstacle to persuading skeptical voters to back Trump is the candidate himself. His overt racism, sociopathic impulsivity, and off-the-charts narcissism turn off everyone who isn’t deeply in the MAGA cult. Every time Trump talks, it confirms the Biden campaign’s narrative that the former president is a self-centered jerk who will sell out the country for his own interests. 

Trump has so far been able to stay out of the spotlight because of Biden. The president had a lightweight campaign presence. He barely did any interviews or press conferences, which only fueled speculation that the Biden team was hiding their candidate’s condition from public view. This enabled Trump to hang back, as well. Trump’s campaign created the illusion that he was campaigning more vigorously than Biden, by putting him out there in situations noticed by the press but not by ordinary voters. The rallies looked campaign-like while keeping Trump out of the news. Trump gave a lengthy interview to Time, in which he hinted at election violence and supported abortion bans. These views hurt him with swing voters, but almost no one heard about it, because it was a print interview in a publication few people outside of the Beltway read.

I have to admit, I was wrong. I’m still sad that Biden was forced to step down in such a humiliating way. But he handled it very well by waiting until the Republican Convention was over. Now they have to complete retune their arguments and attacks. No more Hunter Biden to kick around, no more old age insults, no more “Let’s go, Brandon.” Back to Marcotte:

Astute readers will remember that the reason Biden wanted a June debate was to remind voters what a vile person Trump is since so many memories had faded. If Biden had been coherent, the plan would have worked. As Heather “Digby” Parton wrote, Trump “couldn’t control himself and behaved once again like the undisciplined, lying, vulgarian who half the country already hates.” He told laughable lies, such as denying sex with Stormy Daniels. The post-debate fact-checker spoke as fast as he could to debunk Trump’s lies and finally had to quit from exhaustion after three minutes. 

But once again, Biden’s age worked to cover up Trump’s myriad deficiencies. It was too troubling, watching the president stumble, to even pay that much attention to Trump’s same old lie-and-hate routine. Not just for journalists, either. Voters who watched the debate were too worried about Biden to pay much mind to Trump. 

With Harris as the Democratic nominee, however, Trump is caught in a no-win situation. If he continues to hang back from the campaign trail while she’s out there hustling, he’ll start inviting the questions about whether he’s too old and weak, the exact questions that plagued Biden. But if he starts doing more media and events that are outside the MAGA bubble, he will draw negative attention and remind voters why they hate him. In the face of this paradox, Trump’s first impulse was to keep pretending Biden is his opponent. As reality sets in, Trump’s freaking out. 

There more at the Salon link.

That’s all I have for you today. I’m very anxious to see what happens next in this reinvigorated campaign. 

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