By Katrina Pallon
Yesterday I posted a sarcastic comment on Dakinikat’s thread to the effect that I was surprised that she was looking forward to elections in 2026. She explained to me that there would be midterm elections in two years.
Am I the only one here who thinks it’s unlikely there will be any more elections? Trump himself has said that if he won there wouldn’t be any more need to vote. I think this is it. We are living in Germany 1933. It only took Hitler a couple of years to win full control of the German government.
The Guardian, July 30, 2024: Donald Trump repeats controversial ‘You won’t have to vote any more’ claim.
Donald Trump on Monday repeated his weekend remarks to Christian summit attendees that they would never need to vote again if he returns to the presidency in November.
But, after being asked repeatedly on Fox News to clarify what he meant, the Republican former president denied threatening to permanently stay in office beyond his second – and constitutionally mandated final – four-year term.
During the initial remarks made on Friday, which caused outrage and alarm among his critics, Trump told the crowd to “get out and vote, just this time”, adding that “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.”
Democrats and other critics called the remarks “terrifying”, authoritarian and anti-democratic. And Monday, in a new interview with the Fox News host Laura Ingraham, the former president attempted to explain what he meant.
“That statement is very simple, I said, ‘Vote for me, you’re not gonna have to do it ever again,’” Trump told Ingraham. “It’s true, because we have to get the vote out. Christians are not known as a big voting group, they don’t vote. And I’m explaining that to them. You never vote. This time, vote. I’ll straighten out the country, you won’t have to vote any more, I won’t need your vote any more, you can go back to not voting.”
Okay, so maybe the statement was directed at Christians only. I don’t know. I only know that in 2021, Trump crazies like Michael Flynn urged Trump to invoke the insurrection act and take control of the voting machines, and Trump considered it. I expect him to do that this time so he can use the military to attack protesters and decide whether and when we can have elections.
Just before the 2024 election, Trump told followers that he should have just refused to leave office in 2020. Steve Benen at Maddow Blog: At the finish line, Trump says he ‘shouldn’t have left’ after 2020 loss.
On the last episode of “Fox News Sunday” before Election Day, Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona raised an important criticism about Donald Trump: The former president, the Arizona senator said, is trying to “set up the conditions where he can do what he did in 2020.”
Host Shannon Bream quickly interrupted to say that Trump, at the end of his term, “did leave in 2020.” It fell to Kelly to remind the host and viewers that the Republican left office “after he sent a mob to Capitol Hill,” adding, “There are people who died that day because Donald Trump refused to accept the election.”
The exchange was notable for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was the familiarity of Bream’s argument. Indeed, it’s the line the former president’s defenders have peddled for nearly four years.
By Marina Aizen
Yes, Trump rejected legitimate election results because he disapproved of the voters’ verdict. Yes, he tried to overturn the outcome in ways federal prosecutors believe were blatantly illegal. Yes, he filled his radicalized followers with lies, incited a riot, and deployed an armed mob to attack the U.S. Capitol, as part of a plot to seize illegitimate power by force.
But when it was time for his successor’s inauguration, Republicans argue, at least Trump left the White House when he was supposed to.
It was against this backdrop that the GOP candidate, just hours after Bream’s observation, expressed regret for having left the White House when he was supposed to. NBC News reported:
At another point in the [Pennsylvania] rally, Trump said he should not have left the White House on Jan. 20, 2021, when Biden was sworn in. “The day that I left, I shouldn’t have left. I mean, honestly, because we did so, we did so well,” the former president told supporters.
He didn’t appear to be kidding.
In other words, with just two days remaining before Election Day, as undecided voters made up their minds, the Republican nominee for the nation’s highest office reminded the public about his increasingly overt hostility toward democracy.
Trump is a criminal, a gangster. He is once again going to be president of the United States. There will be nothing to hold him back this time–no “adults in the room.” Thanks to the Supreme Court he is now immune from prosecution as long as he or the Court can define his behavior as somehow part of his official duties. The crimes he has been indicted and prosecuted for are in the process of being erased. He will appoint his fellow criminals and thugs to his cabinet and other powerful positions. Why should I believe he will allow any limits on his powers? Why should he allow elections that might allow Democrats to win House and Senate seats in 2026? This time he isn’t going to fool around. Can anyone stop him? I hope so, but I’m skeptical.
I wrote on Wednesday that I think Putin will be a powerful voice in Trump’s government (as will China’s Xi and Hungary’s Orbán). Trump and Elon Musk have both been talking to Putin, and Russia has obviously helped by spreading on-line disinformation. And of course Musk and his South African buddies expect to have a hand in running the government. It remains to be seen if Trump will go along with that.
As I noted above, Elon Musk obviously thinks he’s the shadow president now. The New York Times: Elon Musk Helped Elect Trump. What Does He Expect in Return?
Even before Donald J. Trump was re-elected, his best-known backer, Elon Musk, had come to him with a request for his presidential transition.
He wanted Mr. Trump to hire some employees from Mr. Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, as top government officials — including at the Defense Department, according to two people briefed on the calls.
That request, which would seed SpaceX employees into an agency that is one of its biggest customers, is a sign of the benefits that Mr. Musk may reap after investing more than $100 million in Mr. Trump’s campaign, pushing out a near-constant stream of pro-Trump material on his social media platform, X, and making public appearances on the candidate’s behalf across the hard-fought state of Pennsylvania.
By Lucy Almey Bird
The outreach regarding the SpaceX employees, which hasn’t been reported, shows the extent to which Mr. Musk wants to fill a potential Trump administration with his closest confidants even as his billions of dollars in government contracts pose a conflict to any government role.
The six companies that Mr. Musk oversees are deeply entangled with federal agencies. They make billions off contracts to launch rockets, build satellites and provide space-based communications services.
Tesla makes hundreds of millions more from emissions-trading credits created by federal law. And Mr. Musk’s companies are facing at least 20 recent investigations, including one targeting a self-driving car technology that Tesla considers key to its future.
Now, Mr. Musk will have the ear of the president, who oversees all of those agencies. Mr. Musk could even gain the power to oversee them himself, if Mr. Trump follows through on a promise to appoint him as head of a government efficiency commission. Mr. Trump has told Mr. Musk that he wants him to bring the same scalpel to the federal government that he brought to Twitter after he bought the company and rebranded it as X. Mr. Musk has spoken of cutting at least $2 trillion from the federal budget.
The effect could be to remove, or weaken, one of the biggest checks on Mr. Musk’s power: the federal government.
“All of the annoying enforcement stuff goes away,” said Stephen Myrow, managing partner at Beacon Policy Advisors, a firm that sells corporations daily updates on regulatory and legislative trends in Washington.
Hal Singer, an economist who has advised parties filing antitrust challenges against technology companies and also is a professor at the University of Utah, said that Tesla and SpaceX can expect less scrutiny from the Justice Department.
“They are unlikely to go after Elon — Trump’s D.O.J. won’t,” he said. “Abstain from investigating your friends, but bringing cases that investigate your enemies — that is what we saw during the first Trump administration.”
Trump stole hundreds of secret documents from the government, and the FBI believes he hasn’t returned all of them. He’ll never have to do that now, and he won’t be punished for these crimes or any future ones. I have no doubt that Trump shared secret information with Putin and other foreign leaders, and he will likely keep doing that as president. Prove me wrong.
Soon, Trump will begin getting intelligence briefings again. Time: Trump, Who Was Charged with Mishandling Secrets, Will Get Classified Briefings Again.
Two years ago, the FBI raided Donald Trump’s home to retrieve government records he had refused to return, including hundreds containing classified information. The indictment that followed alleged the former President had left classified information laying around next to a toilet and stacked on a ballroom stage.
Now Trump is poised to be briefed once again on the country’s secrets to prepare him to take the reins of government on Jan. 20. “They’re not going to restrict it,” says a Republican involved in the transition.
It’s an awkward dance. Biden previously called Trump’s handling of Top Secret documents “totally irresponsible.” And during his first term, Trump raised alarms in the intelligence community when he reportedly shared secrets of a close U.S. ally with senior Russian officials during an Oval Office meeting. In the interim, federal officials charged Trump with violating the Espionage Act for unauthorized retention of national defense information, a case that is now likely to be closed in the coming weeks.
By Catriona Millar
But Biden has directed his entire Administration to work with Trump’s team to ensure an “orderly” transition. That means looking past Trump’s previous history with classified information.
“He was indicted for mishandling classified information,” says Jeremy Bash, a former chief of staff for the CIA and the Department of Defense during the Obama Administration. “But given that he is about to assume the Presidency, the responsible thing to do would be to provide him the classified briefings and offer government resources to help him handle and store any classified material he needs to hold on to.”
For decades, President-elects have been allowed to receive sensitive national security briefings by the country’s intelligence services well before Inauguration Day. It’s a practice rooted in the idea that the voters have chosen the person to run the country, and there is no further vetting required beyond they are sworn into office.
We are all supposed to just pretend that Trump is a normal president-elect, even though he is obviously suffering from dementia and numerous psychological disorders.
At least some in the military leadership are trying to prepare for the worst. CNN: Pentagon officials discussing how to respond if Trump issues controversial orders.
Pentagon officials are holding informal discussions about how the Department of Defense would respond if Donald Trump issues orders to deploy active-duty troops domestically and fire large swaths of apolitical staffers, defense officials told CNN.
Trump has suggested he would be open to using active-duty forces for domestic law enforcement and mass deportations and has indicated he wants to stack the federal government with loyalists and “clean out corrupt actors” in the US national security establishment.
Trump in his last term had a fraught relationship with much of his senior military leadership, including now-retired Gen. Mark Milley who took steps to limit Trump’s ability to use nuclear weapons while he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The president-elect, meanwhile, has repeatedly called US military generals “woke,” “weak” and “ineffective leaders.”
Officials are now gaming out various scenarios as they prepare for an overhaul of the Pentagon.
“We are all preparing and planning for the worst-case scenario, but the reality is that we don’t know how this is going to play out yet,” one defense official said.
Trump’s election has also raised questions inside the Pentagon about what would happen if the president issued an unlawful order, particularly if his political appointees inside the department don’t push back.
“Troops are compelled by law to disobey unlawful orders,” said another defense official. “But the question is what happens then – do we see resignations from senior military leaders? Or would they view that as abandoning their people?” [….]
Defense officials are also scrambling to identify civilian employees who might be impacted if Trump reinstates Schedule F, an executive order he first issued in 2020 that, if enacted, would have reclassified huge swaths of nonpolitical, career federal employees across the US government to make them more easily fireable.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said on Tuesday that “I totally believe that our leaders will continue to do the right thing no matter what. I also believe that our Congress will continue to do the right things to support our military.”
There’s much more discussion of these issues at the link.
By Gracie Litleman
Politico: Pentagon officials anxious Trump may fire the military’s top general.
Defense officials are getting anxious about the possibility of the incoming Trump administration firing Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. C.Q. Brown, due to perceptions that he is out of step with the president-elect on the Pentagon’s diversity and inclusion programs.
The Trump administration’s DOD transition team — led by former Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie — has yet to officially set foot in the Pentagon since the election was called, owing to the transition team’s refusal so far to accept assistance from the federal government. But concern is beginning to bubble up that Brown, who spoke publicly about the challenges of rising through the military as a Black man as Donald Trump urged the Defense Department to crack down on the George Floyd protests in 2020, could be swept out by a president-elect who has promised to make the Pentagon less “woke.”
The chair’s four-year term normally is staggered so they serve the end of one administration and the beginning of another.
For Brown, that two-year mark arrives in September 2025, well into Trump’s first year back in office. There is no rule, however, prohibiting Trump from dismissing him sooner. Any such move would be extraordinary, though not unprecedented.
“There is some anxiety,” said one current DOD official, who like others was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive personnel matters. “I think they are immediately worried,” the official said of Brown’s team.
“He’s a DEI/woke champion,” a second DOD official said. “Can imagine he’ll be gone quite quickly.”
Two people close to the Trump transition team mentioned that Brown has long been a target of congressional Republicans who accused the Pentagon of conducting social experiments with diversity programs, to the detriment of traditional military tasks.
I feel sick to my stomach and sick at heart. This is no longer the country I was born and grew up in. Things were already bad after Trump’s last term. Now they are going to get so much worse. Elie Mystal writes at The Nation: There’s No Denying It Anymore: Trump Is Not a Fluke—He’s America.
America deserves everything it is about to get. We had a chance to stand united against fascism, authoritarianism, racism, and bigotry, but we did not. We had a chance to create a better world for not just ourselves but our sisters and brothers in at least some of the communities most vulnerable to unchecked white rule, but we did not. We had a chance to pass down a better, safer, and cleaner world to our children, but we did not. Instead, we chose Trump, JD Vance, and a few white South African billionaires who know a thing or two about instituting apartheid.
I could be more specific about the “we.” Roughly half of “us” didn’t vote for this travesty. I could be more specific about who did, and as people pore over exit polls, the only thing liberals will do liberally is dole out the blame. But the conversations about who is to blame, the hand-wringing about who showed up and who failed the moment are largely academic and pointless.
Morning Tea and Cat Stretch, by Uta Krogmann
America did this. America, through the process of a free and fair election, demanded this. America, as an idea, concept, and institution, wanted this. And America, as a collective, deserves to get what it wants.
To be clear, no individual person “deserves” what Trump will do to them… not even the people who voted for him to do the things he’s going to do. Nobody deserves to die for their vote, even if they voted for other people to die.
But we, as a country, absolutely deserve what’s about to happen to us. We, as a nation, have proven ourselves to be a fetid, violent people, and we deserve a leader who embodies the worst of us. We are not “better” than Trump. If anything, thinking that we are better than Trump, thinking there is some “silent majority” who opposes the unserious grotesqueries of the man, is the core conceit that has led the Democratic Party to such total ruin. America willed Trump into existence. He was created from our greed, our insecurities, and our selfishness. We have summoned him from the depths of our own bile and neediness, and he has answered.
And now that he is here, we deserve our fate, because the most fundamental truth about Trump’s reelection is that Trump was right about us. He will be president again because he, and perhaps he alone, saw us for how truly base, depraved, and uninformed we are as a country. Trump is not a root cause of our ills. He did not create the conditions that allowed him to rise. He is, and always has been, a mirror. He is how America sees itself.
If people would just look at him, they would see themselves as we’ve always been. He is rich, because we are rich or think we will be. He is crass because we are crass. He is self-interested because we are. He punks the media because the media are punks. He is unintelligent because we are uninformed. The president of the United States is the singular figure who is supposed to represent all Americans, and Trump reflects us more accurately than perhaps any president ever has.
That’s why the people who love him love him so passionately. He is them. And he tells them that being what they are is OK. He never for a second requires America to be better than it is. He never expects more of America than it is able to give. Trump tells America to be garbage. Garbage is easy.
And so on. Mystal is bitter, and so am I. This is the end of America. Trump and his thugs have won. Please, tell me I’m wrong. Tell me why I should believe there will be elections in 2026 and 2028. I’d like to believe it, but right now I can’t.
I was born soon after World War II, in 1947. I grew up in a culture with plenty of flaws, but we were patriotic, proud of our country. The notion that one day the United States would become a satellite of Russia would have been impossible to believe. And that is what has happened. Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Robert Kennedy, Jr. are Russian assets.
If they have their way, we will lose Social Security, Medicare, and Obamacare. We will live with massive numbers of immigrants–both undocumented and documented–being rounded up and sent to concentration camps. We will become a nation of fascist bullies gloated at our leaders hatred and cruelty.
I guess I should be grateful that I’m old and on the way out. But I was cursed with empathy. I don’t want to live with the ugly hatred, and discrimination that is coming for my fellow Americans. As I wrote above, my early experiences led me to be a proud and patriotic citizen–even though I could see so many flaws in our culture.
I also internalized the idea that we are citizens of the world as well. I thought national security was important and alliances with other countries were imperative to the survival of our democracy. But now I know that a majority of my fellow Americans don’t care about democracy or our long-time foreign allies. A majority of Americans apparently wants our country to be allied with Russia, Hungary, Turkey, and North Korea. The majority of voters in this election appear to have no problem with the U.S. leaving NATO and Russia taking over Ukraine and then marching on through Europe if they can pull it off.
Finally, I have been reminded for the umpteenth time that a majority of my fellow Americans hate and fear women and are enraged when an “uppity woman” dares to try to win the U.S. presidency.
Well, I’m not going back. I’m almost 77 years old. I’ve had a decent life. I’d like to hang on for a few more years, but I don’t want to live in the Fourth Reich. I don’t want to live in a world without vaccines in which children once again get polio, measles and all the rest of the childhood diseases that I lived through. Hey, maybe Bobby Jr. will even bring back smallpox. Wouldn’t that be nice? If I sound bitter, it’s because I am.
Will Elon Musk really be given the power to cut government programs and fire long-term employees? He has been warning that there is going to be a period of austerity–but of course that will just be for the “little people.” Trump has promised to extend his tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. Will Musk and his pals succeed in replacing America’s official currency with cryptocurrency? That apparently is his goal. I know almost nothing about cryptocurrency, but that doesn’t sound like a good idea to me.
We’ll see what happens in the coming days, weeks, and months until Trump and his thugs take over. I certainly have no clue. I actually thought Kamala Harris would win and that we’d finally have a woman president. But now I know that may never happen, because Americans hate women–and the haters include plenty of self-hating women.
I’m just an old woman, and I realize that I don’t belong in today’s United States. I’m just a relic of the past, a throwback to the 1950s and 1960s. I’m just old and in the way.
Three articles, and then I’m going to go back to protecting myself emotionally and getting through this day without going insane.
This is by Jessica Valenti at Abortion Every Day: It’s Not Okay. The country may have failed us, but we won’t fail each other.
I lied to my daughter last night. As I put Layla to bed, I promised her that everything would be okay—even though I knew it wasn’t true. Of course, of course, it’s not okay. But I’m a mom, and my honesty was easily outweighed by my desire to comfort her.
Here’s what I should have told her:
It is an awful thing, how much this country hates women. It is painful, soul-crushing and impossible to understand. The knowledge that America would rather elect the world’s worst man—a racist and liar, rapist and bully—than even consider letting a woman lead is a heavy, horrible load.
I wish none of us had to bear it. But we do, and we will.
We will take the next few days to feel the full weight of that pain. To ignore or avoid it would be a mistake; glossing over grief does your body and mind a disservice, and we all need to process in our own way.
But we can’t sit with the horror for too long. We can’t let it overtake or immobilize us—because that is exactly what they want. The men who want to put us in our place, keep us in the home and humiliate us into subjugation need us to be paralyzed with fear and sadness. They are desperate for us to give up, or to bury the reality of what they’ve done in a small corner in our mind. They want us to decide that it’s easier not to put up a fight….
Women are taught our whole lives to direct that fury inwards, to quash or internalize it. We’re not going to do that today, or ever again. There are people who deserve the full scale of our outrage, and they will get it.
That’s why you’ll get up, alongside me, and do what it takes to fight back. You’ll remember that we are in the right, and that they are in the obvious, awful wrong. You’ll refuse to let them steal one more moment of your joy and hope, and decide that living your life with purpose in a country that wants you to fade away is a radical act.
I know what you’re going to say: That’s what you’ve already been doing! You’ve cared so much and worked so hard. You’re tired—I am too. How can we possibly continue on when the country fails us again and again?
We just do. Because the alternative—that we pretend this isn’t happening and let the most vulnerable among us suffer first and worst—is unthinkable.
Read the rest at the link.
Tom Nichols at The Atlantic: Democracy Is Not Over. Americans who care about democracy have every right to feel appalled and frightened. But then they have work to do.
An aspiring fascist is the president-elect, again, of the United States. This is our political reality: Donald Trump is going to bring a claque of opportunists and kooks (led by the vice president–elect, a person who once compared Trump to Hitler) into government this winter, and even if senescence overtakes the president-elect, Trump’s minions will continue his assault on democracy, the rule of law, and the Constitution.
The urge to cast blame will be overwhelming, because there is so much of it to go around. When the history of this dark moment is written, those responsible will include not only Trump voters but also easily gulled Americans who didn’t vote or who voted for independent or third-party candidates because of their own selfish peeves.
Trump’s opponents will also blame Russia and other malign powers. Without a doubt, America’s enemies—some of whom dearly hoped for a Trump win—made efforts to flood the public square with propaganda. According to federal and state government reports, several bomb threats that appeared to originate from Russian email domains were aimed at areas with minority voters. But as always, the power to stop Trump rested with American voters at the ballot box, and blaming others is a pointless exercise.
So now what?
The first order of business is to redouble every effort to preserve American democracy. If I may invoke Winston Churchill, this is not the end or the beginning of the end; it is the end of the beginning.
For a decade, Trump has been trying to destroy America’s constitutional order. His election in 2016 was something like a prank gone very wrong, and he likely never expected to win. But once in office, he and his administration became a rocket sled of corruption, chaos, and sedition. Trump’s lawlessness finally caught up with him after he was forced from office by the electorate. He knew that his only hope was to return to the presidency and destroy the last instruments of accountability.
Paradoxically, however, Trump’s reckless venality is a reason for hope. Trump has the soul of a fascist but the mind of a disordered child. He will likely be surrounded by terrible but incompetent people. All of them can be beaten: in court, in Congress, in statehouses around the nation, and in the public arena. America is a federal republic, and the states—at least those in the union that will still care about democracy—have ways to protect their citizens from a rogue president. Nothing is inevitable, and democracy will not fall overnight.
Do not misunderstand me. I am not counseling complacency: Trump’s reelection is a national emergency. If we have learned anything from the past several years, it’s that feel-good, performative politics can’t win elections, but if there was ever a time to exercise the American right of free assembly, it is now—not least because Trump is determined to end such rights and silence his opponents. Americans must stay engaged and make their voices heard at every turn. They should find and support organizations and institutions committed to American democracy, and especially those determined to fight Trump in the courts. They must encourage candidates in the coming 2026 elections who will oppose Trump’s plans and challenge his legislative enablers….Patriotic Americans and their representatives might now make a similar commitment, but for better aims: Although they cannot remove Trump from office, they can declare their determination to prevent Trump from implementing the ghastly policies he committed himself to while campaigning.
The kinds of actions that will stop Trump from destroying America in 2025 are the same ones that stopped many of his plans the first time around. They are not flashy, and they will require sustained attention, because the next battles for democracy will be fought by lawyers and legislators, in Washington and in every state capitol. They will be fought by citizens banding together in associations and movements to rouse others from the sleepwalk that has led America into this moment.
Brian Beutler: Reflections On America’s New Autocracy.
The United States and the world will soon be in the hands of mercurial, vindictive, greedy men with scores to settle and few checks on their power.
Perhaps there’s some solace in that word “mercurial.” Who knows what Donald Trump, the 78 year old former president and current president-elect, will choose to do with his time and authority? Maybe some semblance of stability can be salvaged through the fact that he mostly just wants to be the center of attention.
But I don’t take much solace at all. First, the people who’ve attached themselves to Trump know this about him, and they are ambitious. They have already reasoned that they’ll be empowered to fill all the gaps in his attention, and their ranks include corrupt oligarchs, conspiracy theorists, white nationalists, religious extremists, and fascists. Think Trump might ultimately not care that much about abortion? Well, the people serving under him do, and he won’t be checking their work….
We should do our best to accept—serenity-prayer style—that he got away with trying to overturn the 2020 election, and with his mass theft of government secrets at the end of his first term. Those cases will disappear very soon. And we can infer from experience what he’ll do about the other, relatively limp efforts, to hold him accountable under the law.
He is meant to be sentenced in New York later this month for almost three dozen felony convictions. Do we really think a state trial-court judge will order Trump to prison? Will he sentence Trump to anything at all? Defer sentencing for four years? And what if Trump decides he wants that case—and all the state-based legal jeopardy he faces—to go away? Will he demand clemency from Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY)? Will she give it to him? If she does not, will he promise to retaliate against the state of New York with abuses of federal power?
Just like that—before he’s sworn in, before he can pardon the January 6 insurrectionists—we’re tumbling down the slope. Because we live in an autocracy now.
Just how repressive and lawless ours is remains to be seen. Things won’t always feel completely hopeless. Some vestiges of checks and balances, equal justice under law, and the old rules of political backlash will pop up now and again to stymie Trump. There’s at least some uncertainty surrounding his stamina for further conflict—I mean, he won, right? Isn’t that enough?
But Trump has never rested on his laurels, and I suspect these inhibitions will melt away. The elites and institutions who might wish to resist him will find themselves bedeviled by a collective action problem. It is in their common interest that Trump not transform the United States in to a fascist kleptocracy, or even just an Orbanist one, but it’s in their individual interest to let someone else stand in his way. They are atomized and overpowered and perhaps they can make out well if they go along with him.
Media, tech, and other corporate behemoths are all likelier to succumb to these bad incentives than they are to push back, giving Trump de facto control over much more than the federal government. Do they want tariff relief or a free hand in their markets? Their competitors hobbled? Better pay tribute!
And so on. I think we all know what is likely to be coming our way in 2025.
I’m usually optimistic, but I’m not feeling that way today. I just hope that everyone who has been part of our blogging community over the years is hanging in there and taking care of themselves. I love you all.
Tokuriki Tomikichiro, Black Cat Three-Kittens Butterfly
There are just 3 more days to go until E-Day. I just hope what’s left of our democracy survives the election and whatever horrors the Trump people have in store if he loses. And I think he is going to lose; he certainly seems to be preparing for that outcome.
Things are looking good for Harris at the moment. The polls are definitely moving in her direction, and some experts are questioning whether the race is as close as the media wants to make it.
This is from The Times (UK): Kamala Harris ahead in enough swing states to win, Times poll says.
Kamala Harris is on track to become America’s first female president by a narrow margin thanks to the Democratic vote holding up in the rust belt of old industrial states, according to the final Times poll before the US election.
Of the seven swing states that will decide the White House, Harris is forecast to win three battlegrounds in the north known as the “blue wall”, as well as Nevada in the west, while Donald Trump is favoured to claim back Georgia and hold North Carolina, YouGov found. The two rivals are level-pegging in Arizona….
Of the rust belt states, Harris is four points ahead among likely voters in Wisconsin, and three points ahead in Michigan and Pennsylvania. She is one point ahead in Nevada. Likely voters are evenly split in Arizona, and Trump is one point ahead in both Georgia and North Carolina.
The Times surveyed the seven swing states because the outcome in the other 43 states is far more predictable….
If the results after election day on Tuesday turn out like the YouGov poll, Harris would win the Oval Office by a margin of 276 electoral college votes to 262. This would make it the closest finish since the 2000 election, which was decided by 271 to 266 after a month of legal wrangling about Florida’s result was resolved by the Supreme Court.
Read more and see the data at the link.
The presidential race could very well be decided by women. I still believe that abortion is the number 1 issue in this election.
CNN: As women outpace men in early turnout, Trump’s challenge to win over female voters comes into focus.
When Alex Cooper, the popular podcaster behind “Call Her Daddy,” released her widely discussed interview with Democrat Kamala Harris last month, she revealed she had invited the vice president’s Republican opponent, Donald Trump, to appear on her show as well.
“If he also wants to have a meaningful and in-depth conversation about women’s rights in this country, then he is welcome on ‘Call Her Daddy’ anytime,” Cooper told her millions of listeners, most of them women.
Tetsuhiro Wakabayashi, What is for dinner?
Trump’s campaign had received an offer to join the show, according to sources close to the former president, but ultimately decided to pass. Instead, Trump doubled down on a strategy of speaking directly to America’s young men through appearances on right-leaning, male-dominated online shows. He will end his campaign Tuesday having largely avoided podcasts, YouTube channels and daytime TV shows tailored toward female audiences.
And if Trump’s third White House bid falls short, his approach to courting women – who narrowly outnumber men and are more reliable voters – may be among his campaign’s most scrutinized strategies. Trump advisers and allies had argued throughout the late summer and early fall that his appeal among men would make up for the lack of support from female voters, but in recent weeks the widening gender gap has caused alarm for some Republicans.
“We’ve seen a women problem for all Republicans, up and down the ballot,” one Trump-aligned GOP operative told CNN. “It starts at the top.”
Let’s face it. Trump never had much chance to win over very many women who aren’t evangelicals.
Trump’s uncertainty about how to appeal to women has been evident even in the final days of his campaign, leading to public disagreements with his staff over his messaging. At a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on Wednesday, he recounted advice from aides urging him to drop his repeated promise to be women’s “protector” because they saw it as inappropriate.
“‘Sir, please don’t say that,’” he said he was advised. “Why? I’m president. I want to protect the women of our country. Well, I’m going to do it, whether the women like it or not. I’m going to protect them,” Trump told the crowd….
Behind the scenes and on the phone with close allies, Trump will ask why women don’t like him, three sources familiar with the conversations said.
“He thinks women want someone who will keep them safe. Keep their children safe,” one of the sources said.
…[B]eyond his rallies, women do not appear to be responding to the former president’s attempts to reach them. The latest ABC News/Ipsos national poll showed Trump trailing Harris among likely female voters by 14-points – a margin that far outpaces his 6-point lead among men.
Adding to Trump’s challenges is a gender gap in early voting. In the seven most contested battleground states, women have cast 55% of ballots so far, while men account for 45%, according to Catalist, a Democratic-aligned data firm. This 10-point disparity representing nearly 1.4 million ballots, though slightly less than it was four years ago, nevertheless has Trump allies concerned.
Trump is really falling apart in embarrassing and humiliating ways. Last night he appeared to simulate oral sex during his rally in Wisconsin. He also spent about 5 minutes of one of his final chances to reach voters complaining about his microphone and threatening not to pay his audio staff.
And then there was the threatening language he used about Liz Cheney in an interview with Tucker Carlson. From the Washington Post: Trump embraces violent rhetoric, suggests Liz Cheney should have guns ‘trained on her face.’
Republican nominee Donald Trump faced a fresh controversy on Friday after he suggested former congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming) should have guns “trained on her face,” escalating his vilification of a prominent critic from within his party, as well as his use of violent imagery….
“This is how dictators destroy free nations,” Cheney, who lost her position in House Republican leadership for condemning Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021, and went on to serve as vice chair of the committee that investigated the attack on the Capitol, said Friday on social media. “They threaten those who speak against them with death. We cannot entrust our country and our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant.”
Relationship by Toshuki Fukuda
It appears that frontal lobe damage from his dementia has left Trump with absolutely no inhibitions or filter on what he will say or do in public.
Trump could face legal blowback from his remarks. 12 News Phoenix: Arizona’s top prosecutor investigating Trump’s comments about Cheney as possible death threat.
During his Glendale appearance, Trump suggested his Republican critic should face ‘nine barrels shooting at her.’
Arizona’s top prosecutor tells 12News she is investigating whether Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump violated state law by making a “death threat” against former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney during remarks Thursday night at an event in Glendale.
“I have already asked my criminal division chief to start looking at that statement, analyzing it for whether it qualifies as a death threat under Arizona’s laws,” Attorney General Mayes, a first-term Democrat, said during Friday’s taping of “Sunday Square Off.”
“I’m not prepared now to say whether it was or it wasn’t, but it is not helpful as we prepare for our election and as we try to make sure that we keep the peace at our polling places and in our state.”
We know that Trump will challenge the results if Harris wins, and there very well could be violence. The Harris campaign says they expect Trump to claim victory before all the votes are counted–as he did in 2020.
At the New York Times, Jim Rutenberg and Alan Feuer write: Trump, Preparing to Challenge the Results, Puts His 2020 Playbook Into Action.
Former President Donald J. Trump and his allies are rolling out a late-stage campaign strategy that borrows heavily from the subversive playbook he used to challenge his loss four years ago.
This time, however, he is counting on reinforcements from outside groups built on the false notion of a stolen election.
With Election Day only three days away, Mr. Trump is already claiming the Democrats are “a bunch of cheats,” as his allies in battleground states spread distorted reports of mishaps at the polls to push a narrative of widespread fraud.
Mr. Trump and his most prominent supporters have pointed to partisan polling and betting markets to claim that he is heading for a “crushing victory,” as his top surrogate Elon Musk recently put it. The expectation helps set the stage for disbelief and outrage among his supporters should he lose.
Black Cat White Cat, by Toshuki Fukuda
And in a direct echo of his failed — and, prosecutors say, illegal — bid to remain in power after the 2020 election, some of his most influential advisers are suggesting he will yet again seek to claim victory before all the votes are counted.
Such a move ushered in his efforts to deny his defeat four years ago and helped set the stage for the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
In many respects, though, the effort that led to Jan. 6 never ended.
“It’s been four years of spreading lies about elections and recruiting volunteers to challenge the system, filing litigation,’’ said Joanna Lydgate, the chief executive of States United Democracy Center, a nonprofit group that works with state officials to bolster confidence in their elections. “What we’re seeing today is all of that coming to fruition.” [….]
In a statement, Dana Remus, a top lawyer for Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign, said, “It isn’t surprising that he is already questioning the results of a still ongoing election” and added, “He failed when he tried this in 2020, and he will fail again.”
The authors note that some things are different though.
For all the similarities, there are important differences between now and 2020, some of which reassure the coalition of civil rights lawyers, Democrats, Republicans and election administrators working to prevent a repeat of 2020:
Congress has passed a new law, the Electoral Count Reform Act, meant to make it harder to stop the final certification of the results by Congress on Jan. 6, as Mr. Trump tried to do four years ago.
Mr. Trump no longer has control of the federal government — which he sought to use to press his 2020 case. In the states, there are fewer like-minded Republicans in key positions of power than there were four years ago.
Some of the loudest clarions for stolen election theories have paid heavily for circulating them, including Fox News, which last year paid Dominion Voting Systems $787 million to settle a lawsuit over the network’s promotion of false theories that Dominion’s machines had switched votes.
And the experience of 2020, along with more recent clashes over voting issues, has taught election administrators lessons about fortifying themselves against a similar effort this year.
“You have the benefit of something having happened once before,” said the Pennsylvania secretary of state, Al Schmidt, a Republican. “You learn from it to guide you moving forward.”
Another story could affect the race, although it may be too late and to complicated–the tapes of Jeffrey Epstein talking about Trump that were just revealed. It’s shocking that many in the media have been sitting on these tapes for a long time.
The Guardian: Jeffrey Epstein details close relationship with Trump in newly released tapes.
A New York author and journalist has released audio tapes that appear to detail how Donald Trump had a close social relationship with the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein that he has long denied.
The tapes, released as part of the Fire and Fury podcast series by Michael Wolff, author of three books about Trump’s first term and 2020 bid for a second, and James Truman, former NME journalist and Condé Nast editorial director, include Epstein’s thoughts about the inner workings of the former US president’s inner circle.
Wolff says the recordings were made during a 2017 discussion with Epstein about writing his biography. Epstein died by suicide while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges two years later. Despite his crimes, the wealthy financier was at the heart of a social circle of the rich and powerful in the US and overseas that contained many famous names.
Wolff claims the excerpt tape is a mere fraction of some “100 hours of Epstein talking about the inner workings of the Trump White House and about his longstanding, deep relationship with Donald Trump”….
By Tetsuhiro Wakabayashi
The Fire and Fury tapes reveal Epstein recalling how then president Trump played his circle off against each other. “His people fight each other and then he poisons the well outside,” he says.
The author names Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus and Kellyanne Conway as being among the acolytes and officials Trump played off each other like courtiers in a competitive court.
“He will tell 10 people ‘Bannon’s a scumbag’ and ‘Priebus is not doing a good job’ and ‘Kellyanne has a big mouth – what do you think?’
“‘[JPMorgan Chase CEO] Jamie Dimon says that you’re a problem and I shouldn’t keep you. And I spoke to [financier] Carl Icahn. And Carl thinks I need a new spokesperson.’”
Epstein continues his exposition of Trump’s approach to management: “So Kelly[anne] – even though I hired Kellyanne’s husband – Kellyanne is just too much of a wildcard. And then he tells Bannon: ‘You know I really want to keep you but Kellyanne hates you.’”
In response to the podcast, Karoline Leavitt, Trump campaign national press secretary, said, “Wolff is a disgraced writer who routinely fabricates lies in order to sell fiction books because he clearly has no morals or ethics” and accused the author of making “outlandish false smears” and engaging in “blatant election interference on behalf of Kamala Harris”.
This could be embarrassing for Trump, but I doubt if most voters be affected by it.
Tim Alberta has an important article at The Atlantic: Inside the Ruthless, Restless Final Days of Trump’s Campaign.
The Introduction:
At the end of June, in the afterglow of a debate performance that would ultimately prompt President Joe Biden to end his campaign for reelection, Donald Trump startled his aides by announcing that he’d come up with a new nickname for his opponent.
“The guy’s a retard. He’s retarded. I think that’s what I’ll start calling him,” Trump declared aboard his campaign plane, en route to a rally that evening, according to three people who heard him make the remarks: “Retarded Joe Biden.”
The staffers present—and, within hours, others who’d heard about the epithet secondhand—pleaded with Trump not to say this publicly. They warned him that it would antagonize the moderate voters who’d been breaking in their direction, while engendering sympathy for a politician who, at that moment, was the subject of widespread ridicule. As Trump demurred, musing that he might debut the nickname at that night’s event, his staffers puzzled over the timing. Biden was on the ropes. Polls showed Trump jumping out to the biggest lead he’d enjoyed in any of his three campaigns for the presidency. Everything was going right for the Republican Party and its nominee. Why would he jeopardize that for the sake of slinging a juvenile insult? (A campaign spokesperson, Steven Cheung, said the nickname “was never discussed and this is materially false.”)
By Toshiuki Fukuda
Over the next several days—as Trump’s aides held their breath, convinced he would debut this latest slur at any moment—they came to realize something about Trump: He was restless, unhappy, and, yes, tired of winning. For the previous 20 months, he’d been hemmed in by a campaign built on the principles of restraint and competence. The former president’s ugliest impulses were regularly curbed by his top advisers; his most obnoxious allies and most outlandish ideas were sidelined. These guardrails had produced a professional campaign—a campaign that was headed for victory. But now, like a predator toying with its wounded catch, Trump had become bored. It reminded some allies of his havoc-making decisions in the White House. Trump never had much use for calm and quiet. He didn’t appreciate normalcy. Above all, he couldn’t stand being babysat.
“People are calling this the most disciplined campaign they’ve ever seen,” Trump remarked to friends at a fundraiser this summer, according to someone who heard the conversation. He smirked at the compliment. “What’s discipline got to do with winning?”
It’s a long, detailed article. If you’re interested in reading the rest, here is a gift link.
One more before I wrap this up. Russell Payne has an interesting piece at Salon on the Congressional races: “Democrats are in a stronger position”: Election forecasters give Dems an edge in swing House races.
With much of the attention on the House gravitating towards the battleground states of New York and California, where Democrats are trying to push back GOP gains from 2022, a handful of races scattered around the country heading into Election Day could ultimately be the difference in which party holds the majority.
Logan Phillips, the founder of Race to the WH, has his eyes on a handful of races that he sees as potential flips, including the race in Maine’s Second District, Washington’s Third District and two swing districts the Pennsylvania, where he thinks might serve a bellwhethers.
In Maine’s Second District, Rep. Jared Golden, a Democrat, is defending his seat from the Republican challenger Austin Theriault. The race is closely watched because Golden has held onto the seat since defeating the incumbent Republican in 2018, even though former President Donald Trump carried the rural Second District in both 2016 and 2020. In 2022, Golden won by six points. Golden currently leads in FiveThirtyEight’s average by 1.9 points.
Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez is in a similar situation in Washington’s Third, as the freshman representative is attempting to hold onto her seat a district that also supported Trump in both 2016 and 2020. Gluesenkamp Pérez won in 2022 by less than a point. In FiveThirtyEight’s polling average, the GOP challenger, Joe Kent, leads by a point.
In general, Phillips gives Democrats a better chance of winning the chamber than other prognosticators. He currently gives Democrats a 70% chance of winning control of the chamber while most forecasters see it as a coin flip. While he cautions that he doesn’t see them as the overwhelming favorite to win, he was also among the most accurate forecasters in 2022, projecting that Republicans would win 223 seats. The GOP ended up winning 222.
“There are plenty of strong incumbents on both sides of the aisle. The reason I view democrats as favored is that Democrats have recruited stronger challengers,” Phillips said. “Democrats are in a stronger position to take on those incumbents.”
Read the rest at Salon.
That’s where things stand today. I guess a lot could happen in 3 days, but I think Harris is going to win. I hope and pray that I’m right.
I’ve been having computer problems, so I’m even later than usual in getting started today. It might be nighttime before a finish this post.
I’m so stressed out about the election! I just hope I make it until next Tuesday.
I keep telling myself that Kamala Harris will win, and I do think she will; but then we’ll have to deal with the Trumpers who won’t accept the results. Even if we get by that crisis, the Supreme Could could step in. She has to win by 4 or 5 points so they can’t justify handing the presidency to Trump.
Fortunately, Trump hasn’t exactly helped his case over the past week.
Here’s the latest election news and views:
Timothy O’Brien at Bloomberg: Trump Has No Regrets About Garden Bile, Even If It Sinks Him.
Two full days have passed since Donald Trump presided over a Madison Square Garden rally meant to illuminate the high notes of his presidential campaign. In that regard, it was extraordinarily successful.
After all, the torrent of bigotry, hostility, upheaval, misogyny, lunacy, fratboy antics, propaganda, dread and racism that flowed out of the gathering have been Trump’s animating themes ever since he vaulted onto the political stage more than nine years ago.
Anyone watching the bonfire in the Garden got a visceral understanding of Trump’s worldview. So, mission accomplished. Educating and recruiting new voters, and reminding those already committed why they’ve climbed aboard, is a primary goal of any campaign. Sunday’s rally was a handy primer about what Trump is fighting for — and the former president and his fellow speakers were transparent about what they’re up to. Three cheers for honesty.
Bedlam, fascism and racism aren’t attractive calling cards for every voter, however, and Republican strategists who have tried putting Trump on a less frightening path certainly didn’t want the Garden’s narrative to define their candidate with Election Day fast approaching. Limited government, America first, tax cuts, deregulation, patriotism, prosperity and other varieties of spinach were on their preferred menu.
But questions about a long list of grotesqueries harvested from the Garden are now consuming the Trump campaign and may have significantly weakened its electoral odds. Team Trump couldn’t have anticipated that Fright Night at the Garden would wind up being a potentially debilitating October Surprise, but here we are. Three cheers for karma.
I like to think that most people would be horrified by the prospect of being publicly savaged for fomenting racism and chaos — and for hosting a Garden lineup that included shock-jock Tucker Carlson wrapping Kamala Harris in a shroud of plantation bigotry and a C-list “comedian” quipping that Puerto Rico is a “floating island of garbage.” Trump rolls without regret, however. He has had multiple opportunities to change course, disavow or apologize for the bile on display at the Garden, but he hasn’t done so — including on Tuesday during a nationally broadcast press conference in Palm Beach, Florida, and at a rally later in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Read the rest at Bloomberg. I didn’t encounter a paywall on this one.
Trump held a so-called “press conference” (he didn’t take questions) yesterday in Florida. I think his advisers told him to do damage control on his hate rally. Politico: Trump doesn’t address NY rally backlash in winding Mar-a-Lago event.
PALM BEACH, Florida — Donald Trump during remarks on Tuesday didn’t acknowledge that there was any backlash over a comedian who made disparaging comments about Puerto Rico at a recent rally in New York City.
“The love in that room, it was breathtaking — and you could have filled it many many times with the people that were unable to get in,” he said of his Sunday rally at Madison Square Garden.
Trump told ABC News’ Rachel Scott before the press conference that he wasn’t familiar with the comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.”
“I don’t know him, someone put him up there. I don’t know who he is,” he told ABC News.
His speech on Tuesday before an audience of hundreds of supporters in South Florida largely appeared to be geared toward counter-messaging the campaign rally Vice President Kamala Harris had set for Tuesday evening. The vice president is expected to deliver the closing message of her campaign on the Ellipse just off the National Mall in D.C.
Since Trump’s rally Sunday — when Hinchcliffe and other speakers at the event made racist and vulgar comments — Puerto Ricans, Democrats and Republicans have condemned the speakers and defended the island. Trump has not publicly condemned the comments, while Puerto Ricans, including the archbishop of San Juan and the Republican chair of the island, have called on the former president to apologize though he has not done so.
People of Puerto Rican descent in the key swing state of Pennsylvania, who number more than 450,000, have also denounced the comedian’s comments and some are planning to protest Trump’s rally Tuesday night in Allentown, which has one of the largest populations of Puerto Ricans in the state.
Trump called Harris’ political operation a “campaign of hate” and said President Joe Biden had been “out of it for a long time.” He did not take any questions from the media after speaking for about an hour and tore into some Democrats who’d compared his rally to Nazi Germany.
He also called the MSG rally a “love fest.” NBC New York: Trump says insult-riddled Madison Square Garden rally was a ‘lovefest.’
Urged by some allies to apologize for racist comments made by speakers at his weekend rally, Donald Trump took the opposite approach on Tuesday, saying it was an “honor to be involved” in such an event and calling the scene a “lovefest” — the same term he has used to describe the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Trump gathered supporters and reporters to his Mar-a-Lago resort two days after a massive rally at Madison Square Garden featured a number of crude remarks by various speakers, including a set by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe in which he joked that Puerto Rico was a “floating island of garbage.” Some of Trump’s top Republican allies have condemned the remarks, and his campaign took the rare step of publicly distancing itself from Hinchcliffe’s joke, though not the other comments.
But given the opportunity to apologize at multiple events and in interviews Tuesday, Trump instead leaned in. Speaking at his Florida resort, he said that “there’s never been an event so beautiful” as his Sunday rally in his hometown of New York.
“The love in that room. It was breathtaking,” he said. “It was like a lovefest, an absolute lovefest. And it was my honor to be involved.”
On Tuesday night, he told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that he knows nothing about Hinchcliffe but said, “I can’t imagine it’s a big deal.” He later agreed, though, that “probably he shouldn’t have been there.”
Sorry, Donald. It was a big fucking deal.
Scene at the Ellipse
Last night, Kamala Harris made her closing argument at the Ellipse–the same spot at which Trump incited the January 6 attack on the Capitol. The Independent: Harris campaign says 75,000 people at Ellipse speech – 22,000 more than Trump’s Jan 6 crowd at same spot.
Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign claimed she drew a crowd of more than 75,000 people in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday to hear her speech at the Ellipse, the site of Donald Trump’s infamous 2021 speech exhorting supporters to “fight like hell” in the moments just before the January 6 Capitol riot.
If its own early estimate is to be believed, the Harris event drew about 22,000 more people than the Trump speech, whose crowd was estimated by the House committee investigating the Capitol riot to be about 53,000 people….
Speaking at the Ellipse, a park between the White House and the National Mall, Harris sought to paint a clear contrast between herself and her Republican opponent and offer a “closing argument” to voters.
“America, we know what Donald Trump has in mind. More chaos. More division. And policies that help those at the very top and hurt everyone else. I offer a different path. And I ask for your vote,” Harris told the crowd.
“And here is my pledge to you: I pledge to seek common ground and common sense solutions to make your lives better,” she added. “I am not looking to score political points. I am looking to make progress.”
The message could not be more different than Trump’s speech at the site, where he made false claims about the election and railed against Republicans who would not go along with his plan to halt the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 win.
Though Trump told supporters to “peacefully and patriotically” make their voices heard, the Republican also used the speech to pressure his vice president, Mike Pence, to suspend the certification and called on MAGA fans to “fight like hell” to preserve their country.
The Hill: Harris on Ellipse: Time to turn the page on Trump.
Vice President Harris delivered a speech Tuesday on the White House Ellipse in Washington, D.C. — the very site at which former President Trump gave remarks to a crowd that later incited a riot at the Capitol.
Harris spoke to a fired-up audience that numbered in the tens of thousands, invoking many of the same warnings she’s made on the campaign trail about Trump in her speech —that he is a threat to democracy and is consumed by his grievances and desire for retribution.
She encouraged the crowd and voters to move on from the Trump political era — and rounded out her speech by calling him a “petty tyrant.”
“We have to stop pointing fingers and start locking arms. It is time to turn the page on the drama and the conflict, the fear and division. It is time for a new generation in America, and I am ready to offer that leadership as the next president of the United States of America,” Harris said.
Harris was flanked for her speech by large blue USA signs on either side of her with the White House lit up in the background. The Harris campaign estimated 75,000 people were on the National Mall just before she arrived.
Harris later in her speech said that patriots throughout history “did not struggle, sacrifice, and lay down their lives, only to see us cede our fundamental freedoms, only to see us submit to the will of another petty tyrant.”
“The United States of America is not a vessel for the schemes of wannabe dictators. The United States of America is the greatest idea humanity ever devised,” the vice president said.
Amanda Marcotte at Salon: “Obsessed with revenge”: In dual rallies, Trump celebrated fascism, but Kamala exposed its true face.
In the days since Donald Trump‘s hate-filled rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday, what’s striking is the pettiness of the stakes MAGA defenders have laid out. In the final days of a dead-heat contest for the most powerful office in the world, Republicans argued we must elect a textbook fascist to protect the sacrosanct right of a white man to be rude without being criticized for it.
Most of the racist diatribes at Trump’s New York City rally were not jokes. But the comments getting the most media attention — especially calling Puerto Ricans “garbage” — were offered up in a joke-like cadence by podcast host Tony Hinchcliffe. This has allowed MAGA to pretend we’re having a national debate about tastefulness, rather than fascism. Hinchcliffe said liberals have “no sense of humor.” Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, said others should “stop getting so offended.”
Trump, however, dispensed with the fiction that we are debating the subjective quality of humor. At a Tuesday press conference, he simply reified the true MAGA belief at stake: that Trump and his allies get to say what they want, and everyone else must shut up about it. This mostly came in the form of griping that Michelle Obama was allowed to criticize him: “Obama, his wife was very nasty to me. That was not nice.” [….]
Vance did not ask Trump to “stop getting so offended.” [….]
One would hope that it’s self-evident that “revenge on liberals for not liking me” is both a pathetic and short-sighted justification for voting for a wannabe dictator with a criminal rap sheet the size of a Russian novel. But with the polls so tight, that’s apparently not the case. So Harris made her closing argument Tuesday night from an evocative location that underscored the actual stakes of the election: The Ellipse in Washington D.C. where Trump incited the January 6 insurrection.
MAGA spite might right now manifest mainly as racist trolling or bottomless bellyaching, she warned, but there’s real danger in putting a man “consumed with grievance” into the White House. “He is the person who stood at this very spot nearly four years ago and sent an armed mob to the United States Capitol to overturn the will of the people in a free and fair election,” she began. She noted that Trump has threatened “to use the United States military against American citizens who simply disagree with him” and “put them in jail.” For those who might scoff that Trump actually means these things, the location spoke for itself. It was less than four years ago that Trump stood at that same spot and sent a murderous mob after members of Congress and his vice president as punishment for not stealing an election for him.
Read the rest at Salon.
Unfortunately, Joe Biden made one of his trademarked gaffes yesterday, and the media are breathlessly reporting that he called Trump’s supporters “garbage.” The clip that Trumpers are circulating was edited though. The Guardian reports: Biden says ‘garbage’ remark was aimed at comedian, not Trump supporters.
Joe Biden put out a statement that he had “meant to say” earlier on Tuesday that a pro-Trump comedian’s “hateful rhetoric” about Puerto Rico was “garbage”. But in a video clip edited to a shorter version and already widely circulating on social media Tuesday evening, a phrase that came out of Biden’s mouth was “the only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters”.
Republican politicians and rightwing media outlets quickly picked up the clip to argue that Biden had called Trump’s supporters garbage, comparing his remarks to Hillary Clinton’s labeling of half of Trump supporters as belonging in “a basket of deplorables” in 2016, a comment that is widely seen as undermining her campaign.
Earlier today I referred to the hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump’s supporter at his Madison Square Garden rally as garbage—which is the only word I can think of to describe it. His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable. That’s all I meant to say. The…
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) October 30, 2024
Biden’s full comments on Tuesday are somewhat garbled, and some journalists transcribing the remarks argued that Biden really did seem to be trying to refer to comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s remarks, not all of Trump’s supporters, while others reported that the president had indeed suggested that Trump supporters themselves were garbage.
Biden’s comment came during a Zoom call with Voto Latino, in which Biden referred to Hinchcliffe’s comments and said the Puerto Ricans he knows are “good, decent, honorable, people. The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s – his – his demonization of things is unconscionable, and it’s un-American, and it’s totally contrary to everything we’ve done.” But it wasn’t entirely clear whether he had said the singular “supporter’s” or the plural “supporters”, describing Trump’s base more broadly.
In the official transcript of Biden’s remarks released on Tuesday night by the White House press office, the comment has an apostrophe: “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s – his – his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.”Nevertheless, Harris addressed the firestorm.
Nevertheless, Harris addressed the tempest in a teapot. CBS News: Harris “strongly” disagrees with criticism of people “based on who they vote for,” after Biden’s “garbage” comment.
Vice President Kamala Harris says she “strongly” disagrees with “any criticism of people based on who they vote for,” after President Biden on Tuesday made remarks in which he appeared to call Trump supporters “garbage” on a video call with Latino activists. Republicans seized on the comment, while the White House offered a different explanation of what Mr. Biden had said, and the president tweeted a clarification of his comment.
“Let me be clear, I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for,” Harris told reporters Wednesday morning, when she was asked about Mr. Biden’s “garbage” comment. “You heard my speech last night and continuously throughout my career: I believe that the work that I do is about representing all the people, whether they support me or not. And as president of the United States, I will be a president for all Americans, whether you vote for me or not.”
I’ll close by recommending two other important articles, one on the abortion issue, and the other on what could happen if Trump wins.
ProPublica: A Texas Woman Died After the Hospital Said It Would be a “Crime” to Intervene in Her Miscarriage.
Josseli Barnica grieved the news as she lay in a Houston hospital bed on Sept. 3, 2021: The sibling she’d dreamt of giving her daughter would not survive this pregnancy.
The fetus was on the verge of coming out, its head pressed against her dilated cervix; she was 17 weeks pregnant and a miscarriage was “in progress,” doctors noted in hospital records. At that point, they should have offered to speed up the delivery or empty her uterus to stave off a deadly infection, more than a dozen medical experts told ProPublica.
But when Barnica’s husband rushed to her side from his job on a construction site, she relayed what she said the medical team had told her: “They had to wait until there was no heartbeat,” he told ProPublica in Spanish. “It would be a crime to give her an abortion.”
For 40 hours, the anguished 28-year-old mother prayed for doctors to help her get home to her daughter; all the while, her uterus remained exposed to bacteria.
Three days after she delivered, Barnica died of an infection.
Barnica is one of at least two Texas women who ProPublica found lost their lives after doctors delayed treating miscarriages, which fall into a gray area under the state’s strict abortion laws that prohibit doctors from ending the heartbeat of a fetus.
Neither had wanted an abortion, but that didn’t matter. Though proponents insist that the laws protect both the life of the fetus and the person carrying it, in practice, doctors have hesitated to provide care under threat of prosecution, prison time and professional ruin.
ProPublica is telling these women’s stories this week, starting with Barnica’s. Her death was “preventable,” according to more than a dozen medical experts who reviewed a summary of her hospital and autopsy records at ProPublica’s request; they called her case “horrific,” “astounding” and “egregious.”
Read the rest at ProPublica.
Rick Perlstein at The American Prospect: What Will You Do? Life-changing choices we may be forced to make if Donald Trump wins.
What will you do if men in uniforms arrive in your neighborhood, and an immigrant neighbor gets a knock on the door and is led away in handcuffs?
Or if the uniforms are not police uniforms, and there is not even a knock?
What if the knock is for your daughter, and they’re coming for her because of a pill that she took? Will you open the door?
Or if your teenage granddaughter, alone and afraid, calls you and begs you to drive her to a state where abortion is legal? Your governor has signed a bill making such “abortion trafficking” illegal, stipulating a penalty of 15 years.
What will you do if you’re called to serve on the jury hearing the grandmother’s case? She is guilty beyond a hint of a reasonable doubt; no way around that. Do you vote to convict her, or do you hold out against 11 of your peers?
LET’S SAY YOU ARE AN ATTORNEY in North Carolina, working out of your home. You sometimes serve as a court-appointed lawyer. Mysterious figures from something called “Gov Ops” appear at your door and claim power to rifle through your files without a warrant or any deference to attorney-client privilege.
They do not say what they are looking for. It could be public records proving government malfeasance, or private medical records of a client seeking an abortion, or communications involving legislative redistricting, or anything else they want to take. This is all because of a provision snuck into the state budget by the Republican legislative leadership that authorizes this new secret police force to seize “any document or system of record” from anyone who does work for the state. You are also advised that if you say anything about this raid to anyone, you will be breaking the law.
What if you work in the North Carolina legislature, and your boss hands you a document to shred? It shows him to have broken the law. Given that the same budget provision lets any legislator unilaterally decide whether to “retain, destroy, sell, loan, or otherwise dispose of” any public record, what is your choice? [….]
WHAT IF YOU ARE IN THE ARMY, and are ordered to the border to transport children to deportation camps? Or shoot peaceful protesters?
What if you are a law enforcement officer ordered to arrest more Black people by a city administration that fears federal intervention should the police fall below a certain quota of minority arrests? After all, Project 2025 recommends that local officials face “legal action” if they “deny American citizens the ‘equal protection of the laws’ by refusing to prosecute criminal offenses in their jurisdictions,” and refuse to arrest “those who … actually commit crimes.”
What will you do if you are a federal prison guard shipped from Texas to police a protest in some faraway city, and are ordered not to identify yourself, nor wear any identifying badge? [….]
DONALD TRUMP SAID, BEFORE A JEWISH AUDIENCE this past September 19, that “the Jewish people would have a lot to do” with his loss, if he loses. Let’s say Donald Trump loses. You are a rabbi leading a congregation with prominent Trump supporters among its members. Now, for the Sabbath after the election, you have a sermon to write, which some of those members will be present to hear. Meanwhile, strange, scary men have been seen lurking about the grounds.
What do you say?
There’s much more, and it’s terrifying; but I think it’s important to read the whole thing.
That’s all I have for you today. Take care everyone and vote!
Yesterday, Dakinikat wrote about the shameful abdication of responsibility by the owners of the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post. The Times’s Patrick Soon-Shiong and the Post’s Jeff Bezos interfered with the plans of their editorial boards in fear of what another Trump presidency could mean to their bottom lines. Both owners decreed that their newspapers would not endorse a candidate for president in 2024.
At The Wrap, Ross A. Lincoln has a piece on the extensive project that the LA Times owner chose to shut down: LA Times Planned ‘Case Against Trump’ Series Alongside Kamala Harris Endorsement Before Owner Quashed It | Exclusive.
Alongside its endorsement of Kamala Harris, the Los Angeles Times editorial board had also planned a multi-part series against Donald Trump before the whole thing was quashed by owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, TheWrap has learned.
According to internal memos viewed by TheWrap, the series, tentatively called “The Case Against Trump,” would have ran throughout this week. The endorsement of Kamala Harris would then have been published on Sunday.
However, Soon-Shiong ordered the cancellation 0f the series and the endorsement without explanation, current and now former staffers have confirmed, setting off a massive crisis for the 142-year-old paper.
The South African-American billionaire’s interference in his paper’s editorial independence has sparked a rise in canceled subscriptions and several high profile resignations, and there are also signs of growing unrest among staffers.
On Thursday, editorial writer Karin Klein, and Pulitzer Prize-winner Robert Greene, both quit. They followed Editorial Editor Mariel Garza, who resigned in protest on Wednesday. Both Klein and Garza have specifically cited Soon-Shiong’s actions as the reason for their exits.
The owner “vetoed the editorial board’s plan to endorse Kamala Harris for president,” Garza said in her resignation letter. And alluding to the fact that the LA Times has endorsed multiple local/state level candidates, she said canceling the Harris endorsement “undermines the integrity of the editorial board and every single endorsement we make, down to school board races.”
“People will justifiably wonder if each endorsement was a decision made by a group of journalists after extensive research and discussion, or through decree by the owner,” she added.
In a dissembling statement of his own posted Wednesday on the social media site formerly called Twitter, Soon-Shiong blamed the editorial team itself for the lack of an endorsement, yet also essentially confirmed he had in fact shut it down. He said the board “was provided the opportunity” to effectively draw false equivalence between Trump and Harris in op-eds laying out the pros and cons of each candidate.
“Instead of adopting this path as suggested, the editorial board chose to remain silent and I accepted their decision,” Soon-Shiong concluded.
“We pitched an endorsement and were not allowed to write one,” Garza shot back in a statement exclusively provided to TheWrap. And Klein, who also called Soon-Shiong a “chickens—,” stated plainly in a note explaining her resignation that “the board was not the one choosing to remain silent. He blocked our voice.”
This is what happens when billionaires control our media.
The Washington Post’s betrayal of their staff and their readers is getting the most attention, because of the newspaper’s long history of speaking truth to power. For example, without the Post’s reporting, Richard Nixon might not have been forced to resign.
When Marty Baron was editor in chief, he inserted the phrase “democracy dies in darkness” at the top of The Washington Post’s front page. Well, the Post has now died and officially no longer supports democracy. The Boston Globe: Former Washington Post editor Marty Baron slams newspaper for not making presidential endorsement.
Marty Baron, the former editor of the Washington Post, blasted the newspaper on Friday for declining to issue an endorsement in this year’s presidential election, framing the decision as a win for Republican nominee Donald J. Trump.
“This is cowardice, with democracy as its casualty,” Baron, also the former editor of the Boston Globe, wrote on X. “@realdonaldtrump will see this as an invitation to further intimidate owner @jeffbezos (and others). Disturbing spinelessness at an institution famed for courage.” [….]
Baron’s message followed an announcement from Post publisher William Lewis that the newspaper is “returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates.”
The Post, which is owned by Amazon.com co-founder Jeff Bezos, had drafted an endorsement for Vice President Kamala Harris, Oliver Darcy reported on his newsletter Status. Top editorial page editors at the Los Angeles Times resigned this week after the newspaper’s owner, billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, blocked a planned endorsement for Harris.
Baron led the Globe newsroom from 2001 to 2012 before taking the helm at the Post. He retired in 2021.
From members of the Post’s opinion page: Opinion:Post columnists respond.
The Washington Post’s decision not to make an endorsement in the presidential campaign is a terrible mistake. It represents an abandonment of the fundamental editorial convictions of the newspaper that we love. This is a moment for the institution to be making clear its commitment to democratic values, the rule of law and international alliances, and the threat that Donald Trump poses to them — the precise points The Post made in endorsing Trump’s opponents in 2016 and 2020. There is no contradiction between The Post’s important role as an independent newspaper and its practice of making political endorsements, both as a matter of guidance to readers and as a statement of core beliefs. That has never been more true than in the current campaign. An independent newspaper might someday choose to back away from making presidential endorsements. But this isn’t the right moment, when one candidate is advocating positions that directly threaten freedom of the press and the values of the Constitution.
Karen Attiah
Matt Bai
Max Boot
Kate Cohen
E.J. Dionne Jr.
Lee Hockstader
David Ignatius
Heather Long
Ruth Marcus
Dana Milbank
Alexandra Petri
Catherine Rampell
Eugene Robinson
Jennifer Rubin
Karen Tumulty
Erik Wemple
At least The New York Times allowed their editorial board to endorse Harris: The Only Patriotic Choice for President.
It is hard to imagine a candidate more unworthy to serve as president of the United States than Donald Trump. He has proved himself morally unfit for an office that asks its occupant to put the good of the nation above self-interest. He has proved himself temperamentally unfit for a role that requires the very qualities — wisdom, honesty, empathy, courage, restraint, humility, discipline — that he most lacks.
Windy Day, Jamie Shelman
Those disqualifying characteristics are compounded by everything else that limits his ability to fulfill the duties of the president: his many criminal charges, his advancing age, his fundamental lack of interest in policy and his increasingly bizarre cast of associates.
This unequivocal, dispiriting truth — Donald Trump is not fit to be president — should be enough for any voter who cares about the health of our country and the stability of our democracy to deny him re-election.
For this reason, regardless of any political disagreements voters might have with her, Kamala Harris is the only patriotic choice for president.
Most presidential elections are, at their core, about two different visions of America that emerge from competing policies and principles. This one is about something more foundational. It is about whether we invite into the highest office in the land a man who has revealed, unmistakably, that he will degrade the values, defy the norms and dismantle the institutions that have made our country strong.
As a dedicated public servant who has demonstrated care, competence and an unwavering commitment to the Constitution, Ms. Harris stands alone in this race. She may not be the perfect candidate for every voter, especially those who are frustrated and angry about our government’s failures to fix what’s broken — from our immigration system to public schools to housing costs to gun violence. Yet we urge Americans to contrast Ms. Harris’s record with her opponent’s.
The case for Harris:
Ms. Harris is more than a necessary alternative. There is also an optimistic case for elevating her, one that is rooted in her policies and borne out by her experience as vice president, a senator and a state attorney general.
Over the past 10 weeks, Ms. Harris has offered a shared future for all citizens, beyond hate and division. She has begun to describe a set of thoughtful plans to help American families.
While character is enormously important — in this election, pre-eminently so — policies matter. Many Americans remain deeply concerned about their prospects and their children’s in an unstable and unforgiving world. For them, Ms. Harris is clearly the better choice. She has committed to using the power of her office to help Americans better afford the things they need, to make it easier to own a home, to support small businesses and to help workers. Mr. Trump’s economic priorities are more tax cuts, which would benefit mostly the wealthy, and more tariffs, which will make prices even more unmanageable for the poor and middle class.
Beyond the economy, Ms. Harris promises to continue working to expand access to health care and reduce its cost. She has a long record of fighting to protect women’s health and reproductive freedom. Mr. Trump spent years trying to dismantle the Affordable Care Act and boasts of picking the Supreme Court justices who ended the constitutional right to an abortion.
Globally, Ms. Harris would work to maintain and strengthen the alliances with like-minded nations that have long advanced American interests abroad and maintained the nation’s security. Mr. Trump — who has long praised autocrats like Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orban and Kim Jong-un — has threatened to blow those democratic alliances apart. Ms. Harris recognizes the need for global solutions to the global problem of climate change and would continue President Biden’s major investments in the industries and technologies necessary to achieve that goal. Mr. Trump rejects the accepted science, and his contempt for low-carbon energy solutions is matched only by his trollish fealty to fossil fuels.
As for immigration, a huge and largely unsolved issue, the former president continues to demonize and dehumanize immigrants, while Ms. Harris at least offers hope for a compromise, long denied by Congress, to secure the borders and return the nation to a sane immigration system.
There’s more at the link.
Commentary on these stunning events:
Dan Froomkin at Salon: Billionaires have broken media: Washington Post’s non-endorsement is a sickening moral collapse.
The shocking decision by The Washington Post not to make an endorsement in the presidential election — breaking with a decadeslong tradition — is an extremely powerful statement. A non-endorsement says Donald Trump is a reasonable choice.
It says: We are so terrified of a Trump presidency that we are bending the knee in advance. Most importantly, it makes clear that owner Jeff Bezos doesn’t want to lose government business in a second Trump administration.
I can’t imagine statements any more inappropriate from the newspaper of Watergate, the newspaper I spent 12 years working my ass off for. It’s heartbreaking. It makes me sick to my stomach.
To be clear: Every self-respecting journalist on both the news and opinion sides should be sounding the alarm about a possible second term for Trump. He poses a threat to democracy and a free press. On the news side, that requires brutally honest coverage of the threats Trump presents, with no false equating of the two parties — one of which has rejected reality and democratic values. The Post newsroom is hit or miss on that count. But on the editorial page, this shouldn’t have been a close call (and reportedly wasn’t, until Bezos got involved)….
The very opposite of sounding the alarm is throwing up your hands and saying “well, you decide.”
The Post’s decision Friday comes just days after the Los Angeles Times also decided to forgo an official endorsement. This is no coincidence. Both papers are owned by billionaires whose business and personal interests are paramount.
“I think my fear is, if we chose either one, that it would just add to the division,” the billionaire owner of the LA Times, Patrick Soon-Shiong, told Spectrum News this week.
This makes it more clear than ever: You cannot be a truly independent news organization if you are owned by an oligarch.
No kidding. This disaster has been developing for decades as the media has become more and more centralized and controlled by corporations.
Jonathan V. Last at The Bulwark: The Guardrails Are Already Crumpling.
ON FRIDAY AFTERNOON, the Washington Post announced that it would not be making an endorsement in the presidential race. After that, a number of things happened very quickly.
First, the paper’s former executive editor Marty Baron called the decision “cowardice.”
Second, at least one senior Post opinion writer resigned.
Third, it was leaked that the editor of the editorial page had already drafted the paper’s endorsement of Kamala Harris when publisher Will Lewis—who is a new hire, hailing from the Rupert Murdoch journalism tree—quashed it and then released a CYA statement about how the paper was “returning to its roots” of not endorsing candidates. The Post itself reported that the decision was made by the paper’s owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
Everything about this story feels like a tempest in a teapot, a boiling story about legacy media fretting over itself in the mirror.
It’s not.
It’s a situation analogous to what we saw in Russia in the early 2000s: We are witnessing the surrender of the American business community to Donald Trump.
By Evelyn Sarah
No one cares about the Washington Post’s presidential endorsement. It will not move a single vote. The only people who care about newspaper editorial page endorsements are newspaper editorial writers.
No one really cares all that much about the future of the Washington Post, either. I mean, I care about it, because I care about journalism and I respect the institution.
But this isn’t a journalism story. It’s a business story.
Following Trump’s 2016 victory, the Post leaned hard into its role as a guardian of democracy. This meant criticizing, and reporting aggressively on, Trump, who responded by threatening Bezos’s various business interests.
And that’s what this story is about: It’s about the most consequential American entrepreneur of his generation signaling his submission to Trump—and the message that sends to every other corporation and business leader in the country. In the world.
Killing this editorial says, If Jeff Bezos has to be nice to Trump, then so do you. Keep your nose clean, bub.
Read on for Last’s comparison of what is happening here to Vladimir Putin’s consolidation of power in Russia.
Benjamin Wittes at The Bulwark: The Washington Post Bends the Knee to Trump.
I NEVER EXPECTED TO SEE THE DAY when the Washington Post would kneel before Donald Trump.
These are not Senate Republicans or conservative donors. This is not a group of people who cower in the face of authoritarianism. The Post editorial board, the writers who write anonymous opinion essays in the name of the paper itself, is a group of bold, pro-democracy intellectuals who have traditionally taken—individually and collectively—courageous stands about democracy and human rights around the world.
The Post’s editorial page is also the institution in which I grew up professionally. I worked there for nearly a decade under both of the last two long-time editorial page editors, Fred Hiatt and Meg Greenfield. It is an institution I revere.
And it is one that has not previously wavered with respect to Trumpist authoritarianism.
Yet today we learn that the editorial board has been stripped of its authority to endorse presidential candidates, having previously decided to endorse Kamala Harris. Instead, the paper announced in a statement from the publisher, William Lewis, that “The Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election. Nor in any future presidential election. We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates.” [….]
…[T]he Post kneels without offering a word of praise for Trump. It’s just that, for high-minded reasons that it doesn’t really bother to specify, it’s getting out of this whole presidential endorsement business altogether. That was its traditional position, it archly informs us, back in the good old days before Watergate sent the Post on an aberrant jag. And, you see, while it’s perfectly understandable why the Post betrayed its high-minded above-it-allness in the wake of Nixon—when emotions were running high and all—having thought about it, it’s time to once again remove ourselves to the heights of Olympus where we can peer down on the foibles of mortals:
We recognize that this will be read in a range of ways, including as a tacit endorsement of one candidate, or as a condemnation of another, or as an abdication of responsibility. That is inevitable. We don’t see it that way. We see it as consistent with the values The Post has always stood for and what we hope for in a leader: character and courage in service to the American ethic, veneration for the rule of law, and respect for human freedom in all its aspects. We also see it as a statement in support of our readers’ ability to make up their own minds on this, the most consequential of American decisions—whom to vote for as the next president.
Yet it is a submission nonetheless: One week before the mortals finish voting and might elect an authoritarian, one whose former chief of staff calls him a fascist, the Washington Post has decided that silence is the best way to guide its readers.
Silence, after all, will not offend the authoritarian should he win. Silence, after all, is more than Trump can reasonably expect from the Post. Democracy may die in darkness, as the Post’s motto goes, but silence is apparently a good hedge.
Read the rest at the Bulwark.
Tomorrow, Trump will hold a rally in Madison Square Garden, site of the famous 1939 American Nazi rally.
ABC News: Trump to rally in iconic Madison Square Garden.
In the final week of his campaign, former President Donald Trump will cross off a campaign bucket-list item on Sunday: a rally in the iconic Madison Square Garden. The avid Broadway enthusiast will deliver a matinee performance, complete with musical guests and a host of Republican allies.
It’s a moment Trump has long said he wanted to have in the state where he has faced criminal and civil trials, becoming a convicted felon and mounted a business empire.
“I think it’ll be a great time, and it’s going to be really a celebration of the whole thing, you know, because it’s coming to an end a few days after that. The campaigning; I won’t campaign anymore. Then I’ll be campaigning to make America great,” Trump said about the upcoming Madison Square Garden rally during a local radio interview with Cats & Cosby on Thursday….
In an arena format symbolizing confidence and celebrity status, Trump’s appearance will serve as his closing argument. In contrast, Vice President Kamala Harris makes hers on the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., where Trump spoke on Jan. 6, 2021, ahead of the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The former president, reminiscent of the last nine years campaigning for the highest office in the land, has coined the event as a “celebration of the whole thing.”
“Well, it’s New York, but it’s also sort of, it’s the end of my campaigning. When you think, I mean, I’ve done it now for nine years, we’ve had two great elections. One was better than the other,” Trump said.
On Sunday, Trump will be joined by several surrogates who have appeared with him on the campaign trail — including North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and Vivek Ramaswamy. House Speaker Mike Johnson, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Conference Chair Elise Stefanik will also be in attendance as well as several family members and donors.
Supposedly Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk will also be there.
Eric Bradner at CNN: Madison Square Garden versus the White House Ellipse: where Trump and Harris are making their final pitches.
Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have honed their closing arguments – and now they’re both turning to famous venues to try to help those messages break through just 10 days from Election Day.
The former president is returning to his hometown on Sunday for a rally in one of New York City’s most iconic landmarks, Madison Square Garden. Two days later, the vice president is holding an event at the Ellipse, the park just outside the South Lawn of the White House, where Trump’s fiery speech nearly four years ago set in motion the attack on the US Capitol.
The two events could deliver key moments in a race that is on a razor’s edge, with CNN’s final nationwide poll showing each candidate with the support of 47% of likely voters.
Both campaigns are urging supporters to cast their ballots early and attempting to reach the vanishingly small pools of undecided voters – or those who know which candidate they prefer but are not sure whether they will vote.
Harris and Trump have made clear the issues they’re highlighting in the campaign’s last days. Harris is leaning into her support for abortion rights, a political winner for Democrats since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. She’s also contrasting her character with Trump’s – a strategy aimed at reaching independents and moderate Republicans.
“Either you have the choice of a Donald Trump, who will sit in the Oval Office stewing, plotting revenge, retribution, writing out his enemies list,” she told reporters Thursday, “or what I will be doing, which is responding to folks, like the folks last night, with a to-do list.”
Trump is hammering the vice president on border security, using dehumanizing language aimed at undocumented immigrants as he focuses on an issue that’s been at the core of his political identity for all three of his presidential runs. It’s part of his broader case that Democrats in four years have undercut the stability and economic successes of his tenure in the Oval Office.
The goals of the two candidates for the rest of the campaign:
In staging a rally at Madison Square Garden, Trump is betting on his own showmanship and celebrity – expecting he can fill the arena in the deep-blue city and hoping that the spectacle will reach television and phone screens in all seven battleground states.
Previewing the final sprint to Election Day, a senior Harris campaign official said to “expect to see more” of the vice president invoking the former president’s description of political opponents as “enemies within” while also describing the race as a decision between Trump’s “enemies list” and her own “to-do list.”
Her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, also deployed that framing for the first time Thursday, as he campaigned in North Carolina.
“She’s got a to-do list. He’s got an enemies list,” Walz said.
Harris’ star-studded rally Thursday night in Georgia – her first campaign appearance with former President Barack Obama, and one that featured several other celebrities – kicked off what the senior campaign official described as the homing in of the campaign’s closing argument. That argument illustrates what a Harris administration would look like compared with the threat Harris says Trump poses, the official said.
The vice president continued that celebrity-fueled push Friday night in Texas – a rare visit to a state that is not a presidential battleground.
I’m going to end there. I will add some other interesting stories in the comment thread. Take care everyone!
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