Kamala Harris, Protagonist
Shortly before the debate started (I watched it after it was over, after getting some sleep), I tweeted that I wasn’t sure if journalists would even notice if Kamala Harris’ obvious efforts to get under Trump’s skin didn’t work.
There are so few journos who seem to understand (or be interested in) VP’s efforts to get under Trump’s skin, I’m not sure we’ll see a piece abt what happens if that effort fails.
The tweet is most interesting, in retrospect, as a record of my shock that so few experts understood Kamala Harris’ plan.
I first laid it out two weeks earlier. “I don’t think that even the outlets that recognize the troll are giving the Kamala Harris campaign enough credit for the jujitsu they’re engaged in with the debate,” I said in a post on how the Vice President’s campaign was deliberately pushing on Trump’s impulse control problems. My preview yesterday attempted to correct the misimpression that Harris was asking for open mics out of some sense of insecurity, before I noted that releasing a video of Trump’s top aides calling him unfit and another video mocking his obsession with crowd sizes made her plan clear.
There has been far less focus — or just as often, outright misunderstanding — on Harris’ efforts to make a Trump meltdown more likely. I’ve argued that was one purpose of Brian Fallon’s very public effort to get ABC to allow live mics. Even though the effort failed, it sets up a focus on the worries from Trump’s own handlers that he’ll lose his cool.
And yesterday and today, Harris has taken steps to make that more likely.
I’m not entirely sure what ABC did with the mics, because you could hear both at various times. Indeed, one of Trump’s biggest zingers, a preplanned one, came when he repeated her line back to her, “I’m speaking now.”
But the Vice President did with her animated, often mocking facial expressions what she might have done with an open mic in any case. She kept the camera on her, the entire time. And more often than not, even her facial expressions conveyed far more than Trump’s rants did.
Nate Silver and Frank Luntz both claimed that Harris failed the visuals, but here’s a good Bulwark post laying out how she beat Trump at his own TV game, and NYT framed the way she dismantled Trump’s ego in terms of her expressions. Something important Harris’ team did was force ABC to provide a podium sized to her height, limiting the visual impact of the ten inch difference in their height (though that’s one thing Nate said he didn’t like).
One of the more honest previews of the debate, from Hugo Lowell, described that Trump’s handlers were worried about whether Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde would show up.
Donald Trump’s campaign is most concerned going into the debate against Kamala Harris with the former president’s mood, afraid that the mercurial Trump could engage in the kind of self-sabotage that turned off voters in the 2020 presidential election, according to people familiar with the situation.
The campaign’s internal refrain is whether they get “happy Trump” or “angry Trump”, the people said, as they count down the days to perhaps the final presidential debate this cycle.
Kamala Harris had absolutely no intention of leaving that choice to Trump.
She took every opportunity she could, from an initial handshake that turned that common gesture of courtesy into a remapping of the stage space for her own benefit, to get in his skin. (Presidential historian Michael Beschloss reminded that Ronald Reagan similarly surprised Jimmy Carter with such a handshake.)
And yes, she even mocked him about crowd size. If he weren’t already at the party by that point, Mr. Hyde arrived to stay.
WaPo said she “baited him.” So did CNN. BBC called it “goading.” And while it took NYT a few tries before they could come up with a headline that described reality (as is their wont), they described that the Vice President “burrow[ed] under his skin.” A WSJ editorial described:
She won the debate because she came in with a strategy to taunt and goad Mr. Trump into diving down rabbit holes of personal grievance and vanity that left her policies and history largely untouched. He always takes the bait, and Ms. Harris set the trap so he spent much of the debate talking about the past, or about Joe Biden, or about immigrants eating pets, but not how he’d improve the lives of Americans in the next four years.
Chris Christie critiqued, “she laid traps, and he chased every rabbit down every hole.”
There was little doubt what happened last night, after the fact. A dramatic success, CNN judged.
Harris came onstage with a clear plan: Throw Trump off his game.
It was, by any measure, a dramatic success.
Even at Fox News, there was little doubt what happened: both Bret Baier and Brit Hume saw what Kamala had done.
But beforehand, the press conceived the debate almost exclusively about what Harris had to do, not what she could or planned to do. Would she be up for it, journalists seemed to doubt, most buying into Trump’s hype that even Tulsi Gabbard could “eviscerate” Harris.
Journalists missed the Vice President’s clear intent because they treated Donald Trump as the protagonist of this story.
I don’t know how much the debate will affect the direction of the race. Though she struck blow after blow, it was still the 60/40-40/60 result I also predicted. The debate itself is most likely to have an effect for the way it gives Brian Fallon another opportunity to suggest Trump is too weak to take Harris on in a second debate. It might even lead some Trump cultists to wonder — to merely begin the process — of asking whether he really is the loser that Kamala Harris said he is.
But it may do something more important, indirectly.
In August, the press treated Kamala as the story largely because Trump was huddled in his mansions. But they still treated him as the protagonist. Every time he gave the order, they scurried to attend things billed as press conferences which were little different from his rambling rally speeches. He made them props in a fantasy that he had shared more about what he plans to do as President than Kamala Harris, and they were happy to play the role he demanded.
Yesterday, the press got their first chance — likely their only chance — to see the two candidates side-by-side.
And they left with the certainty that Vice President Kamala Harris was the protagonist of that story. Of this story.
Last night’s debate may not, directly, persuade many voters. But if it cures the press of their addiction to the Donald Trump con, it may have a dramatic effect on the race.
Update: Added the WSJ editorial. Noted that Fox News did too recognize what happened.
The reference to mass deportations and Haitians eating pets was horrifying. Trump is fomenting racism, win or lose does not matter. He is creating a following of racist to project a future of violence. JD Vance is his second hand up. It is not about the election anymore. It is about destroying government to empower the marketplace for solutions. I cannot believe the press puts a microphone in front of this coward.
[Thanks for updating your username to meet the 8 letter minimum. /~Rayne]
Regrettably, it happened so long ago that it is not on the Internet, but about 1980, the rightwingers agitating against Indochinese refugees in Iowa flogged the idea that they were eating dogs. I wrote “The History of Eating Dogs in Iowa” for The Des Moines Register with the result that the anti-dog eating bill failed. So you can still eat a dog in Iowa. Fun and true historical fact: the first published account of eating dogs in Iowa was written by Washington Irving.
I was 15 and living on a farm along I-80 between Newton and Grinnell then. And I have a nugget of memory of reading your story, it being sufficiently outside the realm of normal to stick (I was also a Debate kid so my nose was in the news).
!!! This is a very cool connection! wow!
You bring a tear to an old man’s eye. Thanks.
After that story was published, it turned out that the man I sat next to on the copy desk was an actual Midwestern dog eater.
Before becoming a newspaperman, he had been a Roman Catholic priest, and at one point he’d subbed for a priest working on an Indian reservation in South Dakota. While there, he’d been invited to dinner where he enjoyed stew.
When he asked for seconds, he was advised, “Dig deep. the puppy’s at the bottom.”
It wasn’t a joke.
In the mid 1970 I was in a Catholic High School in Lincoln, Nebraska. Lincoln was 95% white so it wasn’t like the south parents using private school to avoid the African Americans, I lived briefly in Little Rock, AR in the late 1980s and recall a newspaper listing the top 10 private schools and less that 10 of the 10,000+ were not white.
Back to Nebraska, The Catholic Diocese of Lincoln took in almost 1000 refugees from Vietnam after the fall of Saigon. (The coastal cities where the locals worked with the French gov many people became Catholic.)
On rare occasions I’d hear that tired shit. They were different. But so what. In high school some were like the the silly kids pretending to be thugs, some kids doing classwork trying to fit in. Normal kids who many times would speak their birth language. I just shrugged and went about my business.
The UK has its own versions of this sort of nastiness. Apparently, immigrants wanted to roast Madge’s swans: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2003/dec/10/sun.pressandpublishing.
Twenty years on, Charlie-boy still seems to have plenty of swans ;-)
Totally off topic response. Actually there is a serious decline in the numbers of swans in England. The Swan Upping, done in July, showed the population has been decimated by avian flu,
Henry VIII used to eat swans.
I remember an episode of Hill Street Blues where this was a subplot – I hadn’t thought about it for ages. And hadn’t thought about how it was a whole racist/xenophobic trope from the Reagan years, sadly holding over until today.
I doubt the press can be cured of their addiction to Donald Trump’s con, after all, it’s been nine years with no real change in their behavior.
But I do think that Kamala exposed Donald as a liar and a coward, that was plain to see.
And she called him out, called him to another debate, which Trump will decline, further exposing his cowardice.
Kamala also said
“… we do not have in the candidate to my right the temperament or the ability to not be confused about fact. That’s deeply troubling. And the American people deserve better.”
Did she call him crazy? No, but almost.
“Confused about fact” suggests a civil way of saying “liar.” Lacking temperament or ability suggests a lack of “will” – he is disinclined and even unable to not lie. Which is true.
Harris said ‘old and tired’ at least twice and then ‘confused about fact’ was the cherry on top, imo. (when I was very young, in Orange County California, the ‘truth-rumor’ was that the recent Asian immigrants were eating everyone’s cats.)
Her shade game was unmatched. And evoked not just his lying, but the underlying question: can the country afford a President who is disconnected from reality?
Yes, “confused about fact” suggests more than “liar,” it implies that the person in question cannot always discern fact from (self-serving) fiction. Much worse.
Or sociopath.
I heard an interesting definitional distinction the other day outlining the differences between a “regular, garden-variety” narcissist and a malignant narcissist. The “regular” narcissist, while exhibiting the self-centered behaviors that define narcissism can occasionally mimic expressions of empathy when the situation seems to call for it.
On the other hand, the malignant narcissist is, in addition to all the behaviors associated with narcissism, also a sociopath, i.e. not capable of even faking empathy, nor even cognitive mimicry of such behavior. Not only do they care only about themselves, but they actively seek to hurt other people in the process, and think nothing of doing that…
Interesting. I think I’ve encountered more than my fair share of both types. It may have allowed me to develop coping mechanisms. But some things were way over the top and shocking.
It has enabled me to understand Trump, though. But most empathetic people can easily get sucked into trying harder to be more understanding and sympathetic. Bad move.
I thought the difference was the mere narcissist needs to be beautiful. The malignant narcissist also needs you to be ugly.
The key is in understanding the concept of ‘narcissistic supply’ and its relationship to ‘original narcissistic injury’. If there’s an uninterrupted relationship between the two, you have someone suffering Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). Someone suffering NPD will display ‘narcissistic rage’ (often unexpectedly) when their original narcissistic injury is touched. Harris did this quite simply and effectively.
From the point of the ‘narcissistic injury’ ‘narcissistic supply’ relationship, there are not only different genres of NPD, but quite simply different individuals suffering NPD. There’s a relative spectrum of malignancy. That spectrum also includes psychopathy, sociopathy..
According to the Frogmouth himself, only losers want another debate. He’s using that as “proof” he won.
I guess all those year there were three debates, we had no one but losers running.
That’s a pet peeve of mine. Often, you will hear people who realize they said something incorrect will say, “I lied” very casually.
Someone who says something in error, by mistake or out of ignorance is not lying. That person is just mistaken.
A person who deliberately makes a false statement is a liar.
Intention is the key.
I prefer to call Trump a bullshitter. Liars generally lie for strategic reasons (lying is more beneficial in the situation than the truth would be), but they know what they’re saying is wrong; bullshitters don’t care about the truthiness of their own statements.
Easy way to tell the difference between a liar and a bullshitter: Do they tell lies that are OBVIOUSLY wrong? A liar won’t claim the sky is green, because there’s no benefit to doing so. A bullshitter will, because they don’t care.
This isn’t just a bullshitter, though. From a narrow American patriarchal perspective, he’s constantly gaslighting the public including his innate use of DARVO to keep opponents off base and to keep his fans in thrall. From a larger political perspective, he’s using the tools other strongmen have used to undermine threats to his personal and political power; he applies dezinformatsiya as a component of demoralizatsiya. Trump is also desperate as a malignant narcissist to keep us from seeing the man behind the curtains — the shallow, pathetic wretch that he truly is. It’s the opposite of not caring enough to convey the truth. He’s frantic as his crazy-making social media posts convey that we don’t learn the truth.
Both DarkPheonix and RLHall1961
in their seeming attempts to limit whom should be held fully to account for using or uttering false statements, overlook these important considerations. amongst others:
1 reckless disregard for the truth and 2 bad faith.
And in failing to recognise that their distinctions are incomplete, inadequate, and unduly restrictive, so unwittingly lend themselves to perpetuating permission structures as described by Rayne.
Huh? Being a bullshitter is WORSE than being a liar, because rather than having a reckless disregard for the truth, you have a reckless disregard for FACTS THEMSELVES. And the entire goal of a bullshitter is to make people doubt their own minds.
Dark Phoenix
September 12, 2024 at 4:55 pm
I think in this discussion you have conflated what it is to understand the standards of thought with the appreciation of the reality of existence.
This discussion began with a dispute over the standards of thought ie what amounts to a falsehood, and RLHall’s inadequate definition of it.
Your contribution turned it into a discussion of the distinction between fact and fiction, so muddled the issues.
The propagandist, such as Trump, works to obliterate both the distinction between fact and fiction (reality of existence) OT1H and the distinction between truth and falsehood (the standards of thought) OTOH.
Because as Hannah Ahrendt correctly pointed out, the ideal subject for authoritarian rule is not the convinced Nazi/communist but the person for whom the distinctions referred to no longer exist.
As a matter of taste more than anything, I don’t think “bullshitter” is a helpful term to describe Trump — because it has jocular and almost affectionate over tones, suggesting someone prone to bluster and hyperbole, and a bit of a buffoon.
Buffoonery is a mask, a fictional persona, worn by Trump and Boris Johnson to both charm their prey, and disguise their malevolence. Letting Trump be Trump and Boris be Boris, is one of the mechanisms by which the public are acclimatised to a culture of fiction in public life and to relax indeed to abandon the application of rigorous standards of thought to them and the world in general.
We should hold such manipulators of reality to account, by recognising that they utter lies, using a proper understanding of what a lie is.
Don’t think this quite states the case correctly though.
Trump has the ability to convince himself that whatever he’s saying is true, at least for the length of time it takes for it to come out of his mouth. He’s not just bullshitting and demonstrating a disregard for whether what he says is true, he believes that whatever he says is true simply by virtue of his saying it. He doesn’t believe in consensus reality, and if you are an absolutist in the solipsism department, then you can define reality however you want because nobody else exists to contradict you.
Well said.
I still have a hard time understanding how even the most virulent Trump supporter could come away from last night’s debate thinking anything other than Trump’s totally unfit for any public office; it’s like denying gravity.
They’ve got that covered: his supporters are claiming the debate was rigged.
And that’s despite the fact that he got 9 more minutes air time than her. The “tell” in all of it was that she was quite comfortable with that disparity, relaxedly watching him self-immolate.
The visuals, his inability to make eye contact and her steady observation of his fugue episodes, were viscerally compelling.
Stephanie Rhule MSNBC tweeted
1 https://x.com/SRuhle/status/1833689375965581648
During 1st portion
KH : spoke 15x for 22.6 mins
DT : spoke 26x for 28.6 mins
2nd portion
KH: spoke 8x for 14.5 mins
DT : spoke 13x for 13.3 mins
Overall
https://x.com/SRuhle/status/1833708710813745610
KH: spoke 23x for 37.1 mins
DT: spoke 39x for 41.9 mins
So closer to 10 minutes than 9!
BRUCE F COLE
September 11, 2024 at 10:40 am
So closer to 10 minutes than 9!
Err no—- a little less than 5 (4.8) but he spoke 16 more times
Thanks Steve, my bad, I mistook the totals for another segment.
So only off by a factor of 2. Not bad for me!
No problem
I thought it was interesting to see that Trump spoke on 16 more occasions, and that in the second section Harris spoke for longer but on substantially fewer occasions
She was completely crushing it at that point
Trump was nowhere near fact checked on 16 occasions, my guess is that it was closer to 5, but I can’t be arsed to count, however I am pretty sure he interrupted and or insisted on responding on more occasions than Harris and on more occasions than he was fact checked. So it’s not just the extra time but he utterly wasted all his very many extra opportunities to make cogent statements
What bothered me is that every time Trump started screaming into his turned-off mic the moderators turned it on and let him ramble, but when Kamala Harris did the same thing, they talked over her and told her they had to move on. So she had to use part of her next answer to respond to Donald’s lies, whereas he was able to force the mods to give him the last word CONSTANTLY.
I also got a laugh at how they SPRINTED past climate change with a “question to both of you” and then “we’re moving on”. Someone REALLY afraid Donald might go into a shark or windmill rant if they let him blabber about climate too long?
I sat down and timed each candidates speaking time. I reviewed the debate 3 times. The difference is Kamala got 5 minutes and 40 seconds less speaking time. What stood out to me was that Trump interjected a lot more than Kamala and his muted microphone was turned on every single time. There was one occasion when Kamala asked to be allowed to reply to repeated statements that Trump made but her microphone was never turned on, unfair to her as Trump got so much extra propaganda (lies) in.
“(Harris) was quite comfortable with that disparity, relaxedly watching him self-immolate.”
Agreed. Trump, on the other hand, should have paid more attention to the First Rule of Holes.
What I observe via neighbors, friends, and relations is that there’s a chasm between knowing he’s unfit and voting for a Democrat, especially a woman, regardless of color. The Republicans I know will never vote for her. Are they going to sit out instead? I’m not seeing this.
Give it a week.
Gosh, I hope you’re right! All I know first hand is that several of my relations, neighbors, and lifelong friends just won’t vote Dem. They won’t.
Was in central IL on Monday (analogous to a lot of WI – relations and friends there, too). Loads of T yard signs and even saw a F*ck Biden flag atop a flagpole. That was pretty sour to see.
Harris sign output is behind the curve because of her abbreviated entry into the race. I went to our local Dem hq yesterday and they’ve got a 400 person list waiting for them. My guess is that they’re sending what’s coming off the assembly line to swing states first.
Those Republicans won’t be sitting out. The GOP is very good at GOTV. Dems need to GOTV, that’s all. They have the popular support but those supportive folks need to take the time out of their day to go to the polling location and cast their ballot (nb: Taylor Swift didn’t just say she supported Harris, she said she is casting her ballot (action not thought) for Harris).
I loved the takedown by Harris, but debates don’t change voters’ minds.
That’s you opinion. I guess we’ll find out for sure come November.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/interactive/2024/presidential-debate-voter-poll/
To David:
Ask Joe about that.
Yes, “give it a week” for the corporate media to try and airbrush and whitewash the toxic drool the Dumpster left all over himself and the floor of the debate stage before the polls bury the corpse of his campaign and the future of the Republican Party.
To Norskie:
There was a mountain of sound bites and visuals from last night that only one side can use for devastating campaign takedowns. Her team has the golden opportunity to make that become the news for the commentariat to choke on.
Aaaand…so it begins:
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4873509-trump-harris-debate-house-republicans/
“Oh God, Trump sucked! Quick, change the media subject to us threatening another government shutdown!”
A friend just told me that a group of formerly Republican women just committed to VP Harris . Excellent news and it all helps . thanks for these insights too on here ++
To David@9:45
You might ask Nixon and Jack Kennedy if debates matter.
Replying to Old Tulsa at 13:26 –
The 1960 election was so close that for years the conspiracy theorists alleged that Chicago’s Mayor Daley clinched it for Kennedy by stuffing the ballots in Illinois.
This is where Liz and Dick Cheney offered cover by saying they’d vote for Harris. At the least they might convince some of their followers to stay home.
Even back in 2017 people were not telling relatives how they stood. In red counties some women would give support in private but not publicly.
I hosted a watch party at the senior housing apartment I’ve been living in, in Palmer, Alaska for the past 14 months. In the 42-unit building, we mustered six serious liberals. There was a lot of laughter.
I kept the front door open, so anyone walking the hall during the debate might join. A lot of frowns and negative head shakes.
I offered tension taming tea to my guests, but these 70+ year-olds didn’t want calm. We enjoyed seeing the lame weirdo our own age we so readily recognize being pasted and totally owned.
Back in 2016, when my mom’s non-Alzheimer’s dementia became more clear-cut, I mused about sending out Christmas cards on her behalf noting that we have good and non-so-good days, BUT AT LEAST SHE DIDN’T JUST GET ELECTED PRESIDENT. Despite his and his enabler’s best efforts, she is still here, on the cusp of end-stage, and taking things day-to-day has become indescribable. Good on you for engaging others to counter the insanity.
Except for Newton’s 3rd Law as applied to politics (for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction), I would love to see the Harris campaign “flex” in Alaska, to put it in play. Especially with a message around Dobbs v. bodily autonomy.
I think Harris needs to go there in no small part because of the House race for the single at-large seat currently held by Mary Peltola. She’d need to talk about bipartisanship and working across the aisle to get things done which is critically important in Alaska’s state legislature.
I’m all about the coalition building, and value the many, many wise 65+ Harris supporters that I know (“the blue-hair wall” /most of whom keep it a shade of blonde or red/ including FL and TX transplants).
But Trump’s favorability lags in many younger-trending states due to his moral and criminal weakness. Idaho, Wyoming, probably not, but Alaska, Montana, and even areas of Utah could be worth a shot. The needle to thread (with respect to Harris’s base) is energy vs. environmental policy, which the Biden admin has already threaded, but, as with so many things, gets basically no credit for doing so.
Hey Rayne, I loved your DARVO comment. I sent Mary money, and just recently sent John Tester money. : – ) Sherrod needs money too!
Ditto at Community Center in Bluff, Utah. Same age group. Lots of laughing.
I can’t decide which of those two places, Bluff or Palmer, would be a tougher crowd.
Part of the secret of his success on stage I think is the addictive adrenaline rush Trump’s listeners (regardless their “side”) receive – but it doesn’t last – is quite hollow, and leaves one with much less energy than they had.
What was most moving moment in the “debate”, after it all – when speaking to us, the people, about her own priorities throughout her career of helping those victims and witnesses (which in a way a lot of us are in all this): “Are you OK?”
I watched the whole thing a couple of times but I have no idea now what he said in his closing statement because I couldn’t hear him after VP Harris shared that.
JD Vance years ago perfectly described Donald Trump. He is “cultural heroin”, and “just another opioid” for middle America.The addictive adrenaline rush that doesn’t last, leaving one with much less energy than they had is Donald Trump, AKA “cultural heroin”. He delivers a fix of hate, anger, and demonization of the “other” , and above all, personal grievance. It all gets mainlined into the minds of his audience.
They’ll continue to follow him around. They can’t get enough of the empty spectacle. It will be hard for them to walk away from the what-outrageous-thing-will he-say-next coverage they’ve done for years. But voters matter more than journalists, and Harris may have done enough to bring the undecided voters she needs to her side.
Even Taylor Swift endorsed Harris after the debate. Swift signed off on her endorsement as “Childless cat lady.” That is a truly epic troll, and it will count for a lot with her fans.
Trump will still get an unwarranted amount of attention. But it may turn into the “look at that sad, washed up man” kind.
I’m hoping we see a surge in new voters. We found so many that aren’t even registered in my county.
As for yard signs. We’ve been creating our own for Biden and Kamala. With messages for saving democracy they don’t last long as we’re in a rural area with a busy 4 way stop intersection. they get torn down overnight but we usually have 1 at the ready for replacement. We’ve done 30 or 40. I guess I’m crafting and still have plenty of paints and glitter.
Taylor Swift’s endorsement after the debate probably twisted every last knife Harris left in Trump.
If Trump wants to compare Crowd Sizes, he doesn’t want to go up against the likes of Beyonce or Swift.
Power in numbers! 238 million followers for Taylor Swift. 320 million followers for Beyonce.
Trump already tried to do damage-control and co-opt the news cycle, by attacking Taylor Swift for endorsing Harris. (Reporters fell for it, as usual.)
And Elon Musk broke the creepy-meter by threatening to give her a child.
Trump’s way out of his league threatening Taylor Swift. If he wants to see a revolution, better yet, a boycott of everything that makes him money, he should keep it up.
Ignoring oligarchs, who hide their wealth rather than broadcast it via Forbes, the world’s richest fascist threatens to rape and impregnate a billionaire performer and what? Claims it’s a joke? Why do we tolerate such people?
Travis might have something to say about it as well. ‘Leon’ better STFU or he’ll be missing various body parts and FWIW I suspect more than a few Chiefs (minus Butker) and Jason will help.
Reply to Rugger_9
September 11, 2024 at 10:54 am
You know what would be more damaging and hit “Leon” where it hurts without leaving a mark? A mass exodus from X encouraged by Swift and the Kelce brothers.
Responding to Rayne 11 SEP 2024 at 11:09.
That would be appropriate as well, but as we discussed on the board some months ago, where do people go if not on Xitter? All of the other platforms have significant problems, otherwise Elon would have lost market share long ago. FWIW I used ‘Leon’ because that’s how Convict-1 referred to him.
And just as discussed before the options exist, most now with significantly fewer problems than Xitter as they are better moderated and NOT owned/financed by hostile foreign entities. I don’t use Bluesky or Threads but they have ample userbases now.
If Swift — who has more than ample resources to do this — set up her own Swift-branded instance of federated servers and applications, she’d seriously make waves in social media.
Actually, Hunter wrote an article on Uncharted Blue (that he reposted to DailyKos) pointing out that for all intents and purposes, Xitter is already dead: https://www.unchartedblue.com/how-to-kill-your-tech-company-elon-musk-edition/
All that’s really left is a shambling corpse festered with neoNazis, white supremacists and trolls, and the two most common types of accounts are ghost accounts (accounts abandoned by their creators) and bots.
Dark Phoenix says:
September 11, 2024 at 3:43 pm
People leave without logging out because it keeps their screen/account names from being re-used.
I actually think Swift’s endorsement may prove to be the most significant event of the night. I think people do not understand her power, or the devotion of her fans, or her ability to mobilize the younger demographic. Her tours significantly contribute to the GDP of any country she is in, as reported by The Fed and the EU. Plus she is more successful and has more money than Trump, to add insult to injury!
She also linked to voter.org and drove traffic there. Several outlets reported that traffic to the site went up by over 300k unique visitors today compared to recent activity, and that something like 35k new voters registered via the site. NBC News summary linked below:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/over-300000-people-visit-taylor-swift-link-register-vote-rcna170740
Reading the Instagram item, it mattered that the closing para said Register if not registered already, and GOTV. It was as if Harris people wrote the item. It touched all bases.
Swift encouraged registration and voting in 2020, also.
Trump is phoning into Fox and Friends for some therapy this morning. Apparently it was his “best ever debate” and he won it by “a lot.” But it was also “rigged”.
Lord, and the voters of America, please deliver us from this orange dumbfuck and his ludicrous, clownish buffoonery.
This is not new “news”, but this recent injection of 50 minutes or so of Trump simply UNABLE to finish a sentence or line of thought is exhausting. I do not think he does it as part of any plan. I think he is simply impaired in many ways not the least of which is the inability to block the flood of vitriol that seems in competition to leave his lips first.
No impulse control.
And..he physically does not look well.
Death Becomes He…Him
And was his nose running as he blathered on? Something awfully shiny under his left nostril. ewwwwwwwwwwwww
I’m not a fan of popular culture, but Taylor Swift’s endorsement right after the debate, with the photo of her holding a cat, was a very nice after-dinner drink at the end of a very satisfying meal.
I noticed the cat immediately, and I think it’s an excellent troll of both Trump and Vance. And has anyone else noticed that Vance’s side of the campaign isn’t much more than one gigantic Freudian slip after another about how he wishes he’d had a better mother?
Freudian free-fall, more like.
Well, nobody deserves the mother Vance had. But what he needs is therapy and healing, not to be VP.
She also signed it, “Childless Cat Lady”, a direct jab at the Vance/Trump ticket.
I don’t think I’ve (knowingly) heard even 4 bars of Taylor Swift’s music, but I could not love her more, for how she’s lived her life. This is icing on the cake.
I think you could use a dose of Karma this morning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzOvgu3GPwY
And as a follow-up, her kiss-off to the needy ex-boyfriend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA4iX5D9Z64
Good choice. I think of this song as a good response to Trump in 2020.
Harris’ campaign ought to get the rights to “Never Getting Back Together” and run it under video of those GOP luminaries and military who have disavowed TFG.
Rayne, 9/11/24 10:AM. Ty for the Karma. Never heard it before. Harmony and rhythms always make the day brighter. Trump’s mask was ripped off by Kamala, very happy to see karma come full circle on Trump while he was standing at the microphone on national TV.
Don’t forget her “sneak diss track” _You Need To Calm Down_, released on his b-day in 2019!
The video has its critics, and is loaded with the hidden messages her fans love (like I guess the burger & fries costumes = BFF), but its a catchy, kitschy, colorful, star-studded antidote to hate.
LMAO priceless.
ADDER: for the uninitiated — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqAJLh9wuZ0
Kamala’s assertiveness to shake his hand and introduce herself was skillful. She was smart, sharp and direct. He hardly looked at her with his scowling face. What a contrast with Mr. Donny Downer and her vibrant, youthful and upbeat delivery. With Harris/Walz life is moving forward.
Paraphrasing but you get the gist.
Mafia Crime Boss to the little shop owner:
‘Eh, if you not gonna pay us, we ain’t gonna provide protection’
Trump’s Very Good Phone Call to Volodymyr Zelenskyy 7/25/2019 that got him impeached the first time:
‘Eh Volo, we’ll send you a bunch of tanks and bombs but first you gotta start an investigation of the Biden Crime Family, my opponent in this race’
Trump repeats himself in his closing remarks of last night’s debate:
‘Hey NATO allies, when I’m president again I’m not gonna protect you or Ukraine if you don’t pay me more’
Guess I’m really naive and embarrassingly ignorant but have all our Presidents done this short of shit on the world stage? I mean really, that’s serious transparency.
It’s what an experienced prosecutor will do, seize the initiative and she never let up after that.
I think her introducing herself and especially by her full name is not getting enough credit. I suspect that it was the intro that disarmed him more than the handshake.
Agree–it was the whole thing.
If you haven’t seen it, they were both at the 9/11 memorial today. For some unknown reason, Bloomberg, who was standing between them (with Joe Biden on Bloomberg’s side of Kamala) made sure they shook hands today.
Throughout my career, it was quite common to shake hands with people, but especially when I worked for DOD. I was often in situations where I initiated a handshake.
And, if I remember correctly, I think candidates used to shake hands prior to debates. So, to me, it seemed weird that Trump was so awkward, especially being a “businessman.”
Covid changed things. But enough time has passed to resume the custom. And I imagine Trump shakes hands with Bibi and Orban and others. So, Trump just seemed rude and stupid. And Harris was professional and gracious. After all, this was the first time they met.
This is Heather Cox Richardson re: the handshake on 9/11:
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/september-11-2024
[The links are at the bottom of the page]
When I watched that handshake, I thought I noticed that when he couldn’t pull her towards him, he patted her hand with his other hand while they were shaking hands. Grossed me out, so I won’t go look at it again.
I’m torn about looking. I’m dying to know if her hands are as big as his and if that also disturbed him enough that he had to use both hands.
That he didn’t make eye contact was cowardly. He was intimidated.
In 2016 he couldn’t take his eyes off Hilary, even stalked her. What a difference, she scares him.
He’s used to intimidating and abusing blonde women of his cohort.
He’s not dealing with his cohort any longer.
Some journos do seem to have noticed the basic facts of what is happening in the campaign, finally. It is tribute to emptywheel.net that readers of this site were unsurprised by either candidate’s approach to the debate nor by how badly it went for Mr. Trump. But front page journos are stuck in a rut even after last night.
Many journos struggling to give up their old frame in this morning’s paper. “Tuesday’s debate was expected to center on defining Kamala Harris. Instead, with words and with body language, she turned it into a referendum on Donald Trump.” Lerer and Epstein, NYT. Goldmacher and Rogers (also NYT) at least saw what was plain to see, but “Laying out bait that Donald Trump eagerly snatched, the vice president owned much of the night, keeping him on the back foot and avoiding sustained attention on her own vulnerabilities.” They are grading her against their pre-existing storyline.
Similar at WSJ. At least the WaPo suspected something was up, put together a panel of normies (across the spectrum, yes, there are MAGA normies) and got a real story out of it. The normies saw, mirabile dictu, that Harris murdered Trump. Similarly, CNN did a “flash poll” revealing that viewers saw the rout that was there.
So we have this big gap between what normal people see and what journos see. Smallish viewership, 51million, so a lot of the information flow will go out there through the journos.
I am so glad I read EW every day.
Kamala used a line I first saw in EW comments after Trump said Biden. ” Never fired anyone. ”
A younger sharper Biden might have quickly answered,
“Yeah, but 81 million people fired you. ”
Like to think many “important” people who never comment read and appropriate t EW community’s thoughts when it suits them.
Not impossible Harris’s team grabbed that line from this site
Same goes for prosecutors, only more so.
Really, where would we be without Marcy and her contributors?
At the mercy of the profit driven vandal and visigoth press.
The Trump brand has become a symbol for vitriol, and it is the anti-Democrat vitriol of the right wing information bubble that goads so many Republicans into voting Trump.
If Trump is elected again, we need to push the self-destruct button.
In 2016 a journalist was interviewing oneof a party of motorcyclist, not bikers, but middle class guys who rode together Sunday mornings then had lunch.
In answer to a question, one rider said, Oh, I know he’s not going to build the wall, bring jobs, etc. ”
So then why are you voting for him?
” To stick it to guys like you !”
Exactly the heart and soul of Trumpism.
Voting for Trump in 2016 was crass, but maybe excusable. People wanted something different, and had no real idea what they would get in a Trump presidency.
Voting for him in 2024, after seeing all the shit he did in his first term (child separations at the border, Muslim ban, leaking allies’ intelligence to Russian visitors in the Oval Office, inciting the insurrection on Jan 6 and his total inaction to stop it for like 3 hours, stealing hundreds of highly classified gov’t documents and taking them home as keepsakes, and so on) really is inexcusable. Especially with his continued refusal to respect democracy and election results.
Voting for Trump in 2024 is literally a vote for totalitarianism.
I believe that if Trump is elected again, he will hit the Destruct button himself. Repeatedly. I just hope that Joe Biden cuts the button’s wires before leaving.
The debate was rigged? Breitbart headline, “3 on 1: Moderators Team with Harris to Debate Trump,” They saw it their way, and were strongly in denial. Shrieking that Trump won does not make it so. It suggests they saw a need to overreact.
The winners never complain about the moderators.Only the whiners do. It’s their way of admitting defeat in the debate.
It was nice to see a UC Law SF graduate (formally UC Hastings School of Law) use her excellent law education and prosecutorial/deposition experience to destroy Trump on TV.
Chris Christie was right; Harris created rabbit holes for Trump to jump into and, like the malignant narcissist pig he is, Trump dove headfirst down every rabbit hole.
A key moment for me was when Trump refused to answer multiple times David Muir’s question if Trump wanted Ukraine to win the war against Russia. It is obvious Trump wants Putin to win the war against Ukraine.
I don’t think Harris has anything to gain by appearing on stage again with Trump, but if she and her campaign advisors think by their immediately requesting another appearance on stage with Trump will cause Trump heartburn and gas and that he’ll ultimately refuse because he knows she KO’d him last night, maybe they know something I don’t.
The Taylor Swift endorsement is also huge in my opinion.
Pretty key point for me. While no rational person wants wars there is one raging nonetheless brought on by Putin’s aggression. I think Muir could have followed that yes/no question with one along the lines of ‘Is Ukraine right to defend itself?’
I agree!
As someone who is married to a different UC Law SF graduate, hear! hear!
Sadly, there are people who look at Trump’s performance there and are getting pumped up. I wonder how much Trump intentionally performs to this group, or just naturally aligns with them. Both are alarming concerns.
During the debate, in the alt right, Nick Fuentes hit a milestone of Rumble followers and then considered Trump’s performance a major victory, due to laying off specific economic policies and railing at immigrants. Truly alarming.
https://archive.is/RFAIq
https://archive.is/PDr5n
And how many of those new followers are actually living, breathing people? How many are Russian bots or fake personas?
That’s why I don’t put stock in follower counts…we saw wild swings in 2020 as DHS and FBI would take down foreign bot nets. One of the oldest dirty tricks in the bag is to try to legitimize bad people by using shills and plants to make the crowd think there’s more acceptance of their ideas than there actually is.
Luckily, those people are his base, and no one expects those people to be persuaded anyway. I don’t see any universe where Nick Fuentes followers would see it differently. But they are not the ones who decide elections.
Unlike what some pundits say, Trump didn’t win 2016 because of the base. He won because he managed to destroy Clinton’s reputation (with help fro Comey, the Russians and the press), and suppress potential democrat voters.
“Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHXGZCz2JqA
Backwards and in high heels.
Roger that. But gingerly.
‘In these shoes? I doubt you’d survive’
(Kirsty MacColl, of course)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf-MaLXgl3A
In keeping with turning the page, this is not your grandparents’ or parents’ version. Check it out.
Again, kudos to Marcy for calling this one right on the nose. Hopefully, the press will finally get the message.
What I haven’t seen enough of, except from Van Jones, is the realization that Kamala is the only one courageous enough to stand up to the schoolyard bully. And by continuing to do that, it inspired others. For all we know Taylor was going to tweet what she did regardless of the outcome. But maybe not. Maybe Harris’s courage inspired her. I hope that was the case because it needs to inspire the cowed press as well.
I would also give a shout out to ABC, David Muir and especially Linsey Davis for not being intimidated by Trump and calling him out in real time. I think a real turning point is when Davis astutely pointed out that no state allows its citizens to kill a baby after it is born. It seemed to embolden VP Harris a little too.
I hate to say it, but it’s really that simple. To defeat Trump, you just merely need to point out he’s wearing no clothes.
I’ve said this before here: the slow-motion waking of the American uncommitted faction to Trump’s naked self absorption, that has been enabled by scuttling synchophants, will be used in future generations to explain the meaning of Andersen’s fable.
And Harris may well be cast in those explanations as the kid shouting to the crowd, “The SOB is naked, people!!”
Extremely satisfying to watch Kamala Harris stand up to a bully confronting and calling him out. Excellent learning experience for uncommitted voters.
“I look at these people and can’t quite believe they exist. Are they professional actors? I wonder. Or are they simply laymen who want a lot of attention? To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?” To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.” –David Sedaris
Those who won’t wake to the truth the flabby-assed orange-stained emperor is naked are subjects of another myth — they’ll follow the tiny-handed Pied Piper anywhere, right unto death.
Any doubt that rises up in the minds of MAGA’s is immediately displaced by ingrained propaganda ie they’re going to take your guns away, the economy is in the toilet, etc.
After the debate, I thought that exactly that image would make an apt political cartoon.
Noooooooo! Get me the mental bleach!
Just the fact that Vice President Harris stood on that debate floor and did not walk out screaming … like I did many times during the debate … was so impressive. Add to this the flawless execution of rehearsed taunts and calmly sitting back to watch him flail. And then add to this the brilliant selection of Walz as candidate for Vice President. Such confidence and truth.
As Ms. Wheeler has described, the debate performances move the contest beyond politics and into culture.
Currently travelling in the USA I saw a Democrat sign in rural Maine which simply said “Harris, Obviously”.
Should be rolled out across the land after last night.
Brilliant.
One thing I noticed: talking about women having to leave state to get proper medical care, Harris asked us to imagine the feelings of a woman, on a plane, alone, and sitting next to a stranger. It struck me as odd, until I recalled that the picture replicated the situation of Jessica Leeds, who accused Trump of groping her on a plane.
In fact it’s worse than Kamala insinuated, because IVF requires multible trips to the IVF clinic. For instance repeated ultrasounds to assess when the ovary is ready for the harvesting of eggs. Often IVF has to be repeated. Sometimes I know of people that have had so many failures they give up. Living interstate makes a difficult process even more difficult and very expensive. Most people wouldn’t be able to afford this.
Trump waffles about an agreed second debate with Kamala Harris, but claims he won this debate “by a lot.” Don’t know whether that was before or after he left Sodom and Gomorrah.
The market doesn’t think he won, though. Trump’s Truth Social media company is down nearly $3.00/share, which would seem to put it at an all-time low.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2024/sep/11/donald-trump-kamala-harris-us-presidential-debate-reaction-news-updates
https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/djt
If the plummeting stock price holds, that would be about a $340 million daily loss on his 114.75 million shares.
In the days before the debate, the stock recovered a bit of momentum and actually got back over $20. Following the debate it literally tanked and today it’s around $16. That puts it lower than where it started out in the spring, around $17.50. So investors are getting out prior to the end of the lockup period, which I think is about two weeks away. It seems unlikely to hold at $16 for that period, but as to how far it will fall over the next week – who knows?
DJT stock cratering doesn’t hurt Convict-1 since his shares were given to him, not bought. It would come into play if those shares were collateral for financing but I’m not so sure any NY banks would go for it. Foreign sources would create FEC violation questions in addition to what the ‘pro quo’ deal is for the quid.
The supporters on the other hand are going to take a serious bath especially the ones who bought at 60.
Written like an accountant. I judge trump to be very close to a miser, and watching that pile of gold wash away while he cannot do anything has to be eating the part where his soul would be.
More than most of his ilk Convict-1 judges his relevance in terms of wealth, recalling the Forbes ‘intervention’ using a pseudonym to complain about not being on the 500 list. So, while the value of DJT is not a fiscal problem to Convict-1, it has to be emasculating to him that a stock whose sole intrinsic value is the brand is on its way to penny status.
Boo hoo hoo.
Of course, the stock price plummeting hurts him. He’s counting on it to keep him a billionaire and to keep him whole when he has to pay several sizeable judgments. He couldn’t otherwise pay them without liquidating his declining real estate empire.
As for him not valuing it because it was given to him, that doesn’t scan. He feels so entitled, he doesn’t distinguish between what he earns, steals, or has given to him.
As for that, a lot of his money was given to him. Two examples. His father’s inheritance, which he lied about during the debate. And the millions donated to him personally, through vehicles normally used to solicit political donations, which he’s used to pay legal bills, his own and those of his courtiers, to keep them quiet.
From the beginning of the DJT stock offering I wondered if Trump’s own share distribution was carefully – hah- tuned to make sure he receives at least $500,000 (for doing nothing) if it does become a penny stock- indicating his own expectations probably weren’t very high from the get-go. I wonder if this is possible.
When you own nearly 115 million shares, you have a lot of money on paper, even if the share price drops to $1.00/share. Most of us would be happy to sell them for anything above a dime a share.
But Trump’s greedy: he wants billions.
For the few days leading up to the debate, it appeared to me that WaPo and CNN were starting to run more “Trump is unhinged” headlines and articles, though the Times was all in on “Harris is stalling out, does she need to reset?”
To me, the question of how much effect VP Harris’ success will have come Election Day will hinge on whether those three outlets consistently run “Trump is unhinged, will it affect the election?” stories between now and then. I am hoping “he is unhinged” becomes this year’s “ but her emails”.
I think it’s entirely possible they’ll follow the lead of GOP insiders and say Trump is unhinged in a way that gives them cover. But I also think they’ll still blow the story.
In late 2020 Ross Douthat, who is definitely a tool for the GOP consultant class, was relaying the spin that Trump was a moody dope, but a harmless one who would react to losing by slinking off never to be seen again. Douthat claimed Democrats were wildly overreacting by talking about a coup.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a similar thing this election. The DC press corps is truly bad at their jobs, and anyone who claims they’re playing 4D chess isn’t paying attention.
99 raises an interesting question. Fox e-News seems to be preparing a second story to complement their “everything is OK” story. The second story is that is the Republican nominee is unhinged and everything is his fault and the doing of the people that are running his campaign. The balance between the two stories can be flexible.
Move the needle much? Lawrence O’Donnell pointed out the Polish vote in PN may make the difference. 800k living there and if only 10k of them swing to her because she rightly pointed out Putins goals….that could win the election. And ‘everyone knows’ T is Putins pup.
As the cycling folks have long known, in a narrow contest, marginal gains can win it.
√
And if you include all the former USSR/Warsaw Pact residents in PA, it gets much larger pretty quickly. There are over 100K Slovak-Americans in PA. While Slovakia has taken a pro-Russian turn of late, older immigrants won’t feel that way, probably.
Yes, this. Please tell me, though, that this isn’t going to be 2016 Luzerne county redux though…
Still think there was hinkiness afoot there back then.
A good parallel to the media’s blindness to what Harris was saying about her strategy is the way the DC press was blindsided by the collapse of Kevin McCarthy.
Not long before the mutiny, he was getting beat sweetners published. And the reason is that the Capitol Hill press corps never, ever bothers treating Democrats as serious sources the way they listen to people like Frank Luntz.
The irony of course is that Team Pelosi has the greatest vote counters and rules experts in many decades. They follow every single thing everyday. If reporters listened to Dems, they not only would have known about McCarthy’s thin ice, they would have known just how weak the attempts by Jordan and Scalise were.
Instead they listened to people like Luntz, who was recently literally living in the same apartment as McCarthy. The source networks for the political press are completely broken, and they’re too oblivious to understand what’s going on.
Ugh. Still stewing about Nate Silver and Frank Luntz as judges of optics.
Would love to know if his BA in econ offered coursework on semiotics and cognitive psychology. He certainly didn’t take women’s studies if he thought Harris should have agreed to self handicap with a poorly-sized lectern.
And Luntz — no way is that man ever unbiased.
I have to wonder who trusts their judgment at this point.
Patrick Healy sure trusts Luntz, which is why he’s still letting him run focus groups for the NY Times Opinion section. And of course there is zero disclosure by the Times of all of the conflicts of interest Luntz has.
A-yup. And we’re supposed to believe the NYT itself has no biases.
Rs trust their judgement to skew.
Yes, whatever their personal politics, professionally, Healy and Luntz are committed to Trump and the Republicans.
When Healy was a news reporter for the Times, he filed the infamous story on what he called the “Clinton Cackle.”
On top of being incredibly sexist, the whole article was incoherent. But that’s typically how sexism works – it’s substituting an ugly vibe for any coherent thought.
Healy fits right in with the NYT owners and senior management. That’s why he’s deputy editorial page editor.
Luntz’ opinion has value since his talking points set the story for the GOP any given day. I think a couple of progressives are on his mailing list and something goes out every day.
The problem is he is well known for saying different things to different audiences depending on what he wants.
He was playing the game publically of casting doubt on Trump while doing message consulting for the Trump White House in 2020. He knows how to let his people know when he’s just blowing smoke.
The whole thing is even more amusing when you consider that the Harris social media team is 5 “kids” (all age 23 or under) who are utterly brilliant at generating content that catches the attention of the younger generation (they’ve hooked my 20- and 17-year olds into paying attention to the election discourse for sure) without dependence on any traditional news outlets to get their message out.
Those “kids” are steeped in how digital media works. They know their audiences and how to reach them.
Traditional corporate media still struggles with digital presentation. They’re still playing to their historic audience. The know they’re failing — that’s why WaPo hired Will Lewis, a tabloid-oriented producer as top dog But tabloid isn’t the same as being a digital native.
News audiences — there are multiple factions — don’t know how to demand better because most of them weren’t taught they should expect better. Most weren’t taught media literacy, and even those who were, were not taught how to demand better.
That’s why Trump’s bullshit claim after the debate about ABC News network’s license hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves. He was both wrong about the licensing, demonstrating miseducation about news business, and scarily fascist threatening the press’s free speech protections should he be elected.
Readers here are among the vanguard who know the media should reform.
My 23 year old daughter showed me tons of memes on Insta of jailed animals in drag…sex change operations. Goats and chickens. She’s also a huge Swiftie. Her generation is not fooled.
Donny’s gonna need some $erious help from Tom Sieble&Friends tomorrow in Woodside.
Wonder if the whole Hoover Institution has front row seats?
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/09/09/donald-trump-to-return-to-bay-area-for-fundraiser/
I won’t attend a Trump rally because he takes away your guns and makes you sign a covid waiver. What happened to my rights???
Just sticking to the issues and leaving out the theater: “I have a concept of a plan” about healthcare. Really?! You had four years in office (including a pandemic, for f***s sake), and four years since, and you *still* have no plan for one of the biggest concerns in American life? Literal life and death for millions across the entire population, and you can’t even be arsed to articulate a position?
This should be all you need to talk to any MAGAt you meet.
This fool doesn’t want the job. He wants the position and the power, certainly (and the immunity that now seems to go with it), but only one applicant on stage last night actually wants the job, and it isn’t the old white dude.
You know who else Trump condemned with his “concept of a plan”?
Every single Republican running for Congress. Trump should already have negotiated a plan as you said over the last eight years and where is it? Every Republican running should already know what it is in order to pass it.
Every journalist covering these same Repubs should corner incumbents and candidates and ask them for details about this “concept of a plan” eight years in the making, the one they’ll be asked to pass in lieu of ACA.
Yes, please.
“See If I Care” Healthcare
:-)
And…”I don’t care, do you” healthcare.
Or…”You’re going to go through some things.” healthcare – like a bloodbath, baby.
They do have a plan, they just don’t want to say it aloud. It’s to repeal Obamacare and go back to status quo ante.
That may be the plan in actuality as their history demonstrates, but this is when news media fails us.
If somebody says there’s a plan, it’s not the media’s job to regurgitate, “there’s a plan.” It’s the media’s job to find the plan or the lack thereof and lay out their findings to the public.
Fundamental problem: “Obamacare” is actually very close to what a reasonable Republican would propose, and the main thing most people would like changed (the lack of a public option) is the one thing Republicans least want to allow. Even a smart, sane Republican wouldn’t be able to make more than incremental changes to the ACA as it stands – let alone an ignorant, self-centered chaos monster like DJT.
This is not a me problem or a you problem or a we problem.
This is a GOP problem and a media problem because the media refuses to press this issue with the GOP. If “Obamacare” was good enough for Mitt Romney in Massachusetts, why isn’t it good enough for the rest of the country? Where are the details of the GOP’s plan we’ve heard about for nine-plus years? That’s a them problem.
I posted the above after waking up and reading some summaries of the debate. I didn’t realize that “I have concepts of a plan” was trending on social media as Trump’s lamest debate answer.
Sorry for being Captain Obvious about this & wasting everyone’s time.
We’re going to march down to the capitol, and I’ll be there with you, and we’ll find a perfect health care plan there in a magic box marked “electors”.
Position and power? I’d say the legal cover comes in first, second and third in terms of why he’s running for President. Few have needed it as badly as he does.
Project 2025 preview from Oliver Willis:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/9/11/2269511/-Trump-calls-for-ABC-to-be-punished-for-fact-checking-his-debate-lies
9/10/24 11:04 PM Taylor SWIFT endorses HARRIS
https://www.instagram.com/taylorswift/p/C_wtAOKOW1z/
9/10/24 11:08 PM William SHAKESPEARE [of BlueSky]
https://bsky.app/profile/shakespeare.bsky.social/post/3l3txalr2nb24
Perfection. Impeccable timing.
Truely! :-) <3
Just before Swift endorses Harris, she writes:
I hope this next term under a Harris-Walz administration we can tackle regulating AI — and I hope Swift can be called to testify to Congress about it so that it gets the attention it deserves on behalf of cultural creatives and women most at risk from AI’s misuse.
Yes, this. Thank you Rayne
https://www.thetrumparchive.com/ []
9/10/24 [Eastern TZ]
5:19 PM TRUMP [on TS]
5:34 PM TRUMP [on TS]
Next TRUMP posting:
10:50 PM TRUMP [on TS]
11:04 PM Taylor SWIFT [Instagram] [Endorses HARRIS]
AHAHAHAHAHAH I hadn’t put together the timing on Trump’s stupid social media posts with feline-laden AI-generated images.
Swift kicked him in the pussy with her endorsement, which she could do because she’s a celebrity.
…a REAL celebrity!
Yup…right in the pussy! lol!
Brilliant, Rayne!
Back to postcards!!
And since she is a celebrity, he has to let her do it.
To Memory hole, September 11, 2024 at 2:54 pm:
That’s a great point! :-)
Someone AI-generated a large white fluffy cat on his lap? You’re kidding, right?
If you’re trying to win an election, you never go full Blofeld. Pick a damn calico or something!
Yep. And behind him an airplane full of cats and dogs.
With a guy who’s never had a pet in his life, and animals know what he is. (Remember the bald eagle?)
Trump would love the comparison to Ernst Stavro Blofeld, crime kingpin extraordinaire.
Oh! The James Bond villian…would never have thought about that, but yes, sounds right! LOL what a bunch of jerks!
thanks for all that Harpie!
YOU are most welcome, Marcy! :-)
Following Rove’s advice, I watched this evisceration with the sound off. It was art. Thank You, Marcy, for keeping us well and truly educated.
John Scalzi has an interesting take on this:
“What I am here to say is that last night, Donald Trump was at the best any of us will ever see him again. This was the one place and time where he was meant to be prepared, coherent and presidential, where he was not surrounded by handlers, coddlers and sycophants. This was meant to be the one place and time where he was meant to keep his id and his ego in check, put voters and Americans first, and make a case for a second shot at the presidency. This was the one place and time where his worst and most self-indulgent impulses were supposed to be reined in. This was Trump on his best and most decent behavior, or at the very least, the best and most behavior he is capable of. We see how that went.”
https://whatever.scalzi.com/2024/09/11/reminder-this-is-as-good-as-it-gets-with-trump/
Oof. That may be one of the most savage critiques I’ve read.
Can confirm. Primitive idealization and its counterpart, devaluation, are the hallmark narcissistic defense mechanisms, ones that Trump is wholly reliant on for constant reassurance of his “value”/self-esteem. He’s actually taken it to its most primitive form in demanding that those loyal to him, idealize him via self-devaluation, thus becoming his own perfect idealized object.
With nothing in life being perfect, this arrangement is doomed to fail. His reality is solely dependent on what those around him mirror or reflect back to him. This is why he is resorts to made up poll numbers and why Rubio/Graham are further debasing themselves into gibbering, vacuous husks. The more an object is idealized, the more radical the devaluation to which it will eventually be subject.
Harris hit him at his core…his immense and profound sense of shame. And she did it with 60 million witnesses. His loyal subjects are now collapsing when tasked to communicate with reality while simultaneously maintaining Trump’s ego-ideal fantasy (the Stephen Miller interview with José María Del Pino). The primer has detonated. The event horizon crossed. Who revolts first? The king or his subjects?
“ His loyal subjects are now collapsing when tasked to communicate with reality while simultaneously maintaining Trump’s ego-ideal fantasy”
Trump seems increasingly reliant on ultra fringe looney Laura Loomer (if reports via MeidasTouch and elsewhere are to be accepted see eg https://x.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1834214924978991179 )
To the chagrin of other Trump ultra loyalists
Loomer was reportedly part of the debate prep team, Travelled on the plane with Trump.
She attended the 9/11 ceremony with Trump’s team, and it is not entirely clear whether she was amongst a group who disgraced the occasion and caused offence by chanting “Donald, Donald, Donald …” at the time Trump shook the hand of Harris shortly before the formalities were about to commence.
That chanting begs the question as to the sincerity of the civility of Trump’s gesture turned photo opp.
To me, the biggest effect will be to move a large percentage of undecided voters (and Polish people) to Harris. Undecided means that you aren’t voting for Trump, but don’t see another decent choice. Now they do. Of course as well, drag the youth to finally vote (thanks Taylor).
[Welcome back to emptywheel. Please use the SAME USERNAME and email address each time you comment so that community members get to know you. You attempted to publish this comment as “Topcatone” triggering auto-moderation; it has been edited to reflect your established username. Please check your browser’s cache and autofill; future comments may not publish if username does not match. /~Rayne]
My kids were maybe five years old when we taught them: not everything you see on television is real. Are the seven million more people who voted for Biden in 2020 going to turn over the world’s largest economy and its nukes to a guy who believes everything he sees on the teevee? Electoral college aside, where are all the Trump voters going to come from? Maybe some Biden voters stay home, but so will some of the MAGA’s because this reality show is in re-runs.
It was Chris Callizza on Youtube that introduced discussing the numbers. He was unusually cogent. The debate performances move some voters. And Ms. Swift’s word may get more voters ages 19 to 44 to register and vote. In a close election in could matter.
However as I was watching I began to doubt that it was going to be a closed election.
I’m excited to hear the details on Trump’s health care plan in the coming weeks; dare I say, two?
With close to nine years of work going into it, I just know it’s going to be the best of all possible plans!
Trump Media stock sets new record low after debate disaster.
He’s a business genius and he’s gonna make all you MAGAs rich!
Trump Media is up $1 from this morning. Dead cat bounce.
Nevertheless, it’s down $1.95 at today’s market closing compared to yesterday’s closing. I bet it will never hit $20/share ever again. If you drop a dead cat, will it land on its feet?
Here’s a link to the stock on NASDAQ; Click on the 5-day chart, because it shows the “debate effect” most dramatically:
https://www.google.com/search?q=nasdaq+tmtg
sksksksksk
Only $16! What an incredible bargain! Won’t last long as these prices! So unselfish of him to help us cope with Bidenflation! He really does care about ordinary Americans! The more you buy the more you save!
There’s another important channel where Kamala’s strategy is going to pay off, I’m sure. After many nights out with friends in ‘the hood’, one deeply worrisome aspect of this election season is that Trump seems to be winning black men, at least in my Southern Metropolis, so this performance won’t help Trump’s reputation as a “Big Man”, which is central to his appeal, I think, for men within honor violence culture, which exists much more strongly in latino and black American culture than white where dueling went out centuries ago. Kamala cut him down so low, Trump’s got to look up to tie his shoes! He’s playing handball on the curb.
That racialized generalization about “honor violence culture” is really gross.
Except that it is actually a thing; and I took the comment not to be about race particularly, but about culture.
For illustration, check out the biography of the chief Boston Bomber, who routinely offered violence to the women he associated with in order to preserve his sense of his own “honour.” Within such cultures (and more commonly in pre-modern cultures) guys like that give honour to “their” women only so they can take it back, as a mode of control, with the tragic results we see often in so-called “murder-suicides,” that is, it’s not true honour – associated with the protection of innocence – but honour as a function of male ownership.
Good lort. Stop.
Another good write-up about the debate in the Atlantic:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/09/kamala-harris-broke-donald-trump/679780/
Harris is not the first one to try to work on Trump psychologically, but she’s the first one to do it successfully. Even flawlessly. And I think this debate would move the needle, at least in the short term. I don’t know what would happen almost two months from now, but I’m quite certain this debate is successful in creating more enthusiasm that could eventually translate into votes, and it would have a demoralizing effect on Trump’s campaign.
Idea for lawn sign:
Photo of our cat with caption “Childless cat people voting for Harris. How does that grab you?”
LOL!!! Good one!
I’m fired up after that debate! Should I post it and risk MAGA wrath? What do you think?
You might consider making the sign yourself or sharing your slogan with the Harris campaign to have posters made. Clever and humorous. As for MAGA, not worth it in my book.
“Catless child people welcome too!”
I want a “Cat-less child people for Harris” sign !!
If Chief Brody can make his own, “Beach Closed” signs, anyone can make a Harris//Waltz campaign sign. I passed a few today that were quite good.
@earl
My homemade sign for the women’s march in 2017
(“TRUCK FUMP!”) is my avatar over at DKos.
I still have my anti-Iraq war protest sign: IMBUSH PEACH. In Small town in conservative E. Wa., One day a week for four years was flipped the bird a few thousand times.
Did anyone notice Trump’s new hairdo? It had the intended effect. Instead of an old, aggrieved poser and grifter, he looked like a younger aggrieved poser and grifter.
Trump looked like a sweaty, scared, drugged-up old man in bad makeup.
The flip-flip sweat was palpable.
New cut and color, did notice, didn’t make a difference. Which is pretty much what feedback across the internet says when it ignores the new lipstick on the same pig.
A poseur and grifter, with a little too much cut and sew on his face and not enough on his body. A familiar type at upscale resorts, the kind that those he targets can spot a mile off and avoid like the plague.
He’s still swimming in that huge suit of his, too—reminds me of an overweight, orange version of David Byrne of the Talking Heads in the 80s…
And you may find yourself living in a Florida club
And you may find yourself Defendant in yet another indictment
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a rolling dumpster fire
And you may find yourself in a glass house with a pile of stones
And you may ask yourself, “Well, how did I get here?”
Make the debate go by, let the fact-checks hold me down
Let the debate go by, loss to Kamala coming ’round
Into the red again, when the spin cycle’s done
Once in a lifetime, sewer flowing underground
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was…
Ok, that made me laugh out loud. Kudos!
Nice. Remain in Light-ened.
Perf!
I noticed many analysts pointing out that Kamala did not answer the first question but instead gave what amounted to an opening statement. No one seemed to recognize that this was a smart move to make sure that her message got out to the people who might have tuned in for just the beginning of the debate. The bar set for her by Trump supporters was to be able to put together more than 2 sentences without a teleprompter. Now they are stuck claiming her earrings were wireless earbuds with Obama secretly telling her what to say. In other words, she passed with flying colors.
Good gawd, what is wrong with these people. The (debunked, of course) earring thing has more than a whiff of desperation.
How would Lou Dobbs rate Trump’s debate performance?
a) Superb
b) Great
c) Very Good
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/lou-dobbs-invites-viewers-to-vote-on-trumps-coronavirus-leadership-superb-great-or-very-good/
Dead people can’t give ratings (Lou died 7/18/24), so I guess he saw his last debate with Biden. Speaking unauthorized on behalf of the Dobbs estate then:
a) unhinged
b) racist
c) angry
So you’re saying this occurred in a post-Dobbs context.
Never has a double-entendre been so on the mark!
Ooohhh… very nicely done, as usual.
The other thing Kamala Harris accomplished was she showed how easy it is to bait Trump into doing exactly what she telegraphed ahead of time he would do. It was no secret that she intended to bait him into responding like he did. Anyone thinking clearly should realize it shows how easily foreign adversaries will be and have been able to push him around.
This was my spouse’s main takeaway. He’s putty in their hands.
Am I the only one that wonders about TFG’s vulgar accusations about Kamala, his tendency to project, and the alone time he spent with Putin?
Amen.
Why entrust the safety and security of the country to a man who can be easily baited?
…and she pointed that out explicitly in one (and maybe more) of her comments.
That tactic was executed several times last night by her with different subjects, followed by, “America doesn’t want to have to go through this again.”
I’m coincidentally at the part of Fiona Hill’s book, There’s Nothing For You Here, where she describes the alarm within the intelligence community about TFG’s susceptibility to flattery. We will likely never know the full extent of the damage he’s done to national security, but it’s likely far worse than we can imagine. For flattery!
Regarding the asymmetrical fact checking. Am I correct that the only two real fact checks were on the post birth abortion thing (Finally! How in the world haven’t the Dems nipped that rhetoric in the bud years ago) and the Springfield one? Both extreme, damaging lies. Other than that, the moderators did not fact check, unless I missed something. They did however, push on a couple things, such as DT’s stances on abortion and the Ukraine war. He couldn’t have liked that.
One thing I was sad not to see was a clear explanation of tariffs. I wish she had closed the loop with her line about it being national sales tax that would cost average folks $4K a year and stated simply that tariffs are paid by the consumer. How can anyone allow DT to insist that tariffs are paid by foreign governments and not use that as an opportunity for education?
(First comment! I expect moderation. I also am paranoid about forgetting my screen name so I took a screen shot to help me remember, Rayne.)
*thumbs up* on the screenshotting username. It’s not a login with password, you won’t hurt anything by losing it, but it sure makes things easier if you can recall your username even with a screenshot.
Welcome to emptywheel.
4 fact checks by moderators by my count:
1abortion execution
2 Springfield dogs/cats
3 win by a whisker admission not sarcasm
4 crime rates down
Yes.
And Trump’s whining about the moderators not fact checking Harris seems very whiny. Harris and her team could put out a quick reply to one of his posts saying “Harris stuck to the truth – you might try it sometime.”
Reckless disregard for truth invites a Reckoning.
Where did the idea of Biden spending too much time at the beach come from? Especially coming from a former president that spent too much time playing with his little balls.
That was my reaction upon hearing that bullshit. Trump spent 25% of his term on the golf course, racking up all kinds of charges against the Secret Service budget for housing, golf cart rentals, and more, costing taxpayers +$144 million.
Archived copy: https://web.archive.org/web/20210121164407/https://trumpgolfcount.com/
I think it’s because Biden was at his beach home when Trump was shot at in July. And then Biden was back at the beach in August after dropping out and that somehow signifies that he should have resigned from the Presidency? You’ll never make the logic make sense especially as Rayne points out, Trump played a shit ton of golf while President. But the lack of self awareness has never bothered the MAGA dolts and the news media.
That is a fair comment, actually. It’s like the border wall, which was going “to be paid by Mexico”. As if.
The sad thing is, there are far too many people who don’t trouble to take whatever time they need to think things through in order to understand that it’s just more meaningless Trump snake oil. Reality has to be spelt out to them in an easily-digestible meme (“sales tax”, which she did) but then followed through, as you suggest.
But hopefully that will happen in later messaging, once the first outing has had a chance to sink in. (To ‘borrow’ an old saying, protectionism is the last refuge of the populist scoundrel.)
This is why I contribute here!
Silver is so obviously betting on this election that he’s openly shitting his pants. What a weird career that clown has had.
It’s a gross conflict of interest that should have him drummed out of the business. Instead, he makes more money at it. Trump is correct: part of the system is corrupt, but it works in his favor, not against him.
Once upon a time, he had a patina of impartiality about him that was the prime attractor for my attention (and that of a lot of others). Today, he’s trying to monetize that reputation in service to his new corporate media overlords and has instead joined the no-clothes choir.
It’s too bad, really.
You do know that he left 538 over a year ago, right? He’s been independent ever since. He owns the IP to the 538 forecasting model, which he’s been tinkering with.
Models like his don’t react quickly to big events; it’s just the way they are. So he spends time justifying why it doesn’t react after some big event occurs. It’s also hard to estimate the impact of rare events like post-convention surges, as they are quite variable and there aren’t very many of them – and the impacts change over time, e.g., with increasing polarization, in terms of their effect on the election.
He’s hardly a clown – he’s got the track record to back him up. But making predictions is hard, especially about the future.
Or models don’t react quickly if persons who created them need them not to do so.
Consider how one might play a short in the market if they believed they had inside information. How would one use a “standard” model to profit from a short?
Be more skeptical, IOW.
Replying to Rayne:
Ah, the old idiot vs crook conundrum!
And of course, both can be true as well.
Reply to Peterr
September 11, 2024 at 10:38 pm
Both may be true depending on his cognitive condition at any time. Trump’s condition in front of the Economic Club of New York was the old idiot while he was a crook last night during the debate. Both the idiot and the crook are narcissists, though, who’ll resist peaking under the hood. The idiot babbles to filibuster and avoid scrutiny. The crook doesn’t want anyone to catch him at criming while faking it.
Sure would like to know what they gave him last night to prop up the crook and keep the old idiot suppressed. I think it was wearing off during the last 30 minutes.
Reply to Rayne
September 11, 2024 at 10:48 pm
I was talking about Nate — bad models that can’t handle new/difficult data or changing circumstances vs trying to mold the future to fit his predictions/predilections — but it works for Trump too.
Reply to Peterr
September 11, 2024 at 10:55 pm
LOL I missed the context reading your comment from the site’s backend.
Silver strikes me as an addict — possibly to gambling but definitely high too often on his own supply. Likely compromised by one or both addictions.
It almost seems like polling has been really off since Roe was overturned. And MAGA displayed their violent threats and actions that keep non-magas much more private about their views.
Haven’t dems generally outperformed the polls since Roe was overturned?
Who knew cats could be the things that swing this election? My feline friends and I are quite pleased.
Speaking of (I always worry I’m off topic : .) I was proud of how Kamala utilized the construct of reality to mock tfg. When she said foreign leaders are laughing at him, I was at a debate party and we were horrifyingly laughing at him. I’m a dinosaur & I wonder things like people were filming what was going on. In my imagination there’s a video of people laughing at him at different debate parties. When she said people are leaving his rallies early. She was brilliant. If I may throw in, in my observations at 73 years old, the gop never wins the presidency unless some Democrats vote for them. Think the con “Reagan Democrats.” At this point and I realize the must win states, this could be the beginning of the sinking ship where some have already abandoned the gop ship. I don’t see a manufactured opening (le press) where the insane asylum has the votes. Speaking of so F Peter Thiel, his baby Nate Silver, and they know what you buy, pollsters. We can see forward! We can do something! I have to add the moderators were great. Been a long time since I’ve seen fairness. Lastly the price of groceries & such. Right on! Covid/Putin war Gas $ continuous gouging… Is my simple internet connection worth $96.00 a month?
Don Jr. seems quiet today. Or have I missed his opinion of things?
“Indeed, one of Trump’s biggest zingers, a preplanned one, came when he repeated her line back to her, “I’m speaking now.””
What I’d like to know is who on his campaign team honestly thought this was a good idea? I suspect a lot of women recognized both the statement and the way he said it. “Shut up, a MAN is speaking now.”
If it wasn’t TFG himself, it was likely any number of campaign staff and/or debate preppers known for abusive behavior towards women (Lewandowski, Miller, Gaetz but realistically all of ’em).
My guess was Gaetz.
That was supposed to be a zinger. Harkening back to the 2020 VP debate. It failed. She came back later by pointing out that she is running against him and not Biden.
He stepped on his own remark when he immediately followed it with “sound familiar?” as if no one would understand his zinger unless he pointed it out.
Yeah, I know what he was trying to do. But someone on his team should have realized that that zinger sounds VERY different coming from a woman responding to a man than it does in reverse.
And then Trump delivered it VERY condescendingly, which just adds to the impression.
So Trump and his minions (Steve Miller??) have repackaged the old “Blood Libel” bit the Jews have been labeled with and rebranded immigrants and Democrats. I don’t see much if any outrage about that.
I imagine this has been done purposefully with full knowledge and is just another example of Republicans tearing a page out of the fascist playbook Hitler used. It’s outrageous and needs to be called out.
“Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are the number one traffickers of children, girls into sex slavery on planet earth.”
Steven Miller on MSNBC with Ari Melber, Aug 2024
When all a fascist has to sell is outrage, they are forced to make it up.
Valid examples tend to come from people fascists are trying to become friends with: oligarchs and autocrats, and corporations that tend to specialize in research and resource extraction in failed states (which they are careful to keep failed). Their business methods tend to know no bounds.
“ minions (Steve Miller??) have repackaged”
My WAG => Laura Loomer
https://x.com/atrupar/status/1833690172484980944
10:13 PM · Sep 10, 2024
TRANSCRIPT:
^^^ Look at how HARRIS looks at TRUMP during this exchange, and how BIDEN looks at TRUMP during this exchange from the 6/27/24 BIDEN / TRUMP debate:
https://x.com/atrupar/status/1806501254031429917
9:33 PM · Jun 27, 2024
TRANSCRIPT:
Wikipedia has an entry listing Putin’s foreign travel:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_international_presidential_trips_made_by_Vladimir_Putin
Only 3 trips made in ’21-’22 before the invasion of Ukraine: Switzerland (summit with Biden), India, and China. So that’s probably TFG making shit up. Has he even left the U.S. since January ’21?
He went to Scotland and Ireland in ~May 2023 FWIW.
I do wonder however whether some Trump proxy has been in contact with Putin at some point, which maybe what Trump refers to.
I excluded any Putin travel post-February ’22 because of his arrest warrant. The only country Putin has traveled to since then where he would be subject to arrest is Mongolia this past month, which declined to do its duty under law.
Proxies are an entirely different story. Orban and Bolsonaro are likely Putin proxies who traveled to TFG.
Or when he said “He hasn’t even made a phone call in two years to Putin.”
How does he know this?
Watching the debate last night, I couldn’t help but imagine Kamala looking at Trump and asking, “Read me, Dr. Memory?”
https://youtu.be/L5x2xBa8p0A?si=0E3VZs7XOABXE5RI
Q: “Well Mr. President, the bees and spiders stole my food stamps and sold them to the rats…”
A: “Would you state that as a question please?”
Firesign is as pertinent as ever, even now…thanks for the clip!
Took the bull by the horns did Harris. Man, he couldn’t even look her in the eyes. From here on in, he’s on the run from a round two.
Sweet. :-)
That’s what I saw in the clips I watched. She stares at him while she gigs him, and he looks away. Very prosecutor. The she turns to the camera (the jury) and makes her pitch facing us.
Here’s a comment I posted on dKos
the afternoon before the debate:
https://www.dailykos.com/comments/2269152/89586898#comment_89586898
Damn, it is fun to see a prosecutor ask questions!
Q: How will Harris pay for all her tax credits?
A: Have MAGAs repay their covid checks and PPP loans from Trump.
I always wonder that the school loan forgiveness OMG moral hazard crowd never said a word against PPP loan forgiveness.
Watching Trump last night, was reminded of Captain Queeg. So I made this movie.
https://youtu.be/c4RMCPNCDHk
Thanx. FB needs this video.
regarding ground games
https://www.thecut.com/article/kamala-harris-women-movement-voters-organizers-grassroots-fundraising.html
She calling him out about so many lies, etc. was like him hovering over Hillary in the 2016 debate. He couldn’t take it happening to him yesterday.
Slightly off topic, but I just received a text from Liz Cheney telling me she is officially endorsing Colin Allred (against Ted Cruz in TX) and asking me to donate to his campaign. She points out TC’s support of the insurrection and says she worked with CA in the Congress. Wow.
Does that mean she will also be endorsing Lance Kunce over Josh Hawley in Missouri??
If it would do any good, that would be great, I guess.
From Instagram: “When he said they’re giving migrants sex changes I nearly spit out my dog”
LOL
On IG, OccupyDemocrats posted Frank Luntz being interviewed by Piers Morgan: ” Trump lost the election last night. His comments about people eating cats and dogs. Calling the dictator of Hungary one of the greatest world leaders. It was a pessimistic, cynical contemptuous performance. I’m going on the record: I think he loses the election because of this debate performance !”
Also posted on Daily Beast : https://www.thedailybeast.com/longtime-gop-pollster-frank-luntz-says-trumps-campaign-is-over-after-bad-debate
This picture, mentioned earlier, says it all:
https://ftw.usatoday.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/90/2015/12/screen-shot-2015-12-10-at-3-09-17-pm.png?resize=768
Trump’s ego is glass. VP Harris shattered that glass.
Trump is forever broken.
Trump’s worse fear has happened: People are laughing at him
I do believe that it’s laughter that will finally bring him down. (The rest of the world is well ahead, of course, but it’s at home where it will actually matter.)
Having been up & down this comment thread several times as it refreshes, here’s MY (possibly rhetorical) question: when will media consumers rise up and address our media-whore gatekeepers thus: “Why haven’t you been telling us about THIS guy? Why has THIS guy been absent, in all your measured accounts of, in essence, ‘fine candidates on both sides’? We deserve better from you, who we invest our ears and eyeballs in, to tell us some version of the truth, and, on the evidence we saw for ourselves on that debate stage, you have utterly let us down.” I know it’ll never happen, but it should.
WARNING:
Top election officials warn the Postal Service of mail ballot issues. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/09/12/us/harris-trump-election#mail-ballots-post-office-problems p.m. ETSept. 11, 2024
LINK to Letter:
https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/30e63c22ad2ffd05/deb3fd8f-full.pdf
The service in Maryland has gotten so bad that some Maryland agencies are advising people to use local offices where most transactions can be done in person rather than rely on the postal service.
Same here in rural Eastern Wa. Started with TFG appointment of PostMaster general. My mail is so slow I can’t pay mail in bills on time nor can I get the Seattle Times half the time.
33 Officials / 26 States [>]
Colorado // Connecticut // Florida // Georgia // Indiana // Iowa // Kansas [2] // Louisiana // Maine // Massachusetts [2] // Michigan [2] // Minnesota // Mississippi [3] // Missouri // Nebraska // New Jersey [2] // New Mexico [2] // North Carolina // North Dakota // Ohio // Rhode Island // South Carolina // Texas // Virginia // Washington // Wyoming []
Fair warning: Wow…this letter is an infuriating read. :-/
End of the body of the letter:
Seems like some might think this is a feature…NOT a bug.
I feel a letter to Senator Gary Peters, Chair of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, coming on since that committee is responsible for oversight of USPS.
If USPS is being run like a business, why is the USPS board allowing the business’s chair to be such a fuck-up with the most important portion of business it carries? Why is a board led by Democrats tolerating this fuckery? Fire DeJoy.
And where the hell are the results of the investigation into DeJoy’s conflicts of interest anyhow? It’s been years now since he was hired.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/09/12/us/harris-trump-election/30e0fa22-00c7-5f46-8301-d99af9491183
Sept. 12, 2024, 10:04 a.m. ET
That’s NOT what those election officials are saying:
“our ongoing concerns about the United States Postal Service’s (USPS) performance“
It’s a crime that Louis DeJoy is still Postmaster General and that he is allowed to deconstruct its function in support of the electorate. It’s also reprehensible what he is doing to normal postal deliveries: promoting employment, managemenet, and resource removal practices that lead to long delays, while substantially increasing prices for less service.
These are a function of his partisan political and economic choices, not necessity or his management competence or style. His record during Trump’s maladministration was clear. His prompt removal should have been a high priority. It still should be.
Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Will Support Kamala Harris
He views Trump’s reelection as a threat to the rule of law. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/09/12/alberto-gonzales-kamala-harris-endorsement-00178746 Alberto Gonzales 09/12/2024 05:00 AM EDT [Alberto R. Gonzales served as U.S. attorney general and counsel to the president in the George W. Bush administration.]
what the what what
I feel like I’ve skipped across the multiverse or something.
Are we in a Marvel movie?
No. We’re in a Daniels-written and -directed film produced by A24 — Everything Everywhere All At Once.
Perhaps with fewer butt-plug shaped trophies.
Rayne: Thanks for the clarification.~
…although a dearth of butt plug trophies is concerning…
Reply to BRUCE F COLE
September 13, 2024 at 12:53 pm
You’ll be your own judge. If I use EEAAO as a benchmark — watch every scene with Jamie Lee Curtis in trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0HSY0sHLLo as a measure — we’re still short plugs.
(Cracks me up Curtis kept one for herself to sit with her other awards.)
I know! I couldn’t decide what to say about it [lol], so just posted it.
Jon Stewart’s recap of the debate included his reaction to Dick Cheney’s endorsement of Kamala Harris:
https://youtu.be/KtHn59wqdBc?t=220
I’m experiencing a similar reaction to Alberto Gonzales. F*** that guy.
Let’s put Texas in play!
Sinking like a ship. Taking the whole party down.
Marcy links to this post from last August, saying:
https://bsky.app/profile/emptywheel.bsky.social/post/3l3xms4wuqn22
Alberto Gonzales Lectures Jack Goldsmith about Perception versus Reality in a Democracy https://www.emptywheel.net/2023/08/13/alberto-gonzales-lectures-jack-goldsmith-about-perception-versus-reality-in-a-democracy/ August 13, 2023
Certification of Election Will Get Extra Security to Try to Prevent Another Capitol Attack
The Homeland Security Department approved adding federal, state and local resources to help protect the counting of Electoral College votes on Jan. 6, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/11/us/politics/electoral-college-certification-security.html
Luke Broadwater Sept. 11, 2024
Something something barn door something horse.
Not only did he not look at Harris once during the debate, he also never looked directly into the camera. He looked and directed all his answers to the moderators, not the American people. He doesn’t understand the basic fundamental job of the American President, that he is responsible to us, the American people. Our needs are irrelevant to him, we are all just “fluffers” for him.
“A fluffer is—or at least is said to be—someone on a pornographic film set that keeps a male performer’s penis erect in between scenes.
[Welcome back to emptywheel. SECOND REQUEST: Please choose and use a unique username with a minimum of 8 letters. We have adopted this minimum standard to support community security. You attempted to publish this comment as “Jill”; you have used two other usernames, the first known being “jwh186.” Because your username is far too short it will be temporarily changed to match the date/time of your first known comment until you have a new compliant username. /~Rayne]
Tim Miller, on a Bulwark podcast, said the taunt about crowd sizes was planned to use later in the debate, but Harris intuitively changed the timing to when she was being criticized about immigration. Great presence!
NYT amplifies that undecided voters aren’t so sure Harris won the debate by using anecdotal evidence. https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation-politics/pundits-said-harris-won-the-debate-undecided-voters-werent-so-sure/