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Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Did Trump Just Blow His Chance?

Published by digby on October 28, 2024

After the 2016 election once everyone recovered from the shock, the analyses of what happened started to gel into a conventional wisdom that said Donald Trump won because a bunch of non-college educated white people were feeling “economic anxiety.” Thousands of stories and features followed with reporters being sent out to rural Pennsylvania diners and Iowa church socials to figure out what those voters really want.

But the fact was that it was an extremely close electoral college victory that could have gone either way with just a handful of votes in a couple of swing states. The main data guru at the time, Nate Silver, did a post-election analysis which showed that whenever there was an event such as Hillary Clinton collapsing briefly at a 9/11 event or the Washington Post reporting of Donald Trump’s gross commentary on the Access Hollywood tape, there would be a slight drop in the polls for the affected candidate but they would rebound to the usual stasis within a couple of weeks.

Trump was still struggling to recover from the Access Hollywood scandal at the end of October of that year and Clinton was ahead in the aggregated polling by about 6 points. And then FBI Director James Comey sent a letter to congress announcing that the agency was following up on the Clinton email investigation and the media once again went wild with the story that had captivated them for months. Clinton’s polls immediately dropped and never had a chance to recover because election day was just too soon. The rest is history.

Silver gathered plenty of evidence to back up his theory that the Comey letter and the subsequent media frenzy so close to the election was decisive in Clinton’s loss. Why do I bring that up now? Well, that event happened exactly 8 years ago today. You may remember the famous NY Times front page the next morning:

The polls are a lot tighter today than they were in 2016. But as that year proved, any small misstep can matter greatly because there is no time to recover. And it’s just possible that Donald Trump made one yesterday with his horrifying rally at Madison Square Garden in New York.

The event was packed and it went on for many hours as his rallies are wont to do. The speakers were pretty much uniformly crude, extreme and insulting in one way or another. It got off to a roaring start with radio host Sid Rosenberg calling Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff a “crappy jew” and keeping it classy by saying, “she is some sick bastard, that Hillary Clinton. What a sick son of a bitch. The whole fucking party. A bunch of degenerates. Lowlives, Jew-haters, and lowlives. Every one of ’em. Every one of ’em.” So that was nice.

Another speaker, David Rem, supposedly a childhood friend of Trump’s (apparently not true) said, “Kamala Harris is the devil! She is the Antichrist!” A real estate expert (?) named Grant Cardone took to the podium to declare that former California AG, US Senator and current Vice President Harris is “the least qualified person to ever run for any office in America” and claims that she has “pimp handlers,” which I think has a pretty clear implication.

After Trump the day before had made a big pitch to American Muslims to vote for him , Rudy Giuliani showed up and slammed Palestinians:

The Palestinians are taught to kill us at two years old. They won’t let a Palestinian in Jordan.. in Egypt. And Harris wants to bring them to you.

Trump’s transition chief, Howard Lutnick, yelled “we must crush Jihad!” and waxed on about the 1890s when America was great while Trump’s top adviser Steven Miller really brought home the 1939 vibes with his declaration that “America is for Americans!” (It sounded better in the original German: Nur für Deutsche a genuine Nazi slogan.)

RFK Jr was there too, ranting about the “corruption at the CDC, the FDA, the NIH and the CIA.” Trump later promised him, “I’m gonna let him go wild on health. I’m gonna let him go wild on the foods. I’m gonna let him go wild on the medicines.” And Tucker Carlson took the stage to huge applause, laughing maniacally and delivering a crude racist insult toward Kamala Harris:

Those are just the highlights of some of the introductory speeches before Trump came on and did his usual schtick which had people leaving the venue in droves.

But there was one very special speech given by a “comedian” at the start of the event. His name is Tony Hinchcliffe and he apparently has a very popular podcast. He got the whole event rolling with this line:

He also had a gag about hanging out with a Black friend and instead of carving pumpkins, they carved a watermelon. But this Puerto Rico “joke” caused a sensation and not for nothing. In this very tight race, Trump is depending on making inroads among Latino voters to make up for his losses among white college educated suburbanites. The line immediately went viral.

As luck would have it, Kamala Harris happened to be in Pennsylvania at that very moment making a pitch to Puerto Rican voters (there are almost half a million of them in the state) when word of the insult hit the internet. Within a matter of minutes we saw Puerto Rican megastar Bad Bunny, soon followed by Rickey Martin and J Lo, (with a combined 315 million followers on Instagram alone) all endorsing Harris and criticizing Trump. Florida politicians immediately began to denounce the comment and the Trump campaign itself finally came forward and said it didn’t reflect their position. All of this happened as the rally was still going on!

Is it just another tempest in a teapot? Could be. Trump is a master at eluding all accountability. He didn’t say anything about it in his own speech but perhaps he’ll address it today and that will be the end of it. But if there’s a lesson from 2016 it’s that a scandal that would normally blow over given enough time can be lethal in the final days of a campaign. In a tied race it’s the last thing any campaign would want.

Of course, everything that was said in that rally should, by all rights, disqualify Trump in the minds of decent people everywhere. I’ll never understand how any of that is considered normal political discourse now. But specifically insulting a group that’s necessary for victory is just plain dumb even for them. All it takes is just a point or two in the right place and it could be the death blow. 

Salon

Ethnic Cleansing, ICYMI

Published by Tom Sullivan on October 28, 2024

Donald Trump/Tom Homan/Stephen Miller/Project 2025 dream

“Families can be deported together.”

I’m reposting this “60 Minutes” clip of Tom Homan again to make sure no one misses it amidst the Trump rally coverage.

CBS News:

Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, has said it would be reasonable to deport a million people a year. And Trump’s top immigration adviser, Stephen Miller, told the audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference earlier this year that deportees would be removed from the country in a massive military air operation.

“You grab illegal immigrants and then you move them to the staging ground and that’s where the planes are waiting for federal law enforcement to then move those illegals home,” Miller said at the conference. “You deputize the National Guard to carry out immigration enforcement.”

Homan said he doesn’t use the term “raids,” but immigration enforcement operations at worksites would be needed. 

Deeper into the realm of ethnic cleansing

From the clip:

Cecilia Vega asks: “Is there a way to carry out mass deportation without separating families?”

“Of course there is. Families can be deported together,” says Tom Homan, head of ICE during Trump’s family separation policy.

“Deport families together. Note what that means:

Believe them the first time.

It’s Horror Movie Season

Published by Tom Sullivan on October 28, 2024

Donald Trump filmed one in Madison Scary Garden

Nazi storm troopers fill the aisles as the crowd sings “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the opening of the German American Bund’s rally at Madison Square Garden.
Larry Froeber/NY Daily News Archive

Digby last night featured just a few of the racist quotes. (They even played “Dixie” before Byron Donalds walked on.) But know this. Trump long ago stopped trying to win this election on Nov. 5. He plans to take it by force afterwards. Rick Wilson knows it. So should you. The only way to keep us from that is by making Nov. 5 “a real knockout.”

Last night’s New York rally and Trump’s others in states he has no chance of winning are not about winning on Nov. 5. They are about keeping the spotlight on himself, about turning the volume up to 12, about signalling what he wants his followers to do when he loses. He’s doubling down on what he and his co-conspirators failed at in 2021.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tells “Morning Joe” they are “mini January 6 rallies … mini Stop the Steal rallies” meant to prime his base for more post-election violence.

Trump’s campaign deliberately chose Madison Square Garden for the callback to the pro-Nazi German American Bund rally from 1939. Trump adviser Stephen Miller, of course, did not disappoint on that score.

“America is for Americans and Americans only,” Miller shouted after insisting that all those he deems undesirables would be deported. Natürlich, he decides who is an American. John Pavlovitz quipped on FKA Twitter, “Stephen Miller’s pronouns are He/Himmler.”

This is where Trump and Miller want to take this country. Everyone else they deem undesirable they mean to take elsewhere. Forcefully.

Trump’s MAGA movement is a shrinking demographic. But don’t let that fool you into thinking that it’s not a harmful one. They’re signalling harm at every opportunity. The only way they might have made that clearer was if they’d broadcast the rally in black and white.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/27/us/trump-msg-rally.html

Meanwhile at Madison Square Garden

Published by digby on October 27, 2024

The 1939 Nazi rally was classier:

He’s really giving off Der Feuhrer vibes there…

And speaking of Nazis:

Those were just the opening acts. It sounds like they told everyone to feel free to let their freak flags fly. I’d guess Trump will feel energized by that.

Update: it’s hours later ince I posted this and Trump is still droning on. It’s the usual. And people are streaming out while he’s talking, However, anyone watching cable is seeing it:

A Hopium Break

Published by digby on October 27, 2024

Since we all feel like the polls are out to destroy our sanity, here’s a little bit of hopium to get you through the night.

Is this one any better than the others? Who knows? But if I’m to maintain my belief that a majority of the American people aren’t disgusting reprobates, this one is one I’d like to believe.

By the way, the over 65 crowd voting for Harris (if true) is probably a refletion of the younger boomers, (like me) falling into that category. We’re more liberal than the older vanguard and much more liberal thanthe silent generation oldsters who are starting to die out. Just saying. The old vote may be less of a roadblock than it’s been in the past

The NY Times Comes Through

Published by digby on October 27, 2024

For all the shit we’ve given the NYTimes in this election season, they have really pulled out all the stops to make up for it the last couple of days. This was yesterday’s front page.

Here are a couple of the inside pages in the same issue. There are more. A huge section was devoted to this subject.

I have included a gift link to this online multimedia indictment of Trump. It’s amazing.

And here is their endorsement of Kamala Harris which, unlike the Washington Post and the LA Times, they seem to think is something a major national paper has a responsibility to do:

It is hard to imagine a candidate more unworthy to serve as president of the United States than Donald Trump. He has proved himself morally unfit for an office that asks its occupant to put the good of the nation above self-interest. He has proved himself temperamentally unfit for a role that requires the very qualities — wisdom, honesty, empathy, courage, restraint, humility, discipline — that he most lacks.

Those disqualifying characteristics are compounded by everything else that limits his ability to fulfill the duties of the president: his many criminal charges, his advancing age, his fundamental lack of interest in policy and his increasingly bizarre cast of associates.

This unequivocal, dispiriting truth — Donald Trump is not fit to be president — should be enough for any voter who cares about the health of our country and the stability of our democracy to deny him re-election.

For this reason, regardless of any political disagreements voters might have with her, Kamala Harris is the only patriotic choice for president.

Gift link to the rest. It’s good. They make a very persuasiv positive argument for Harris, much more than I would have expected.

*Maybe working the refs a little bit works????

“Our Best Choice In This Horrible Situation”

Published by digby on October 27, 2024

To all our progressive and American Muslim friends who are thinking of leaving the presidential slot blank on the ballot, I urge you to read this. It’s the best argument I’ve seen about how to smartly leverage all of our concerns over Gaza and Israel:

Arizona Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and Progressive Democrats and Community Leaders Statement on Presidential Election

As Democrats and leaders in the Palestinian, Arab, Muslim and Progressive communities in Arizona, we the undersigned make the following statement, published on 10/24/2024:

This past year has been very difficult for all of us. With over 42,000 Palestinians killed by Israel using American-supplied weapons and no end in sight despite all our struggle for a ceasefire, we approach the presidential election heartbroken and outraged.

We know that many in our communities are resistant to vote for Kamala Harris because of the Biden administration’s complicity in the genocide. We understand this sentiment. Many of us have felt that way ourselves, even until very recently. Some of us have lost many family members in Gaza and Lebanon. We respect those who feel they simply can’t vote for a member of the administration that sent the bombs that may have killed their loved ones.

As we consider the full situation carefully, however, we conclude that voting for Kamala Harris is the best option for the Palestinian cause and all of our communities. We know that some will strongly disagree. We only ask that you consider our case with an open mind and heart, respecting that we are doing what we believe is right in an awful situation where only flawed choices are available.

In our view, it is crystal clear that allowing the fascist Donald Trump to become President again would be the worst possible outcome for the Palestinian people. A Trump win would be an extreme danger to Muslims in our country, all immigrants, and the American pro-Palestine movement. It would be an existential threat to our democracy and our whole planet.

When we think of Trump in power again, we recall that even a genocide can get much worse. Trump just said that Netanhahu must “go further” in Gaza while criticizing Biden for “trying to hold him back.” His biggest donor, Miriam Adelson, who demanded in 2016 that Trump move the US embassy to Jerusalem if elected –– which he then did –– is now telling Trump to allow Israel to annex the entire West Bank. Netanyahu, Ben Gvir, Smotrich, and the entire far right in Israel want Trump to win and grant Israel total free reign. We cannot give them what they want.

Trump must be defeated. The only way to defeat him is to elect Kamala Harris.

Voting for Harris is not a personal endorsement of her or of the policy decisions of the administration in which she served. It’s an assessment of the best possible option to continue fighting for an end to the genocide, a free Palestine, and all else that we hold dear.

We are deeply frustrated that Harris has not yet met our movement’s demand that she break with Biden, defy the powerful extremists enforcing the status quo, stand with the majority of Americans, and pledge to uphold US law and international law and condition aid to Israel. Still we believe there are clear reasons to hope that we can win positive policy change with a Harris administration and a Democratic Congress.

Multiple media reports state that Harris’s national security advisors are open to re-evaluating policy and conditioning aid to Israel. On October 13th, the same day the administration threatened to re-evaluate military support if Israel did not improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza and reduce civilian casualties in the next 30 days, Harris tweeted: “Israel must urgently do more to facilitate the flow of aid to those in need. Civilians must be protected and have access to food, water, and medicine. International humanitarian law must be respected.” In Michigan the other day, Harris expressed clear empathy for the suffering of the people of Palestine and Lebanon and the impact of this devastation on Arab Americans. She pledged to do “everything in her power” as President to end the war in Gaza, end the suffering of Palestinians there, and achieve “a future of security and dignity for all people in the region.”

Beyond Harris’s statements, we know that her decisions as President will be shaped by the larger Democratic Party coalition that includes a growing force pushing for Palestinian human rights. Our Arizona Democratic Party passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire in January. Every single member of Congress who has publicly called for a ceasefire in Gaza or for an arms embargo is a Democrat. The major national unions, civil rights groups, and progressive organizations that have called for a halt to military aid to Israel are all working to elect Harris.

On the other hand, the Republican Party coalition offers zero opposition to unconditional support for Israel and zero support for Palestinian human rights. Instead Republicans urge the US to join Israel in bombing Iran, call to “bounce the rubble in Gaza” and “kill ‘em all,” and would likely support the Israeli far right’s drive to annex Gaza and the West Bank.

What about a third party? Many in our communities believe this is our best option. Unfortunately, there is not a single third party member of Congress or even state legislator in America. In our electoral system, no third party candidate can win this election. But voting for them could make Trump president.

The polls show the presidential election is extremely close and that it will be decided by 7 swing states, including Arizona. While voting 3rd party may be strategic in non-swing states as a protest of the current US Israel/Palestine policy or as a step to qualifying the Green Party for public funding in future elections by winning at least 5% of the national vote, doing it in Arizona or other swing states in such a close election could bring disaster.

Some argue that if Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim voters and our allies vote for a 3rd party candidate and intentionally throw the election to Trump, taking credit for defeating Harris, it will prove our power to decide a close election and “punish Democrats” for complicity in genocide. Unfortunately, this is not how power, politics, or change works in our country. When Ralph Nader helped throw the election to Bush in 2000, he was rejected by millions for whom he was once a hero, banished ever since to the political margins. When Jill Stein helped throw the election to Trump in 2016, she remained relegated to the political fringe, becoming less powerful not more. If our communities ally with the Green Party to defeat Harris, we risk marginalizing ourselves as they did by alienating the tens of millions of voters who support the cause of Palestinian freedom and are fighting to defeat Trump by electing her.

Instead, by helping to elect Kamala Harris, we can say, “Despite it all, we gave you another chance and helped put you in office to defend democracy and uphold our highest American values. Now uphold them: end the genocide and secure Palestinian self-determination. We will fight every day to hold you to it.” If Harris and Democrats win, we will wage that fight with more allies among the American people, Congress, and the White House than ever before. If they don’t deliver, we will have a mandate and mass support to hold them accountable through every nonviolent tool of democracy, including protests, resignations, civil disobedience, primary election challenges, and even potential mass noncooperation. It’s a difficult path, but the one that offers the most hope.

The first step –– and our best choice in this horrible situation –– is defeating Trump by electing Harris. We urge you to join us.

This is the only strategy that makes sense. I hope people are listening.

Jake Tapper FTW

Published by digby on October 27, 2024

“I’m telling you that Donald Trump has said and I agree with them that we should use the US military to go after American people who riot.”

The whole Tapper interview with Vance is difficult to watch but in the end it’s utterly satisfying. Vance is a fast talker but it comes through clearly just what a horror he really is. Tapper doesn’t let him go.

Trump is 78 and could keel over at any time. Vance is 39 yers old. He could easily end up in the oval office. He is the future of the Republican Party.

Everything About Trump Is Fake

Published by Tom Sullivan on October 27, 2024

Including his masculinity

MSNBC’s Katie Phang asked Liz Plank (“For the Love of Men: A Vision for Mindful Masculinity”) to explain where Donald Trump and his angry male base gets masculinity wrong. They don’t know their own place in a changing culture and an eroding patriarchy, she finds.

“Can we talk about masculinity, right? Trump is putting on a performance of masculinity. Because he’s not actually masculine. This is a guy who spends more time with his make-up artists than with his own advisors,” Plank explains.

“But even setting aside that he probably wears more make-up than Kamala Harris, masculine men aren’t afraid of women. They’re not afraid to debate women. Masculine men don’t have meltdowns on stage because a woman that they didn’t like asked them a question that they didn’t like. Masculine men aren’t manipulated by people who give them compliments.”

Like Trump’s bogus reputation as a business genius, his hyper-masculinity is another scam, a false front. He’s failing the men he claims to be leading. It’s a performance.

By his own definition of masculinity, Trump fails, Plank insists. Trump and J.D. Vance appeal to men’s worst versions of themselves.

To say their appeal is to mens’ lesser angels is an insult to angels. We need a new vision of men’s roles in a changing society.

We won’t get it from them.

OMG, Michelle Obama!

Published by Tom Sullivan on October 27, 2024

Who writes her speeches?

“I lay awake at night wondering, ‘What in the world is going on?’” asked Michelle Obama early in her Saturday rally speech in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She’s not alone. The woman I spoke with on Friday said the same while choking back tears.

But, holy hell, who writes Obama’s speeches? There is a lot of her in them, obviously. Her convention speech in August pulled few punches. This speech last night, her first since the DNC, featured bare knuckles.

“Searing and passionate,” the AP called it.

“A scathing indictment of Donald Trump,” said CNN.

“Y’all know I hate politics,” Obama began, referencing the stakes in the presidential election. “But I hate to see folks taken advantage of even more.” She took on the threats to America, and especially to American women. Specifically, from Donald Trump (NPR):

“I hope that you will forgive me if I’m a little angry that we are indifferent to his erratic behavior, his obvious mental decline, his history as a convicted felon, a known slum lord, a predator found liable for sexual abuse — all of this while we pick apart Kamala’s answers from interviews that he doesn’t even have the courage to do, y’all,” she said.

Obama described Harris as a “grown up” with a clear set of policies, and said she fears “too many people are willing to write off Trump’s childish, mean spirited antics by saying, ‘Well, Trump’s just being Trump,’ rather than question his horrible behavior. Some folks think he’s funny.”

“That’s exactly how he got elected the first time — folks gave him a pass and rolled the dice betting that he couldn’t possibly be that bad,” she said.

If you don’t have 40 minutes to spare, catch this clip from the finale of her speech. Before this, she lays bare what women face through their lives from menarche to menopause and how, too little, the men in their lives do not appreciate the the tenuousness of women’s reproductive health care they neither understand nor attend.

“So I am asking y’all from the core of my being to take our lives seriously. “

“If we don’t get this election right, your wife, your daughter, your mother, we as women, will become collateral damage to your rage,” Obama said, addressing men threatened by societal change and attracted to Trump’s implicit promise of rolling it back.

“So, are you as men, prepared to look into the eyes of the women and children you love and tell them that you supported this assault on our safety? And to the women listening, we have every right to demand that the men in our lives do better by us. We have to use our voices to make these choices clear to the men that we love — our lives are worth more than their anger and disappointment. And we are more than just baby-making vessels.”

Perhaps only Michelle Obama can give a Michelle Obama speech. But, damn!