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Trump Only Knows If They Love Him Or Hate Him

Nothing else matters

Philip Bump takes on the age old question of whether Trump is pushing fascism because he believes it or if he’s just a sadistic narcissist who gravitates to it like a moth to flame without understanding any of it. I vote for the latter:

There’s a forgotten moment from Donald Trump’s history that I think about with some regularity. About two decades ago, Trump got into a fight with the town of Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., over a flagpole he installed at his golf course there. The pole was installed without a permit and the height violated local codes. This was not the fight he had centered on an oversized flag installed at Mar-a-Lago — a story that became part of the Trump-as-patriot lore of his followers, with details exaggerated in service to the idea that he put the display of the flag above all else.

What lingers for me about the California iteration is an interaction Trump had with Stephen Colbert, then host of “The Colbert Report.” Colbert’s shtick on the show was that he was an uncomplicated, jingoistic voice of the right, so he recorded a segment offering fake enthusiasm for the future president’s tussle. Then, at the end, he exposed Trump’s insincerity.

“What’s important is this flag,” Colbert says, with his character’s trademark bravado, “and its message of freedom — a message as important to Donald Trump as it was to the 13 original colonies.”

Cut to Trump.

“I don’t know what the 13 stripes represent,” Trump says.

This isn’t surprising, in either the specifics or the broad strokes. The story of Trump’s tenure in national politics has been that he — often coarsely — seizes on symbols of American patriotism while showing little understanding of what they represent or the traditions they embody.

It’s true of the flag, the 13 stripes of which he has formed a habit of hugging during the past eight years. It’s true of the presidency itself, which by all outward appearances he entered while believing that it operated something like being the CEO of a private company. At no point did Trump indicate that he viewed the office as something he was entrusted to hold for four years, as his response to the 2020 election shows. At no point did he indicate that he viewed the presidency as a coequal branch of government with Congress and the Supreme Court.

This haphazard approach to American institutions and history is useful to consider, given Trump’s declaration over the weekend that he would target his perceived opponents as though they were disease-carrying animals.

“In honor of our great Veterans on Veteran’s Day,” he wrote on social media, “we pledge to you that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, Fascists, and Radical Left Thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our Country, lie, steal, and cheat on Elections, and will do anything possible, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America, and the American Dream.”

“The threat from outside forces,” he added, “is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave, than the threat from within.”

In 2015 and 2016, Trump’s rhetoric focused heavily on the purported threats from outside the country, including immigrants and terrorists (groups he often conflated). But those targets were not personally annoying to him in the way that his political opponents — and those he claims are aligned with his opponents, such as federal prosecutors and media members — are annoying. So he has shifted.

As soon as Trump offered these comments, historians (both professional and amateur) noted that they echoed the rhetoric of fascist leaders like Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. This raises a new question: Is Trump doing so knowingly — or is he simply following the same path those dictators walked?

The distinction here is admittedly subtle. It seems important to distinguish between a potential president whose clumsy anger at his opponents has him using language deployed by some of history’s worst actors and a potential president who is willfully modeling himself in their mold.

Stories about Trump’s flirtations with Hitler — or, at least, with some narrowly constructed vision of the mass murderer — have been around for decades. In 1990, Vanity Fair reported an allegation made by his wife as they were going through a divorce.

“Ivana Trump told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that from time to time her husband reads a book of Hitler’s collected speeches, ‘My New Order,’ which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed,” Marie Brenner reported. Asked about it, Trump claimed that he was given Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” as a gift and that, “if I had these speeches, and I am not saying that I do, I would never read them.”

Books released after Trump’s presidency contained anecdotes in which Trump offered words of praise for Nazi Germany to White House chief of staff John Kelly.

“Well, Hitler did a lot of good things,” Trump told Kelly according to Michael Bender’s “Frankly, We Did Win This Election.” At a moment when he was frustrated by pushback from military leaders, Trump reportedly complained to Kelly that he wished his officers could “be like the German generals” during World War II.

“You do know that they tried to kill Hitler three times and almost pulled it off?” Kelly replied, according to Peter Baker and Susan Glasser’s “The Divider.”

This is true. But Trump’s familiarity with Hitler didn’t extend so far as to understanding that there was internal dissension even given the iron fist with which he controlled the country. By all appearances, Trump just sees the fist.

Over the past eight years, this has become obvious. Trump offers praise to a range of autocrats and dictators: Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro. These are leaders who don’t share an ideology or a system of government but share an approach to the wielding of power and a popular response that Trump finds appealing.

Jonathan Karl’s new book, “Tired of Winning,” documents a conversation between Trump and another Republican politician that gets to this point, according to an excerpt obtained by Politico.

“Trump gloated to a prominent member of Congress that [former German chancellor Angela] Merkel — who detested the 45th president privately and had trouble hiding her scorn publicly — told him she was ‘amazed’ by the number of people who came to see him speak,” Karl writes, according to Politico, “and Trump said ‘she told me that there was only one other political leader who ever got crowds as big as mine.’ The Trump-allied congressman knew who Merkel was comparing Trump to, but couldn’t tell if Trump, who took Merkel’s words as a compliment, himself understood.”

“Which would be more unsettling,” Karl continues, “that he didn’t or that he did?”

That, again, is the question. Is it more alarming if Trump knows very well that Hitler used rhetoric comparing his opponents to rats that needed to be eradicated or if he simply got to the same place by himself? Is it better if Trump doesn’t know how Hitler’s story ends — taking his own life as his grotesque empire collapsed having earned a reviled position in world history — or if he does? Which possibility offers a less disconcerting set of possibilities for the post-2024 future?

And, of course, how does that distinction color other reports about what Trump has planned, that he wants to scour the federal bureaucracy of disagreement, turn federal law enforcement against opponents and imprison asylum seekers in camps?

Trump didn’t spend a lot of time lingering over his “vermin” comments on social media this weekend. He was too busy sharing and resharing video clips of his applause-drenched entrance to an Ultimate Fighting Championship event at New York’s Madison Square Garden, accompanied by former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and musician Kid Rock. That’s what he enjoys: the applause and the adoration of people who came to the famous entertainment venue to see two people beat each other senseless.

In 1939, Madison Square Garden also hosted a pro-Hitler rally that disparaged the media and Jewish people. The event was soaked in just the sort of patriotic iconography that Trump adores, with only a slightly elevated level of contradiction.

More Of This Please

Following up on the post below, this is fun. I’d love to see the press do more of it:

Meanwhile, a little family dissension in MAGAland:

I assume Roger is Roger Stone.

I’d love to know what turned him away, He was a major MAGA cultist at one time. Here’s a story about Joe in 2022:

Joe Flynn was getting animated.

Standing in the sanctuary of the Living Hope Church in Englewood, a giant cross hanging on the stone wall behind him, Flynn was telling a crowd of 75 people gathered for the Liberty Tree Patriots meeting about his efforts to overturn one election and influence another.

Flynn is the brother of former President Donald Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn. Both now live in Englewood in southern Sarasota County. The brothers helped lead a push to overturn the 2020 election based on unfounded voting fraud claims.

Having failed, the Flynns increasingly are turning their attention to influencing elections in 2022 and beyond. They could be a potent force in GOP politics locally, statewide and nationally, one determined to influence public policy.

The Flynns are connected to Defend Florida, a new group that met with Gov. Ron DeSantis’ top staff six times to push the idea that there were widespread voting problems in Florida, and to advocate for election law changes.

Speaking for nearly an hour to the Englewood group, Joe Flynn made some wild claims. In discussing baseless allegations of voter fraud in Arizona, Flynn said Arizona was part of grand strategy coordinated by the Democratic National Committee, the AFL-CIO union and liberal billionaire George Soros.

“What happened in Arizona is tied to everything else around the country,” Flynn said. “This was a strategy that was led by the DNC, AFL-CIO and elements of George Soros’ organization, and that’s not a conspiracy, that’s just the truth.”

[…]

Praising Democratic Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, Flynn said they are the only ones standing in the way of “losing this Republic.” They kept Democrats from passing voting rights legislation, he noted. Neither supported lifting the Senate filibuster rule to allow the bill to pass by majority vote.

“Without those two we would have (the voting bill) H.R. 1 shoved down our throats and it would be over for our kids,” Flynn said. “It would be over, there would be no Republic.”

“Sorry, I’m a little fired up,” he added.

[…]

Flynn said Republicans who won’t push the false narrative that there is evidence of widespread fraud must be replaced.

“You’re hearing GOP legislators saying forget about what happened in 2020, move on,” Flynn said. “Those people need to be replaced. More than anything those people need to be replaced. Because that’s how we lose this Republic, right? Cowards like that that say there was nothing wrong. That’s just wrong.”

He sounds like a former true believer with a story to tell. I doubt he’ll tell it but his comments in that tweet suggest a serious break: “fucking clown show”, “MAGA cult”, “circus.” He’s got that right. But he’s still nuts:

Bring it on!

The Right’s New Strategy On Abortion

Double Down

I agree whole heartedly with Good. They need to keep pushing a national ban with no exceptions. That’s what the people want and they should be willing to give it to them. Don’t hold back!

In all seriousness, I doubt most GOP pols will take this tack. They know they’ve caught the car and it’s dragging them face down through every election where it’s an issue. But any division among the wingnuts with the evangelicals for whom this is their organizing principles is welcome.

First Hitler, Now Stalin

Caligula next?

I suppose he’ll either have to build a whole lot of mental institutions or send them (us?) to the homeless internment camps where he promises there will be plenty of mental health facilities. So it’s all good.

Trump and Christian nationalism

Dual threats

The National Review tried explaining the difference in 2014. That was before Jan. 6, 2021.

We raised the alarm yesterday both about Donald Trump’s Nazi-adjacent eliminationist rhetoric and his “concentration” on creating detention camps in a second term. We have also spread lots of pixels describing the New Apostolic Reformation that views Trump as an instrument of God.

Trump and Stephen Miller want to lock up and deport all immigrants not to their liking, and to eventually cut off paths to immigration for the same. That’s the political cleansing of America they seek. But the Seven Mountains people backing Trump want religious purification as well. They will dismiss any and all his personal, political, and criminal failings to advance that end.

All of them, they don’t want to govern, they want to rule.

There will be cracks on the road to Christian Dominion and local infighting, as Fred Clarkson details at Salon. Plus a healthy dose of wishcasting and Christian soldiers cosplay. But right now these people hold actual political power in the Speaker of the House.

Janine Melnitz Yes, of course they’re serious…

Think they’re not serious? Remember Jan. 6? That was a small group of (for the most part) poorly organized political-religious zealots as well. The few who were better organized meant to overturn the presidential election and perhaps hang the vice president and House speaker.

Yes, they may be a small group of self-inflated cranks, but they are not kidding, as the video below reveals.

After that, a dose of constitutional principle.

Spanberger to run for VA gov

Slightly left of centrist

U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger, the Virginia Democrat, will run for governor in 2025, the Associated Press reports this morning:

Spanberger, a three-term Democrat, made the announcement in a campaign video, highlighting the importance of lowering prescription drug prices, growing the middle class and easing inflation. In a video titled “What Matters Most,” Spanberger also emphasized the importance of recruiting and retaining teachers “and stopping extremists from shredding women’s reproductive rights.”

“Our country and our Commonwealth are facing fundamental threats to our rights, our freedoms, and to our democracy,” Spanberger said. “While some politicians in Richmond focus on banning abortion and books, what they’re not doing is helping people.”

Spanberger’s run for governor has been rumored since July. Let’s hope she has a Democrat lined up to run competititvely in 2024 for her 7th Congressional District House seat.

The former CIA officer and law enforcement officer for the U.S. Postal Service won her first congressional race in a district that had been held by Republicans for almost 50 years.

The Commonwealth prohibits its governors from serving consecutive terms. That’s led to intense speculation about Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s next political move, as well as early jockeying in effective shadow campaigns for the chief executive’s office.

As for other potential gubernatorial candidates, Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney, a Democrat, is expected to announce campaign plans soon.

A former Blue Dog and current member of the Problem Solvers Caucus, Spanberger has engaged in the against-the grain centrist and positioning that characterizes Democrats in swing districts. She won her seat from incumbent Dave Brat in 2018 by 2 points, held it by under 2 points in 2020, and won by 4.6 points in 2022 after redistricting.

Washington Post:

Spanberger has used her past work in federal law enforcement and the CIA to appeal to independents and moderate Republicans in her swing district while energizing the Democratic base with her background as an organizer with the gun-control group Moms Demand Action.

In the House, she has sought to strike a similar balance, aligning with liberals on abortion rights, for instance, while pushing back at times against the party’s left wing. She was a vocal critic of the “defund the police” rhetoric that some Democrats voiced in the 2020 cycle.

Spanberger never backed Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for House speaker and went further last year by rebuking Pelosi’s handling of legislation that would ban members of Congress from trading stock, accusing her of putting forward legislation that was “designed to fail.”

Spanberger was critical of her party’s messaging and negotiating tactics related to President Biden’s original Build Back Better agenda, telling the New York Times in November 2021 that “nobody elected him to be FDR; they elected him to be normal and stop the chaos.”

The centrist Democrat has many of the right enemies.

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/abigail_spanberger/412833#:~:text=Voting%20Record&text=From%20Jan%202019%20to%20Nov,records%20of%20representatives%20currently%20serving.Source:

Spanberger would be Virginia’s first woman governor.

If Trump Spouts Nazi Rhetoric And Nobody Hears It, Did It Happen At All?

Yesterday, Trump referred to fellow Americans as vermin , evoking the Third Reich.

Former President Donald J. Trump, on a day set aside to celebrate those who have defended the United States in uniform, promised to honor veterans in part by assailing what he portrayed as America’s greatest foe: the political left.

Using incendiary and dehumanizing language to refer to his opponents, Mr. Trump vowed to “root out” what he called “the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.”

“The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within,” Mr. Trump said Saturday in a nearly two-hour Veterans Day address in Claremont, N.H.

As far as I can tell, only Kristen Welker on on Meet the Press mentioned it in passing to Ronna McDaniel and the only two mainstream newspapers to headline it are the NY Times (who only discussed it in the story, not in the headline above), in a small article and Forbes.

CNN’s is here and coverage of the comment is 2/3rds of the way down the article.

I’m so old I remember when Hillary Clinton said that there was a “basket of deplorables” in the GOP and the media went into a complete frenzy of pearl clutching over her crude and dismissive treatment of members of the voting public.

Trump — crickets.

This is a huge, huge problem because even if Hillary had been crude and dismissive, she wasn’t drawing up plans to deport or put them in prison camps. Trump isn’t just talking. He’s got all kinds of people working on bringing this to fruition. If he wins, who’s going to stop him?

Update: At 5 est, the Washington Post stepped up:

But it’s way, way, way down the page online.

What’s Coming Up In The NY Fraud Trial

Trump’s defense starts its case this week

The Washington Post has an excellent write up today about where the Trump trial stands and what we can expect in the next couple of weeks:

Former Trump Organization insider Michael Cohen testified in state court that his ex-boss Donald Trump instructed him to fudge numbers on annual financial statements so that they would show his desired net worth.

Patrick Birney, a Trump Organization employee, said in court that a top executive told him Trump wanted a bigger bottom line on his annual statements, which were given to banks and insurance companies.

An insurance underwriter, Claudia Mouradian, whose deposition was played at the trial, said she relied on the Trump Organization’s claim that a statement reporting roughly $6 billion in combined golf and real estate assets had beenverified by professional appraisers.

These were among the assertionspresented during six weeks of trial and testimony in a lawsuit brought against Trump and his business by New York Attorney General Letitia James (D). Her civil case has sought to prove that the former president, his adult sons and their company deliberately inflated the values Trump included on his annual financial statements to secure better terms from bankers and insurers.

James filed her lawsuit last year, and she is asking New York Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron to fine the companyat least $250 million and render Trump and his family unable to operate in New York by barring them from borrowing money or owning companies. Trump’s defense has denied wrongdoing.

By the time James’s side rested Wednesday, with the defense team scheduled to begin presenting its case Monday, the attorney general’s office had sought to paint Trump as a figure whose ego relied heavily on how he compared to other billionaires and developers — and had lied in financial records to bolster his own standing.

A mountain of documents presented at the trial also demonstrated the company’s inconsistent and irregular methodologies in compiling the financial statements to his benefit. In total, 25 witnesses were called to discuss documents and share firsthand accounts.

Those included Trump, his adult sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and his daughter Ivanka Trump, who is not a defendant in the case. Each of them testified of knowing little, if anything, about the creation of financial documents at the center of the trial.

Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trumptestified this month that they trusted the company’s accountants.

“If they assured me in their expert opinion that these things were fine I would have been fine with that and signed off accordingly,”Donald Trump Jr. said.

Legal analysts and other observers say the testimony thus far haspotential shortcomings, including that no employee has testified that Trump ordered the values to be manipulated — except for Cohen, who previously admitted to lying under oath and has a well-documented, admitted grudge against Trump. And there is also no trail of records leading directly to Trump, who famously avoids communicating by email.

The case has clearly irritated Trump, though, who repeatedly attended and denounced the trial throughout the proceedings. It also carries enormous implications for him and his company.

Engoron, who is hearing the case without a jury, already ruled before the trial that thecompany’s financial statements were fraudulent and is requesting a receiver be installed to “dissolve” Trump’s entities in the state.

“If you had to win this case on the basis of people who were working with Trump you’d have a hard time,” George Washington University law professor Stephen A. Saltzburg said in an interview.

Saltzburg said James’s strongest point in public remarks to date has been about the significance of thefinancial statements.

“I think it’s going to be proven by the fact that the discrepancies are more than just honest judgment mistakes,” Saltzburg said. “I do think the judge is going to hold those who signed the documents responsible.”

This is a civil case, not a criminal trial, so none of the defendants face any time behind bars as a result. It comes as Trump is facing a looming swirl of legal troubles, including four separate criminal cases filed against him this year. Amid all of these allegations and indictments, Trump is also the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination next year.

When Trump took the stand to testify last week, he clashed with Engoron and belittled James and her case. Her office also succeeded in getting Trump to confirm that he played a role in preparing the statements by sometimes providing input to his staff as they prepared them.

“Is it correct you were responsible for determining the values stated in the financial statement,” Kevin Wallace, a senior attorney on James’s team, asked Trump on direct examination.

“I … have shown that I know more about real estate than other people,” Trump said. “So if somebody would ask me or if I would have an opinion I would — I would give it.”

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Trump attempted to land some surprise counterattacks against the investigators, but didn’t always succeed. He repeatedly highlighted the lengthy legal disclaimers included in his annual statements, at one point pulling a copy of one from his pocket, trying to introduce his own unofficial exhibit at trial.

The disclaimer was no smoking gun — it had been a matter of public recordfor several years since Cohen first discussed Trump’s alleged use of the statements to mislead business partners and provided copies of records to Congress. When Trump, as a witness, was told he couldn’t introduce an exhibit, he added it to his long list of complaints claiming unfair treatment at the trial.

While the trial and lawsuit have taken aim at Trump’s own self-image as a business colossus, experts and legal analysts said James’s case also had limitations.

Other than Trump’s signature on the statements themselves, James produced no company documents showing Trump had a hand in preparing the statements or inflating the values.

Only one witness pointed a finger directly at Trump — and he has publicly acknowledged that he has not always been honest, even under oath.

“I was tasked by Mr. Trump to increase the total assets based upon a number that he arbitrarily elected … [to] increase those assets in order to achieve the number that Mr. Trump had tasked us,” Cohen, Trump’s former attorney and “fixer,” testified on Oct. 24.

Throughout hours of combative cross-examination, however, Cohen conceded that in February 2019 he told Congress that Trump never actually instructed him and longtime finance chief Allen Weisselberg to doctor up his annual net worth reports. Cohen later clarifiedin the ongoing civil trial that while Trump never outright said to order the falsifications, he hinted his expectations like a “mob boss” calling shots in code.

Other witnesses called by James’s side declined to point a finger at Trump. Birney’s testimony largely relieved Trump executives of blame. Accountant Donald Bender, who did Trump’s personal and business taxes for decades, said he relied on the Trump Organization’s figures to compile reports but did not have knowledge of any intentional tampering.

Also, the Trump Organization’s biggest lender, Deutsche Bank, made millions off its relationship with the Trumps. Trump’s primary banker there previously said in a deposition that she was unaware of any bad information Trump or the other family members had given to the bank, potentially undermining the idea that the statements had unfairly benefited Trump.

Trump’s defense has argued that there were no victims in the case and nothing illegal occurred.

When the defense begins presenting its own case, Donald Trump Jr., Trump’s oldest son — who is a defendant in the case, as is his brother, Eric Trump — will return to the stand as the defense’s first witness. Trump’s attorneys are expected to arguethat his financial statements were legitimate, that valuations are subjective and that Trump properties were worth a fortune.

None of the banks were duped, because they did not rely on the statements to verify Trump’s worthiness as a business partner, the defense says.

A pretrial ruling by Engoron remains potentially momentous in the case — albeit with questions about its ultimate meaning.

In the Sept. 26 ruling, Engoron ordered all of Trump’s “business certificates” in the state be canceled. The decision arrived like an earthquake, clearly putting Trump at risk of losing control over his New York empire. But its wording left attorneys to argue what precisely it meant for his company.

New York business certificates allow limited liability corporations (LLCs) to operate under trade names. The Trump Corporation, for instance, has a certificate allowing it to operate under the name Trump International Realty, according to county records. The certificates are sometimes referred to as “DBA” certificates, for “doing business as.”

Engoron’s ruling confused some expertsin part because he canceled the certificates but not necessarily the underlying LLCs, potentially giving Trump’s attorneys a window to argue that the businesses could still be viable.

Legal experts said the effect would be the same.

“The Trump Organization is a partnership of all of these LLCs together, relying on the business certificates,” said Boston College law professor Brian Quinn. Bank loans probably require such affiliations to remain in place, he said.

Cornell University law professor Celia Bigoness said if the certificates were canceled so too would be “all other authorizations that stem from those certificates,” among them basic needs like the ability to collect sales tax.

The judge also ordered a receiver be put in place to “manage the dissolution of the canceled LLCs.”

Gregory E. Louis, associate law professor at CUNY Law School, said Engoron may not have been clear in his phrasing, but that his rulings taken together signaled that “at least Justice Engoron understands the scope of his order” as having dissolved the underlying companies as well.

Despite that setback, Trump has not backed away from the numbers on his statements, brashly explaining during his testimony on Nov. 6 that he felt most of the values were still lower than they should have been.

“The overall number of value is much higher than the number in the financial statements,” Trump testified.

Trump’s attorneys have apparently sought to create a record they could use in any appellate proceedings to help them preserve the company’s structure.

John C. Coffee Jr., a law professor at Columbia University, said Trump may be working against his team’s efforts to build the most effective appeal by focusing so much of his own energy on attacking Engoron.

“I think Trump’s rather volatile performance … [and his] occasional moments of rage does hurt him, because judges basically respect the judiciary and don’t like to be insulted by defendants,” Coffee said.

Trump and his lawyers are playing for the appeals courts. We’ll have to see if they are impressed with his case. Somehow, I doubt it.

Moms For Sanity

“We just want the government to function… we’re just tired of it”

On the Sunday shows they’re still drooling over the polls showing that Biden is old and Trump is a vital young man with boundless energy sharp intelligence so they didn’t have much time to look at what happened on Tuesday. It’s too bad because there is a very interesting story that American who don’t follow the news closely but might tune in to Meet the Press would be interested to hear:

Meghan Budden’s family was considering moving if their Pennsylvania school district didn’t change course. She normally isn’t politically active, she said, but felt compelled to volunteer when a slate of Democrats launched bids to take back their school board in Central Bucks School District, just north of Philadelphia.

Central Bucks is well known both statewide and nationally for heated board meetings over masks and Pride flags, policies banning certain books and directives to not use students’ preferred names and pronouns. Accusations of discrimination against LGBTQ students have also led to an ongoing investigation by the U.S. Department of Education.

“I couldn’t have my kids in a school district where these kinds of things were happening,” Budden said.

Standing in the Bucks County Democratic headquarters on election night, Budden sobbed when the results rolled in — Democrats took all five seats up for election.

The room erupted in cheers; friends, neighbors and strangers hugged.

“It was very moving and a very joyous feeling from everyone,” Budden recalled. “And a sense of relief.”

If there was a question about whether the conservative-led school board’s policies reflected the will of the local community, Tuesday’s election may have provided an answer.

Three of the newly elected Democratic school board members will replace Republicans, including the board president, who helped set a right-wing agenda that aligned with national conservative movements around education. Voters effectively flipped the board from majority Republican to majority Democrat.

Republicans also lost majority control of school boards in IowaVirginia and a historically conservative district neighboring Central Bucks.

A surprising win for Democrats in a politically mixed district

Central Bucks School District is the third largest in Pennsylvania with more than 17,000 students. It’s also in a politically mixed, swing county.

“I wasn’t supposed to win,” said Democratic candidate Heather Reynolds, who beat the board’s current president and sole Republican incumbent in the race.

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Reynolds’ newly won seat represents a part of the district that’s more red than others, she said.

“I think that the community has had enough. They’ve seen what this former board majority has done and they said, ‘No more. We deserve better as a district, as a community. This isn’t who we are.'”

Reynolds said residents and parents were exhausted by the chaos that had become a normal part of monthly school board meetings.

Fiscal responsibility was also high on their list of concerns, she said: In July, the board increased Superintendent Abe Lucabaugh’s salary by almost 40%, making him the second-highest paid superintendent in the state after Philadelphia. Lucabaugh had stood by the board’s controversial policies, even as the district spent at least $1 million on a law firm following claims of discrimination and more than $140,000 on a public relations firm that managed media requests, among other things.

NPR reached out to Central Buck’s Republican board candidates for comment; some declined to be interviewed and others did not respond. Only one candidate was willing to go on the record, Glenn Schloeffel. He said the results were disappointing.

“We put a lot of work into trying to get a successful outcome, and it didn’t go our way.”

Schloeffel believes the board majority got “thrown under the bus” after the accusations of discrimination. And he doesn’t think it’s fair to characterize their decisions around books as a “book ban.” He said the books the current board removed from libraries “were highly graphic and sexual in nature. Absolutely disgusting … There’s no place for that in our schools.”

Republican candidate Steve Mass told the Delaware Valley Journal, “The only winners in Tuesday’s elections are the private schools, who will have their enrollment skyrocket in the next few years when parents see what policies are coming into our district.”

Republicans had one big donor, Democrats received more individual donations

Across the country, school board campaign funding seems to be on the rise. In 2018, a survey by the National School Boards Association reported 75% of elected officials spent less than $1,000 on their campaigns.

But this election cycle, Central Bucks candidates raised about $600,000 combined, as of Thursday, according to campaign finance records.

Local venture capitalist Paul Martino bankrolled the Republican campaigns and donated a majority of their funding — $239,000 of the $279,000-plus total. Martino – whose wife, Aarati Martino, ran for the board as a Republican this year – spent a total of $500,000 on school board races across Pennsylvania in 2021.

He also contributed $40,000 to the Stop Bucks Extremism PAC. During the campaign, the PAC mailed literature to district homes with excerpts from the often-targeted books Gender Queer and This Book Is Gay. The mailer included the message: “Extreme Central Bucks Democrats are fighting to keep these books in our middle school and high school libraries. Request an early vote ballot to protect our children!”

In total, the Democrats raised over $315,000. The Democrats’ PAC, Neighbors United, raised over $174,000. Its largest donations came from Turn Bucks Blue, a local PAC that supports Democrats throughout the county, and the Pennsylvania State Education Association. Much of the Democrats’ funding came from smaller individual donations, between $50 and $250. Each candidate also had their own PAC.

“We knew what [Martino] spent the last time, so we had to be prepared to respond to that,” said Karen Smith, a Democrat who won her race as an incumbent.

Martino declined NPR’s requests for comment.

Two Independent parents were tired of the chaos

District parent Elizabeth Derham identifies as an independent and has been disappointed with board leadership over the last two years. Derham’s husband, Jeff, is also an independent and would sometimes split his ticket. But this year was the first time he voted blue down the line, along with Elizabeth.

“No one I talk to is for any of this stuff or cares much about some of the things that they’re putting so much effort into,” Elizabeth said of the board’s conservative members.

The Derhams said their votes felt like a small-scale attempt to save their local democracy — and their public school district.

“We just want the government to function… we’re just tired of it,” Elizabeth said. “I just want people to listen to us.”

Now that the election is over, she hopes Central Bucks school board meetings become boring again.

These people are not extremists. They are normies who had the wingnut MAGAs reach right into their homes and try to indoctrinate their children. They did not like it. So they got out there and changed it.

He’s Gotten Worse, People

Dan Pfeiffer talks about the public’s view of Trump’s mental acuity in his newsletter today:

The fact that Donald Trump is leading Joe Biden in news reports from The New York Times and other sources is puzzling for many of us. How could a chaotic criminal who spews conspiracy theories be on the cusp of returning to the White House? There’s not just one simple answer to how we ended up in this situation; it’s a combination of Biden’s low approval rating, divisions in the democratic coalition, dissatisfaction with the economy, a historic level of cynicism and institutional distrust, and radicalization of the Republican Party. The polarization and demographic makeup of the Electoral College mean that upcoming elections will continue to be closely contested. However, one specific finding in The New York Times/Siena College poll explains Trump’s strength and offers a particular strategy for defeating him again in 2024.

There is no sugarcoating it: Joe Biden’s age is a significant political obstacle. Many people across the country think he’s too old for the presidency, and even among Democrats, a lot of folks tell pollsters they’d rather have a younger candidate. In one sense, Biden’s age is an insoluble problem. There is no way to make him younger; he will get older as the campaign continues. Certainly, there will be high-leverage  moments such as the State of the Union, the Democratic Convention, and the debates where the President can showcase the stamina and vigor required for the job.

There has been a lot of internal debate among the Democratic Party about how to approach the age issue. Handle it with humor, lean into it by emphasizing that wisdom comes with experience, highlight the younger members of Biden’s team, or ignore it entirely. There are merits to all of those approaches. But I think the best way to defuse concerns about Biden’s age is to focus on Trump’s temperament.

Trump’s Temperament Is No Longer the Issue

One particular quote from a participant in The New York Times poll has lingered in my thoughts:

Ms. Fermin, who immigrated from the Dominican Republic as a teenager, worried that Mr. Biden’s immigration policies have put additional economic strain on the country. She voted for Mr. Biden in 2020 over concerns about Mr. Trump’s temperament, but this time around her concerns are largely focused on Mr. Biden. “Biden is too old and doesn’t have the capacity mentally,” she said. “We need somebody stronger. I think Trump can deliver this time.”

Trump’s temperament—his erratic behavior—was always his biggest weakness. I remember seeing focus group reactions in 2019 and 2020 where many voters’ biggest concerns about Trump were his tweets. I know that sounds ridiculous. I thought so at the time. But Trump spending all of his time airing petty grievances on social media was a metaphor for what concerned voters about his temperament. He was focused on the wrong things at the wrong time,and his behavior was both alarming for swing voters and embarrassing for his supporters.

But The New York Times poll makes it clear that Trump’s temperament is no longer a driving issue for voters. In 2020, Biden had a 19-point advantage on temperament. In 2023, it’s only four points.

People have forgotten because they haven’t seen him! My God, just his behavior in the courthouse steps is crazy enough but nobody’s seeing it because the media has decided to protect he public’s gently eyes and ears from his antics because well, it’s unseemly. YES IT’S UNSEEMLY! He’s a monster. But unless people can see it with their own eyes they won’t believe it.

Temperament? How about this?

How many people saw that? Only those who love Trump. Nobody even half way normal could look at that and think “well, at least he’s strong…” No he’ s fucking nuts.

Pfeiffer points out in his piece that He was banned by most social media as well but that isn’t the only problem:

In 2023, Trump resurfaced with his legal issues and presidential campaign. He has been reinstated on all major social media platforms. However, there are indications that most Americans might not be fully aware of what Trump is communicating. One reason is that many people don’t follow the news at this early campaign stage. According to Pew Research, the number of Americans who say they follow the news closely has dropped 14 percent since right before the 2018 elections.

People have tuned out because it’s just so awful. It’s also the reason they assume the country is in hell even though they think their own personal circumstances are good as is their state’s. They aren’t getting the full picture anymore.

Secondly, in previous times, individuals who were not actively seeking political news would still come across it inadvertently. Open up Facebook to check in on your nieces or pop on X (formerly Twitter) to see how people are reacting to an NBA trade, and you would almost always see some political news posts. That is no longer the case. Both platforms have tweaked their algorithms to show people less news—specifically, less political news. According to an Axios report based on data from Similarweb, referrals to news sites from Facebook and X  have plummeted since Trump left office.

How helpful.

Finally, as I detailed in this post, the news media is not adequately covering the most outrageous statements made by Trump. While political enthusiasts like us may be inundated with Trump’s unconventional remarks, it’s likely that most Americans haven’t been exposed to more than a minute of Trump’s speeches, rallies, town halls, or interviews since before January 6th.

They have self-righteously declared that “there is a cost” to them personally if they show Trump to their audience. I have never understood what that means. Unless you truly believe that everyone in this country is either a delicate flower who will run from the room if faced with reality or they are so craven and stupid that mere exposure to that cretin will convert them to his cult, it seems to me that decent people need to see what he says and what he plans to do over and over and over again.

His lies are activating the craven and stupid and only the truth will motivate the decent people to vote.

Pfeiffer says the Democrats must focus on Trump’s mental fitness and I couldn’t agree more:

While Trump has made some gains in how people view his temperament and mental fitness, the biggest shift has been growing concerns about Biden. These shifts are undoubtedly related to the dramatic increase in concern about the President’s age. In this case, it seems that the only way around is through. The President will have to use the campaign to assuage those concerns. More performances like this great economic speech in Belvedere, Illinois, will go a long way.

The focus has been on Biden for more than two years now. There has been an extensive, messy conversation about his age and fitness for office. Unfortunately, these conversations have drowned out discussion of the President’s voluminous record of achievement. It’s time for Democrats to try to shift some of that focus back to Trump. We need to remind Americans why they hated Trump in the first place. Certain voters who backed Trump in 2016 but shifted to supporting Biden in 2020 due to apprehensions about Trump’s behavior are now contemplating a return to supporting Trump. Millions of people became politically active after 2016 because they perceived Trump as a distinct threat, but some have now returned to the sidelines as their concerns have diminished. 

I understand why Democrats started their advertising campaign with positive spots about Biden and his record. Some of that should continue. All of the polling shows that voters like Biden more when they learn about what he has done. There is an information vacuum to fill. However, it’s time to start putting Trump’s erratic behavior and deranged rants back into people’s social media feeds. This can be done with campaign ads and organic content created by progressive allies and shared by all of us.

There is no need to gild the lily with ads filled with ominous music and fear-inducing voiceovers. Just show people Trump is in his own words. The Biden-Harris campaign social media accounts have begun doing exactly that, and we can help them by sharing their content within our networks.

The shared clips shouldn’t be the ones where Trump does his tinpot dictator act. They should be the moments where he acts like a clown. The best way to defeat a wannabe strongman is to make him look like a joke. Increasing concerns about Trump’s mental acuity rise will help Biden defuse the age issue with voters.

If you are reading this newsletter, you don’t need anyone to remind you that Donald Trump is an unhinged lunatic who should not come within 1,000 miles of the nuclear codes. But most Americans have barely thought about Trump in years. Haven’t seen him speak or post on social media. They haven’t heard of Truth Social. In this new media environment, the press and the social media platforms won’t do that work for us. If we want the campaign to be about Donald Trump, we must make it so. There’s no reason to wait any longer.

As you know, I share both the tin-pot dictator and the clownish clips liberally and I’ve been doing it ever since he came on the scene. People need to know what he’s saying. Hiding your head in the sand and pretending that he doesn’t exist hasn’t worked out so well.

I encourage you to send those clips to people you know or post them on your social media feeds. It’s important to remind people who he is because it’s obvious many of them have been subject to the propaganda that his first term was actually a rousing success and others have forgotten who he really is.

He’s gotten worse people and his thirst for revenge and attachment to the fascist members of his MAGA movement is stronger than ever.