This is what Trump is feeding his cult members these days:
This "Ironic" parody Trump bleated begins as a melancholy elegy for the campaign that he thought he was winning before transitioning into some comfort conspiracies to make him feel better about the current campaign he is losing. Sad! https://t.co/FWVkzbjwRO
This “Ironic” parody Trump bleated begins as a melancholy elegy for the campaign that he thought he was winning before transitioning into some comfort conspiracies to make him feel better about the current campaign he is losing. Sad!
I don’t think it’s sad. It’s alarming. He posted stuff like that dozens of times yesterday in a flurry of crazy tweets that went on for hours. This decompensating weirdo is within the margin of error. He could be leading this country again six months from now.
Kamala Harris at a Pennsylvania firehouse on Sunday
All the attention is going to be on the Democratic Convention in Chicago this week but it’s pretty clear that for the next few weeks the center of gravity in American politics is going to be in Pennsylvania. All the strategists and political pundits tell us that both the Harris and the Trump campaigns see it as a must win and according to the latest polls it’s a tight race there. Already both candidates and their running mates have held events, with no doubt many more to come.
I recently spent some time in southern Pennsylvania as I often do visiting friends in the late summer and was struck by the fact that unlike 2016 and 2020 there were far fewer Trump signs out in the rural areas. For years they had kept their tattered big blue Trump flags flying even long after the elections but this year they seem to be few and far between. Sure there were some yards covered with signs and trucks festooned with bumper stickers but it’s much rarer than it’s been. What that means, I can’t say definitively but something has changed and it’s fair to guess it has something to do with enthusiasm. It felt as though some of the air has gone out of the Trump balloon.( I’m not the only one who sees that.)
Judging from his rally over the weekend in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., the hardcore cultists are still there for him but they’re getting weirder by the day. Some even showed up carrying semen specimen cups with JD Vance’s picture on them with the words “JD Vance family kit” apparently as some kind of mockery of Tim and Gwen Walz’s IVF struggles. But that was only slightly weirder than Trump’s rally speech which featured some of his most unhinged commentary yet.
Less than four minutes into his speech he went into a long diatribe about Harris’s TIME Magazine cover which he claimed without evidence was drawn by an artist when the pictures they took were unusable (implying she looked too ugly.) He said the image looked Sophia Loren or Elizabeth Taylor and went on to complain about a column by the Wall St Journal columnist Peggy Noonan who had written that Harris had an advantage in the race because she is a beautiful woman.
This evidently made him very jealous because he believes he is a much better looking person than she is:
Trump values his own TIME Magazine covers almost as much as his “ratings” so seeing her on one apparently triggered him in some primal way.
Republicans have been telling every reporter who will take their dictation (on background, of course) that Trump needs to talk more about policy and stop his personal attacks on his opponent. They say that the race is his to lose but only if he delves deeply into the policy details that Trump voters are supposedly dying to hear about.
Have they met Donald Trump? Have they met his voters? Anyone who believes that didn’t hear his ecstatic followers cheering when he proclaimed that he’s much better looking than Kamala Harris.
Donald Trump doesn’t do “policy” unless by policy you mean that he incessantly lies and rambles incoherently. For example about the economy, whether it’s his own record which he mischaracterizes as the most successful the world has ever known or the current administration which he likewise mischaracterizes as the worst. When asked recently what he would do about high housing costs, Trump bizarrely answered “drill, baby, drill.” But then “drill, baby, drill” tax cuts for the wealthy and tariffs are really his only “policy” prescription. And even after being president for four years he’s still monumentally ignorant about them:
Trump: A tariff is a tax on a foreign country. A lot of people like to say it’s a tax on us. No… It’s is a tax that doesn’t affect our country. pic.twitter.com/NNyNthZbKg
A new Washington Post/ABC/Ipsos poll has Harris is ahead of Trump by 49% to 45% among registered voters and 51% to 45% among likely voters which is a substantial improvement over Biden’s numbers from a month ago. Nonetheless, when asked about it at one of the stops on the bus tour, she wisely said, “I very much consider us the underdog. We have a lot of work to do to earn the vote of the American people. That’s why we’re on this bus tour today.” Those numbers may look promising but they’re just one poll with others showing a tighter margin.
More importantly, Harris was also asked about the Child Tax credit at one of the stops and she was ready with a serious, informed response (and it wasn’t “drill, baby, drill.”)
Excellent answer on funding CTC. There’s zero benefit to getting sucked into a “how are you gonna pay for it” game pic.twitter.com/MuPoV2dWKN
Walz, in turn, gave a rousing “Friday Night Lights” speech at the football practice at the famous Aliquippa High School which has turned out many NFL legends. (Former Pittsburgh Steeler Hall of Famer Jerome Bettis even joined them on the bus tour.)
Walz is a gifted politician:
This man is effortlessly linking Democratic party values to the emotional foundations of American football culture as part of a Presidential campaign.
If I had read it in a screenplay, I’d have told you that it’s a lovely feel good story, but such a politician doesn’t exist. https://t.co/MoJ751ducj
Harris and Walz flew out to Chicago last night with Harris scheduled to appear tomorrow night at the convention when Joe Biden symbolically passes the torch to her. On Tuesday, she and Walz will travel to Milwaukee Wisconsin for a rally at the Fiserv Forum, the same venue where the RNC took place in July and on Wednesday and Thursday Walz and Harris will accept their nominations at the DNC.
Trump meanwhile will be trying to counter-program the convention with rallies in various swing states and his campaign will be holding press conferences at the Trump property in Chicago on a daily basis. Unfortunately for them, the DNC is already using that venue for its own messaging:
📍Chicago
The DNC projects “Project 2025 HQ” onto Trump Tower in downtown Chicago on the eve of the Democratic National Convention pic.twitter.com/1JrkyidP33
The Harris/Walz ticket has the momentum, creativity and palpable excitement on their side. Whether that’s enough to overcome Trump’s inexplicable hold on the Republican party after eight years of his now very tired old schtick is unknown. If they get a post convention bump, according to Politico’s polling expert, “candidates who end the conventions on the upswing typically see that momentum continue through to Election Day.” So, if the stars align and there is no external catastrophe, the Democrats might deliver that historic victory we all thought we were getting back in 2016, and our long Trumpian nightmare may finally be over.
EXCLUSIVE: Evangelicals For Harris Use ‘False Prophet ‘ Bible Passage in Provocative New Ad Against Trump
Evangelicals For Harris is releasing their second media spot in as many weeks, this time using biblical text in 1 John 4 that mentions false prophets and how Christians are… pic.twitter.com/znogvXFBb2
EXCLUSIVE: Evangelicals For Harris Use ‘False Prophet ‘ Bible Passage in Provocative New Ad Against Trump
Evangelicals For Harris is releasing their second media spot in as many weeks, this time using biblical text in 1 John 4 that mentions false prophets and how Christians are to, “test the spirits to see if they are from God.” The implication and context are pretty clear: they want Evangelicals to ask themselves if Trump fits the characteristics of a false prophet. Watch it below.
This ad is no doubt going to ruffle some conservative evangelical feathers. Those who support Trump see him as someone promoting biblical values when it comes to policy. They’ll also mightily argue that it’s actually the Christian Left that is spreading a false presentation of the biblical message.
However, Evangelicals For Harris wants Christian voters to question what they believe is a rhetoric that lacks “Christian Witness” and is fully void of the, “Love Thy Neighbor” Biblical Commandment.
It’s crucial to remember here that Evangelicals For Harris is not trying to pick off the Trump hardcore evangelical faithful. That’s not the game. Let me tell you what is. I’ll break down some numbers for you so you see this more clearly.
According to Pew Research, among Trump’s base of White Evangelical Protestant Voters, 37 percent see him as a “GREAT” president; 37% say he’s been a “GOOD” one. But here’s the key: 9 percent considered him just AVERAGE; 6 percent said he was a POOR president and 10 percent said TERRIBLE. Totaled together, that’s 25 percent of Conservative Evangelicals who are relatively swingable/majorly lukewarm at best.
If Kamala Harris wins 20 percent or more of these skeptical evangelicals, she’ll win. That’s what history tells us. Just ask Joe Biden who did it and Hillary Clinton who didn’t.
I would hope there are some Evangelical Christians who can see that Trump is a blasphemous phony but they have certainly laid low these past few years. It’s good to know that some are stepping up.
Politico has two pre-DNC convention stories worth examining.
The first by past convention planners provides a back-stage look at the frenetic preparations for a convention that is at once a four-day infomercial for the Democratic nominee for president, and a last-minute scramble to re-write the script for a convention planned around a different candidate. How to make it must-see TV when everyone knows the outcome? It’s “like herding (childless cat ladies’) cats“:
That’s why at this convention, you will see at least one “must-cover” speaker each night: President Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton on Monday, President Barack Obama on Tuesday, President Bill Clinton and Governor Tim Walz on Wednesday, and Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday.
Even with big names, a Democrat supporting a Democrat isn’t newsworthy, but much like a 1970s sitcom, extra-special guests are — especially Republicans supporting Democrats.
This is why conventions have tried to highlight unlikely supporters or allies. If it’s rare to have a union president show up for the Republicans (as Teamsters President Sean O’Brien did this summer), it’s also rare to have a CEO show up for Democrats, which is what happened when Costco CEO Jim Sinegal spoke in 2012. Mike Bloomberg vouched for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and Republican Governor and EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman spoke as part of a group of Republican women in support of Biden at the 2020 Democratic Convention, as did Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
Who will be the unlikely guest star for Democrats this year? Liz Cheney? Paul Ryan? Adam Kinzinger? We’ll have to wait and see.
Then there are the expected Israel-Gaza protests in Chicago. Once Joe Biden was no longer the Democratic candidate, protest groups had to reconsider whether to go easier on Vice President Kamala Harris. She’s “seen by some as being more sympathetic to the pro-Palestinian cause and made a forceful case for a cease-fire deal after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netantyahu.” But protesters already prepared to show up will show out:
“We all came to a consensus that it’s not going to make a difference, that [Harris] represents this administration,” said Hatem Abudayyeh, chair of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network. “We’re going to stay full steam ahead.”
[…]
There are at least six major protests planned on the streets of Chicago during the Democratic National Convention. The biggest is planned for the first day, Monday, when “tens of thousands” are expected to march just blocks from the United Center, where Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, will give their acceptance speeches.
The “family-friendly march” is organized under a pro-Palestinian umbrella coalition that includes groups devoted to a variety of causes. Organizers are busing in protesters from Michigan, Minnesota, Indiana and Wisconsin, and activists are also coming in from New York and California, too.
The organizing principle of the MAGA GOP is that everything in the world is “rigged” against Donald Trump. And that includes the Democratic Party’s own nominating process:
During a rally in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, Trump repeatedly blamed Harris and Democrats for Biden dropping out of the race more than a month ago — undermining Harris’ legitimacy as a candidate and highlighting his one-time opponent.
He claimed, without evidence, that the upcoming Democratic National Convention in Chicago next week is “rigged” because Biden isn’t on the ticket. He said Biden is a worse debater than Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, who suffered a stroke. And Trump accused the media of being biased in favor of the president.
“What happened to Biden? I was running against Biden and now I’m running against someone else,” Trump said. “I said, ‘Who am I running against, Harris?’ I said, ‘Who the hell is Harris?’”
Trump’s rally, just days before the convention, served to highlight Trump’s ongoing attempt to paint Harris as a “radical left lunatic” who failed to get elected president during the 2020 election cycle but is now on the ticket and riding a wave of enthusiasm from her party.
Since Harris entered the race, she has closed the polling gap with Trump in some surveys and, according to a new New York Times poll out Saturday, has put several key battleground states back into contention, including Arizona, where she leads by about 5 points. Last week, the same survey found Harris leading Trump in Pennsylvania by 4 points.
The reshaped race has left the former president struggling at times to land a consistent line of attack against Harris. He has alternately called her “dumb,” a “socialist lunatic” and on Saturday even said he believed he was better-looking than she is.
“Why is she going to the convention? Because it’s a rigged convention, obviously. She got no votes,” Trump said.
Why should he care about this? If he’s so great, he shouldn’t be concerned about who the Democrats put up or how they did it. He should be able to beat any opponent, right?
It’s not unusual for the party not to have a nominee until June or so. Bill Clinton didn’t clinch the nomination until California’s primary which took place at the very end of the process. Biden could have taken ill or worse before the convention or even dropped out afterwards.
Gerald Ford never got a single vote beyond his own congressional district before he became president after having been appointed by Nixon after Agnew stepped down and then succeeding him when he resigned. Nobody said he was an illegitimate president. Shit happens and there is a process for how to deal with it. Contra Donald Trump and his helpmate Maureen Dowd, Harris’s nomination is not a coup. 81 million people voted for her in 2020 to step in if Biden couldn’t do the job.
But there is a method to his madness. If she wins he will, of course, declare that the election was rigged and stolen and say she is an illegitimate president, just like Barack Obama and Joe Biden. This is just a set-up for his usual excuse for what a loser he is.
“He’s rattled and needs to get on message,” one GOP House member told NOTUS. “Life’s too hard for too many; the border was left open; and everyone is paying too much for too little.”
Another GOP House member called Trump’s attacks on Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp “extremely foolish” and, like many who spoke to NOTUS for this story, urged the former president to stay disciplined and focus on the issues.
“If he displayed self-discipline and impulse control, he’d win,” this member said. “The issues favor us. He’s been unable to focus on the issues and is behind. This is his race to lose, and he’s shooting himself in the foot. There’s some Trump fatigue too, and if he’d focus on issues and get off the personality attacks, he’d connect more with voters.”
And another GOP congressman was even more clear-eyed.
“Let’s be real: He lost in ’20,” this congressman told NOTUS. “He has a solid base but has done nothing, or worse, alienated anyone from coming back to him. It’s like the sixth or seventh season of a show that was once funny but now panders to his base.”
“If he continues down this road,” this member added, “and Harris stays her course and the economy starts to show signs of improvement, he will be a two-time loser.”
He lost in ’20, did he? How interesting.
They can yammer at him for days and it won’t make a bit of difference. He has to do it his way. And frankly, he may be right. The disgusting personal attacks and idiotic nicknames seem to be what his voters really like. Oh they always say it’s the “policies” but they can never name any that they like except for some vague blathering about the wall or drill, baby, drill. They love him because he’s an asshole. Their asshole.
Update: Here he is today, seriously discussing policy:
The top is the headline from the new Washington Post/ABC/Ipsos poll which shows that Harris has taken the lead nationally by 4 points. As the NY Times Pitchbot satire account points out the characterization of her holding a “slight” lead is more than a little bit pinched. The newspapers are mad that she isn’t pounding at their doors begging to be interviewed 24/7 (the John McCain good old boys bus tours still remain their fondest dream.) So the coverage is hedged, to say the least.
The national polls are interesting, of course, if we want to know how the country at large is perceiving the race. But as we know, the real question is where we stand in the antiquated electoral college.
Dan Pfeiffer’s newsletter today took a deep dive into the polls. He discussed “the Blue Wall” strategy which until Harris took over was considered the only path Biden had to win. , Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin and the single district in Nebraska would get him to 270 and at the time he dropped out no other swing states appeared to be in play.
He says Harris’s best bet is to win those states as well but now there are some other paths available as well:
Ultimately, a campaign wants many paths to 270. In 2000, Al Gore needed Florida to win the White House and a small ballot snafu in Palm Beach County cost him the election. In other words, you want your electoral eggs in as many baskets as possible.
Harris once again made Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada competitive. According to a new poll from theCook Political Report, Harris is up four in Arizona, tied in Georgia, and down five in Nevada.
It may seem counterintuitive because Democrats won Nevada in every presidential election since 2008; but it is likely the most difficult of the three states. Demographically, it is more Trump-friendly. Typically, the more college-educated a state’s populace, the more Democratic it is. A disproportionately large part of Nevada’s population did not attend college. It is also 30% Latino. Harris improved upon Biden’s 2024 numbers but still trails his 2020 numbers. According to polling from Equis Research, Harris is trailing Biden’s 2020 Latino support by 5 points — hence her deficit.
Some good news: Arizona and Nevada both have initiatives on the ballot this fall protecting abortion access, which could turbocharge turnout and ensure that Democrats’ best issue is top of mind for voters.
Notably, winning all three of these states and losing all three of the Blue Wall states (without winning anywhere else) is not enough to win. That path only gets you to 268 electoral votes. However, putting Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada in play means Harris has multiple paths to 270.
I am willing to place a tiny bet that Nevada will end up in Harris’s column. It will be close but I suspect the unions will come through.
He also suggests that North Carolina may be a real possibility but we don’t have enough information.
Barack Obama won North Carolina in 2008, and Democrats have been trying — and failing — to win the Tar Heel State ever since. Demographically, the state is more Republican than Georgia and is, therefore, a bit of a stretch for Democrats. However, Trump won it by only 73,000 votes in 2020. There has been very limited polling in the state since Harris emerged as the candidate, but a poll from the New York Times had Harris up two in the state, and Carolina Forward, a progressive organization, found the race tied 46-46.
He doesn’t mention it but the N. Carolina GOP has nominated a truly odious person for Governor who may make some voters decide that the combo of him and the grotesque Trump/Vance may just be too much.
The Harris campaign wants this state in play and wants Trump to defend it, but we need more data before putting it in the same group as the six states that decided 2020.
He doubts that Florida is really in play mainly because it’s so expensive and is such a long shot. Some polls show it’s pretty close but if Harris wins there it would probably mean she’s won in a landslide which is unlikely (why, I will never understand.)
He concludes:
First, Pennsylvania is still the most important state. Its 19 electoral votes are key to Harris’s paths to 270. Winning Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada only gets her to 268. Winning Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia’s 16 electoral votes leaves her three votes shy of the White House. If she wins Pennsylvania and either Michigan or Wisconsin, Georgia or Arizona will put her over the top.
Second, keep an eye on Nebraska. Earlier this year, Trump allies tried and failed to convince the legislature to change Nebraska law to allocate all of the state’s electoral votes to the popular vote winner. Nebraska is one of two states that awards their electoral votes by congressional district. Without the one electoral vote from Nebraska’s 2nd congressional district, the Blue Wall path becomes insufficient. Trump is desperate, and his allies are making another run at cutting off Harris’s best path to the White House.
Finally, expect another very close race across the battleground states. The six to seven states that will decide the election are more Republican-leaning than the nation as a whole. As a reminder, Biden won the popular vote by 4.4 points but won the Electoral College by about 40,000 votes spread across a small handful of states.
I still cannot believe that Trump is as popular as he is, even today when he sounds even more insane that he used to. I always believed he win the nomination but I’m honestly surprised that he’s holding on to 46% of the country. I thought at least 6-7% would have fallen away, tired of his schtick, sick of the chaos and the drama. But apparently they all just can’t get enough of it.
“They’ll say he was rambling,” he said. “I don’t ramble. I’m a really smart guy, you know, really smart. I don’t ramble.”
In the speech, Trump defended his proposal to impose tariffs on China and other countries. Trump falsely described tariffs as a tax on those countries; in reality tariffs are paid by domestic consumers.
“A lot of people like to say, ‘Oh, it’s a tax on us,’” Trump said. “No, no, no, it’s a tax on a foreign country.”
He doesn't know what a tariff is, or how one works. He never has. He was president* for four years and he still doesn't know. So yeah, cheer him wildly for everything he doesn't know. https://t.co/NEHt46BcRd
When @CNN asked me to score the big economic policy speeches this week by Trump and Harris, I decided not to grade against a curve, but rather to simply state what I saw. pic.twitter.com/eyiCwCFMAr
Remember when Trump’s first campaign rally was held in Waco Texas on the anniversary of the Branch Davidian standoff and he showed video of the January 6th insurrection on the big video screens. I knew you did.
The Harris campaign attacked former president Donald Trump on Saturday for an upcoming event in Howell, Mich., where white supremacists last month rallied and chanted “We love Hitler. We love Trump.” A Trump spokeswoman strongly denied any link between their planned campaign event Tuesday and the racist rally, calling the accusation “absurd.”
About a dozen masked white supremacists marched through downtown Howell on July 20. Pictures and video from the event showed attendees declaring their support for the former president while waving banners with white supremacist slogans. Howell has long been associated with the Ku Klux Klan because of the rallies Michigan-based Grand Dragon Robert Miles held on a nearby farm in the 1970s and 1980s, although community leaders have worked to shake off that image. (Miles died in 1992).
“The racists and white supremacists who marched in Trump’s name last month in Howell have all watched him praise Hitler, defend neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, and tell far-right extremists to ‘stand back and stand by.’ Trump’s actions have encouraged them, and Michiganders can expect more of the same when he comes to town next week,” Harris’s Michigan communications director, Alyssa Bradley, said in a statement…
Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt saidthere was no connection between the choice of campaign stop and the history of extremist activity in the city. She noted that President Joe Biden visited Howell in 2021, and said Harris also visits cities where “racist protests and marches have occurred in the past.”
“President Trump will travel to Howell to deliver a strong message on law and order, making it clear that crime, violence, and hate of any form will have zero place in our country when he is back in the White House,” Leavitt said in an email.
Come on. They aren’t even trying to hide it. They know exactly what they’re doing.
The 2024 DNC national convention kicks off officially tomorrow morning. But first, thousands from 57 delegations will arrive today from 50 states, D.C. and the territories.
The schedule for the daytime caucus meetings and panels, primetime speeches, and afterparties that will challenge the fire marshal, is pretty daunting. Days start early and go late. Also, I lose an hour for morning writing to Central Time.
So please excuse my absence here from Monday through Friday. I’ll drop something when I can.
