I have long suspected that the negative opinion polls on the economy at least somewhat reflected people’s discomfort with Biden’s age and the fact that we are still struggling with Trumpism. With Biden out and Harris having a lot of energy and looking positive, I’m not surprised to see those numbers turning around a bit.
Keep in mind that Republicans will not change so there won’t be a “Morning in America” reaction. Those days are gone. But there might finally be a long overdue lifting of the economic gloom.
It’s been pretty much love and light for Democrats since their national convention in August. The ceremonial roll call that named Vice President Kamala Harris the party’s 2024 presidential nominee became a dance party. Descension was minimal and all but invisible. Harris crushed Donald Trump at last Tuesday’s presidential debate. Polling looks good. Momentum is with the Democrats. But even if Harris wins in a popular vote landslide, this election won’t be over until she and Tim Walz are sworn in on Jan. 20, 2025.
That’s because Republicans are working feverishly to make it harder to vote, harder to count votes, and harder to certify election results in a timely fashion.
Here is the Republican plan for 2024:
1. Make it harder for you to vote. 2. Harass election officials and challenge voters. 3. Prevent accurate timely election certification.
Between now and Jan. 20 anything might happen. Last week, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, GOP candidate for vice president, gave oxygen to an internet rumor that was false both backwards and sideways. It might have triggered a pogrom against legal Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio and elsewhere. Trump on Saturday refused to condemn bomb threats made against Springfield, saying, “I don’t know what happened with the bomb threats. I know that it’s been taken over by illegal migrants, and that’s a terrible thing that happened.”
Should he reclaim the Oval Office, Trump is determined to launch massive roundups and deportations of nonwhite residents of non-European heritage. Their status as naturalized or birthright citizens doesn’t matter to him. Expelling anyone whose complexion he doesn’t like is what he’ll do (with Stephen Miller’s help).
“Woman who first spread Springfield rumor regrets it.”
“I deleted the post. I was wrong. I messed up royally. I never meant to cause so much hate.”
This woman has more courage than JD Vance. Please share this video far and wide. pic.twitter.com/2s0OyEWNHP
The First World War was not exactly an accident — geopolitical fault lines were in tension and ready to slip — but a wrong turn based on misunderstood directions triggered it. When Trump loses in November, something as minor as a hyped internet rumor or as deliberate as a MAGA propaganda campaign could trigger violence.
The U.S. Secret Service last week designated the Jan. 6 electoral vote count a National Special Security Event. Security will look more like what I saw in Chicago at the Democratic National Convention in August. Meaning, federal officials will secure the perimeter of the U.S. Capitol with more than bicycle racks. Oath Keepers and Proud Boys brushed those aside in 2021 when MAGA insurrectionists stormed the building shouting “Where’s Nancy?” and “Hang Mike Pence!”
Last night windows were smashed and acid thrown on Haitian owned cars. Now these Neo-Nazis are on the streets of Springfield. Trump and company are sponsoring America's own "Kristallnacht." It's disturbing and-frightening. https://t.co/RghRPWVnsG
MAGA plotters failed to overturn the 2020 election when faced with less security and with the Oval Office still in Trump’s hands. They won’t attempt that route when Trump loses again but commands no troops or law enforcement.
The stakes are much higher now
What MAGA activists and attorneys will do is throw a metric fuckton of rhetorical smoke bombs at state capitals, loudly scream “VOTER FRAUD,” and swear that where there’s smoke there’s a stolen election. Sanewashing media will accord Trump’s and fellow authoritarian travelers’ frivolous lawsuits and evidence-free allegations credibility by reporting them uncritically. The press will give cover to MAGA politicians willing to lie and subvert the will of the people and the U.S. Constitution. Trump lackeys will interfere with states certifying their elections so they might turn over deciding the presidential election to the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
That’s one scenario, anyway.
Trump’s estranged niece, psychologist Mary Trump, offers a similar warning:
The stakes are much higher now than they were in either 2016 or 2020, and he will stop at absolutely nothing to get back into the White House—which, at this point, is the only thing that will save his dwindling fortune or keep him out of prison.
[…]
Donald is signaling clearly to us what’s coming and we can’t depend on corporate media to confirm it. This election is too important to for us to rely on outlets that continue, against all evidence to the contrary, to normalize a deeply unwell traitor just so they can preserve the horse race of it all.
For Donald’s part, he’s not really trying to win anyway. He knows that he just needs to keep it close enough so he can cheat by having his friends in the House of Representatives and the Supreme Court throw the election to him.
As a reminder, this is just one of the ways Trump attempted to hang onto power in 2020. He still faces a federal indictment stemming from it:
— January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) June 10, 2022
We watched that movie four years ago. Now there’s a sequel in development and its plot is more sophisticated than the last.
We know that the Secret Service is securing the Capitol. We know that in Washington, D.C., military veterans gamed out what might go down between the 2024 election and Inauguration Day 2025. They considered “what happens if the military fragments on January 6, 2025, and we’re faced with a crisis?”
What I don’t know and need to is this. What are Democrats in state capitols prepared to do to secure the election from a post Nov. 5 coup when it starts closer to home? When it’s perhaps a physical intervention, not just a court battle? What contingency plans for dealing with intimidation and violence have they made beside lawsuits, press releases and harsh language?
I’ve been trying to get answers from my election protection people. It’s been 10 days. I’m still waiting.
Sadly, I can’t say that I was completely surprised by this:
Bomb threats on Friday forced the evacuation and closure of public schools and municipal buildings [in Springfield, Ohio] for a second consecutive day, as the city continues to deal with sudden national attention due to false claims involving its Haitian population.
Students at Perrin Woods and Snowhill Elementary Schools in Springfield “were evacuated from their buildings to an alternate district location,” school district spokesperson Jenna Leinasars said. […]
In addition to those school evacuations, several city commissioners and a municipal employee were the target of an emailed bomb threat, city spokesperson Karen Graves said. […]
Local police and FBI agents based in Dayton are working “to determine the origin of these email threats,” the city official said.
The city just west of Columbus has been the focal point of a national political firestorm that has included false rumors that Haitian immigrants have been stealing and eating household pets. City officials and police have said there is no credible information to support those outlandish claims.
Former President Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, have pushed those false claims as part of a broader effort to use Springfield as an example for what they say are the harmful consequences of immigration.
Vance has also said there’s been a “massive rise in communicable diseases” in Springfield, but Clark County Combined Health District Commissioner Chris Cook said Friday that’s not accurate.
And then there was this:
JD Vance on CNBC says that if immigration was the path to prosperity, then "America would be the most prosperous country in the world." (Who wants to tell him … ) pic.twitter.com/XY9RDUlvjo
The strapping young man in the photo above is my grandfather Philip Kramer (in his late teens or early twenties, to my best estimation). He immigrated to America from Bialystok circa 1910. While the area is now part of the Republic of Poland, Bialystok “belonged” to the Russian Empire when he lived there (ergo, he was fluent in Russian, Polish, and Yiddish).
One of the reasons his family emigrated was to flee the state terror inflicted on Russia’s Jewish population by Czar Nicholas (the Bialystok pogram of 1906 was particularly nasty).
I suppose I have Czar Nicholas to thank for my existence. If my grandfather had never left Bialystok, he never would have met New York City born-and-raised Celia Mogerman (the daughter of Jewish German immigrants). Consequently, they never would have fallen in love, got married, and had their daughter Lillian, who never would have met and fallen in love with a young G.I. named Robert Hartley (a W.A.S.P. farm boy from Ohio) at a New York City U.S.O. Club. They, in turn, produced…me (otherwise, you’d just be staring at a blank page here).
In light of all the dehumanizing (and obviously incendiary) anti-immigrant rhetoric and disinformation currently spewing from Trump and his surrogates, I am re-posting the following piece, which I wrote in the wake of a 2021 mass shooting in Atlanta.
(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on March 20, 2021)
The story of America’s immigrants is all of our stories, all Americans. Outside of indigenous Americans, none of us are really “from” here; if you start tracing your family’s genealogy, I’ll bet you don’t have to go back too many generations to find ancestors born on foreign soil. Unfortunately, some Americans have conveniently forgotten about that…
It’s been over five years since Donald Trump rode down his golden escalator and launched a longshot bid for president with a xenophobic, immigrant-bashing speech that electrified white nationalists and set a dark tone for his campaign and presidency.
Throughout his tenure, Trump continued to sow division and hate with a steady stream of racist conspiracy theories and lies – all while installing extremists in positions of power and executing radical policies, such as banning Muslims from entering the country, separating immigrant children from their parents at the border and reversing basic protections for the LGBTQ community.
Trump’s words and actions had consequences.
Hate crimes and far-right terrorist attacks surged. Teachers across America reported a sudden spike in the use of racial slurs and incidents involving swastikas, Nazi salutes and Confederate flags. And in the first two years of Trump’s administration, the number of white nationalist hate groups rose by 55 percent, as white supremacists saw in him an avatar of their grievances and a champion of their cause.
Now, Trump is gone from Washington. But the extremist movement he energized may be entering a perilous new phase […]
While this week’s mass shooting in Atlanta that left 8 people dead (6 of them women of Asian descent) is still under investigation and not yet been officially declared a hate crime, the incident has sparked a much-needed national dialog addressing recent spikes in racially motivated violence, particularly targeting members of the Asian-American community.
President Biden and Vice President Harris called for unity after attacks against Asian Americans have surged since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
“There are simply some core values and beliefs that should bring us together as Americans,” Biden said during a speech at Emory University in Atlanta on Friday. “One of them is standing together against hate, against racism, the ugly poison that has long haunted and plagued our nation.”
Biden’s remarks came three days after a gunman opened fire at three massage businesses in the Atlanta area, killing eight people, including six women of Asian descent.
While the suspect, 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long of Georgia, told investigators that the shootings were not racially motivated, physical violence and verbal harassment against members of the Asian American community have spiked over the past year.
“Whatever the motivation, we know this, too many Asian Americans walking up and down the streets are worried,” Biden said. “They’ve been attacked, blamed, scapegoated, harassed, they’ve been verbally assaulted, physically assaulted, killed.”
The president said that these incidents are evidence that “words have consequences.” […]
Harris, who joined Biden during the trip to Atlanta, called Tuesday’s shooting rampage a “heinous act of violence” that has no place in Georgia or the United States.
She also said that the uptick in anti-Asian hate crimes is a reminder that racism, xenophobia and sexism is real in America and “always has been.”
Looking on the bright side of this week’s news…one of the most oft-quoted lines from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech from the March on Washington on August 28, 1963 is this one: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” I’d like to think that we edged a little bit closer to that better day this past Thursday:
That would be Kamala Harris, a woman of South Asian and West Indian heritage, a daughter of immigrants and the first female Vice-President of the United States… conducting the swearing-in ceremony for Deb Halaand, a woman who now holds the distinction of serving as the first Native-American Interior Secretary of the United States.
That only took us 245 years. But you know…baby steps.
Granted, it doesn’t solve all our problems, but it gives one hope, which is in short supply.
That’s why I think it’s time for some music therapy. I’ve chosen 10 songs that speak to the immigrant experience and serve to remind us of America’s strong multicultural bedrock.
Alphabetically:
“Across the Borderline” – Freddy Fender
This song (co-written by John Hiatt, Ry Cooder, and Jim Dickinson) has been covered many times, but this heartfelt version by the late Freddy Fender is the best. Fender’s version was used as part of the soundtrack for Tony Richardson’s 1982 film The Border.
“America” – Neil Diamond
Diamond’s anthemic paean to America’s multicultural heritage first appeared in the soundtrack for Richard Fleischer and Sidney J. Furie’s 1980 remake of The Jazz Singer (thankfully, Diamond’s stirring song has had a longer shelf life than the film, which left audiences and critics underwhelmed). Weirdly, it was included on a list of songs deemed as “lyrically questionable” and/or “inappropriate” for airplay in an internal memo issued by the brass at Clear Channel Communications in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Go figure.
“America” (movie soundtrack version) – West Side Story
This classic number from the stage musical and film West Side Story (with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and music by Leonard Bernstein) is both a celebration of Latin immigrant culture and a slyly subversive take down of nativist-fed ethnic stereotyping.
“Ave Que Emigra” – Gaby Morena
Speaking of exploding stereotypes-here’s a straightforward song explaining why cultural assimilation and cultural identity are not mutually exclusive. From a 2012 NPR review:
As a song that speaks of being an immigrant, [Gaby Moreno’s “Ave Que Emigra”] strikes the perfect emotional chords. So many songs on that topic are gaudy, one-dimensional woe-is-me tales. Moreno’s story of coming to America is filled with simple one-liners like “tired of running, during hunting season” (evocative of the grotesque reality Central Americans face today at home and in their journeys north). Her cheerful ranchera melody, with its sad undertone, paints a perfect portrait of the complex emotional state most of us immigrants inhabit: a deep sadness for having to leave mixed with the excitement of the adventure that lies ahead, plus the joy and relief of having “made it.”
No habla espanol? No problema! You can see the English translation of the lyrics here.
“Buffalo Soldier” – Bob Marley & the Wailers
Sadly, not all migrants arrived on America’s shores of their own volition; and such is the unfortunate legacy of the transatlantic slave trade that flourished from the 16th to the 18th centuries. As Malcolm X once bluntly put it, “[African Americans] didn’t land on Plymouth Rock; the Rock was landed on us.” Bob Marley entitled this song as reference to the nickname for the black U.S. Calvary regiments that fought in the post-Civil War Indian conflicts. Marley’s lyrics seem to mirror Malcom X’s pointed observation above:
If you know your history, Then you would know where you’re coming from Then you wouldn’t have to ask me Who the heck do I think I am
I’m just a Buffalo Soldier In the heart of America Stolen from Africa, brought to America Said he was fighting on arrival Fighting for survival
“Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)” – Arlo Guthrie
Woody Guthrie originally penned this “ripped from the headlines” protest piece as a poem in the wake of a 1948 California plane crash (the music was composed some years later by Martin Hoffman, and first popularized as a song by Pete Seegar). Among the 32 passengers who died were 28 migrant farm workers who were in the process of being deported back to Mexico. Guthrie noticed that most press and radio reports at the time identified the 4 crew members by name, while dehumanizing the workers by referring to them en masse as “deportees” (plus ca change…). His son Arlo’s version is very moving.
“The Immigrant”– Neil Sedaka
Reflecting back on his 1975 song, Neil Sedaka shared this tidbit in a 2013 Facebook post:
I wrote [“The Immigrant”] for my friend John Lennon during his immigration battles in the 1970s. I’ll never forget when I called to tell him about it. Overwhelmed by the gesture, he said, “Normally people only call me when they want something. It’s very seldom people call you to give you something. It’s beautiful.”
I concur with John. It’s Sedaka’s most beautifully crafted tune, musically and lyrically.
“Immigration Blues” – Chris Rea
In 2005, prolific U.K. singer-songwriter Chris Rea released a massive 11-CD box set album with 137 tracks called Blue Guitars (I believe that sets some sort of record). The collection is literally a journey through blues history, with original songs “done in the style of…[insert your preferred blues sub-genre here]” from African origins to contemporary iterations. This track is from “Album 10: Latin Blues”. The title says it all.
“Immigration Man” – David Crosby & Graham Nash
After an unpleasant experience in the early 70s getting hassled by a U.S. Customs agent, U.K.-born Graham Nash (who became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1978) didn’t get mad, he got even by immortalizing his tormentor in a song. The tune is one of the highlights of the 1972 studio album he recorded with David Crosby, simply titled Crosby and Nash. I love that line where he describes his immigration form as “big enough to keep me warm.”
“We Are the Children” – A Grain of Sand
A Grain of Sand were a pioneering Asian-American activist folk trio, who hit the ground running with their 1973 album A Grain of Sand: Music for the Struggle of Asians in America. Chris Kando Iijima, Joanne Nobuko Miyamoto, and William “Charlie” Chin use minimalist arrangements, lovely harmony singing and politically strident lyrics to get their message across. I find this cut to be particularly pertinent to reflecting on the events of this week and quite moving.
Bonus Track:
John Legend…not to sing us out, but to offer a few words of wisdom. Amen.
They don’t like his nasty “supporter” Laura Loomer
This is why Trump is hanging out with Laura Loomer. Watch them with their hands all over each other at Mar-a-Lago. Note: He’s married. pic.twitter.com/GKdSMjDnvD
We can’t believe we have to write this about a presidential candidate, but then Mr. Trump seems to like the company of Ms. Loomer, the 31-year-old online provocateur. […]Ms. Loomer is usually described in the press as “far right,” but that’s unfair to the fever swamps.
It runs down many of her grotesque statements (although, like all the media, ignores the most vile) and notes that people in the Trump campaign and even Marge Greene are saying she’s damaging the campaign, “to no avail.”
The press is naturally having fun with all this and asked Mr. Trump about it on Friday. “Laura’s a supporter,” he said. “I have a lot of supporters.” He added that “she’s a strong person; she’s got strong opinions,” and he wondered why people are asking about her.
They’re asking because they know Mr. Trump’s association with Ms. Loomer feeds the concern among voters that Mr. Trump listens to crazy courtiers who flatter him and play to his vanity. Is this who the next four years are going to feature?
The problem here is deeper than Mr. Trump’s electoral prospects. A growing segment of the American right is populated by, and susceptible to, cranks and conspiracists. A movement that used to admire William F. Buckley Jr. and Thomas Sowell now elevates a pseudo-historian who blames Winston Churchill for World War II and media personalities who sell falsehoods as a triumph for free speech.
This isn’t an intellectual or political movement that is going to win converts, nor will it deserve them.
Oh snap.
These people have been enabling Trump for 8 long years. He’s no worse than he’s always been and Loomer is hardly any worse than Steve Bannon or Stephen Miller.
I imagine all this will succeed in keeping Loomer away from Trump at least for a while. It’s not like Trump really cares about her. He doesn’t care about anyone but himself. But I’m sure they’ll stay in touch. He loves her style.
I thought I would share some good stuff I read this morning with gift links. This article in the NY Times is well worth reading in full. In fact, it’s delicious:
Late in the summer of 2003, a team of television producers stepped off the elevator on the 26th floor of Trump Tower eager to survey the set of their next reality show. After years filming “Survivor” in jungles around the world, training cameras on exotic spiders and deadly snakes to evoke danger, they came looking for a different set of sensory clues, the tiny details that would convey wealth and power.
Right away, they knew they had a problem.
The first thing they noticed was the stench, a musty carpet odor that followed them like an invisible cloud. Then they spotted scores of chips in the finish of the wooden desks and credenzas. The décor felt long out of date, making the space seem like a time capsule from when Donald J. Trump opened the building early in his first rise to fame.
The place did not exactly buzz with energy either. Fewer than 50 people worked at Trump Organization headquarters in midtown Manhattan. At the office’s spiritual center, Mr. Trump’s own desk bore no evidence of work, no computer screens or piles of contracts and blueprints, just a blanket of news articles focused on one subject: himself.
“When you go into the office and you’re hearing ‘billionaire,’ even ‘recovering billionaire,’ you don’t expect to see chipped furniture, you don’t expect to smell carpet that needs to be refreshed in the worst, worst way,” recalled Bill Pruitt, one of the producers of the new NBC show.
Key allies and advisers aren’t mincing their words: In order to carry out Trump’s mass deportation agenda, the United States will need enormous prison camps for immigrant families, part of an effort to deport millions of people at a record pace.
The mass deportation operation will be a “bloody story,” Trump said last weekend. And key advisers have promised a historic infrastructure project to churn people out of the country.
The camps will be built “on open land in Texas near the border” and should have the capacity to house as many as 70,000 people, which would double the United States’ current immigrant detention capacity, Stephen Miller, the main point man on immigration in Trump’s White House, said last year. In multiple interviews, Miller has gleefully described daily flights out of the camps to all corners of the world, an undertaking he said would be “greater than any national infrastructure project” in American history.
“Trump comes back in January — I’ll be on his heels coming back, and I will run the biggest deportation force this country has ever seen,” Thomas Homan, who served as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the Trump administration, said in July at a conference for Trump-aligned conservatives.
“They ain’t seen shit yet,” Homan said. “Wait until 2025.”
Conservatives have taken to referring to DEI as “didn’t earn it.” But to the extent that the candidates are running on unearned advantages related to personal biography, this better describes Trump and Vance than it does Harris, who worked her way up from local to state to federal office over the course of decades.
Trump was born a multimillionaire who drove one business after another into the ground, and his reputation as a brilliant businessman is largely due to him playing one on television. His term as president was mired by incompetence and corruption despite being relatively uneventful, and when faced with a real crisis—the coronavirus pandemic—he proceeded to bungle it in a catastrophic fashion that led to needless deaths and economic calamity. Vance has spent very little time in elected office, an office he won mostly on the success of his memoir and a Trump primary endorsement in a red state. He appears to have been selected as the vice-presidential nominee on the basis of his willingness to debase himself on Trump’s behalf. Neither of them has a compelling record of public service.
Trump is still unqualified even after serving as president for four years because he is incapable of learning anything. JD Vance is a 39 year old dilettante who has serve 1 year and 8 months as a Senator.
📸 A touching moment on the South Lawn tonight as President Biden offered comfort to Lesley Hu, whose nine-year-old son, Pierce, tragically lost his life in a murder-suicide during a custody dispute tied to disagreements over the COVID-19 vaccine.
The husband had been a conspiracy theorist even before COVID came along. His wife described him as almost “cultlike” in his anti-vax beliefs. It’s clear he had untreated mental illness but the anti-Vax movement sent him into a spiral that resulted in this terrible tragedy. Via The Atavist:
Over the course of their marriage, Hu had watched as her now ex-husband, Stephen O’Loughlin, became obsessed with pseudoscience, self-help gurus, and conspiracy theories, spending long nights watching videos online, then sharing the details of fantastical plots with Hu, their friends, and people he barely knew. The COVID-19 pandemic had only made things worse. O’Loughlin huddled for hours at his computer streaming YouTube clips and poring over right-wing websites—what he called “doing research.”
One of O’Loughlin’s fixations was vaccines. He believed that Pierce had been damaged by the routine inoculations he received as a baby. O’Loughlin was adamant that the boy be given no more shots—not for COVID-19, when a vaccine was eventually authorized for kids, nor for any other disease.
In 2020, Hu had filed for the sole legal right to make decisions about her son’s medical care, which would empower her to vaccinate Pierce regardless of what her ex wanted. She felt good about her chances in court. On January 11, as a condition for a continuance he had requested in the medical custody case, O’Loughlin suddenly agreed to let Pierce receive two vaccinations. In retrospect, according to Hu’s attorney, Lorie Nachlis, “it all seemed too easy.”
He killed his boy and himself.
And I’m quite sure he came across Bobby Kennedy Jr’s “research” along the way.
Last night, Bill Maher made a joke about Trump and Laura Loomer having an affair. (It was cruder than that but basically that was it.) That theme was all over social media yesterday, starting with the big kahuna. above.
Loomer was very, very upset about it:
She should know about defamation and character assassination. It’s her entire brand:
Laura Loomer last week: “They talk in their little DEI Shaniqua voices…Kamala Harris, Letitia James, and Fani Willis. Like, all of the like meritless DEI Shaniquas talk the same way. It’s very obnoxious the way that they talk.”
Ok. It’s Donald Trump who believes he can change reality simply by saying something over and over again. And for about 46% of voters, it appears that he can.
Not even a 3 point lead.
Yes, I still think Harris will pull out a narrow win. But what do we do about the 46% of our fellow Americans who think that bigoted conman should run the country? Their willingness to believe his lies (or rationalize them) makes them monsters too, doesn’t it? (Or dangerous fools, if we want to be generous about it.)
I knew we had been a racist, violent people. But I thought we had progressed further than this, I really did.
As predicted: most Trump voters accept this baseless & very dangerous racist libel. A reminder Trump is pushing against an open door: the core of his coalition wants to believe that change of all sorts is eradicating the “real America” as they define it. That’s his greatest asset https://t.co/uMRbW63cq3
BREAKING: This stunning video was just released highlighting all the times Donald Trump allegedly had a plan to fix our healthcare system. Retweet so all Americans see this and call out Trump on his BS. pic.twitter.com/oeswT3Jf8j
