Skip to content

Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

“We’re 1933”

Published by Tom Sullivan on July 18, 2024

While the republic burns, the press chases clicks

Watching Day 3 of RNC convention coverage last night on a couple of channels, I found most of it as horrible as Donald Trump finds Milwaukee. Republican speakers shamelessly spewed lies, distortions and smears. (Daniel Dale deconstructs just a few for CNN.) Republican conventioneers held signs reading MASS DEPORTATION NOW! (CBS reports it was, in part, a deliberate troll intended to “make heads explode.”)

The convention’s message is horrible, yes, but so is the coverage.

But what made my head spin was a promo during a commerical break on MSNBC, the kind featuring a snappy clips of recent coverage. The montage was all Biden is old, will he or won’t he drop out, etc. Nothing about the stakes in this election for women and for international order and democracy. Nothing about Donald Trump’s incoherence, the GOP’s rejection of the rule of law, Project 2025 plans for terminating our republic (with extreme prejudice), our country teetering on the edge of dictatorship.

The days of news divisions being loss leaders for TV networks were gone decades ago. The Fourth Estate is no longer interested in fulfilling its role of informing the public. What once was news (print included) now is infotainment. Drama is entertaining. Joe Biden is old and could be forced out of the race is entertaining. It draws eyeballs and clicks and sells soap (yes, I’m that old).

Jennifer Rubin has noticed. Networks have moved on from the Trump phenomenon to “Biden is old” because they’ve become bored with Trump.

“The media … has done an abominable job of prioritizing what’s important and what’s not. We are on the brink of going down the road of a dictatorship,” Rubin warns. “That is more important than anything else. I know it’s attractive. You can say people have gotten used to Trump. Why have they gotten usded to Trump? Because the press has gotten used to Trump, because the press does not cover his insanity.”

Sharks and motorboats and Hannibal Lechter, etc. The press got bored with it, says Rubin. Getting bored is not the job of a free press in a free country, she adds. The job is informing the public.

But in a country that places making a buck above all else, that’s fallen by the wayside.

Reporters focusing on the drama surrounding Biden “is not reporting what is there. This is driving a narrative because they think it’s exciting, because it is exciting, and because they are personally offended that they weren’t told that [Biden] has bad days.”

Rubin is “shouting that we should pay attention because we’re 1933. We’re not 1938. We have the chance to stop the train.”

MASS DEPORTATION NOW! suggests the train (of boxcars?) and detention camps might soon be real, not metaphorical. The spectacle will show the world that the U.S. has abandoned its democratic heritage for xenophobia, grievance, and dictatorship. Our global adversaries must already be thrilled.

This morning, George Conway is launching Anti-Psychopath PAC in an attempt to refocus attention on the threat the MAGA movement and its dangerous, lunatic figurehead represents. Trump is “a sociopath or psychopath.”

Laugh or cry as you will, but get busy beating this threat to everything you hold dear.

Update: Just spotted this from last night. “We’re absolutely killing our nominee and our chances of winning.”

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

For The Win, 5th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV planning guide at ForTheWin.us.

Who’s “They”?

Published by digby on July 17, 2024

Eric isn’t the only one. Virtually every speaker at the RNC is suggesting that the Democrats tired to kill Donald Trump. Even though the guy who did it was a Republican. Philip Bump writes:

There is no evidence that Crooks shot at Trump because he had been influenced by anti-Trump political rhetoric, and there is no evidence that Crooks was literally or figuratively part of a collective effort to sideline or kill the former president.

It’s important to point this out explicitly because, in the days since the attack, allies of Trump have repeatedly suggested both that Democratic rhetoric is to blame or that the shooting was done by some nebulously defined “they” — a group that is generally meant to include Trump’s political opponents.

Speaking to Fox News host Laura Ingraham from the Republican National Convention on Monday night, Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) suggested that the shooting was a continuation of a pattern of hostility to the former president. “The bottom line is this: First, they tried to censor and silence President Trump. Then they tried to indict and imprison President Trump,” Mills said. “Now they tried to kill President Trump.”

Mills went on to suggest that, from his experience, “this seems intentional” — presumably meaning the security failures that allowed Crooks to open fire. On Tuesday morning, Mills made similar comments to right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk. (Mills also blamed diversity initiatives for unspecified reasons, saying, “D-E-I means D-I-E.”)

The congressman wasn’t Ingraham’s only guest to suggest that “they” tried to take out Trump.“They have done everything to strip him of his wealth and of his fame. They’ve tried to break up our family and done everything to try to get him and kill him,” Trump’s son Eric Trump said on the same program. “And they literally tried to kill him this week.” He made a similar claim on CNN on Tuesday afternoon.

Earlier on Monday, former congressman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) suggested that calls for “unity” were dubious, given the moment. “My question, not trying to be cynical, is what is it going to take for that unity to last more than just one news cycle?” he asked. “They tried to kill the leading candidate for president!”

[…]

That framing is why all of this has emerged. Trump’s campaign has been centered on portraying him as a victim from the outset. That he was targeted by a shooter folds into that presentation neatly.

There’s just that one nagging little problem: There’s no known connection between the known shooter and the broad, nebulous galaxy of opponents Trump and his allies envision. Crooks wasn’t carrying a left-wing newspaper in his pocket or listening to a liberal podcast. He wasn’t a contract employee of the CIA or a staffer for the Justice Department. He wasn’t even a Democrat.

I haven’t noticed the media generally issuing a correction on this. They just say it and that’s that. At this point, for many people, it’s probably accepted as the truth.

Polls, polls, polls

Published by digby on July 17, 2024

A bunch of polls out today showing that a huge majority of Democrats want a different presidential candidate but the race is still within the margin of error. So, as I have said before, Democrats will walk over hot coals to vote for a fetid pile of garbage over Donald Trump;. The question remains how many of those independent swing voters and 3rd party types will do the same. The race is still stuck. This is the NBC poll:

In case you’re wondering whether Harris does better well, yes and no, depending:

[T]he poll showed Trump doing slightly better among white voters when matched up with Harris instead of Biden, leading her by 16 points among these voters, compared with his 14-point advantage here against Biden.

(These subgroups of voters, however, all have substantially larger margins of error than the poll’s overall margin of error, which is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.)

Among other demographics — by age, by gender, among Latino voters — there was very little difference between Biden or Harris.

But the biggest differences between Biden and Harris in the matchup against Trump go well beyond demographics.

Among the roughly quarter of Republican voters who say they are unsatisfied with Trump as the GOP’s nominee, Trump is ahead of Biden by 46 points, 63% to 17%.

When Trump’s opponent is Harris, however, more of these dissatisfied GOP voters flock to Trump. The Republican’s lead with that group grows to 57 points, 73% to 16%.

However…

Meanwhile, among the voters who prefer a third-party candidate in the poll’s multicandidate ballot test, Trump and Biden are virtually tied with these voters in a head-to-head matchup: Trump 32%, Biden 31%, with a plurality declining to make a two-way choice, saying they were undecided, would pick another candidate, or something else.

But when Harris is the choice against Trump, more of those respondents made a pick in the two-way ballot test. The vice president leads Trump among these “other” voters, 46% to 39%, suggesting a higher upside with voters considering a third-party candidate.

Anyone who says they know the answer on this is full of it. It’s simply not obvious by the data, history offers no clues and the “vibes” are very unreliable. I guess those of us watching it from afar just have to sit back and let it unfold.

Adam Schiff asked for Biden to step aside today. Unless this is a precursor to Biden dropping out on Trump’s big night and completely wrecking his narrative, this seems like unfortunate timing to me.

Anyway, I may be having an early cocktail or two tonight. I have to watch JD Vance speak anyway.

QOTD: JD Vance

Published by digby on July 17, 2024

Vance has said many, many repellent things in his quest to be MAGA’s favorite little boy. But this one really takes the cake:

“This is one of the great tricks that I think the sexual revolution pulled on the American populace, which is the idea that like, ‘well, OK, these marriages were fundamentally, you know, they were maybe even violent, but certainly they were unhappy. And so getting rid of them and making it easier for people to shift spouses like they change their underwear, that’s going to make people happier in the long term. And maybe it worked out for the moms and dads, though I’m skeptical. But it really didn’t work out for the kids of those marriages.”

Yeah, watching your dad beat the hell out of your mother or getting beaten yourself is a super healthy thing for kids.

Everyone says he’s super smart. I’m not convinced. He’s slick. But he has said some really stupid things even by MAGA standards. Perhaps this kind of thing might appeal to cult leaders but I honestly don’t think more that a small minority religious zealots believe anymore that women must stay in violent marriages “for the sake of the children.” This is way out on the fringe.

The Funniest Thing You’ll See Today

Published by digby on July 17, 2024

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be a proud American.”

Does he think it’s about “white pride” and “racial prejudice”? Does he know that Jane Austen was a childless, single woman and a Brit to boot? I’d guess not.

The poor kids of Florida. I honestly fear for their futures.

Why Did He Pick JD Vance?

Published by digby on July 17, 2024

Before South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem blew herself up with puppygate, I had assumed she would be Trump’s pick for VP. She has the Mar-a-Lago Barbie look and putting a woman on the ticket might have helped with those suburban moms who don’t like him very much. When she fell out of contention I figured he’s choose North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, a nice safe choice of a guy who looks like he could be on money and would be the other half of a “successful billionaire” ticket. These were choices that made some political sense in a way that even Trump would see as useful to his campaign. There were others — Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina could theoretically attract some Black voters, but more likely might reassure some white suburban types who are uncomfortable with all the racism. And Florida Senator Marco Rubio might have been a draw for the Latino vote and, again, some of those squeamish suburban voters who are a little freaked out about the anti-immigrant rhetoric and see Rubio as more of an establishment type.

In fact, Trump’s been openly begging the anti-abortion zealots to back off (temporarily) because he has “to win elections.” And the word was that after the assassination attempt on Saturday he had ordered that all the speakers tone down their speeches so that they could exploit the moment and “bring the country together” in its time of crisis. (The first two nights of the convention and several nasty Truth Social posts by the candidate quickly proved that to be a fleeting idea.) In several interviews he has shown that he understands where his campaign’s weaknesses are which would argue for him to use this most high profile decision in the campaign to try to shore them up.

So of all the choices that were discussed over the past few weeks, Senator JD Vance of Ohio was the guy who made the least sense. He’s a very aggressive MAGA extremist and his state of Ohio is already in the bag. Most importantly, he appeals to none of the constituencies Trump needs to get him over top. Trump’s not the sharpest tool in the shed on many levels but he usually has a feral instinct for branding and this ticket is the “ultra-MAGA” ticket which seems like the least likely to gain him any votes he didn’t already have. As the Washington Monthly notes, it may not be a very good bet:

Vance was a vociferous Never-Trumper until he decided to run for the Senate and assessed that jumping on the Trump train was his best bet to win it. There are seemingly hours of interviews and articles filled with insulting quotes from Vance about Trump and harsh criticism of his character, intelligence and policies. These are going to be played over and over again in the campaign and many have already gone viral. Considering Trump’s penchant for vengeance it’s hard to imagine why he is rewarding such behavior by offering Vance this plum job.

It’s not unheard of for powerful men to reward former enemies if they are properly remorseful and are willing to demonstrate their newfound fealty in the most public sycophantic fashion. Often they even prefer it if the supplicant is insincere and only doing it because they have been forced into the submissive position. It shows dominance and is a lesson to others. Trump may very well feel that way toward Vance, whose abrupt abandonment of his conspicuous Never Trump position to immediately morph into an ardent MAGA cultist has been startlingly flamboyant, even among a great crowd of former mainstream Republicans who’ve given up every shred of personal integrity to seek his favor. But does he really believe he can trust him? (Could anyone?) On the other hand, he trusted his most faithful lapdog former Vice President Mike Pence to follow his orders to usurp the Constitution and look where it got him. Maybe he sees Vance’s raw ambition as a better bet.

According to the New York Times, advisers such as Kellyanne Conway tried to convince him that someone like Rubio would be the best choice and none other than Rupert Murdoch himself apparently begged Trump not to pick Vance in favor of Burgum. The decision went back and forth for weeks. But Vance was championed by three people Trump apparently trusts above all the others. One was Tucker Carlson who lobbied hard for Vance, who’d been a regular fixture on his Fox News show, impressing Trump with “those beautiful blue eyes” which he apparently mentioned frequently. Carlson is more enamored of his embrace of authoritarianism and when he found out that Trump might be souring on Vance last month he called him from his roadshow in Australia:

[Carlson]delivered an apocalyptic warning, according to two people briefed on their conversation. He told Mr. Trump that Mr. Rubio could not be trusted — that he would work against him and would try to lead America into nuclear war. Mr. Carlson, who declined to comment for this article, told Mr. Trump that Mr. Burgum could not be trusted, either.

Mr. Carlson told Mr. Trump in that June phone call that he believed that if he chose a “neocon” as his V.P. — an abbreviation for Republicans who favor using U.S. power to implant democracy abroad — then the U.S. intelligence agencies would have every incentive to assassinate Mr. Trump in order to get their preferred president.

Trump apparently found that convincing which is terrifying in itself.

The other two top advisers who sealed the deal for Vance were Trump’s sons Don Jr. and Eric. Don Jr. had been friends with Vance since he won his senate election and both he and Eric are steeped in the online MAGA world and participants in the lucrative MAGA “conference” and speech circuit. Vance is their kind of guy. NBC reported that in the final days before Trump made the decision, Trump was leaning in the direction of Burgum, causing the boys to go ballistic:

“Don Jr. and Eric went bats— crazy: ‘Why would you do something so stupid? He offers us nothing,’” a longtime Republican operative familiar with the discussion told NBC News. “They were basically all like ‘JD, JD, JD,’” the operative said.

It’s unknown how much influence Tucker Carlson would have in a new Trump administration but it seems pretty clear that Don Jr. and Eric will be heavily involved even though they will be carrying on the family business with lucrative overseas ventures cropping up all over the place.

Don Jr. explained that he will be exercising veto power over personnel decisions that don’t carry the MAGA party line:

I have to say that in all the articles written about this decision, what comes across to me is that Donald Trump has lost a step. Maybe he’s just so cocky about winning that he doesn’t think it matters, which is possible. But from the way it sounds, he let himself be steamrolled into picking someone who on some level he knows wasn’t the best choice for his electoral prospects. Maybe the 78 year old Trump is just as weak and tired as that other old guy he’s running against.

Salon

The Great Replacement Goes To Milwaukee

Published by Tom Sullivan on July 17, 2024

Xenophobia is baked in

True to form, Republicans on Day Two of their national convention leaned hard into their xenophobia. Along with “dubious or misleading statistics” cited by Kari Lake, Sen. Ted Cruz, Rep. Mike Johnson, and Rep. Steve Scalise, Republicans repeatedly referenced (if sotto voce) the Great Replacement Theory. Specifically and falsely, they alleged that Democrats welcome non-citizens voting in elections and promote unfettered (nonwhite) immigration to turn the U.S. into a country Donald Trump would describe as a shithole.

“We cannot allow the many millions of illegal aliens they’ve allowed to cross our borders to harm our citizens, drain our resources, or disrupt our elections,” Speaker Mike Johnson (La.) told the convention. He threw in misleading statements about cities being crime-ridden. (CNN fact check):

Official data published by the FBI shows violent crime dropped significantly in the US in 2023 and in the first quarter of 2024, though there were increases in some communities; violent crime is now lower than it was in 2020, President Donald Trump’s last calendar year in office.

Kari Lake, candidate for U.S. Senate from Arizona, told the crowd that her Democratic opponent Rep. Ruben Gallego last week, “voted to let the millions of people who poured into our country illegally cast a ballot in this upcoming election.”

Um, no, says CNN’s fact check:

The House did not vote on whether to allow noncitizens to vote. The chamber passed a bill on July 10 that would require documentary proof of US citizenship to register to vote in federal elections. Gallego voted against the legislation, which is not expected to be taken up by the Democratic-controlled Senate.

CNN’s fact chek again:

When people register to vote, they must provide a driver’s license or Social Security number, and their identity is checked against existing databases. Voters are required to swear under penalty of perjury that they are a US citizen. Noncitizens who vote illegally can face imprisonment or deportation.

Gallego said in a statement that he opposed the bill because its “only purpose is to disenfranchise tens of thousands of Arizonans, and I will not vote to take away the rights of Arizonans to stop something that is already illegal.”

(Remember, when its guns, Republicans insist no new laws are required. We simply have to enforce the laws already on the books.)

Republicans will pass a meaure “to stop illegal aliens from voting in our elections,” insisted House Majority Leader Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, claiming without evidence that foreign prisons are being emptied to dump criminals here.

You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate—
You’ve got to be carefully taught!
You’ve got to be carefully taught!

― from Rodgers & Hammerstein’s South Pacific

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas jumped in as well, claiming 11.5 million people have crossed the southern border under the Biden administration (a gross exaggeration). He cited lurid cases of Americans harmed by noncitizens, including a Houston woman raped and mudered “by two men who were supposed to be detained and monitored but instead released and allowed to roam free.”

(For reference: Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president, adjudicated in New York for sexual assault and a 34-time convicted felon, is out on bail in New York, and in Georgia in the pending election interference case.)

“It [illegal immigration] happened because Democrats cynically decided they wanted votes from illegals more than they wanted to protect our children,” Cruz insisted.

The Washington Post’s fact check:

There is no evidence for this hyperbolic claim. Federal law bans noncitizens from voting in federal elections, including races for president, vice president, Senate or House of Representatives. Under a law adopted in 1996, noncitizens who vote can face a fine or a prison term as long as a year, or both — not to mention deportation.

But let’s not let facts get in the way of a good smear job. Any excuse to make voting harder is a good one in Republican eyes.

“I don’t want everybody to vote… As a matter of fact, our leverage in the election quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.” ― Paul Weyrich (1980), co-founder of the Heritage Foundation.

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

For The Win, 5th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV planning guide at ForTheWin.us.

What’s So Hard About This?

Published by Tom Sullivan on July 17, 2024

They’re both old. The Republican is a lying criminal.

Joe Biden is an aging but accomplished public servant who occasionally loses his train of thought. Donald Trump is a self-obsessed, wannabe dictator, a convicted criminal three years younger, a pathological liar who falls asleep during his own trial and nominating convention. When Biden rambles, there’s a point at the end. When Trump rambles about sharks and showers and windmills, he’s incoherent.

A large swath of Americans finds it a challenge to choose between the two.

The press is more obsessed with Biden’s age and poor debate performance than with Trump’s firehose of lies and Project 2025 plans for euthanizing the republic. In Lester Holt’s NBC interview with Biden this week, Holt asked if Biden is considering dropping out of the presidential race. (Biden’s repeatedly said he won’t.) Biden answers, no. Holt won’t move on. He asks if Biden wants a chance to “get back on the horse” and “what happens if you have another episode like we saw during the debate?”

On Tuesday afternoon, Biden delivered a fiery, 30-minute speech before the NAACP convention in Las Vegas (watch it). He condemned Trump for “lying like hell” about the strong economy:

Then, capitalizing on Trump’s comment in last month’s debate in which he referenced “Black jobs,” Biden said, “Folks, I know what a Black job is: it’s the Vice President of the United States! I know what a Black job is: the first Black president in American history, Barack Obama!” as audience members roared in approval.

Biden forcefully touted his administration’s accomplishments and detailed legislative proposals for his second term, including a 5% cap on rent increases and a new assault weapon ban. He is finalizing plans for passing term limits for the Supreme Court and an enforceable ethics policy. Try finding coverage on today’s front pages.

“For more than two weeks, Biden had difficulty moving beyond the fallout from his faltering debate performance on June 27,” the Washington Post reports. Trump fomented an insurrection and picks a vice president more MAGA than himself, but Biden loses his place on the teleprompter and that merits a mention.

It’s not paranoia if they’re really out to get you. It doesn’t help that members of his congressional caucus are still trying to push him out of the race egged on by pundits. The virtual vote scheduled in late May to get around a ballot deadline in Ohio is now seen by “Pass the Torch, Joe” members as “an attempt to ram through his nomination.“

How many times do I have to say, get back to me with an alternate candidate and a plan and we’ll talk?

The irony here is that it’s progressives (the party’s DFHs) like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders who are keeping their heads and wanting to press ahead to the election fight without further ado.

Weeks after the first presidential debate (as Markos Moulitsas observed), Biden is still old and Donald Trump is still a liar.

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

For The Win, 5th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV planning guide at ForTheWin.us.

Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb Chose Vance

Published by digby on July 16, 2024

I can’t say I’m surprised. Choosing Vance was very dumb and it’s the kind of dumb I didn’t expect from Trump whose feral instincts are usually better than this:

MILWAUKEE — With the clock ticking to the Republican National Convention last week, Donald Trump met privately to discuss his running mate search with two of his closest advisers: his sons. 

The conversation quickly turned tense when the former president indicated that he was leaning toward Doug Burgum, until recently the largely unknown governor of North Dakota — but someone whose low-maintenance, no-drama personality would never threaten to outshine Trump.

That’s when Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump chimed in.

“Don Jr. and Eric went bats— crazy: ‘Why would you do something so stupid? He offers us nothing,’” a longtime Republican operative familiar with the discussion told NBC News.

“They were basically all like ‘JD, JD, JD,’” the operative said.

Trump ratified his sons’ recommendation here Monday, selecting Sen. JD Vance of Ohio as his vice presidential candidate. Trump called Vance with the news 20 minutes before announcing it on social media, a source familiar with the call said.

In choosing Vance, Trump made a different calculation than he did in 2016 and leaned fully into his MAGA base. Back then, he looked to his daughter and her husband — the more establishment-friendly Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner — for strategic advice. This time, his red meat-throwing sons have a more central role. And instead of going with a longtime traditional Republican like Mike Pence, Trump chose the MAGA warrior Vance. 

Burgum would have been the best choice. Fairly milquetoast, central casting, and could have been a pitch to the suburban whites Trump is having trouble with. The successful billionaire ticket. Rubio would have been better too. Hispanic, younger an establishment rep which could have possibly brought in some stragglers.

Vance is a hardcore online warrior type. He will repel the normies and the MAGAs were already in the tank.

Don Jr and Eric made the choice essentially by pushing their apparently weak daddy to pick their guy. A bad move in so many ways.