Pennsylvania

 If the race is close, and the data are kind of all over the place at the moment, then Pennsylvania is likely the tipping point state. Harris and Democrats are polling pretty well in Wisconsin and Michigan right now, with PA being the weakest of the three Blue Wall states. Josh Marshall shares a correspondence from someone in Trump Country in PA that despairs about the state of the race there.

The writer notes that there seems to be waning enthusiasm for Trump, in the sense of fewer yard signs and flags. This goes to the argument that we've been living in Trumpistan for nine years now, with this guy dominating our discourse. Yet his act really is tired and repetitive. 

Which brings me to my point of optimism going back to when Biden was the candidate. Who has looked at America since November 2020 and decided that even though they voted for Biden in 2020, they want to vote for Trump in 2024? Who looks at January 6th and Dobbs and wants more of that? Who looks at the Arlington travesty and wants more of that?

I have no doubt that Cult 45 is still devoted to this asshole. The question is: Who wants to join that cult who isn't already in it? Where are the new Trump voters? Because there are new Harris voters.

The Harris decision to focus on "We're not going back" and "weird" is playing on exactly this dynamic. Harris needs to win every Biden vote and every Lean Republican voter who was sickened by January 6th. She needs to get the pro-choice voters in places like North Carolina and Florida to the polls. Her decision to campaign in rural Georgia is an interesting sign that she very much wants to soften Trump's support among groups that remain hostile to Putin and authoritarianism.

So, I do think Harris can and will mobilize voters in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh - and their suburbs - but also I do wonder if turnout in those exurban Trump strongholds might be depressed a bit. Even Biden did much better when "likely voter" screens were used. 

He's exhausting. Aren't we ready to move on?

State Of The Race

 Paul Campos dropped a "state of the race" post yesterday that incorporated a high quality poll that showed Harris up five points nationally. He than cautioned that Trump has always outperformed is polling, whereas Republicans in general have underperformed. It's weird, but we see it in a lot of Senate polling where Harris and Trump are effectively tied, as in Nevada and Arizona, but the Democratic Senate candidates are holding pretty comfortable leads.

However - and this maybe be hopium - but pollsters have been burned badly (2016) and mildly (2020) by underestimating Trump's support. They really, really don't want to do that again. 

The question becomes:

- Is Trump outperforming other Republicans by significant margins? 
- Are pollsters weighting pro-Trump numbers to avoid their previous mistakes?

I'm struggling to conceive of a Trump-Rosen voter in Nevada. Or a Trump-Gallego voter in Arizona. I know they exist, but in those numbers? 

Campos concludes by noting that Democratic get-out-the-vote efforts were hampered by the pandemic in 2020. That's not an issue this time, and the Democrats are heavily invested in GOTV efforts whereas Trump is siphoning off Republican fundraising for purposes that are probably illegal.

I'd rather be us than them.

At Least Merrick Garland Is On the Case

 Trump's illegal campaign appearance at Arlington Cemetery is beginning to gather some heat. However, the issue as always with Trump is that he does so many damned things that are disqualifying that focusing on one event can be perilous. Still, this grotesque violation of Arlington is of a piece with his earlier comments - both on the record and recounted by others - that disparage veterans.

The problem at the moment is that the cemetery official is not pressing charges for the assault aspect, because she fears (not unreasonably) violent retaliation from Trumpist. That right there is its OWN story worth a million column inches. 

However, Trump's appearance in Arlington to cut an advertisement which he has already posted online seems like its own felony violation. That we have to wait on the sclerotic Merrick Garland to press charges - likely until after the election - is another way in which Trump demolishes the old guardrails. 

Does Anything Matter Anymore?

 The latest "Thing That Trump Did That Would End Any Other Politician" is filming a campaign video in freaking Arlington Cemetery. The Times, of course, does not currently have the story on their front page. The Post does. The video and pictures were taking in Section 60, which is off limits for political posturing. What's more, there are reports from NPR that Trump campaign officials were physical with officials at Arlington who were trying to enforce the...you know...law.

Here's a graph from the Post:

But Trump campaign communications director Steven Cheung said that “there was no physical altercation as described,” that the campaign was given permission to bring a photographer and that it is “prepared to release footage” to defend against “defamatory claims.”

Cheung also claimed, without providing evidence or details, that “an unnamed individual, clearly suffering from a mental health episode, decided to physically block members of President Trump’s team during a very solemn ceremony.”

So, first of all, the Trump campaign doesn't spin things, they outright lie. Here's a statement:

“Federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries, to include photographers, content creators or any other persons attending for purposes, or in direct support of a partisan political candidate’s campaign,” the cemetery’s statement said. “Arlington National Cemetery reinforced and widely shared this law and its prohibitions with all participants.”

This is pretty much backed up by the Trump campaigns own videos of the events. This is shortly after saying that Medal of Freedom recipients are better than Medal of Honor recipients, because they are better looking without wounds and shit.

I swear to Dog, in a sane world, Harris would not only be up in Texas and Florida, she'd be winning Idaho.

The Other Great Sorting

 The Great Sort is the sociological argument that Americans have largely separated themselves into different geographic camps. This - like so many arguments like it - is so grossly overstated as to be effectively meaningless. I live in Connecticut, an indigo blue state. My town is Trumpy as hell, but that means he will get 66% of the vote. What does that say about the third of residents who will vote for Harris? Do we not exist?

There is, however, another form of Great Sorting, which goes back to the 1980s and '90s. The two parties became more ideologically coherent. When LBJ passed the Voting Rights Act, he did some with real support from Republicans who thought it was an important bill. That sort of action is pretty rare these days. Biden was able to get a few bills through on infrastructure, but the idea that it would require great skill to shepherd an infrastructure bill through Congress would have struck Richard Nixon as insane. (All of this further augments the argument that Newt Gingrich and Mitch McConnell's Zero Sum approach to partisan politics is what has broken this country.)

What I think we are also seeing is another Great Sorting around principles: those who have them and those that don't. This isn't about voters, but political elites. Look no further than RFK, Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard. A credulous press will present them as Democrats-turned-Trumpists, but really they are just grifters who have some loosely held beliefs - RFK has some environmental beliefs, I guess, and Gabbard seems to love Hindutva. 

Their endorsements of Trump are - or at least ought to be - completely unsurprising. They have no real allegiance to the Democratic Party. Kennedy was born into it, and Gabbard was from Hawaii which is basically a one party state. They are (in Kennedy's case was) photogenic with the superficiality of those whose appeal is largely superficial. 

Trumpistan is a swamp of grifters, led by the Grifter in Chief himself. Trump hawks ugly sneakers, ridiculous merch and the ubiquitous flags. I drove across a Trumpy part of the state today and saw some flags (and RFK signs that were still up). Since when have candidates for office had flags? Why is that a thing? Clearly, it's to "pledge allegiance" to the figure. Plus, you can sell them.

In its purest expression, Trumpism is about the shallow salesman from Queens still trying to slap fake gold on a thing and call it awesome. The movement of people like Gabbard and Kennedy is a natural extension of that.

Now, if the Harris campaign had the ability, getting a video endorsement from George W. Bush might actually mean something.

Home Sweet Home

 Nothing like coming home from a long vacation and finding your ceiling collapsed from a water leak.

RFK, Jr

 From the jump, it was apparent that Kennedy's vanity campaign was being underwritten by GOP ratfuckers. Money and infrastructure are some of what keep third party campaigns on the margins - mostly it's the fact that they are vanity campaigns or ratfucking, but whatever. Kennedy relied on GOP Daddies to fund him and keep him relevant. The fact that this guy is a brain damaged freak saw his margins sink. Harris's emergence made him further irrelevant. 

His decision to drop out and endorse Trump is not likely to make a huge difference, but it's not nothing. Kennedy was a refuge for Never Trump Boomers and nihilistic Edgelords. The idea that his endorsement could matter with that group of malcontents seems dubious. What's more, the never ending drip of outright sociopathic behavior by Kennedy alienated a lot of people - except for those Edgelords.

It has been pretty clear that Kennedy was hurting Trump more than Harris - that's why he dropped out and endorsed Trump. He was always Trump-adjacent. Are there a bunch of voters who are going to become Trumpists because he dropped out? I'm skeptical.

However, it remains a close election, and if some of those Kennedy voters decide to hold their noses and vote for Trump that could matter. On the other hand, the Kennedy-Down Ticket Republican voter might just stay home. 

We can hope.

It's just foolish to make assumptions based on past elections, given the nature of this topsy-turvy race.

The Challenger

 Both Jon Chait and Josh Marshall note that perhaps the singular accomplishment of the Harris campaign over the last month has been to frame Donald Trump as the incumbent and herself as the challenger. This is smart in myriad ways. First, there has been a lot of anti-incumbent mood across the developed democracies since Covid. That sucked and people have been punishing the party in charge during that period. Of course, Trump was in charge for the worst of it, but people had largely memory-holed that, blaming Biden for the slow reopening of 2021 and the global inflation that followed.

Harris's ability to make Trump the incumbent - "We aren't going back" - both reminds people of how chaotic life was under Trump and allows her to focus on HIS decisions during Covid. The very fact that he had been president, was rejected and now wants to return does give him the stink of old news. Only Biden's own status as the incumbent and even older news shielded Trump from that reality. That's why he's apoplectic over Biden dropping out: running against Biden is his only shot at NOT being the incumbent.

Both Marshall and Chait, however, tend to gloss over a key dynamic, even deride it. It absolutely matters that the person setting herself up as the challenger is a woman of color. Most undecided voters are pretty damned shallow. They are not thoughtful people, at least when it comes to politics. If they were rigorous in their thinking, they wouldn't be undecided. Harris - as a woman, as a person of color, as the child of immigrants - is very much NOT an insider. Hillary Clinton was. Joe Biden is. And now Donald Trump is, too. Yes, Harris is Vice President, but precisely because she is not an Old White Dude, she feels like an outsider. That was actually a key to Obama winning states like Indiana in 2008. 

Because she is who she is, this allowed her to focus her campaign message around somewhat conservative tropes like patriotism and border security. Walz helps with this, and reflects that strategy, but she does not have to do the heavy lifting of distancing herself from some past precedents (unburdened by what has been). It's right there in her bio in ways that it wasn't for someone like Hillary Clinton. Wrapping herself in the flag becomes the message about inclusion, whereas when Trump does it, it feels like a shield he wraps around himself.

There is likely to be some weird assed polling about to drop. RFK, Jr. is taking his brain worm and his dead bear cub home with him, as he sulks about not being able to throw the election to Trump. The DNC was a smash hit. There should be a bounce. (There was a panel of those dipshit undecideds and 7 of 8 said they were now ready to vote for Harris.) Kennedy dropping out could help Trump. I saw one poll that had Harris up 8 nationally, another up 6 and another had it tied.

Now the next beat is the debate. I think Harris largely cleans the floor with Trump. She's a lawyer without a speech impediment. Trump's public appearances are a mix between low-energy whomp whomp and the usually whine whine.

There is a long way to go, but the Harris campaign has done it all right so far. I think America is ready to put this malevolent orange cancer behind us.

Excelsior!

She Nailed It

 Harris's acceptance speech last night was very good. Jake Tapper and Jon Chait - who have been skeptical of Harris - were comparing it to Obama's 2008 speech. A lot has been written about how she has escaped the various boxes that the 2020 election cycle seemed to force her into. It was a very clear and prosecutorial case against Trump and for her candidacy. The debate could be spicy!

The whole week was a great demonstration of the campaign's themes and the importance of the principles the Democratic Party adheres to. The "deep bench" means that the truism that "personnel is policy" is in good hands with Harris and Democrats. 

I've always been worried about the subconscious way we code leadership as male and that Harris would fall victim to the implicit sexism that lurks below the surface of men and women. Her incredibly strong section on foreign and defense policy was really good at addressing those concerns without being explicit about it. 

The concluding remarks did, I confess, give me some goosebumps. The patriotic tone she and others struck was perfect. 10 out of 10, not notes. She's ready, we're ready. Let's get'er done.

I Absolutely Lost It

 I'm sitting here hours later with my eyes swollen from the ugly crying I did last night over Tim Walz's son, Gus. Gus has some learning differences that I've seen in young people before. Our son has some LD issues, and he went to a school with a lot of kids like Gus. When Gus teared up over his dad and said "That's my dad!" Shit, I'm tearing up again.

I admit to not knowing who this guy was 6 weeks ago. When Biden dropped out, Walz suddenly blossomed with the "weird" line of attack, but there was also something about him that just resonated with me. Having your 17 year old son weepily and proudly boast about you on national television is the single greatest endorsement of a politician I've ever seen. He's the real deal, because there's no faking it with kids like Gus Walz.

Is Obama Right?

 Jon Chait has been beating the drum against the illiberal left for a while now, so he naturally jumped at Obama's rhetoric last night that we need to stop "canceling" each other. The broader text of both Obama's speeches last night was not an embrace of Trumpists, but rather an argument that most of the people who vote for Trump are redeemable.

I think that's at least somewhat true, because tens of millions of people voted for him. There are many who have been mainlining the fabricated bile of Fox News and its less subtle progeny for years. They believe things that are demonstrably false. Presumably if there was no Fox News, then they might be open to reason and persuasion. Certainly there are a lot of former Republicans right now; several are speaking in Chicago this week.

However, it's worth noting that Fox News does exist. Of those tens of millions who support Trump, many of them drink deeply and with great relish from the river of hate and division that he spews forth. The worst part of Trumpism is finding out how many of our countrymen are hateful people. 

Maybe...maybe this fall, Trump's support collapses to about 40%, and we can move on from him. Certainly, you can't look at the energy and joy that Harris and Walz are bringing to the campaign trail and compare that to the absolute spent force that is Trump. His appearance yesterday in Michigan to rant falsely about crime was so lackluster I almost felt like Trump could have cried, if he was capable of that emotion.

There are, I hope, millions of Trump voters who are not necessarily Trump supporters. Maybe people like Adam Kinziger can tilt them to vote Democratic just this once. Frankly, I had hopes that George Bush would say something, but he's been an intellectual coward his whole life, so being a moral coward in this moment isn't shocking.

I don't know how salvageable some of this country is. I really don't. But some are, and if we can woo them this fall, that would be important to the future civic health of this country.

Day One

 If there was a difference between the RNC and the DNC that could be summed up in a short video clip, it might be Hulk Hogan tearing off his shirt at the RNC and the Beyoncé-themed long form ad that played last night in Chicago. Trump's energy is that of fake wrestling, a fraud of a sport for a fraud of a man, spectacle without substance. That ad was unabashedly patriotic while remaining true to American values. 

I simply don't like watching political speeches. In the year of our Lord 2024, I don't have to. It's like baseball, I'd rather watch the highlights online than sit through the whole game. The highlights from last night were electric. Especially moving were the people who have struggled with the impact of the Dobbs decision and the four minute ovation for Joe Biden.  There were great stemwinders by rising stars like Rafael Warnock and AOC. There was a well-deserved recognition of Hillary Clinton's role in making this moment (hopefully) possible. It was great!

Of course, the media couldn't help but repeatedly beclown themselves. They complained that Biden's speech was going to be too late, as if it was still 1988 and people wouldn't be accessing it online today. They complained about the wi-fi. Their fact checking was a parody of the idea of fact checking. Actually, their fact checking showed how Trump's consistent incoherence feeds into the press's inability to cover him properly.

I loved the reception Biden got and deserved. There was a lot of Dark Brandon energy that was great. However, it's pretty clear he is struggling with his speech impediment. That is not at all a knock on his performance as president, which has been excellent. However, that speech - the love that he got and the way it was delivered - does reinforce the rectitude of his decision to drop out. Again, if Harris can close the deal, Biden's stature will rise from this act that had to pain him greatly, but was the right thing for his party and his legacy.

Not sure how they top it over the next few nights. Taylor Swift and Beyoncé together?

Pundit's Fallacy, Part 624,922

 I've enjoyed subscribing to Matthew Yglesias' substack, because he talks about things from a different perspective, even if he can get seriously wedded to his priors. Today is a good example of that. 

Some of it is the incessant need any writer needs to hedge their bets after 2016. Harris pretty clearly has a measurable lead in the polls, but the polls were off by enough in 2016 and 2020 to make people legitimately skittish about making predictions about November. Of course, there is the second caveat which is that Democrats have been more robust in turning out their voters, especially in off-year elections. If Trump remains unpopular - and I think the debate will drop him down a bit more - then there will simply be some of the old Trumpist coalition who sit this one out.

Where Yglesias really falls into his own navel is in advancing the typical fallacy of "If the candidate does everything I suggest, they will be doing better." This is a weird take, because much of the column if him admitting that Harris has pretty much nailed the first month of her campaign. She's sewed up the party's support; she's raised a boatload of money and spent it well; she's expanded the battleground map; she's seemingly won the war over defining herself and her opponent.

The primary data point that he uses to argue that she's not doing well enough is betting markets. His argument is that bettors are smarter with their money, which is news to anyone who's been to Vegas. What's more, those betting markets are reflecting the fact that the convention and debates haven't happened yet. What if Harris absolutely crashes in her debate? If you had her as 70% odds to win the election, you might take a bath. Much like the "Likely Voter" screens in polling, the closer you get to the election, the more solidified predictions will become. 

Finally, he argues that Harris is not arguing for the suite of policies that he wants, so she must be running a bad campaign. His current hobbyhorse is reducing the deficit, which isn't a terrible policy idea, but is not great politics in this moment. 

I warned that the press would treat Harris' policy proposals differently than Trump's, and that's largely been true. However, we've seen quite a few takes like Josh Barro or Jon Chait, who looked at the pre-speech version of her plan and said it was bad policy but likely good politics. Then the speech came out, it wasn't "price controls" but anti-monopoly, they left the pieces up, but at least they conceded that her politics were smart in taking on corporate greed.

The reality is that every election is about vibes. If you want you can call them fundamentals, but really they are about how the Mushy Middle sees the current state of things and whether they blame the candidate who most represents the status quo. Trump, in many ways, is running as the incumbent - at least from a vibes point of view. Harris has framed her campaign as a forward looking effort to improve people's lives. Yglesias concedes this point - but this is really the whole shebang. 

Only political junkies really care about the policy white papers. When you look at a candidate, the most important thing to look at is principles. What do they care about and who do they care for? We know the answer when it comes to Trump: he care about himself and the people who genuflect before him. Harris and the Democrats will spend this week hammering the message about how they care about middle class families. That's the way to win elections.

Trump Blows The Foghorn

 The concept of racial "dog whistles" goes back to Lee Atwater's famous formulation of how once you could throw the N-word around, but now you have to talk about crime and busing and things like that. Ronald Reagan was a practitioner of these dark arts, as when he spoke of Welfare Queens in Cadillacs and launched his campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi talking about states' rights. 

The corrosive effect of Trumpism is that what had been reduced to subtly coded appeals to racism have become blaring foghorns. Now we have a perfect example: Trump is going to have a rally about crime in Howell, Michigan. 

Howell was a center of the KKK for a long time and just last month there was a march where they chanted "We love Hitler; we love Trump." 

I mean...c'mon.

Josh Marshall and others have pointed out the very obvious racism of this moment, but - once again - I am left to wonder how capable today's "journalists" are at reporting the bald truth staring them in the face. This should be all over the news until it either leaves a mark or he cancels the event that was no doubt planned by the many Nazis and Nazi-adjacent people he has working for him.

John Marshall Harlan

 I've just finished reading a wonderful biography of Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan. For those of you who aren't History Nerds, Harlan was a Justice from 1877 to 1911. During that time, the former slave owner from Kentucky became the staunchest defender of civil rights on the Court and known for his blistering dissents - many of which are now the understood law of the land. Harlan had a remarkable sense of being on the Right Side Of History. A few of his dissents:

- Plessy v Ferguson. His most famous dissent today, it was largely ignored at the time. He alone on the court argued that the XIVth Amendment actually did what it said it was going to do. He argued that the Constitution and the rights enshrined therein were "color blind" in the sense that "separate but equal" was blatantly contrary to the XIVth. His dissent was the backbone of the argument in Brown v Board of Education.

- The Civil Rights Cases. Prior to Plessy, Harlan was also the sole dissenter in a basket of cases where the majority allowed private entities to discriminate on the basis of race. Again, Harlan's interpretation of the XIVth in this case is the standard used by all civil right's law today.

- Pollack v Farmer's Loan and Trust. Pollack was a case over the constitutionality of an income tax. Harlan was one of four justices who adhered to almost a century of precedent on taxation that allowed the federal government to levy an income tax. Pollack was almost universally reviled within a few decades, but it led to the XVIth Amendment explicitly authorizing an income tax.

- United States v E.C. Knight & Co.  Here, again, the Court effectively overruled Congress' authority as established in the Sherman Antitrust Act. Harlan was the lone dissenter who argued that Congress had the power to regulate monopolies.

- The Insular Cases. After the Spanish War and the acquisition of an overseas empire, the question became whether or not the peoples of Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the Philippines had constitutional rights. Harlan was in the minority - often alone again - arguing that the "constitution followed the flag."

- Giles v Harris. Harlan was one of three judges to dissent from a ruling that allowed grandfather clauses and other mechanisms to restrict Black suffrage.

- Lochner v New York. Harlan was one of four judges in the minority who felt that New York could established maximum hours for bakers. Lochner was a stain on the judiciary for decades though the logic behind Lochner and Knight has been adopted by the Roberts Court in overturning Chevron deference. 

Two things that stand out. The first is that the Fuller Court on which Harlan served most of his term was the worst Court in history - even worse than the current Court which seems to take many of its cues from the majority of the Fuller Court. The second is that even in a time of profound racism and exploitation of workers of all races, there were still actually White men - Southern White men no less - willing to stand up for justice and fairness. Harlan has to be one of the top 3-4 Justices in the history of the Court because he alone for his time stood consistently on the side of the angels.

In my judgment, Harlan was the most important White figure from Lincoln until Lyndon Johnson when it came for civil rights. His arguments - lonely as the were - formed the basis for the "rights revolution" that occurred under the Warren Court. Towards the end of the biography, though, the author noted that Harlan's phrase a "color blind Constitution" has been used to roll back programs like Affirmative Action. 

What's more, because Harlan hewed closely to the actual language of the Reconstruction Amendments, people like Antonin Scalia have cited him as "thoroughly originalist." Since "originalism" is a stalking horse for destroying the New Deal and Great Society, that's stretching the idea pretty damned far. One thing Harlan felt strongly about was that the Court should defer to Congress unless the Constitution was clearly being violated. 

Of all fucking people, Neil Gorsuch at his confirmation hearing said, "Justice Harlan got the original meaning of the Equal Protection Clause right the first time, and the court recognized that belatedly. It is one of the great stains on the Supreme Court's history that it took so long to get to that conclusion." Once on the bench, Gorsuch has largely ignored Harlan's thinking.

The Lochner case from which Harlan dissented was used to strike down many of the early New Deal programs. This caused Franklin Roosevelt to try and pack the court to replace the hidebound old justices who deferred to Lochner. In the end, the Court bent to the necessities of the moment and FDR was able to appoint enough justices who could see beyond the blinkered plutocracy of the Fuller Court.

If Harris wins, there is a chance that she might be able to either change the composition of the Court or replace some of the older justices like Alito and Thomas - two men wedded to the Fuller Court's ignominious ideas. Whatever happens, Dobbs, the presidential immunity ruling and the overturning of Chevron have destroying the legitimacy of the Court in much the same way Lochner did and eventually Plessy was seen to do. 

Hopefully, Sotomayor and Jackson are not modern day Harlan's issuing dissents against a lawless and unjust Court until one day their vision is able to carry the day. 

The Policy Trap

 I've been writing about the press' double standard for a while now, and as if on cue, we are about to have another example. Elections are NOT about policy, they are about "vibes". They always have been. 

What's more, the media do not care about policy as policy. What they want is to be able to play gotcha or to parse the problem with specific plans. Trump famously does not have any plans. He blathers on about "building a wall" or "stopping inflation" and the media just shrugs. 

Harris is planning on supporting a bill or administrative rule to stop price gouging at the grocery store. I presume the target will not be the grocery stores themselves, but the wholesalers and agribusiness that hold near monopolies and seemed to inflate prices for the purpose of padding their revenue, rather than responding strictly to their increased costs.

That proposal is going to get ripped to shreds by economists and experts as being akin to price controls, which are, in fact, bad. Whether or not it actually IS price controls is as yet unknown, but there will likely be some aspect of it and it will be savaged by the press for including anything resembling those price controls.

Meanwhile, Trump staged a photo op with breakfast cereal, said absolutely nothing of substance or merit and the news channels carried the whole thing live. I have yet to see the Times editorial board come out and rip Trump's nonsense to pieces. He even denigrated Medal of Honor winners, and they can't be bothered.

Here's Jon Chait taking a version of this approach. He's being fair in that some of Harris's ideas are not likely to make much of a dent in inflation, because inflation is largely cured. It's a way to harness anger against popular targets and represents smart politics but poor policy (though he does note she has some good policy ideas). This is probably as good a take as you are likely to see, but even so it comes in the form of a criticism.

Harris vs The Media

 Kamala Harris has had an amazing month. She went from loyally supporting Joe Biden in a reelection campaign that was floundering over his age and frailty to wrapping up the nomination in about 72 hours to vaulting into the lead in national and swing state polling. She has mobilized voters in a way not seen since Obama in 2008.

And the press hates her for it.

As Josh Marshall lays out, it is actually the press's job to be annoying and press for interviews. That's fine. However, every pundit seems to be a reporter who didn't want to work a beat anymore, so they've all decided that Harris has no vision and no policies. She's "ducking the press." 

In reality, ask yourself this. What is Harris' position on abortion? What's her position on the Affordable Care Act and Medicare? Social Security? Do you think she's pro- or anti-union? Do you think she supports Ukraine? 

I agree with the idea that elections are simply NOT about policy positions. They are about principles and, yes, vibes. We know the answers to the policy questions above, because we know that Harris shares the same principles as almost every elected Democrat. Democrats have been running on the more popular policy agenda for 35 years, and it doesn't always win them their elections. 

This is before we even crack open the yawning vault of ignorance and policy vacuity that is the Trump campaign. Harris is "light on details?" Trump says shit like "I will bring inflation down" and that's the extent of his "policy platform." Hell, the GOP did not even HAVE a platform in 2020.

Yes, Harris should and will do interviews. Frankly, she should do as many as possible with local media outlets in the swing states. Right now, she's talking to voters directly through her rallies and standing up a full blown campaign for president from a dead standstill. When she talks to reporters, she needs to avoid talking to the sort of vacuous dunderheads who will ask her process questions or what she thinks about Trump's latest insane ramblings. There are maybe five journalists in the country who might qualify for that.

She's winning right now. She's doing it right. Elections are about principles and vibes and she's right to focus on that. The convention will fill in some policy gaps, but hopefully not too many, as the press will use that to attack her, while ignoring the nonsense coming from the GOP.

We have to fumigate American Democracy from Trumpism, but we also have to fix the press. Telling them to go pound sand is a good start. 

This Sure Feels Like An Op

 Yesterday, pro-Palestinian protestors shut down the 405 freeway in Los Angeles. I lived in LA about 30 years ago and the 405 was terrible enough without dipshits stopping traffic for no apparent yield. 

Presumably a protest is designed to have a tangible goal. What possible goal that is positive for their cause does pissing people off accomplish? How does enraging Angelenos help Gaza? One answer is that this is all performative for each other within the protest movement. "Look at us, taking it to the man, truth to power." I have no doubt that this is the internal motivation of the individuals.

However, when you take a moment to look at what the rhetoric and tactics are, this really feels like a Russian op. This has been their pattern since Stalin.

The basic idea is that you want to exploit division in your enemies. So you prop up the most outrageous positions and movements with funds and other aid. Today, that means TikTok and other social media outreach. 

Full confession, I have a college student in my home clearly moved in part by a steady stream of misinformation about Israel. Now, the IDF and certainly the Netanyahu government have a great deal to answer for. War crimes have been committed. But Hamas have committed war crimes, too. The whole conflict is tragic precisely because the decision makers on both sides are awful. That does not mean that Israel shouldn't exist; it does not mean that Palestinians should not have their own state.

Listening to my son, I'm struck with the vehemence and venom he feels towards Israel - a country that hasn't done shit to him. Some of this is that there are sources of information that are pushing all the same algorithms that drive engagement through outrage. 

Sophisticated thinking is necessary to navigate the world from a position of truth. You have to be able to see the Palestinians AND Israelis as victims of a political leadership that is willing even eager to countenance horrors to advance their political agendas. You have to see the humanity in both sides. You have to see that there are very hard limits to what the US can do to bring about a ceasefire. We've been trying for months and there is always one side or the other ready to blow the talks up. 

Meanwhile, Russia and perhaps China are eagerly stoking anger and outrage among a cohort of protestors who are going to try and ramp up protests on college campuses and the Democratic Convention. Hopefully both college administrators and the DNC are working to mitigate what are certain to be bad-faith protests designed to divide Americans one from another.

That goal is not in service of Palestinians. It's in service of Russia.

No Safe Spaces

 Trump went on Twitter to be interviewed by billionaire weirdo Elon Musk last night, in the same Spaces format that crashed for Ron DeSantis and...it crashed for Musk and Trump. Once it got going...it crashed in a different way.

A lot has been made of Trump's slurring and lisping his words. Some of that seems to be shitty audio, but some of it is clearly him unable to speak well. The clips I heard were also incoherent in the way Trump is usually incoherent, but it was the combination of his slurring, his rambling speech and his talking over Musk makes me wonder again if Trump isn't using some sort of drugs. He sound insane but in a different way than he usually does.

There's also this clip where Trump says if he loses he will flee to Venezuela. This isn't the first time he's suggested that Venezuela is safer than the US and that he'd be welcomed there. First of all, he's a convicted felon out of bond talking about fleeing the country. Secondly, he's as close as he can get to admitting he's losing. Thirdly, Democrats need to make his new love affair with Venezuela into their ad campaign for South Florida. Lots of Venezuelans and Cubans think that Democrats secretly love their home countries' dictatorships, but Trump actually does love Maduro.

But wait! That's not all! Trump praises Musk for firing people. Listen to that 18 second clip of him speed slurring his way through praising Musk for firing people and then rambling off into one of his incoherent digressions...and tell me why anyone in a union household or a wage worker should vote for this guy. 

When I said yesterday that Trump can't campaign, this is part of what I meant. He opens his mouth and unpopular positions tumble out.

Musk giving Trump an hour of free media should be an in-kind campaign contribution. It's just not clear which campaign

Trump CAN'T Campaign

 Chait talks about how Trump was winning by largely doing normal candidate things (which is an idea that could use some sources) or at least running against Biden meant that he didn't have to exert himself. Trump famously invoked William McKinley when talking about tariffs, but he was also mimicking McKinley's "Front Porch" campaign, where McKinley never really left his home and simply spoke to reporters and let his surrogates campaign for him.

The entry of Harris into the race has upended that strategy. Trump is now trailing in the polls and that has led him to have to campaign, which leads to things like his insane press conference. He's all over social media spouting deranged nonsense and that just amplifies the "weird" angle from Harris and Walz. 

What's darkly hilarious is that his campaign largely gets that it's biggest problem is its candidate. (OK, BOTH its candidates.) You might remembers the sarcastic meme from 2017-2020: "Today is the day Trump finally became President." It was based off Van Jones gushing over Trump's ability to read his State of the Union address from a teleprompter.

Trump is Trump. He's 80 years old and he's psychologically vulnerable narcissist. He's never been smart and now he's showing signs of both cognitive decline and epistemological closure. He's so trapped in Trumpistan that he can't speak to actual reality. 

In a week, the Democratic Convention starts. The media will likely try to drum up controversy when the inevitable pro-Hamas protestors show up. However, I would expect there to be a LOT of patriotism on display at the Convention. Lots of positivity. This will enrage Trump and his febrile minions even more.

At some point, movements like Trump's collapse, because they don't really have substance. They are based on perceptions and, yes, vibes. Harris has countered that with better vibes, happier vibes. 

This means that Trump's incessant message of doom and gloom is simply unable to counter the vibes of the Harris campaign. Trump being the messenger IS the message: American Carnage. Harris - by accident or design - has found herself offering the sort of campaign that Trump simply cannot match.

Is The Media In The Tank For Trump?

 Individual reporters are, naturally, Lean Democrat at the average. In some ways, this forces them to bend over backwards to give Republicans a fair shake. In trying to guard against unconscious bias, they trap themselves in a different bias. However, there's something really, really strange going on in the prestige media.

First, there is the story of Trump's campaign "being hacked."  Let's begin with the obvious: You should not take the Trump campaign's word on anything. If they say the sun is shining, look out the goddamned window. It's just as likely that a staffer leaked the material - which appears to be their vetting document on Vance and Rubio - as any foreign actor hacked their campaign. However, even if it was a foreign actor, the fucking media ran wild with hacked emails of Democrats by Russians in 2016. There is something pathetic about whining about fairness, but c'mon. Politico was always a hack organization, but now they are owned by an avowed Trumpist. They sat on this story for weeks.

Second, we have a truly troubling story about Trump apparently receiving a bribe from the Egyptian government in 2016. In the fall of 2016, his campaign was running out of cash, and Trump - being a cheapskate - refused to sink his own money into what everyone assumed was a failed bid for the White House. What allegedly happened was that Trump loaned his campaign $10 million right before the election and then Egypt reimbursed him a few months later. 

What's more, it seems pretty clear that Bob Barr - paragon of the Republican establishment and not at all a corrupt hack - killed the investigation. What we can see is that Trump significantly altered US policy towards Egypt and their dictator al Sisi. We also know Egypt was bribing Senator Bob Menendez, as he was just convicted of that crime.

The evidence of a bribe was largely circumstantial and would have required subpoenaing Trump's financial records. Barr managed to rotate supervisors through the investigation until he found one to shut it down.

So three thoughts.

First, I have given Merrick Garland some leeway in his decision not to pursue Trump vigorously on January 21st 2021. I'm done with that. This investigation absolutely should have been pursued.

Second, this is exactly why Trump's reelection is perilous, even if a worst case scenario - Hungary - doesn't materialize. The lack of checks within the Republican Party can be seen in the career Justice Department officials - who are also Republicans - failing to do their jobs impartially. Trump will absolutely loot the American economy and the US Treasury, and the Justice Department and the SCOTUS will let him.

Third, this story should be all over every news organization. It combines things we already know: Trump is for sale, he corrupted the Justice Department and Egypt has been bribing American politicians. The Post story above is really good! However, this story has died.

The media simply do not hold Trump to any sort of standard that they hold other politicians. In 2016, you could argue that everyone thought he would lose, but even that is bullshit. He's losing now, but that's precisely why this story needs to be pushed forward. At Trump's batshit insane presser the other day, no one asked him about this story. Who taught these idiots journalism?

Trump is awful on some many axes that it can be difficult to catalog them all. The "flooding the zone" dynamic is true; there are too many Trump scandals to prioritize any one of them. Still, this story fits well into everything we know, and the Court of Public Opinion does not require proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

So it's a fair question to ask if the media are in the tank for Trump.

The Schism

 When Trump arrived on the scene in 2016, he did get some pushback from the establishment GOP. After the Access Hollywood tape, several people withdrew their endorsements. Then he drew to an inside straight and won. The establishment capitulated to him, at least in public. Privately, they continued to be dismayed at their standard bearer.

As Harris captures more and more enthusiasm, Trump is running a listless, directionless campaign. He is cognitively declining from a low baseline to begin with. A "normal" political party would never have let him get the nomination, but the party elders have either been forced out, silenced or coopted. 

For years, I have felt like the GOP coalition has been untenable. Back in 2012, Karl Rove despaired over the "missing white voters." Trump found them, but alienated the college educated suburban voters in the process.

Now, it looks like the freakshow Right might be starting to break with Trump. A lot of what sunk Clinton in 2016 was the sort of indifferent male voter who wrote in "Harambe" or voted for Trump because they don't understand how politics and legislation works and they just want an "outsider" to shake things up. For some, Trump was a gas, for others an avatar of White Supremacy. They are beginning to realize that their guy is cooked. If they really do turn on him - we've seen Joe Rogan flirt with Kennedy - then that could drive him down towards the low 40s. Perhaps at some point, the dam breaks and people flee to someone like Kennedy or just stay home. Or, hell, maybe Harris benefits from the dynamic Obama did, of being an outsider based on race and, in her case, gender.

Last night, Harris and Walz packed an arena in Phoenix; Trump struggled and failed to fill a smaller venue in Montana.  Why the fuck was he in Montana? Why is he not campaigning?

The funniest thing of all would be that he fears being sentenced to prison for his NY crimes, and flees the country six weeks before election day. It's not like he's really trying to win at this point anyway. He loots the Republican coffers, ties the down ballot candidates to his brand and then flees to Russia to avoid jail time.

Obama Or Biden?

 When Joe Biden stepped aside, one thing that happened was an outpouring of affection from Democrats. there has been a weird pushback about that recently. Nancy Pelosi made some disparaging remarks about the Biden team and now Jon Chait has written a very pundit-like column attacking the argument that Biden has been a better president than Obama.

Chait is always a writer likely to succumb to his priors, still he was fairly accurate in sounding the warning about the illiberal Left on college campuses. His argument - as an argument and not a scholarly analysis - tends to denigrate some of what Biden did. The main argument in my mind that Biden is better than Obama is that he was able to accomplish more given his slim majorities in the Senate. From the point of view of doing the most with the least, Biden surpasses Obama. Obama had a 60 vote Senate majority! Of course he was able to get more done.

The dissatisfaction with Obama's record stems from a sense that he did a lot of performative bipartisanship that tended to undercut the need for more "progressive" reforms. Biden, on the other hand, made his bipartisanship largely invisible. As such, he as able to pass some very impressive legislation in an environment that was far less favorable for such than Obama had.

One point that Chait relies on to make his case is that Biden is very unpopular. It will very interesting to see where his popularity resides by 2025, especially if Harris wins. Biden's unpopularity stems largely from three things: increasing negative polarization; his age; the global dissatisfaction with incumbents. What has been strange is that Harris - the incumbent VP - has seen her favorables spike after Biden stepped aside. Some of that - a lot of that - is that the last two don't seem to stick to her. She's young and as the #2, she isn't held liable for the free floating anger that Covid and global inflation brought on.

Biden does not have a "big fucking deal" like the Affordable Care Act to rest his legacy on. However, he clearly did more with less. As for favorability, Obama lost control of the House in 2010 and never regained. Biden saw a fairly favorable midterm election that kept his narrow majority in the Senate and allowed him to rebalance the federal court system. If we excuse Obama's inability to get Merrick Garland confirmed on the grounds that he had no levers over McConnell, then we have to give Biden credit for maintaining an improbably Senate majority.

Chait's main argument is that Biden pivoted too far let for no appreciable gain, whereas Obama cleverly found a way to the middle; his argument is also that this is what Harris should do. This is where he falls into the Pundit Trap. Pundits are, by definition, highly literate, highly engaged political junkies. Chait's own argument is littered with studies and sources. His argument falls into this trap when he attacks the choice of Tim Walz.

For Chait, Walz represents a capture of Harris by the Left. I suppose the argument is that he preferred Shapiro or the milquetoast Kelly as being more electorally viable. What he clearly fails to see is that Walz's "leftist" bona fides are largely popular and he's an extremely effective salesmen for them. "Republicans see me helping our neighbors and they call it socialism" just lands differently when it comes from a guy like Walz. He's on the ticket because he doesn't upset the anti-Israeli left, yes, but he's also on there because he's an ideal running mate for the Black woman from California.

The term "Vibes Election" is a little overused, if only because every election is a vibes election. Partisans largely do vote for their party's nominee. Today that means Trump's floor is probably 40%, even as he decompresses before our eyes. The people who sit there, look at Trump and Harris or Biden and say, "Jeez, I dunno" are not people who care about how Harris plans to pay for her tax cuts for children. They are Paul Campos' "Arianna Grande Voters."

I do think that Harris has assimilated an important lesson from Obama about using universal language to describe her agenda. I love the prominent use of "freedom" from her and Walz (again, he lines up well with her). She's running on the same middle class bromides that Obama and Biden ran on. How many times did Biden mention Scranton in 2020, for crying out loud?

The strongest part of Chait's argument is that we have tended to downplay what Obama accomplished in his first two years. However, that shouldn't require denigrating Biden's accomplishments. Yes, Obama greenlit the raid on bin Laden's compound. Biden not only finally got us out of Afghanistan - which Obama failed at - but he has also created a global coalition to protect Ukraine. It's worth noting that Ukraine lost Crimea in 2014 - when Obama was president.

Ironically, Obama's greatest weakness seemed to be that he never really seemed to understand the nature of his opposition. His famous keynote speech in 2004 is a great example of that. He's not dumb. He knew it was just rhetoric, rhetoric that America's first Black president would have to use. Harris has impressed me by assimilating the idea of using universal language, but also by hitting Trump hard and repeatedly. "When they go low, we go high" is laudable, but also laughable in Trumpistan.

In the end, I do think Biden's accomplishments rival or outpace Clinton's. If Harris wins, he will be seen as a really consequential president and perhaps our finest one termer. Obama had a more favorable landscape in the Senate that allowed him to do things like the ACA. What Biden has done is more impressive given the landscape, but they have equal claims, I think to being excellent presidents and it wouldn't surprise me if they wind up with fairly similar rankings with the perspective to time.

Oh, There He Is

Trump held a press conference at Mar A Lardo and it was as full of lies and batshit buggery as you might imagine. But it was also EXACTLY the sort of decline that prompted Biden to drop out of the race. Trump was manifestly old and rambling. Sure, sure, there was the usual whining and the endless grievance. Sure, sure, there were false claims and false equivalencies, but Trump is unable to string together coherent sentences in ways that are worse than what made Biden drop out.

At one point, he was asked about whether Harris should have picked Shapiro (most of the reporters were hand selected to avoid actually tough questions). This was an easy lay up about the Democrats being beholden to anti-Semites on their left.  Instead, Trump launched into an attack on Shapiro instead that clearly demonstrated that he has no fucking idea who Josh Shapiro is.

He attacked Brian Kemp again. He lied about crowd sizes again and again, including saying he had more people there than at MLK's "I Have A Dream" speech. 

Honestly, I want a reporter to sit down with Trump and ask him basic questions like "What is the capital of Nebraska?" and "What is Article I of the Constitution about?" or "Who are the Republican Senators from Florida?" I'd wager he could barely answer any of them.

There are no headline stories at either the Times or Post as of 3:51pm ET. 

Where Is Trump?

 Remember way back when Joe Biden was running for re-election? So long ago...

Anyway, the lead story on pretty much every glance at the Times home page would have been concerns about Biden's age. He would have a verbal gaffe or appear slow, and that would generate several days of concern trolling by the prestige media.

Donald Trump has disappeared from the campaign trail and I can't really find any coverage of that on the front pages of the Times and the Post. Apparently, he's going to give a press conference at Mar A Lardass and he has a campaign event in...Montana at some point this week.

Meanwhile, Harris is rolling Walz out with an extensive tour of battleground states that are drawing huge crowds. Given how much Trump obsesses about his crowd sizes, this has to be eating him alive. The Harris-Walz rallies are vibrant, joyous affairs, which draws a stark contrast with the doom and gloom of Trumpism. 

What's more, Trump's absence from the trail means that his Vice President pick, Ron DeSantis With Less Accomplishments or Charisma, has to take up the slack, and that is not going well. Vance is incredibly awkward, as he has almost no real experience in politics. He's not a natural speaker, he's not charismatic, he's simply a personification of an Angry White Guy thread on a 4chan board. He was picked to appeal to the angry incels that make up so much of the Trumpist shock troops, but his actual political chops and his closeness to the toxic Project 2025 agenda means that whatever weird energy Trump brings to his campaign is being replaced by a guy who probably couldn't win a purple House district, no matter how much money Peter Thiel threw at him.

So, where is Trump? Two theories.

The first is that he has some sort of PTSD from the shooting and is terrified of going up on an outdoor stage again. Frankly, that would be the most relatable thing about that shambolic turd of a human being. Those rallies were the lifeblood of his campaign, because he himself fed off them. Now, if he's really afraid to go on stage, then he could be sinking into a depression.

The second is that he did go out to Chicago for the event with Black journalists and...woof. He's old, he's meaner and nastier than he was in 2016 because he's lost, he's been rejected. He has the message discipline of a meth addict on a three day bender. His press conference today should be interesting, if journalists press him on...anything. He could decompress on camera.

There's a writer on Twitter that I follow because I don't always agree with him, but he makes interesting points. He's arguing that Trump isn't even trying to win. The subtext is that he's simply going to cheat. Given the Democratic governors in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, I think that's unlikely. Trump also insulted Brian Kemp, so I can't see Kemp delivering Georgia to him. Arizona and North Carolina have Democratic governors, too. Those are the states that will decide the election.

However, what if Trump starts to completely collapse both in the polls and psychologically? He's already siphoning off his campaign contributions to pay for legal bills and fines - likely in violation of the law - and has not ground game to speak of. If he really is just embezzling funds and he's looking at a sentencing hearing in September...could he just flee the country? 

The whole "logic" of his campaign is that he needs to win to stay out of prison. If he clearly is going to lose, if he's a collapsing narcissist in the grips of depression and PTSD and incipient senility...why not just take all that money and hop on a plane to Russia to live out your days as Putin's house guest?

Until then, I'll be waiting for those assholes at the Times to spend one quarter of the energy on discussing Trump's age and unfitness for office as they did on Biden.

August And Everything After

 Remember that time Joe Biden ran for re-election? What was that, five years ago?

When Biden stepped aside, my first worry was "What now?" But Harris and Biden quickly answered that question, passing the torch seamlessly to Harris and avoiding the intraparty bloodbath that the media types were hyping. Then, yesterday, I think she nailed her VP pick: a Happy Warrior with impeccable Dad Vibes who just seems like he wandered into public service because someone asked him to and he said, "Sure, whatever. What could happen?"

It's the Happy Warrior aspect of Harris/Walz that I think is what makes this a great match. They seem genuinely jazzed to be campaigning. Biden simply could not do that. The only way to mask his frailty and stutter was to get angry. Harris and Walz can attack, but with a smile.

Meanwhile, Trump is decompressing in social media and he has a grand total of one campaign stop this week...in Montana. That leaves Vance as the guy to go out and whip up enthusiasm, which is a task so far beyond his skillset as to be laughable. 

Conventional wisdom used to be that campaigns don't really gear up until after Labor Day. With early voting, that seems less true. What's more, the dynamics of this race seem so different, so variable, in ways that were not true before Biden's dropped out. That race was incredibly static, now everything seems up for grab. Harris is all over the Olympics, but I haven't seen any Trump ads. 

What goes underreported is that credible campaign professionals are obviously not a part of Trump's campaign apparatus. Lots of the old school Republican operatives are now working for the Lincoln Project. Others are reasonably skeptical of being paid. Trump is looting his campaign coffers to pay his legal bills. 

Trump's act is old and it lacks the febrile energy of 2016. I really do think that there is a substantial majority of Americans who just want him gone. Not just Democrats, but more than a few Republicans. Hell. Harris has a "Republicans For Harris" group but Trump's own Cabinet won't endorse him.

We learned in 2016 to take absolutely nothing for granted. However, there is a hopeful energy that wasn't even there in 2020 (because we were all at home). People are comparing it to 2008 for good reason.

Long way to go, but I really think we are winning this thing.

Walz

 As soon as I got a listen to this guy, he seemed like a perfect VP candidate. I don't know if he's ambitious for the top job, but he doesn't give the same "lean and hungry" vibe that, say, JD Vance does. He's got legislative experience in Washington, which Shapiro and Beshear don't. He's got Executive experience and won't jeopardize a Senate seat like Kelly. He's got military experience that Shapiro and Beshear don't. 

He also could bridge the gap with a lot of normie White Guys who are sick of Trump but have doubts about Harris. I think he helps across the Blue Wall, because his Midwestern vibes are impeccable. He's also been really effective as the sort of attack dog that nuzzles up to good people but sinks his teeth into bad people. 

What's more, he's a "first, do no harm" candidate. Shapiro risked blowing up the vibes with a certain segment of young people. Now, I still feel strongly that you cannot base an electoral strategy on young voters, and Shapiro was subject to very unfair attacks, as his position on Israel is probably further left than Walz's. Still, you don't want to upset the momentum that you have right now.

Finally, the Online Veepstakes got toxic in the last few days. Hopefully, everyone calms down and supports Harris-Walz. However, this toxicity is EXACTLY what some of us feared would happen if Biden stepped aside. What would a Blitz Primary look like? The sort of petty sniping that surrounded preferred VP candidates.

It seems, though, that the Harris team is prioritizing coalitional unity. That's really smart. 

They have been really smart and really effective.

Flooding The Zone

 Maybe it was Steve Bannon, but there was someone who described Trump's strategy of dealing with scandal as "flooding the zone." What this means is that there are SO MANY scandals that none of them really land. The media environment gets saturated with so many stories of Trump doing things that would normally end a political career that no individual story has a chance to land before the next one comes along. If that doesn't work, just wait for Robert Kennedy, Jr. to do something so fucking weird it boggles the mind.

This, by the way, is why the "weird" tactic works. It manages to encapsulate a lot of different things into a single line of attack. What they need, though, is another pithy line of attack for Trump's epic corruption. Just the other day, we learned that Egypt seemed to be offering a bribe to Trump in January of 2017. This is more or less what Bob Menendez was just convicted for. I'm guessing few people have actually followed that story.

Meanwhile, Trump on the Stump continues to actively solicit bribes. He is asking for money from Musk in return for supporting EVs. He's been shaking down donors for favors in his stump speeches. He went before the Bitcoin lunatics and he's openly suggesting a quid pro quo. He calls billionaires to Mar a Lago and shakes them down.In recent weeks, one strategy for raising money has become clear: 

Trump is going to wealthy donors and interest groups and offering to cede policymaking to them—in exchange for massive campaign contributions. Last month, The Washington Post reported that Trump gathered oil executives at Mar-a-Lago and made a pitch: For the low cost of $1 billion, he would, as president “reverse dozens of President Biden’s environmental rules and policies and stop new ones from being enacted.” The pitch reportedly “stunned several of the executives in the room.” But it is nevertheless in keeping with Trump’s larger program. Despite promising during his first run for office in 2016 that he was, as a rich person, incorruptible—and that he would use his inside knowledge of a corrupt system to benefit his voters—Trump has always dispensed with subtlety and flaunted his corruption. Here, he is advertising his willingness to take a bribe: Give me what I want, and I’ll give you what you want.

And less than two weeks after that Post report, Trump made even more promises to oil and gas executives at a campaign fundraiser. He reportedly ended his speech by saying, “Be generous, please,” and was rewarded with more than $25 million in donations.

That this would be the lead story on Kamala Harris every day from now until the polls close goes without saying. Oh, and Trump loots his campaign funds to pay for other expenses like legal bills and fines, so these are direct payments to him. 

Time To Cut Interest Rates

 Today's market tumble probably is only feedback to the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates, but it is feedback and they should listen. Frankly, they should have cut rates at their last meeting, but now is better than later.

Inflation has passed; slowdown is the worry now.

State Of The Race

 We are on the verge of the next big "beat" in the compressed timeline of the 2024 election. We've had enough time for polls to reflect the new dynamic of the race and I agree with Marshall's analysis. Harris has held on to or marginally expanded her leads in the Blue Wall and come within striking distance of the Purple Wall (I guess, you could call it) of Arizona, Nevada and Georgia. There is even some thinking she could be closing the margins in North Carolina. Arizona and especially North Carolina are especially salient states for the post-Dobbs landscape, but in states like Georgia and North Carolina could be seeing her reclaim some of the Black vote that (somehow) appeared to be moving towards Trump. Same goes for Detroit and Philadelphia. 

We are now a few weeks removed from the attempt on Trump's life, and that story has largely withered away, because the shooter does not seem to have much of a political motive. It was just another sad loner with a gun and a deathwish. Meanwhile, Harris hit the ground running, Biden got the hostages released (and captured the heads of two cartels). Hell, the US is doing well in the Olympic and MAGAts are being weird about THAT.

It's unlikely that the Harris wave continues to grow all the way to November. However, the VP announcement does seem to represent a possible stumbling block. When people were arguing that Biden should drop out, the counterargument was "What then?" We got a lot of bullshit about a Blitz Primary or an open convention. Instead, Harris skillfully maneuvered to end all that in about 48 hours. Instead, we are seeing the feared toxicity surrounding the VP pick.

Basically, the online battle lines are surrounding Shapiro. He was my first choice, because of Pennsylvania's oversized importance in this race. However, there are some legitimate reasons to wonder about how well vetted he is, and there is some of the leftist anti-Semitism cloaked as anti-Zionism swirling around him. Are the Genocide Joe cadre going to vote for Harris if she picks Walz? I have my doubts. But Walz sure seems like a "do no harm" pick and he has real credentials as a member of the House that neither Beshear or Shapiro can match. 

So, anyway, it's shitshow online, because people are picking sides and digging in. That's exactly what I feared would happen in the open process to replace Biden.

How Harris lands her VP pick will either create more enthusiasm or perhaps open wounds. That's the next beat. Then we have the convention. I would expect a barnburner speech from Obama, a moving valedictory address from Biden, and then Harris needs to hit her marks in her acceptance speech. 

If she exits the convention with solidifying leads in the Blue Walls and marginal leads in the Purple Wall, the next beat would be the debate or debates if they even happen. Trump is backing out of the ABC debate, but Harris could just show up and do a townhall. Free media.

The shoe that I don't think has really dropped yet amongst casual voters is just how diminished Trump is as a candidate. Biden's frailty obscured that, but it should now be the top story for everyone who was hammering Biden over his age. 

Trump is low energy. There's a non-zero chance he could be sentenced to prison in September. 

People wanted to turn the page, I think, from the old guys. Both of them. I don't think that was fair to Biden who continues to do a pretty good job at doing the actual job. Still, Harris can still tap into the politics of change without having to really abandon any of Biden's popular achievements.

I think there's some room for her to grow, and the next few weeks will see if that's right.

Cuts Both Ways

 The GOP was gleefully planning on running against Joe Biden's age and the general gestalt that is anti-incumbent. Since Harris replaced Biden ("very unfair! people are saying") they have been at a loss, opting instead for questioning Harris' race in a way that is of course...weird.

However, all that banging on about Biden's age is now coming back to haunt them, since Trump is now the one who is old as fuck.

It's not just the same line of reasoning they used against Biden, but Trump's age is making it so that he isn't even able to be who he was. Trump's entire schtick is being the alpha, the bully. But he's a weak, shriveled old has been.

Great President; Bad Candidate

 Joe Biden gets shit done.

Meanwhile, MAGA cannot begin to come around to even the most anodyne statement of "Thank you, Mr. President who is not running for re-election." Part of the poison of the devolution from Newt Gingrich to Mitch McConnell to Donald Trump is the inability to see the interests of the United States as being superior to the interests of the Republican Party."

Why Trump's Remarks Were Racist

 Yesterday, Trump gave a floundering, angry, at times incoherent panel interview with the National Association of Black Journalists. He was pulled off stage by his campaign about half way through. I would not expect him to venture much beyond Fox and Newsmaxx from here on out.

The comment that drew the most outrage was suggesting that Kamala Harris wasn't always Black but only "became Black" when it suited her political ambitions. I think maybe that people are assuming that most people understand why that's racist, and maybe they shouldn't. So, a brief explainer.

At the core of racism is the idea of race essentialism. This posits that race is biological, ascribed at birth and central to a person's abilities and identity. You are who you are because of your race.

Now, there is a brand of left wing identity politics that would seem to mimic this belief, but it's subtly different. Identity politics suggests that how a society sees you determines who you are. We know now that the biological component of race is literally skin deep. However, being Black in America will lead you to being treated differently than if you were White. What does NOT happen is that if you are born Black you are suddenly freighted with a bunch of attributes based on your race.

Trump's attack on Harris obviously suggests that he literally cannot grok the idea of a multiracial identity. It's the reason why he can't understand multiracial identity that's important: he sees race in stark binary terms and you are either "one of us" or "one of them." Asians - the so-called model minority - are often claimed (when convenient) by Whites; Jews come and go from "us" when they want. These stark racial divides are the core animating belief of racism.

If you understand that race is fundamentally an evolutionary adoption of melanin to Vitamin D deficiencies, then the idea of race as a driving understanding of the world has to recede a lot. If - like Trump - race is everything and race is immutable, then Harris' biracial identity seems like a fraud. It's the same "cheating" as Biden dropping out after their convention.

There is one reading of Trump's comments (there are always layers of awfulness to this fucker), where he's simply ignorant of the idea of biracial parentage. That's really bad. 

The more accurate one, I think, is that Trump's understanding of race essentialism is driving these attacks on Harris' dual ethnicity.

Oh, and I have zero confidence that the High Priests of Bothsides in our nation's media are equal to the task of explaining this.