thebulwark--2020-10-19--What’s So Bad About Trump’s Tweets

What’s So Bad About Trump’s Tweets

The congressional hearings for Amy Coney Barrett have set off another round of whining from Trump supporters about the unfairness of it all .
Not the unfairness of the treatment of Judge Barrett—who has handled the hearings well enough that she is likely to be rapidly confirmed—but the unfairness of their treatment at the hands of the irrelevant Never Trumpers who they can ’ t seem to stop talking about .
The specific argument we ’ re hearing is that , in exchange for getting good results like conservative justices on the Supreme Court , all we have to do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tweets that we can easily ignore .
So why can ’ t we just do that ?
This is a bit of an evasion to begin with .
The objections to Trump are more numerous and substantive than just his tweets or his manners .
You may consult pretty much everything I ’ ve written , plus the latest numbers on the deficit , the national debt , and the coronavirus death toll .
But let ’ s only consider those dumb tweets , which are easy to ignore—unless , of course , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a conspiracy theory about major military and foreign policy issues that are vital to national security .
Which is what happened last week .
First , let ’ s have no illusions : Trump ’ s tweets and his role as Internet-troll-in-chief are actually a key selling point for many of his supporters .
Yet let ’ s posit , for the sake of argument , that there is a cohort of genteel Trump supporters who really are only here for the policy substance and view his tweets as a cause for embarrassment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ something alarming about the substance ?
What if the words the president taps out with his thumbs into the little blue box have implications for his policy in the area where he has the most direct and unilateral control ?
Consider just one example from the past week : Donald Trump retweeting an insane QAnon-derived conspiracy theory .
The idea , I guess , is that Osama bin Laden is still alive , Barack Obama made a secret deal with Iran to have the SEALs kill a body double , and then either @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a whole SEAL team to cover up the scheme .
There is , of course , no basis for any of this .
It is the ravings of a bunch of obscure conspiracy theorists ranting on the Internet , which would be nothing new , except that these obscure conspiracy theorists have the ear of the president of the United States .
In our insane news cycle , where one outrageous absurdity is quickly followed by another—precisely because of Trump—it is easy for this story to get lost .
But what does it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for shaping and implementing America ’ s foreign policy , the man who is commander-in-chief of the armed forces ?
What is he going to do if he is susceptible to strange beliefs about imaginary international plots , or if he suspects that the entire military chain of command is lying to him ?
That ’ s why I don ’ t buy any of the complacency about Trump ’ s tweeting .
From the beginning , his supporters ’ whole case in favor of Trump ’ s tweets was that his uncouth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ genuine and not just mouthing carefully rehearsed lies to cover up what he really thinks .
If this is even remotely true , then the man with the gravest responsibilities for our national security is off his rocker .
Are we supposed to just ignore that ?
Are we supposed to ignore it because of a good Supreme Court appointment ?
Trump ’ s role in helping to shape the judiciary is shared with Congress—while his responsibility for national security is more direct , immediate , and unchecked .
In his exercise of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the chaos we would expect if we don ’ t ignore his tweets .
Consider President Trump ’ s recent announcement—by tweet , obviously—that he will withdraw the remaining U.S. troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year .
The point is not whether this is a good idea ( it isn ’ t ) , but whether Trump has actually thought it through or has any process for doing so .
No sooner did the president announce this than the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff disavowed the whole thing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump was undermining negotiations with the Taliban .
This has been par for the course for Trump ’ s foreign policy , which is frequently made ( and unmade ) by tweet , with no process of consultation or even any warning to the military and diplomatic officials he himself selected .
Foreign policy and military affairs are areas where the president has unusually broad authority .
But it is also a very big and demanding job , which requires him to gather information from experts and coordinate many different competing priorities .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ favor of capricious rule by Twitter decree .
It is exactly what you would expect from the kind of guy who wastes his time toying around with crackpot theories on the Internet .
People who want to ignore Trump ’ s tweets and “ just focus on policy ” are only fooling themselves .
His tweets are not just a personal embarrassment .
They are the public evidence of an unstable and incontinent mind , one prone to exaggeration , confabulation , mood swings , and random whims .
That in itself is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It is revealing to see how this has shaped the presidential race .
The most effective argument against Joe Biden is the fear that he won ’ t really be in charge , that he will just be the figurehead for an administration actually run by left-wing radicals .
The most effective argument against Trump is that he will be in charge , unmoderated by his advisors—and that those irrelevant , easy-to-ignore tweets really do reflect his genuine self .

The congressional hearings for Amy Coney Barrett have set off another round of whining from Trump supporters about the unfairness of it all. Not the unfairness of the treatment of Judge Barrett—who has handled the hearings well enough that she is likely to be rapidly confirmed—but the unfairness of their treatment at the hands of the irrelevant Never Trumpers who they can’t seem to stop talking about.
The specific argument we’re hearing is that, in exchange for getting good results like conservative justices on the Supreme Court, all we have to do is put up with some dumb presidential tweets that we can easily ignore.
So why can’t we just do that?
This is a bit of an evasion to begin with. The objections to Trump are more numerous and substantive than just his tweets or his manners. You may consult pretty much everything I’ve written, plus the latest numbers on the deficit, the national debt, and the coronavirus death toll.
But let’s only consider those dumb tweets, which are easy to ignore—unless, of course, they happen to include the commander-in-chief promoting a conspiracy theory about major military and foreign policy issues that are vital to national security.
Which is what happened last week.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
First, let’s have no illusions: Trump’s tweets and his role as Internet-troll-in-chief are actually a key selling point for many of his supporters. Yet let’s posit, for the sake of argument, that there is a cohort of genteel Trump supporters who really are only here for the policy substance and view his tweets as a cause for embarrassment.
What happens if the tweets say something alarming about the substance? What if the words the president taps out with his thumbs into the little blue box have implications for his policy in the area where he has the most direct and unilateral control?
Consider just one example from the past week: Donald Trump retweeting an insane QAnon-derived conspiracy theory.
President Trump retweeted a conspiracy theory from a QAnon account today that claimed Barack Obama accidentally killed Osama Bin Laden's body double. Nobody cared! Nothing matters at all! pic.twitter.com/fitHAnbbOi — Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) October 13, 2020
The idea, I guess, is that Osama bin Laden is still alive, Barack Obama made a secret deal with Iran to have the SEALs kill a body double, and then either Obama or Biden ordered the murder of a whole SEAL team to cover up the scheme. There is, of course, no basis for any of this. It is the ravings of a bunch of obscure conspiracy theorists ranting on the Internet, which would be nothing new, except that these obscure conspiracy theorists have the ear of the president of the United States.
In our insane news cycle, where one outrageous absurdity is quickly followed by another—precisely because of Trump—it is easy for this story to get lost. But what does it say about the man who is responsible for shaping and implementing America’s foreign policy, the man who is commander-in-chief of the armed forces? What is he going to do if he is susceptible to strange beliefs about imaginary international plots, or if he suspects that the entire military chain of command is lying to him?
That’s why I don’t buy any of the complacency about Trump’s tweeting. From the beginning, his supporters’ whole case in favor of Trump’s tweets was that his uncouth style of expression shows that he is genuine and not just mouthing carefully rehearsed lies to cover up what he really thinks.
If this is even remotely true, then the man with the gravest responsibilities for our national security is off his rocker.
Are we supposed to just ignore that?
Are we supposed to ignore it because of a good Supreme Court appointment? Trump’s role in helping to shape the judiciary is shared with Congress—while his responsibility for national security is more direct, immediate, and unchecked. In his exercise of that responsibility, we can see exactly the chaos we would expect if we don’t ignore his tweets.
Consider President Trump’s recent announcement—by tweet, obviously—that he will withdraw the remaining U.S. troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year. The point is not whether this is a good idea (it isn’t), but whether Trump has actually thought it through or has any process for doing so.
No sooner did the president announce this than the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff disavowed the whole thing, while diplomats in Afghanistan described how Trump was undermining negotiations with the Taliban.
This has been par for the course for Trump’s foreign policy, which is frequently made (and unmade) by tweet, with no process of consultation or even any warning to the military and diplomatic officials he himself selected. Foreign policy and military affairs are areas where the president has unusually broad authority. But it is also a very big and demanding job, which requires him to gather information from experts and coordinate many different competing priorities. Trump has routinely abandoned that responsibility in favor of capricious rule by Twitter decree.
It is exactly what you would expect from the kind of guy who wastes his time toying around with crackpot theories on the Internet.
People who want to ignore Trump’s tweets and “just focus on policy” are only fooling themselves. His tweets are not just a personal embarrassment. They are the public evidence of an unstable and incontinent mind, one prone to exaggeration, confabulation, mood swings, and random whims. That in itself is a profound and direct national security danger.
It is revealing to see how this has shaped the presidential race. The most effective argument against Joe Biden is the fear that he won’t really be in charge, that he will just be the figurehead for an administration actually run by left-wing radicals.
The most effective argument against Trump is that he will be in charge, unmoderated by his advisors—and that those irrelevant, easy-to-ignore tweets really do reflect his genuine self.


thebulwark--2020-10-20--Candidate Kanye’s Call for a More Godly America

Last week , rapper and producer-turned-preacher Kanye West released his first presidential campaign ad .
Full of typical but still striking imagery ranging from farmers to firefighters , the language of West ’ s ad is saturated with theological appeals and religious conviction .
West , shown in three-quarters profile from a low angle , looking away from the camera , summons the viewer : “ To contemplate our future , to live up to our dream , we must have vision.
” “ We as a people will revive our nation ’ s commitment to faith , to what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of religion , ’ including , of course , prayer , ” West says .
“ Through prayer , faith can be restored.
” Cut to shots of nature , families at prayer , smiling children at play , and so on .
He concludes by saying that “ by turning to faith , we will be the kind of nation , the kind of people God intends us to be.
” At first glance , West ’ s ad might look more like a call for a religious revival than a message @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the land .
But Ye is certainly not the first unlikely presidential contender to try and infuse presidential politics with talk of the Kingdom of God .
When it comes to the history of American religious politics , most voters , pundits , and scholars have expressed interest ( or concern ) in those spiritual leaders directly involved in party politics .
Some of these individuals have been household names , such as Billy Graham , who aided Richard Nixon in his pursuit of the presidency .
Televangelists Jerry Falwell and James @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Reagan Revolution .
Historian John Fea has dubbed President Donald Trump ’ s religious cronies—including Jerry Falwell Jr. , Robert Jeffress , and Paula White— “ the court evangelicals.
” And Republicans haven ’ t cornered the market on religious politics—as witness the rise of Jimmy Carter to the presidency or Pete Buttigieg ’ s constant appeals to his faith .
Of course , religious-political alliances have not always produced the happiest of relationships , with religious activists often complaining about how little they have received in return for their support of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of have felt used , ignored , and mistreated by the reigning political parties .
This has sometimes led religiously inclined voters to seek out alternative options .
For example , with the Iraq War in mind , in 2008 progressive evangelicals Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw promoted the idea of “ Jesus for President.
” Against the Trumpian transformation of the GOP and its abandonment of Christian values , numerous devout candidates have stepped forward , such as evangelical Don Blankenship of the Constitution Party as well as the independent and Christian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) Mark Charles .
Since the election of Donald Trump , West has been a lightning rod for controversy .
Some of West ’ s most infamous moments include describing slavery as a “ choice ” on TMZ , defending conservative provocateur Candace Owens ( and then distancing himself from her ) , as well as a bizarre meeting with President Trump in the Oval Office while sporting a red MAGA cap .
It was also around this time , at least as far as was publicly visible , that West began his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ release of his ninth studio album , Jesus is King , and his Sunday Service concerts .
The album sparked a wide range of reactions from music critics , secular fans , and Christians , with many drawing parallels between West ’ s religious turn and Bob Dylan ’ s Christian period in the late 1970s .
After a few years of teasing a presidential run , West declared the start of his campaign on Twitter on July 4 , 2020 .
He is on the ballot in only a dozen states .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as when West strangely criticized abolitionist Harriet Tubman at a South Carolina rally .
Religious themes and theological wrestling have long been prominent in West ’ s music .
Many of his greatest hits—going back to “ Jesus Walks ” in 2004—have dealt with the struggles of living a Christian life while in an industry that applauds lavish lifestyles , easy sex , and criminal activity .
He has sometimes presented himself as a musical deity—as in “ I am a God ” on his 2013 album Yeezus ( a play on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ venerated by his fans and reviled by his detractors .
As Hillary Crosley Coker puts it in her video essay studying the religiosity of West ’ s discography , Kanye is “ a man of God with a God complex.
” While many view West ’ s presidential gambit as a joke , a publicity stunt , an elaborate marketing scheme , or a manifestation of his mental-health problems , it can also be seen as standing within a tradition of religious-political protest .
The nineteenth century saw a whole host of religious @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Some—such as Robert Matthews ’ s Kingdom in New York , the perfectionist Oneida Community , and the Shakers—attempted to opt out of the American political system .
Modern manifestations can be seen in the People ’ s Temple ( which led to the Jonestown mass murder ) , the Branch Davidian movement ( which led to the Waco siege ) , and Buddhafield ( now famous thanks to Netflix ’ s documentary Holy Hell ) .
Many of these groups eschewed voting or otherwise participating in U.S. politics ( unless it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ political autonomy ) .
Sometimes , though , they ran their own candidates for office , or otherwise participated in elective politics , inside and outside the Democratic and Republican parties .
In 1984 , for example , Ma Prem Kavido of the Rajneesh movement was one vote away from becoming an alternate delegate to the 1984 Republican National Convention .
But perhaps the most interesting case of religious political protest can be seen in the 1844 presidential bid of Mormon founder and prophet Joseph Smith Jr. After numerous forays into politics , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and infuriated both the Democratic and the Whig parties in Illinois .
With the dawning of the 1844 presidential election , Smith contacted the five men whom he assumed would be the front runners : John C. Calhoun , Lewis Cass , Richard Mentor Johnson , Henry Clay , and Martin Van Buren .
While Johnson and Van Buren did not respond , Calhoun , Cass , and Clay replied—all three stating that while they more or less sympathized with the Mormons ’ position , they could not offer any special privileges or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In the face of little support , Smith and his closest followers met in his office on January 29 , 1844 and decided the prophet should be the Mormons ’ candidate .
The platform of Smith ’ s “ Reform Party ” called for a restoration of America ’ s greatness and appealed to Christian virtues .
Much of his vision relied on melding together the sovereignty of God and the people : He proposed the United States become a “ Theo-democracy ” in which “ God and the people hold the power @ @ @ @ @ @ @ righteousness.
” Presenting himself as above party politics , Smith declared : “ We have had democratic presidents : whig presidents ; a pseudo democratic whig president ; and now it is time to have a president of the United States.
” His platform also included a call to end slavery with a plan to compensate slaveholders for their human property .
Other plans Smith had in mind included reducing the pay of congressmen , forming a national bank , and annexing Oregon and Texas .
About four hundred missionaries were sent out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Smith ’ s candidacy .
The campaign did not get very far , as Smith was arrested and , on June 27 , 1844 , assassinated by an angry mob .
Like Joseph Smith ’ s bid for the presidency , Kanye West ’ s run will end in failure ( although presumably less gruesomely ) .
Obviously , West ’ s campaign is a very different enterprise , given his immense celebrity and the question of whether his candidacy is in earnest or a cynical ploy—but West ’ s ad shows that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wants to call upon Americans to restore a lost godly republic .
West surely won ’ t be the last outsider presidential candidate to make that plea .

Last week, rapper and producer-turned-preacher Kanye West released his first presidential campaign ad. Full of typical but still striking imagery ranging from farmers to firefighters, the language of West’s ad is saturated with theological appeals and religious conviction. West, shown in three-quarters profile from a low angle, looking away from the camera, summons the viewer: “To contemplate our future, to live up to our dream, we must have vision.”
Kanye West releases presidential campaign ad, invokes God, prayer, family
Watch this video on YouTube
“We as a people will revive our nation’s commitment to faith, to what our Constitution calls ‘the free exercise of religion,’ including, of course, prayer,” West says. “Through prayer, faith can be restored.” Cut to shots of nature, families at prayer, smiling children at play, and so on. He concludes by saying that “by turning to faith, we will be the kind of nation, the kind of people God intends us to be.”
At first glance, West’s ad might look more like a call for a religious revival than a message from an aspirant for the highest office in the land. But Ye is certainly not the first unlikely presidential contender to try and infuse presidential politics with talk of the Kingdom of God.
When it comes to the history of American religious politics, most voters, pundits, and scholars have expressed interest (or concern) in those spiritual leaders directly involved in party politics. Some of these individuals have been household names, such as Billy Graham, who aided Richard Nixon in his pursuit of the presidency. Televangelists Jerry Falwell and James Robison were both key figures in the Reagan Revolution. Historian John Fea has dubbed President Donald Trump’s religious cronies—including Jerry Falwell Jr., Robert Jeffress, and Paula White—“the court evangelicals.” And Republicans haven’t cornered the market on religious politics—as witness the rise of Jimmy Carter to the presidency or Pete Buttigieg’s constant appeals to his faith.
Of course, religious-political alliances have not always produced the happiest of relationships, with religious activists often complaining about how little they have received in return for their support of the candidate in question. Many religious Americans of have felt used, ignored, and mistreated by the reigning political parties. This has sometimes led religiously inclined voters to seek out alternative options. For example, with the Iraq War in mind, in 2008 progressive evangelicals Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw promoted the idea of “Jesus for President.” Against the Trumpian transformation of the GOP and its abandonment of Christian values, numerous devout candidates have stepped forward, such as evangelical Don Blankenship of the Constitution Party as well as the independent and Christian Reformed Church pastor (and Navajo citizen) Mark Charles.
Now enter Kanye West.
Since the election of Donald Trump, West has been a lightning rod for controversy. Some of West’s most infamous moments include describing slavery as a “choice” on TMZ, defending conservative provocateur Candace Owens (and then distancing himself from her), as well as a bizarre meeting with President Trump in the Oval Office while sporting a red MAGA cap. It was also around this time, at least as far as was publicly visible, that West began his spiritual reformation—a process that led to the release of his ninth studio album, Jesus is King, and his Sunday Service concerts. The album sparked a wide range of reactions from music critics, secular fans, and Christians, with many drawing parallels between West’s religious turn and Bob Dylan’s Christian period in the late 1970s.
After a few years of teasing a presidential run, West declared the start of his campaign on Twitter on July 4, 2020. He is on the ballot in only a dozen states. The campaign has not been without controversy, as when West strangely criticized abolitionist Harriet Tubman at a South Carolina rally.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
Religious themes and theological wrestling have long been prominent in West’s music. Many of his greatest hits—going back to “Jesus Walks” in 2004—have dealt with the struggles of living a Christian life while in an industry that applauds lavish lifestyles, easy sex, and criminal activity. He has sometimes presented himself as a musical deity—as in “I am a God” on his 2013 album Yeezus (a play on the name Jesus)—a figure equally venerated by his fans and reviled by his detractors. As Hillary Crosley Coker puts it in her video essay studying the religiosity of West’s discography, Kanye is “a man of God with a God complex.”
While many view West’s presidential gambit as a joke, a publicity stunt, an elaborate marketing scheme, or a manifestation of his mental-health problems, it can also be seen as standing within a tradition of religious-political protest. The nineteenth century saw a whole host of religious movements with a range of political aims. Some—such as Robert Matthews’s Kingdom in New York, the perfectionist Oneida Community, and the Shakers—attempted to opt out of the American political system. Modern manifestations can be seen in the People’s Temple (which led to the Jonestown mass murder), the Branch Davidian movement (which led to the Waco siege), and Buddhafield (now famous thanks to Netflix’s documentary Holy Hell). Many of these groups eschewed voting or otherwise participating in U.S. politics (unless it benefited them with more religious liberty and political autonomy). Sometimes, though, they ran their own candidates for office, or otherwise participated in elective politics, inside and outside the Democratic and Republican parties. In 1984, for example, Ma Prem Kavido of the Rajneesh movement was one vote away from becoming an alternate delegate to the 1984 Republican National Convention.
But perhaps the most interesting case of religious political protest can be seen in the 1844 presidential bid of Mormon founder and prophet Joseph Smith Jr.
After numerous forays into politics, Smith and the Latter-day Saints had isolated and infuriated both the Democratic and the Whig parties in Illinois. With the dawning of the 1844 presidential election, Smith contacted the five men whom he assumed would be the front runners: John C. Calhoun, Lewis Cass, Richard Mentor Johnson, Henry Clay, and Martin Van Buren. While Johnson and Van Buren did not respond, Calhoun, Cass, and Clay replied—all three stating that while they more or less sympathized with the Mormons’ position, they could not offer any special privileges or protections to Smith and his church. In the face of little support, Smith and his closest followers met in his office on January 29, 1844 and decided the prophet should be the Mormons’ candidate.
The platform of Smith’s “Reform Party” called for a restoration of America’s greatness and appealed to Christian virtues. Much of his vision relied on melding together the sovereignty of God and the people: He proposed the United States become a “Theo-democracy” in which “God and the people hold the power to conduct the affairs of men in righteousness.” Presenting himself as above party politics, Smith declared: “We have had democratic presidents: whig presidents; a pseudo democratic whig president; and now it is time to have a president of the United States.” His platform also included a call to end slavery with a plan to compensate slaveholders for their human property. Other plans Smith had in mind included reducing the pay of congressmen, forming a national bank, and annexing Oregon and Texas.
About four hundred missionaries were sent out across the United States to stump for Smith’s candidacy. The campaign did not get very far, as Smith was arrested and, on June 27, 1844, assassinated by an angry mob.
Like Joseph Smith’s bid for the presidency, Kanye West’s run will end in failure (although presumably less gruesomely). Obviously, West’s campaign is a very different enterprise, given his immense celebrity and the question of whether his candidacy is in earnest or a cynical ploy—but West’s ad shows that he, like Smith before him, wants to call upon Americans to restore a lost godly republic. West surely won’t be the last outsider presidential candidate to make that plea.


thebulwark--2020-10-20--Where the Fight for the Senate Stands Today

In two weeks , voters in a relative handful of states will determine which party controls the United States Senate .
The basic math is easy to do .
Counting the two independents who caucus with them , Democrats hold 47 seats .
A net gain of three would mean a 50-50 tie which , should Joe Biden win the presidency , would be broken by Vice President Kamala Harris .
Should Biden lose , Democrats would require a net gain of four .
To assess where control of the Senate is headed , let ’ s look at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , examining the variables peculiar to each .
The hardest part is predicting the most probable paths to victory .
Nonetheless , I ’ ll give it a shot .
By the near-unanimous consensus of political observers , these three seats are changing hands .
The most doomed , it seems , is the gallant Democratic Senator Doug Jones .
Granted that his opponent , Tommy Tuberville , is ignorant of public policy and encumbered by some financial misadventures .
But Tommy is not only a conservative Republican and Trump acolyte in a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s also a former college football coach with an 85-40 record at Auburn—which , in Alabama , is tantamount to being George Patton reincarnated .
Arizona ’ s Republican Senator Martha McSally is an actual military figure of some note , a pioneering former Air Force pilot .
But her opponent , Mark Kelly , is—for God ’ s sake—a retired astronaut .
He ’ s also the husband of Gabrielle Giffords , and smartly positioned as a moderate .
McSally suffers not only by comparison to John McCain , the political maverick @ @ @ @ @ @ @ replace , but also from her perceived fealty to Donald Trump , the blustery draft dodger who disparaged McCain ’ s heroism .
Polls consistently show her too far behind to catch up .
Senator Cory Gardner , Republican of Colorado , is a genuinely talented politician in a state that is turning from purple to blue .
But his opponent , John Hickenlooper , is a moderate and popular former governor .
Polls show that , if anything , Gardner is in worse shape than McSally , and as in her case @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with Trump—who is lagging Joe Biden by more than a dozen points in the state—is the cause .
“ He ’ s been with Donald Trump 100 percent of the time , ” Hickenlooper said of Gardner in their first debate .
That renders Gardner 98 percent dead .
Bottom line : a net gain of one seat for the Democrats .
The Overhyped Four ( Georgia ’ s two races , Texas , and Michigan ) Due to the resignation of an incumbent Republican , the GOP is defending two seats in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Perdue has little appeal beyond his base .
Most recently , he distinguished himself by pretending that he could not pronounce the name “ Kamala , ” although Harris has been his senatorial colleague for four years .
While this kind of thing appeals to the troglodytes Perdue needs to turn out , it underscores his personal squalor .
Still , polls show him running a few points ahead of Jon Ossoff , who lost a closely contested congressional race but has never run statewide .
Because Georgia is a markedly polarized state @ @ @ @ @ @ @ immutable Republican voters , it ’ s hard to see where Ossoff makes up the difference .
The other Georgia race is a special election to replace Senator Johnny Isakson , who retired from Congress last year because of Parkinson ’ s disease .
There is no primary : Assuming no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the votes on election day , the two who received the most votes will face one another in a runoff in January .
The leading contenders in the first round are the spectacularly rich and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been serving as Isakson ’ s replacement since January , and the Democrat Raphael Warnock , the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta—Martin Luther King ’ s church .
Neither candidate has run in a statewide race before .
Apart from stridently attacking the Black Lives Matter movement and flirting with QAnon , the erstwhile society doyenne Loeffler has become such a slavish Trump supporter that she verges on parody .
In Georgia that should ensure her emergence from the first round of voting , although recent polling makes clear that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conservative congressman Doug Collins .
Now for the ugly part .
Georgia includes a solid chunk of white voters driven by racial animus , and the state is competing with Texas as the leading GOP laboratory for race-based voter suppression .
In a better world , or even the better Georgia to come , Perdue and Loeffler would lose .
But in 2020 , both Republicans seem positioned to squeeze out narrow wins .
In Texas , the silver-haired Republican Senator John Cornyn walks that thin line between sober and self-satisfied .
That @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dallas and Houston , and well enough for the fiercely conservative GOP base .
When was the last time a Texas Democrat won a major statewide office ?
This won ’ t be the time .
Running in 2018 against a Republican far more annoying than Cornyn , Ted Cruz , Beto O ’ Rourke fell 2 percent short .
Perhaps O ’ Rourke declined to challenge Cornyn because he wanted to be president ; perhaps , too , he realized how hard it would be to get that last 2 percent .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hegar , is a former Air Force pilot .
But she ’ s no O ’ Rourke , and polls show her well behind .
While Biden is running better than expected in Texas , his campaign has been rightly reluctant to invest major resources .
The shameless efforts of Texas governor Greg Abbott and his fellow Republicans to suppress Democratic voting will likely seal Hegar ’ s fate .
In Michigan , the GOP is recycling a charismatic candidate , John James , an Army veteran and an African American who lost @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time around , he started with a better chance of displacing the low-key incumbent Gary Peters .
But he isn ’ t closing the polling gap , and Peters is tying him to the GOP ’ s efforts to repeal Obamacare .
Things are so bad for Trump in Michigan that his campaign is tacitly giving up on a state he won in 2016 .
There ’ s no way James survives Trump ’ s undertow .
Bottom line : no change—the incumbents hold all four seats .
The Five Deciders ( Maine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and South Carolina ) That leaves five races rated by the Cook Political Report as tossups .
Several overarching factors affect these races : How is Trump running in the state ?
Will Trump-averse Republicans and swing voters support the GOP candidate as a check on a prospective Biden administration ?
Are statewide rates of COVID-19 conspicuously spiking ?
And , finally , what is the impact of the imminent confirmation by the GOP ’ s Senate majority of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg ?
The latter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ginsburg ’ s long-anticipated death as the gift that keeps on giving : Not only does it hand them the Supreme Court for generation , but in culturally conservative states like North Carolina , Iowa , Montana , and South Carolina it reminds wavering Republicans of the influential role played by their party ’ s Senate incumbents .
Optimistic Democrats imagine decisively winning outright control of the Senate .
Perhaps a blue tsunami could actualize such dreams .
But closer scrutiny of each pivotal state suggests that getting to 50 is challenging enough @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Senate , Republican Susan Collins has styled herself as a bipartisan moderate who represents the independent spirit of Maine ’ s electorate .
But in the age of Trump that is no longer working .
Her statement that impeachment proceedings—which she opposed—would cause our sociopathic president to be “ much more cautious in the future ” has proven as fatuous as it sounded .
But her leading offense in the mind of many constituents , especially women , was her intellectually , politically , and morally vacuous speech advocating that the Senate confirm @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the ardently conservative Kavanaugh would protect Roe v. Wade ; expressed her “ fervent hope .
.
.
that Brett Kavanaugh will work to lessen the divisions in the Supreme Court ” ; associated the many groups which opposed him with the odious ambulance-chaser Michael Avenatti ; lionized Kavanaugh ’ s personal qualities while airily ignoring the intemperance and aggression he directed at female senators during his testimony ; and suggested that Christine Blasey Ford had somehow mistaken who assaulted her .
The writers at Saturday Night Live captured Collins ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s important to believe women until it ’ s time to stop.
” Outraged Mainers crowdfunded a war chest for anyone who rose to oppose her .
Previous supporters began noticing that she built her bipartisan image on casting supposedly courageous votes where Republicans didn ’ t need them to carry the Senate , and that she had no real influence with Trump or Mitch McConnell—who summarily ignored her feckless call to delay confirming Judge Barrett .
Her opponent , Sara Gideon , is the speaker of Maine ’ s House of Representatives @ @ @ @ @ @ @ moderate , and avoids talking much about Kavanaugh—she hardly needs to .
Trump will lose the statewide vote decisively , and the latest poll shows Gideon beating Collins by seven points .
Trailing , Collins has been reduced to casting Gideon as a newcomer from out of state , although she has lived in Maine for many years .
But voters have seen Collins for even longer , and that may prove more than long enough .
Everyone knows the problem .
Democrat Cal Cunningham , a former state senator , was leading @ @ @ @ @ @ @ got caught sexting a woman not his wife .
A recent poll showed that his favorability ratings fell from about 46 to 40 percent , while his unfavorables rose from 29 to 41 percent .
That may reflect an aesthetic judgment : The prose in Cunningham ’ s sexts , while mercifully non-explicit , was embarrassingly bad .
While Cunningham is holding a lead in the polls , the latest , from Emerson , shows him ahead by just one point .
The problem for Tillis is Tillis—his deficits in the “ honest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s .
But polls show that 50 percent of North Carolina voters support the prompt confirmation of Judge Barrett , and Tillis is working the issue .
Three weeks ago , this race looked like a good bet for Democrats .
Perhaps it still is .
But the slide in Cunningham ’ s personal standing puts more pressure on Democrats to pick up a seat in , say , Iowa .
Incumbent Republican Senator Joni Ernst has slipped a good bit since 2016 , when she beat a mediocre Democrat by nine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ad where she cast her girlhood immersion in castrating pigs as predicate for some figurative castration of swamp-dwelling Washingtonians .
Ouch .
Six years later , the swamp is swampier , Iowa ’ s urban and suburban populace is growing , and voters are becoming weary enough of Trump that Biden has pulled within shouting distance .
Ernst ’ s job ratings are mediocre , and she is dragging her support for repealing Obamacare like an anvil .
Then there ’ s her inexplicable embrace of a conspiracy theory asserting that the coronavirus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ embarrassing apologies .
Too bad for her that new cases of COVID-19 are spiking in Iowa .
While Democrats are spending little in Iowa on the presidential campaign , they have expended millions to support Ernst ’ s less-known opponent , Theresa Greenfield .
She , too , was a farm girl , and has positioned herself as a moderate dedicated to expanding healthcare across the state .
Like other embattled Republicans , Ernst has seized on the Barrett nomination .
This included highlighting her participation in Barrett ’ s televised hearings before @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by profusely and repeatedly thanking the nominee ’ s seven kids for showing up , doubtless touching the hearts of Iowa ’ s mothers .
But a tight race like this may turn on smaller things closer to home—like Ernst ’ s recent failure in a televised debate to recall the breakeven price of soybeans after Greenfield aced a similar question .
With Greenfield leading the most recent polls , Ernst has reason to worry .
This race pits one-term Republican incumbent Steve Daines against the state ’ s personable and popular governor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ loyal Trump supporter ; Bullock a center-left Democrat with a sure feel for Montana ’ s electorate which has helped him win three statewide races .
It may not help Bullock that he absented himself in 2019 to unsuccessfully run for president .
But he ’ s gotten good marks for his handling of the coronavirus epidemic as governor , while Daines is riding the Barrett train , and counting on Trump ’ s anticipated margin in the state to bail him out .
Still , the polls are very close , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ despite Trump ’ s near landslide in Montana .
The question is whether a senatorial contest more tethered to Trump is different .
This is a state where Trump may actually help a Republican .
Another such state is South Carolina , where Trump will best Biden comfortably .
That leaves the Democratic challenger for the Senate , Jaime Harrison , looking for crossover votes to defeat the exceedingly slippery and cynical Lindsey Graham .
Harrison ’ s problem is that the critical voters annoyed by Graham include Trump loyalists to his right—whom @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , has done his damnedest to propitiate through accelerating Barrett ’ s confirmation .
Harrison is a talented and spirited candidate who hews to the center , and he ’ s raised a record amount of money from the small army of Americans repelled by Graham .
But , unlike in neighboring North Carolina and Georgia , the demographics of bright-red South Carolina haven ’ t changed much .
The latest and most authoritative poll has Graham pulling ahead by six points .
This race may be the 2020 version of the O @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the end , fated to disappoint .
So where do these races leave us ?
The Democrats ’ hopes of controlling the Senate rest on defeating at least two of the three most endangered GOP incumbents : Collins in Maine , Tillis in North Carolina , and Ernst in Iowa .
If Biden loses , Democrats would need all three—or , perhaps , two plus Bullock , as a Biden loss in North Carolina might well foreclose Cunningham ’ s chances .
Bottom line : If you can ’ t resist betting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ three for the Democrats—or four if you enjoy living dangerously .
But don ’ t hazard anything you can ’ t stand to lose .

In two weeks, voters in a relative handful of states will determine which party controls the United States Senate.
The basic math is easy to do. Counting the two independents who caucus with them, Democrats hold 47 seats. A net gain of three would mean a 50-50 tie which, should Joe Biden win the presidency, would be broken by Vice President Kamala Harris. Should Biden lose, Democrats would require a net gain of four.
To assess where control of the Senate is headed, let’s look at the twelve seats that are truly in play, examining the variables peculiar to each. The hardest part is predicting the most probable paths to victory. Nonetheless, I’ll give it a shot.
The Foregone Flippers (Alabama, Arizona, and Colorado)
By the near-unanimous consensus of political observers, these three seats are changing hands.
The most doomed, it seems, is the gallant Democratic Senator Doug Jones. Granted that his opponent, Tommy Tuberville, is ignorant of public policy and encumbered by some financial misadventures. But Tommy is not only a conservative Republican and Trump acolyte in a state where that works, he’s also a former college football coach with an 85-40 record at Auburn—which, in Alabama, is tantamount to being George Patton reincarnated.
Arizona’s Republican Senator Martha McSally is an actual military figure of some note, a pioneering former Air Force pilot. But her opponent, Mark Kelly, is—for God’s sake—a retired astronaut. He’s also the husband of Gabrielle Giffords, and smartly positioned as a moderate.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
McSally suffers not only by comparison to John McCain, the political maverick and military hero she was appointed to replace, but also from her perceived fealty to Donald Trump, the blustery draft dodger who disparaged McCain’s heroism. Polls consistently show her too far behind to catch up.
Senator Cory Gardner, Republican of Colorado, is a genuinely talented politician in a state that is turning from purple to blue. But his opponent, John Hickenlooper, is a moderate and popular former governor.
Polls show that, if anything, Gardner is in worse shape than McSally, and as in her case, it seems that his close association with Trump—who is lagging Joe Biden by more than a dozen points in the state—is the cause. “He’s been with Donald Trump 100 percent of the time,” Hickenlooper said of Gardner in their first debate. That renders Gardner 98 percent dead.
Bottom line: a net gain of one seat for the Democrats.
The Overhyped Four (Georgia’s two races, Texas, and Michigan)
Due to the resignation of an incumbent Republican, the GOP is defending two seats in Georgia.
The pedestrian one-term senator David Perdue has little appeal beyond his base. Most recently, he distinguished himself by pretending that he could not pronounce the name “Kamala,” although Harris has been his senatorial colleague for four years. While this kind of thing appeals to the troglodytes Perdue needs to turn out, it underscores his personal squalor.
Still, polls show him running a few points ahead of Jon Ossoff, who lost a closely contested congressional race but has never run statewide. Because Georgia is a markedly polarized state, and includes a large base of immutable Republican voters, it’s hard to see where Ossoff makes up the difference.
The other Georgia race is a special election to replace Senator Johnny Isakson, who retired from Congress last year because of Parkinson’s disease. There is no primary: Assuming no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the votes on election day, the two who received the most votes will face one another in a runoff in January.
The leading contenders in the first round are the spectacularly rich and empty Republican Kelly Loeffler, who has been serving as Isakson’s replacement since January, and the Democrat Raphael Warnock, the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta—Martin Luther King’s church. Neither candidate has run in a statewide race before.
Apart from stridently attacking the Black Lives Matter movement and flirting with QAnon, the erstwhile society doyenne Loeffler has become such a slavish Trump supporter that she verges on parody. In Georgia that should ensure her emergence from the first round of voting, although recent polling makes clear that she is splitting the Republican vote with conservative congressman Doug Collins.
Now for the ugly part. Georgia includes a solid chunk of white voters driven by racial animus, and the state is competing with Texas as the leading GOP laboratory for race-based voter suppression.
In a better world, or even the better Georgia to come, Perdue and Loeffler would lose. But in 2020, both Republicans seem positioned to squeeze out narrow wins.
In Texas, the silver-haired Republican Senator John Cornyn walks that thin line between sober and self-satisfied. That works fine for the country-club crowd in Dallas and Houston, and well enough for the fiercely conservative GOP base. When was the last time a Texas Democrat won a major statewide office?
This won’t be the time. Running in 2018 against a Republican far more annoying than Cornyn, Ted Cruz, Beto O’Rourke fell 2 percent short. Perhaps O’Rourke declined to challenge Cornyn because he wanted to be president; perhaps, too, he realized how hard it would be to get that last 2 percent.
Cornyn’s female challenger, MJ Hegar, is a former Air Force pilot. But she’s no O’Rourke, and polls show her well behind.
While Biden is running better than expected in Texas, his campaign has been rightly reluctant to invest major resources. The shameless efforts of Texas governor Greg Abbott and his fellow Republicans to suppress Democratic voting will likely seal Hegar’s fate.
In Michigan, the GOP is recycling a charismatic candidate, John James, an Army veteran and an African American who lost a Senate race in 2018. This time around, he started with a better chance of displacing the low-key incumbent Gary Peters. But he isn’t closing the polling gap, and Peters is tying him to the GOP’s efforts to repeal Obamacare.
Things are so bad for Trump in Michigan that his campaign is tacitly giving up on a state he won in 2016. There’s no way James survives Trump’s undertow.
Bottom line: no change—the incumbents hold all four seats.
The Five Deciders (Maine, North Carolina, Iowa, Montana, and South Carolina)
That leaves five races rated by the Cook Political Report as tossups.
Several overarching factors affect these races: How is Trump running in the state? Will Trump-averse Republicans and swing voters support the GOP candidate as a check on a prospective Biden administration? Are statewide rates of COVID-19 conspicuously spiking? And, finally, what is the impact of the imminent confirmation by the GOP’s Senate majority of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg?
The latter question is potentially decisive. Republicans view Ginsburg’s long-anticipated death as the gift that keeps on giving: Not only does it hand them the Supreme Court for generation, but in culturally conservative states like North Carolina, Iowa, Montana, and South Carolina it reminds wavering Republicans of the influential role played by their party’s Senate incumbents.
Optimistic Democrats imagine decisively winning outright control of the Senate. Perhaps a blue tsunami could actualize such dreams. But closer scrutiny of each pivotal state suggests that getting to 50 is challenging enough.
Maine
Throughout her four terms in the Senate, Republican Susan Collins has styled herself as a bipartisan moderate who represents the independent spirit of Maine’s electorate. But in the age of Trump that is no longer working.
Her statement that impeachment proceedings—which she opposed—would cause our sociopathic president to be “much more cautious in the future” has proven as fatuous as it sounded. But her leading offense in the mind of many constituents, especially women, was her intellectually, politically, and morally vacuous speech advocating that the Senate confirm Brett Kavanaugh.
Variously, she claimed that the ardently conservative Kavanaugh would protect Roe v. Wade; expressed her “fervent hope . . . that Brett Kavanaugh will work to lessen the divisions in the Supreme Court”; associated the many groups which opposed him with the odious ambulance-chaser Michael Avenatti; lionized Kavanaugh’s personal qualities while airily ignoring the intemperance and aggression he directed at female senators during his testimony; and suggested that Christine Blasey Ford had somehow mistaken who assaulted her. The writers at Saturday Night Live captured Collins’s position: “I think it’s important to believe women until it’s time to stop.”
Outraged Mainers crowdfunded a war chest for anyone who rose to oppose her. Previous supporters began noticing that she built her bipartisan image on casting supposedly courageous votes where Republicans didn’t need them to carry the Senate, and that she had no real influence with Trump or Mitch McConnell—who summarily ignored her feckless call to delay confirming Judge Barrett.
Her opponent, Sara Gideon, is the speaker of Maine’s House of Representatives. She’s running as a moderate, and avoids talking much about Kavanaugh—she hardly needs to. Trump will lose the statewide vote decisively, and the latest poll shows Gideon beating Collins by seven points.
Trailing, Collins has been reduced to casting Gideon as a newcomer from out of state, although she has lived in Maine for many years. But voters have seen Collins for even longer, and that may prove more than long enough.
North Carolina
Everyone knows the problem.
Democrat Cal Cunningham, a former state senator, was leading lackluster Republican Senator Thom Tillis until Cunningham got caught sexting a woman not his wife. A recent poll showed that his favorability ratings fell from about 46 to 40 percent, while his unfavorables rose from 29 to 41 percent. That may reflect an aesthetic judgment: The prose in Cunningham’s sexts, while mercifully non-explicit, was embarrassingly bad.
While Cunningham is holding a lead in the polls, the latest, from Emerson, shows him ahead by just one point. The problem for Tillis is Tillis—his deficits in the “honest and trustworthy” category closely match Cunningham’s. But polls show that 50 percent of North Carolina voters support the prompt confirmation of Judge Barrett, and Tillis is working the issue.
Three weeks ago, this race looked like a good bet for Democrats. Perhaps it still is. But the slide in Cunningham’s personal standing puts more pressure on Democrats to pick up a seat in, say, Iowa.
Iowa
Incumbent Republican Senator Joni Ernst has slipped a good bit since 2016, when she beat a mediocre Democrat by nine points—partly on the strength of an indelible ad where she cast her girlhood immersion in castrating pigs as predicate for some figurative castration of swamp-dwelling Washingtonians. Ouch.
Six years later, the swamp is swampier, Iowa’s urban and suburban populace is growing, and voters are becoming weary enough of Trump that Biden has pulled within shouting distance.
Ernst’s job ratings are mediocre, and she is dragging her support for repealing Obamacare like an anvil. Then there’s her inexplicable embrace of a conspiracy theory asserting that the coronavirus death rate was greatly exaggerated—compelling repeated and embarrassing apologies. Too bad for her that new cases of COVID-19 are spiking in Iowa.
While Democrats are spending little in Iowa on the presidential campaign, they have expended millions to support Ernst’s less-known opponent, Theresa Greenfield. She, too, was a farm girl, and has positioned herself as a moderate dedicated to expanding healthcare across the state.
Like other embattled Republicans, Ernst has seized on the Barrett nomination. This included highlighting her participation in Barrett’s televised hearings before the Judiciary Committee—during which she distinguished herself by profusely and repeatedly thanking the nominee’s seven kids for showing up, doubtless touching the hearts of Iowa’s mothers.
But a tight race like this may turn on smaller things closer to home—like Ernst’s recent failure in a televised debate to recall the breakeven price of soybeans after Greenfield aced a similar question. With Greenfield leading the most recent polls, Ernst has reason to worry.
Montana
This race pits one-term Republican incumbent Steve Daines against the state’s personable and popular governor, Steve Bullock. Daines is a loyal Trump supporter; Bullock a center-left Democrat with a sure feel for Montana’s electorate which has helped him win three statewide races.
It may not help Bullock that he absented himself in 2019 to unsuccessfully run for president. But he’s gotten good marks for his handling of the coronavirus epidemic as governor, while Daines is riding the Barrett train, and counting on Trump’s anticipated margin in the state to bail him out.
Still, the polls are very close, and Bullock won re-election as governor in 2016 despite Trump’s near landslide in Montana. The question is whether a senatorial contest more tethered to Trump is different. This is a state where Trump may actually help a Republican.
South Carolina
Another such state is South Carolina, where Trump will best Biden comfortably.
That leaves the Democratic challenger for the Senate, Jaime Harrison, looking for crossover votes to defeat the exceedingly slippery and cynical Lindsey Graham. Harrison’s problem is that the critical voters annoyed by Graham include Trump loyalists to his right—whom Graham, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has done his damnedest to propitiate through accelerating Barrett’s confirmation.
Harrison is a talented and spirited candidate who hews to the center, and he’s raised a record amount of money from the small army of Americans repelled by Graham. But, unlike in neighboring North Carolina and Georgia, the demographics of bright-red South Carolina haven’t changed much.
The latest and most authoritative poll has Graham pulling ahead by six points. This race may be the 2020 version of the O’Rourke phenomena in Texas—compelling but, in the end, fated to disappoint.
Control of the Chamber
So where do these races leave us?
The Democrats’ hopes of controlling the Senate rest on defeating at least two of the three most endangered GOP incumbents: Collins in Maine, Tillis in North Carolina, and Ernst in Iowa. If Biden loses, Democrats would need all three—or, perhaps, two plus Bullock, as a Biden loss in North Carolina might well foreclose Cunningham’s chances.
Bottom line: If you can’t resist betting, go with a net gain of three for the Democrats—or four if you enjoy living dangerously. But don’t hazard anything you can’t stand to lose.


thebulwark--2020-10-20--The Donald Trump Show Must Go On

The Donald Trump Show Must Go On

I once went hunting with my uncle as a young man .
During our walk through the woods we encountered a raccoon that had become enmeshed in a small length of rusty barbed wire .
The raccoon was trying to gnaw off its own leg while also alternately furiously attacking the barbed wire .
The results were bloody and unsuccessful .
The image forever seared in my mind from that occasion reminds me now of Donald Trump ’ s re-election campaign .
In one of Trump ’ s potential superspreader rallies in the South over the weekend , he stunned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ opponent should be locked up for fictional criminal offenses .
After all , he suggested the same thing for his opponent in 2016 .
Donald Trump has little original programming left .
He ’ s playing his “ Best Of ” reruns .
The base is buying , but the base is dwindling and the president is floundering in a cesspool of tautologies and twisted , self-negating sentences .
He says he respects the democratic process—but won ’ t commit to a peaceful transfer of power .
He quotes Dr. Anthony Fauci as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a “ disaster.
” He says he doesn ’ t know much about QAnon—other than that “ they like me very much , which I appreciate.
” These typically oxymoronic Trumpisms would make even Yogi Berra cringe .
On rare occasion , Trump does manage to sprinkle in a new gem—like when he mused on stage this weekend in front of his maskless , faithful followers that if Joe Biden wins the election , then Trump would have to leave the country .
While it isn ’ t true that airline flights leaving @ @ @ @ @ @ @ non-extradition countries the day of the inauguration instantly sold out , it also wouldn ’ t be surprising if they had .
That Trump spoke at one of his rallies about leaving the country should he lose is a reminder of just how unhinged he has become—well , that and the embarrassing video of him dancing without moving his feet .
He seemed glued to the floor trying to dance to the Village People ’ s ’ 70s disco hit “ Y.M.C.A.
” Some say Trump ’ s proclamation about fleeing the country @ @ @ @ @ @ @ responsibility for his actions and deflecting the blame onto someone else .
Maybe he ’ s joking , as his supporters maintain , about leaving the country .
But would anyone be surprised to learn that political betting markets and mob bookies have found a way to wager on whether he ’ ll leave the country—or that Trump has managed to earn a percentage off the action ?
Besides threatening to leave the country , Trump also mocked Biden for listening to scientists about the coronavirus pandemic , creating an easy opening for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the election the more divorced from reality Trump becomes—and the GOP is nowhere to be seen in holding the madman accountable .
The Grand Old Party of Lincoln , the progressive party of Teddy Roosevelt , and the Eisenhower party warning against the rise of the military-industrial complex has become the party of QAnon .
Those in this country who are stunned by this are also numb from the disinformation and the inability of what we thought were decent human beings to separate themselves from the lunacy of Donald Trump .
At the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ President Trump probably won ’ t even care if he doesn ’ t get re-elected .
Losing in November would mean he could drop a load of responsibility he never wanted and has never handled well .
He ’ d gladly remove it from his narrow , soft shoulders .
As long as The Donald keeps getting press , he ’ ll be happy .
He may be in court , on the lam , residing with a friendly dictator , or hosting the new WWF Roller Derby Smackdown ( is that a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as he draws breath , he ’ ll find a way to draw a camera .
Whatever it takes—riding a unicycle in a large strawberry donut with sprinkles or trying to do the “ Triple Lindy ” off the pier in Jersey—Trump will manage to get himself on television .
It is the only place he feels comfortable .
It is the only place he can be himself .
Trump almost doesn ’ t exist unless he ’ s on television playing the role of the mean insult comic .
He thinks he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ doesn ’ t have Rickles ’ s heart—only the insults .
The harmful effects of Trump ’ s outlandish performance during the last four years—on our health , on our economy , on our politics , on our way of life , on our culture—will be felt for generations .
And even if he ’ s defeated at the polls in November , the Donald Trump Show will continue in one form or fashion .
As Yogi Berra said , “ It ain ’ t over ’ til it ’ s over.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @

I once went hunting with my uncle as a young man. During our walk through the woods we encountered a raccoon that had become enmeshed in a small length of rusty barbed wire. The raccoon was trying to gnaw off its own leg while also alternately furiously attacking the barbed wire. The results were bloody and unsuccessful.
The image forever seared in my mind from that occasion reminds me now of Donald Trump’s re-election campaign.
In one of Trump’s potential superspreader rallies in the South over the weekend, he stunned no one by suggesting that his political opponent should be locked up for fictional criminal offenses. After all, he suggested the same thing for his opponent in 2016.
Donald Trump has little original programming left. He’s playing his “Best Of” reruns. The base is buying, but the base is dwindling and the president is floundering in a cesspool of tautologies and twisted, self-negating sentences.
He says he respects the democratic process—but won’t commit to a peaceful transfer of power.
He quotes Dr. Anthony Fauci as praising Trump—but trashes Fauci and calls him a “disaster.”
He says he doesn’t know much about QAnon—other than that “they like me very much, which I appreciate.”
These typically oxymoronic Trumpisms would make even Yogi Berra cringe.
On rare occasion, Trump does manage to sprinkle in a new gem—like when he mused on stage this weekend in front of his maskless, faithful followers that if Joe Biden wins the election, then Trump would have to leave the country. While it isn’t true that airline flights leaving from the nation’s capital to non-extradition countries the day of the inauguration instantly sold out, it also wouldn’t be surprising if they had.
That Trump spoke at one of his rallies about leaving the country should he lose is a reminder of just how unhinged he has become—well, that and the embarrassing video of him dancing without moving his feet. He seemed glued to the floor trying to dance to the Village People’s ’70s disco hit “Y.M.C.A.”
Some say Trump’s proclamation about fleeing the country is merely groundwork for once again escaping responsibility for his actions and deflecting the blame onto someone else. Maybe he’s joking, as his supporters maintain, about leaving the country. But would anyone be surprised to learn that political betting markets and mob bookies have found a way to wager on whether he’ll leave the country—or that Trump has managed to earn a percentage off the action?
Besides threatening to leave the country, Trump also mocked Biden for listening to scientists about the coronavirus pandemic, creating an easy opening for Biden:
The closer we get to the election the more divorced from reality Trump becomes—and the GOP is nowhere to be seen in holding the madman accountable. The Grand Old Party of Lincoln, the progressive party of Teddy Roosevelt, and the Eisenhower party warning against the rise of the military-industrial complex has become the party of QAnon. Those in this country who are stunned by this are also numb from the disinformation and the inability of what we thought were decent human beings to separate themselves from the lunacy of Donald Trump.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
At the end of the day, though, President Trump probably won’t even care if he doesn’t get re-elected. Losing in November would mean he could drop a load of responsibility he never wanted and has never handled well. He’d gladly remove it from his narrow, soft shoulders.
As long as The Donald keeps getting press, he’ll be happy. He may be in court, on the lam, residing with a friendly dictator, or hosting the new WWF Roller Derby Smackdown (is that a thing?), but as long as he draws breath, he’ll find a way to draw a camera. Whatever it takes—riding a unicycle in a large strawberry donut with sprinkles or trying to do the “Triple Lindy” off the pier in Jersey—Trump will manage to get himself on television. It is the only place he feels comfortable. It is the only place he can be himself. Trump almost doesn’t exist unless he’s on television playing the role of the mean insult comic. He thinks he’s Don Rickles, but he doesn’t have Rickles’s heart—only the insults.
The harmful effects of Trump’s outlandish performance during the last four years—on our health, on our economy, on our politics, on our way of life, on our culture—will be felt for generations. And even if he’s defeated at the polls in November, the Donald Trump Show will continue in one form or fashion. As Yogi Berra said, “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.” It ain’t over yet.


Trump vs. Fauci

On Monday , President Trump attacked Anthony Fauci , specifically , and scientific experts ( “ these idiots ” ) in general .
He then “ accused ” Joe Biden of being likely to listen to Fauci , should he become president .
( Biden ’ s apt , Coolidge-esque response : “ Yes.
” ) This approach seems ludicrous .
And from a rational perspective , it is .
But given Trump ’ s available options , he may view it as his best play .
Start from the proposition that Trump is far behind in this campaign , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he ’ s far behind .
Absent a disruptive change in the race , his chances of prevailing are very low .
If he upsets the status quo , it ’ s possible that his chances could diminish further , but unlikely .
As an incumbent president polling near the 40 percent mark , he ’ s already near lowest-low .
On the other hand , perhaps outlandish attacks that try to create a new enemy—in this case , the pointy-headed doctors and scientists trying to fight COVID—could find some resonance with the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ way that might give Trump some traction .
Instinctively , Trump may have accurately picked up the public ’ s frustration with and fatigue from the virus .
Always the marketer , he is now peddling an attractive counter-narrative—the pandemic ’ s all been overblown by Democrats and their enablers in the scientific and media communities , like Fauci .
Maybe people believe him .
Maybe not .
But as the cognitive psychologist Hugo Mercier would remind us , the social utility of a fiction ( to say nothing of the comfort it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than how convincing it actually is .
The more interesting question is what this new tact is likely to do to public attitudes toward science .
The optimistic view would be that by coming out so strongly against science , Trump might restore traditional bipartisan support for science by prodding today ’ s Republicans .
For instance , shortly after Trump lashed out at Fauci , Senator Lamar Alexander—to his credit—released a statement saying , But the pessimistic view is that our public discourse shouldn ’ t be framed as “ pro-science ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s not—or at least , it shouldn ’ t be—how we think about science .
Science is about trying to understand the complexity of nature ; it ’ s a method of theory and exploration , of trial and error , of hypothesis and validation or refutation .
There isn ’ t ( and certainly shouldn ’ t be ) a singular “ scientific ” view of COVID-19 yet .
We are still early in our encounter with this pathogen .
Much of the pain it has caused us is precisely because it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fully grasp its complicated impact on the human body and human populations .
What “ science ” asks for is a rich dialectic filled with competing hypotheses and solid data driving robust discussions .
If , instead , we are herded into choosing a single side— “ pro-science ” or “ anti-science ” —then yes , the more responsible answer is clear .
But that ’ s an impoverished way of thinking about science and is , itself , a sign of failure from our national leadership .
What we need is a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ often unsettling debate that science requires , and a Congress that demands a more expansive , and less binary , conversation .
Trump ’ s disdain for science has visibly done the country a great disservice .
But if we fight Trump ’ s attacks on science by insisting on a sanitized view of what is an intrinsically a messy discipline—if we suppress divergent views in the name of providing a unified front so as to deprive a duplicitous leader of potential talking points—then any short term gains are likely to come only @ @ @ @ @ @ @

On Monday, President Trump attacked Anthony Fauci, specifically, and scientific experts (“these idiots”) in general. He then “accused” Joe Biden of being likely to listen to Fauci, should he become president. (Biden’s apt, Coolidge-esque response: “Yes.”)
This approach seems ludicrous. And from a rational perspective, it is.
But given Trump’s available options, he may view it as his best play.
Start from the proposition that Trump is far behind in this campaign, and, moreover, that he knows he’s far behind. Absent a disruptive change in the race, his chances of prevailing are very low. If he upsets the status quo, it’s possible that his chances could diminish further, but unlikely. As an incumbent president polling near the 40 percent mark, he’s already near lowest-low.
On the other hand, perhaps outlandish attacks that try to create a new enemy—in this case, the pointy-headed doctors and scientists trying to fight COVID—could find some resonance with the voters and change the conversation in a way that might give Trump some traction.
Instinctively, Trump may have accurately picked up the public’s frustration with and fatigue from the virus. Always the marketer, he is now peddling an attractive counter-narrative—the pandemic’s all been overblown by Democrats and their enablers in the scientific and media communities, like Fauci. Maybe people believe him. Maybe not. But as the cognitive psychologist Hugo Mercier would remind us, the social utility of a fiction (to say nothing of the comfort it might provide) is often more important than how convincing it actually is.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
The more interesting question is what this new tact is likely to do to public attitudes toward science.
The optimistic view would be that by coming out so strongly against science, Trump might restore traditional bipartisan support for science by prodding today’s Republicans. For instance, shortly after Trump lashed out at Fauci, Senator Lamar Alexander—to his credit—released a statement saying,
Dr. Fauci is one of our country’s most distinguished public servants. He has served six presidents, starting with Ronald Reagan. If more Americans paid attention to his advice, we’d have fewer cases of COVID-19, and it would be safer to go back to school and back to work and out to eat.
But the pessimistic view is that our public discourse shouldn’t be framed as “pro-science” versus “anti-science.” Because that’s not—or at least, it shouldn’t be—how we think about science.
Science is about trying to understand the complexity of nature; it’s a method of theory and exploration, of trial and error, of hypothesis and validation or refutation.
Science is a dialog, not a dogma.
There isn’t (and certainly shouldn’t be) a singular “scientific” view of COVID-19 yet. We are still early in our encounter with this pathogen. Much of the pain it has caused us is precisely because it is novel and we do not yet fully grasp its complicated impact on the human body and human populations. What “science” asks for is a rich dialectic filled with competing hypotheses and solid data driving robust discussions.
If, instead, we are herded into choosing a single side—“pro-science” or “anti-science”—then yes, the more responsible answer is clear. But that’s an impoverished way of thinking about science and is, itself, a sign of failure from our national leadership.
What we need is a president who can cultivate the difficult and often unsettling debate that science requires, and a Congress that demands a more expansive, and less binary, conversation.
Trump’s disdain for science has visibly done the country a great disservice.
But if we fight Trump’s attacks on science by insisting on a sanitized view of what is an intrinsically a messy discipline—if we suppress divergent views in the name of providing a unified front so as to deprive a duplicitous leader of potential talking points—then any short term gains are likely to come only at a great long term price.


thebulwark--2020-10-20--The Moral Necessity of Accountability for Civil Disobedience

Since 1994 , the majority of domestic attacks and plots in the United States have come from far-right extremists , leaving hundreds of Americans dead .
This includes two-thirds of terrorist activity in 2019 , and 90 % of charted activity so far this year .
Yet much of the American conversation remains centered around the violence in Portland and Seattle .
The ratio of airtime to threat is out of whack , and not just because of Fox News and the constant stream of deprecations and exaggerations issuing from Trump ’ s lips .
It ’ s found fertile @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Americans as they consider turning power over to Democrats , whom they believe might bring us back from the chaos of the past four years , but fear will unleash a different–and maybe worse–chaos of civil unrest .
And the Democratic leaders of these cities , in their refusal to stop this violence , haven ’ t done much to calm these fears .
Portland has seen months of mayhem , numerous fires , millions of dollars in damage to local businesses , and its police force attacked with bottles and rocks .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Jenny Durkan ’ s designation of CHAZ as a “ block party ” with a “ summer of love ” vibe , two murders and multiple assaults have taken place there , and citizens are understandably concerned about a zone of anarchy permitted in the center of a US city .
The images emerging are downright frightening , scarier yet for the bulk of Americans who lack the resources to move behind gates or summer on the Vineyard if things get sporty in their own neighborhoods .
Just for now , let ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more obvious arguments of why this type of lawlessness is bad : Like that it ’ s immoral and anti-American not to protect our citizens .
Like that it undermines legitimate activists , the overwhelming majority of whom are peaceful , by enabling opponents of change to lump all protest together and thereby dismiss it .
Like that it opens up American citizens to unlawful retaliation from the federal government , which Trump has shown he is only too eager to deploy .
Like that disregarding the rule of law enshrined by the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dangerous precedent for other groups you disagree with who will seek to break other laws , many of which will be inconvenient or downright awful for you .
Like that it elicits and encourages a cycle of violence , intimidation , and “ retaliation ” from the far right .
Like that it costs votes in key states and districts required to hold meaningful power to affect meaningful change .
Let ’ s focus instead on this : When elected officials tolerate violence , or worse equate it with civil disobedience , they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ century of civil disobedience has taught us .
By its literal definition , civil disobedience can not be violent or destructive .
It is a peaceful breaking of a law–and acceptance of the consequences of breaking that law–in order to bring attention to injustice .
Rioting and looting are not civil disobedience .
And in asserting their mob behavior as some sort of virtuous response to injustice , these rioters are glomming onto the Civil Rights imprimatur while doing nothing whatsoever that resembles what the Civil Rights movement did .
The looters and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cowards , because in addition to their destructiveness and violence , they completely misunderstand the second half of the civil disobedience equation : you must willingly accept—even seek out—the consequences of your actions .
Civil disobedience demands moral conviction and discipline .
If we make it easy , or without consequence , we deprive it of all moral authority .
And in so doing we remove from those who claim to fight injustice their right to prove that they are anything more than thugs or opportunists .
If you ’ re not willing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ believe , then what ’ s to differentiate you from those out to make bad trouble instead of John Lewis ’ s good ?
What elevates you above an angry Tweet from a celebrity , an Oberlin student demanding academic credit for protesting , or a weekend social justice warrior throwing bricks in a community they don ’ t have to live in when the cameras are gone and the sun comes up over the wreckage ?
It ’ s a daunting challenge to show an entire populace that your morality is greater @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
To succeed , you must be willing to endure whatever comes—arrest , jail , physical suffering , reputational and financial damage—to prove it .
What a terrible , beautiful thing we ask of our agents of change—of our saints .
To carry on their shoulders the full weight of the law and to prove the fortitude of their morality by carrying it and carrying it until the sense of injustice and outrage from their fellow citizens becomes undeniable .
Until a new awareness dawns and the injustice itself crumbles away , lifeless @ @ @ @ @ @ @ A mayor who condones violence on his or her watch is essentially saying : “ I don ’ t know history well enough to understand that there are peaceful ways to fix the underlying problems that led to the pain , frustration , and anger of you , my constituents .
If I did , I would lay down the privilege of my office to bleed with you on the streets or rot with you in the jails , and at every step of the way we would carry the dignity of those @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ m gon na sanction some of you to just break shit and hurt people instead .
And I ’ ll say your violence is noble given the weight of your injustice , so I can hide behind your behavior in a way that won ’ t cost me votes.
” Or to phrase it more succinctly : “ For as long as I can I ’ m going to avoid denouncing your unconscionable behavior , and deter the police from keeping the peace , so that I don ’ t have to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ should be made of sterner stuff .
To those who argue this is a moral subtlety beneath the clear and present danger Trump poses , it ’ s one the Democrats would do well to bear in mind as they try to win over tens of millions of voters .
They should—they must—be willing to denounce these destructive acts with the same clarity and vehemence as we assume ( d ) that our President should and must denounce white supremacy .
Again and again this issue of violence has proven to be a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of citizens who might not care to delve into the intricacies of the tax code or the complexities of climate change or the emoluments clause .
It ’ s pretty clear to most that if you ’ re not willing to hold to legal account those rioters who set fires and throw bricks at cops , you ’ re neither a brave nor capable leader .
Why would anyone want you in charge or their town , their district , or their country ?

Since 1994, the majority of domestic attacks and plots in the United States have come from far-right extremists, leaving hundreds of Americans dead. This includes two-thirds of terrorist activity in 2019, and 90% of charted activity so far this year. Yet much of the American conversation remains centered around the violence in Portland and Seattle.
The ratio of airtime to threat is out of whack, and not just because of Fox News and the constant stream of deprecations and exaggerations issuing from Trump’s lips. It’s found fertile ground in the concerns of many reasonable Americans as they consider turning power over to Democrats, whom they believe might bring us back from the chaos of the past four years, but fear will unleash a different–and maybe worse–chaos of civil unrest.
And the Democratic leaders of these cities, in their refusal to stop this violence, haven’t done much to calm these fears.
Portland has seen months of mayhem, numerous fires, millions of dollars in damage to local businesses, and its police force attacked with bottles and rocks.
And up in Seattle, despite Mayor Jenny Durkan’s designation of CHAZ as a “block party” with a “summer of love” vibe, two murders and multiple assaults have taken place there, and citizens are understandably concerned about a zone of anarchy permitted in the center of a US city. The images emerging are downright frightening, scarier yet for the bulk of Americans who lack the resources to move behind gates or summer on the Vineyard if things get sporty in their own neighborhoods.
Just for now, let’s set aside a few of the more obvious arguments of why this type of lawlessness is bad:
Like that it’s immoral and anti-American not to protect our citizens.
Like that it undermines legitimate activists, the overwhelming majority of whom are peaceful, by enabling opponents of change to lump all protest together and thereby dismiss it.
Like that it opens up American citizens to unlawful retaliation from the federal government, which Trump has shown he is only too eager to deploy.
Like that disregarding the rule of law enshrined by the society that you belong to sets a dangerous precedent for other groups you disagree with who will seek to break other laws, many of which will be inconvenient or downright awful for you.
Like that it elicits and encourages a cycle of violence, intimidation, and “retaliation” from the far right.
Like that it costs votes in key states and districts required to hold meaningful power to affect meaningful change.
Let’s focus instead on this: When elected officials tolerate violence, or worse equate it with civil disobedience, they undermine the very essence of what a century of civil disobedience has taught us.
By its literal definition, civil disobedience cannot be violent or destructive. It is a peaceful breaking of a law–and acceptance of the consequences of breaking that law–in order to bring attention to injustice.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
Rioting and looting are not civil disobedience. And in asserting their mob behavior as some sort of virtuous response to injustice, these rioters are glomming onto the Civil Rights imprimatur while doing nothing whatsoever that resembles what the Civil Rights movement did. The looters and anarchists in Portland and Seattle are moral cowards, because in addition to their destructiveness and violence, they completely misunderstand the second half of the civil disobedience equation: you must willingly accept—even seek out—the consequences of your actions.
Civil disobedience demands moral conviction and discipline. If we make it easy, or without consequence, we deprive it of all moral authority. And in so doing we remove from those who claim to fight injustice their right to prove that they are anything more than thugs or opportunists.
If you’re not willing to pay any cost for what you believe, then what’s to differentiate you from those out to make bad trouble instead of John Lewis’s good? What elevates you above an angry Tweet from a celebrity, an Oberlin student demanding academic credit for protesting, or a weekend social justice warrior throwing bricks in a community they don’t have to live in when the cameras are gone and the sun comes up over the wreckage?
It’s a daunting challenge to show an entire populace that your morality is greater than that of their democratically elected government. To succeed, you must be willing to endure whatever comes—arrest, jail, physical suffering, reputational and financial damage—to prove it.
What a terrible, beautiful thing we ask of our agents of change—of our saints. To carry on their shoulders the full weight of the law and to prove the fortitude of their morality by carrying it and carrying it until the sense of injustice and outrage from their fellow citizens becomes undeniable. Until a new awareness dawns and the injustice itself crumbles away, lifeless and defunct, through lawful means.
A mayor who condones violence on his or her watch is essentially saying: “I don’t know history well enough to understand that there are peaceful ways to fix the underlying problems that led to the pain, frustration, and anger of you, my constituents. If I did, I would lay down the privilege of my office to bleed with you on the streets or rot with you in the jails, and at every step of the way we would carry the dignity of those who taught us. So instead I’m gonna sanction some of you to just break shit and hurt people instead. And I’ll say your violence is noble given the weight of your injustice, so I can hide behind your behavior in a way that won’t cost me votes.”
Or to phrase it more succinctly: “For as long as I can I’m going to avoid denouncing your unconscionable behavior, and deter the police from keeping the peace, so that I don’t have to suffer any consequences myself.”
Our leaders should be made of sterner stuff.
To those who argue this is a moral subtlety beneath the clear and present danger Trump poses, it’s one the Democrats would do well to bear in mind as they try to win over tens of millions of voters. They should—they must—be willing to denounce these destructive acts with the same clarity and vehemence as we assume(d) that our President should and must denounce white supremacy.
Again and again this issue of violence has proven to be a simple litmus test for a huge percentage of citizens who might not care to delve into the intricacies of the tax code or the complexities of climate change or the emoluments clause. It’s pretty clear to most that if you’re not willing to hold to legal account those rioters who set fires and throw bricks at cops, you’re neither a brave nor capable leader. Why would anyone want you in charge or their town, their district, or their country?