alternet--2020-10-27--Clinical psychologist predicts what life after Trump will be like — and how the president will respo

Clinical psychologist predicts what life after Trump will be like — and how the president will respond if he loses

Clinical psychologist Dr. Alan Blotcky , Ph.D. spoke to Raw Story Tuesday to walk through what he thinks voters will see from President Donald Trump in the upcoming week ahead of the election .
While Dr. Blotcky is n't part of the `` Duty To Warn '' movement , he does support it and he explained how mental health experts have been able to diagnose the president without ever having him sit in their offices .
`` The most important information that a mental health professional can get is observable behavior , '' he explained .
`` It 's not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to .
We have thousands of examples of his tweets , of his statements , of his interviews , his audios , his videos .
So , we have many years of his accumulated information directly from him both verbally and behaviorally .
Yes , we do n't get to meet with him in our office in a one-on-one session .
And that 's important because that would give us even more information into his thinking and feeling .
But having access to vast amounts of verbal statements and behaviors is crucial .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ `` so obviously impaired and so obviously disordered '' that it would even be difficult to find a mental health professional who would n't agree with that assessment after four years in office .
For anyone who thinks Trump is merely playing the role of an angry politician , he explained that throughout Trump 's life , he 's been consistent in his narcissism .
`` If you look at the whole of his life it 's very consistent , '' he said .
`` It 's outlandish to think this is just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ '' As Trump goes into the final week of his campaign , Dr. Blotcky anticipates seeing more desperation from Trump .
He thinks that Trump will bring more `` wild accusations , conspiracy theories and threats . ''
It has become clear that the president is reverting to what worked for him in 2016 , `` his old bag of tricks , '' as Dr. Blotcky described it .
The only difference is that this time around , it not only is n't working to move the needle , but his multi-rally strategy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ `` I think he 's going to throw out any outlandish things he can think of , hoping that something will stick , '' said the psychologist .
In a normal campaign , the candidate would be pivoting to something that actually works to expand their base of support .
Trump is sticking with his existing supporters , even if that means he wo n't have enough of them next Tuesday .
`` That 's why he always doubles down , triples-down , quadruples-down , '' said .
Dr. Blotcky .
`` He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ change would be a sign of weakness or failure .
And he always thinks he 's right .
He thinks he 's the smartest person on the planet .
He thinks he knows more than the experts .
He thinks he knows more than the scientists .
And so , what he thinks automatically becomes the prevailing strategy on his part and he ca n't pivot .
He 's incapable of pivoting .
I think it comes from his psychiatric disorder .
I think he is so grandiose and so self-absorbed that he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I do n't even think he understands that he needs to pivot because I think he thinks he 's right .
And if he 's right , there 's nothing to talk about . ''
For the every-day self-aware person who is capable of being insightful and psychologically minded , that level of delusion is n't an option .
`` I think until recently he has thought of himself as unstoppable , '' said Dr. Blotcky .
`` And I think he still thinks he 's unstoppable .
I think he thinks he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the end just like he did in 2016 and if he can get it to the courts his new Supreme Court Justice will help tip the scales . ''
If Trump loses , Dr. Blotcky thinks he will play the victim card , allege the election was rigged , there is a conspiracy against him and that mail-in votes should n't even be counted .
`` I think he 's going to turn to his attorney general to try and get him to begin some actions , '' he continued .
`` I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ take it to the courts and I think he 's going to try to give the message to his supporters all around the country that he is the victim , that he is aggrieved , and that they need to support him in his victimhood . ''
For Trump 's supporters , even those who held their noses and voted for him four years ago , Trump has been able to tap in them a kind of grievance that they have been ignored by politicians .
`` They believe in him because they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
`` They feel like the political system has left them behind .
They feel like victims .
So , I think they identify with him and I think they like chaos .
They like the rebelliousness of this president .
They want to turn the political system upside down because they feel like the system has hurt them .
So , he is kind of their supreme leader as far as wreaking havoc in the political system .
When he says ridiculous things , they cheer him on because he 's expressing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ system has left them behind and have hurt them . ''
One of Trump 's greatest accomplishments has been in fearmongering and painting former Vice President Joe Biden as a socialist to people who do n't know what that even means has been a successful tactic .
It 's one that the GOP has employed for years , but such an accusation is n't as effective as people understand American socialist programs like Medicare , the interstate system and public schools .
`` What he 's been successful at is selling the idea @ @ @ @ @ @ @ socialists and they 're going to change your neighborhood and that your way of life is going to be vastly different , '' said Dr. Blocky .
`` I think there 's a group of Republicans that buy that .
I know some people that buy that . ''
Trump 's claim that somehow neighborhoods are going to become chaos-driven riot-zones is a `` fabrication , '' he said , but `` fearmongering works . ''
It is possible to bring those people back from that , but Dr. Blotcky says it will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of his new administration .
`` If you cut off the head , which is Trump , I think there is going to be residual stuff , but I think if Joe Biden keeps talking about being the president for all Americans , and not just Democrats , that 's the strategy .
That 's the attitude you have to have — that our new president has to be the president for all of us , and they have to listen to him , '' Dr. Blotcky went on .
`` A lot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the crowds , are people who really have been left behind by this economy and they feel like they are not listened to or valued .
And I think one of the major functions of the president is to listen to everybody and have everybody feel like we 're a part of what we 're trying to do in this democracy . ''
In the immediate aftermath , Dr. Blotcky agrees that the Trump supporters will still take to the streets and that there will be violence , but that Biden will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ much more so than Trump .
`` If [ Trump ] gets agitated and riled up , you 're going to see a lot of his supporters get agitated and riled up , '' he explained .
In an interview Monday , Cindy , a self-described Republican evangelical explained that her children were kind and thoughtful in how they spoke to her about the election and helped her walk through options because she did n't like Trump , but still had conservative issues she was dedicated to .
Dr. Blotcky agreed that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump supporters is the best way to help move them .
For some , he acknowledged that it 's never going to work , but for those who are looking for other options in the final week of the election , it 's the best way to persuade .
No one moves voters by screaming `` you 're wrong ! ''
at them .
As the U.S. goes into the holiday season , he explained that 's the best way to get through with your families .
Yelling and screaming over politics never @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reinforcing that what Trump has done to diminish the dangers of the coronavirus has been reckless and criminal .
`` Donald Trump has made the decision that losing American lives is fine .
Our very lives have become unimportant , ignorable , even forgettable to him , '' he wrote for AL.com in May .

Clinical psychologist Dr. Alan Blotcky, Ph.D. spoke to Raw Story Tuesday to walk through what he thinks voters will see from President Donald Trump in the upcoming week ahead of the election.
While Dr. Blotcky isn't part of the "Duty To Warn" movement, he does support it and he explained how mental health experts have been able to diagnose the president without ever having him sit in their offices.
"The most important information that a mental health professional can get is observable behavior," he explained. "It's not just his observable behavior we have access to. We have thousands of examples of his tweets, of his statements, of his interviews, his audios, his videos. So, we have many years of his accumulated information directly from him both verbally and behaviorally. Yes, we don't get to meet with him in our office in a one-on-one session. And that's important because that would give us even more information into his thinking and feeling. But having access to vast amounts of verbal statements and behaviors is crucial."
Dr. Blotcky explained that Trump is "so obviously impaired and so obviously disordered" that it would even be difficult to find a mental health professional who wouldn't agree with that assessment after four years in office.
For anyone who thinks Trump is merely playing the role of an angry politician, he explained that throughout Trump's life, he's been consistent in his narcissism.
"If you look at the whole of his life it's very consistent," he said. "It's outlandish to think this is just an act. This is him."
As Trump goes into the final week of his campaign, Dr. Blotcky anticipates seeing more desperation from Trump. He thinks that Trump will bring more "wild accusations, conspiracy theories and threats." It has become clear that the president is reverting to what worked for him in 2016, "his old bag of tricks," as Dr. Blotcky described it. The only difference is that this time around, it not only isn't working to move the needle, but his multi-rally strategy is also serving as superspreader events.
"I think he's going to throw out any outlandish things he can think of, hoping that something will stick," said the psychologist.
In a normal campaign, the candidate would be pivoting to something that actually works to expand their base of support. Trump is sticking with his existing supporters, even if that means he won't have enough of them next Tuesday.
"That's why he always doubles down, triples-down, quadruples-down," said. Dr. Blotcky. "He can't [change] because to change would be a sign of weakness or failure. And he always thinks he's right. He thinks he's the smartest person on the planet. He thinks he knows more than the experts. He thinks he knows more than the scientists. And so, what he thinks automatically becomes the prevailing strategy on his part and he can't pivot. He's incapable of pivoting. I think it comes from his psychiatric disorder. I think he is so grandiose and so self-absorbed that he can't see outside himself. And I don't even think he understands that he needs to pivot because I think he thinks he's right. And if he's right, there's nothing to talk about."
For the every-day self-aware person who is capable of being insightful and psychologically minded, that level of delusion isn't an option.
"I think until recently he has thought of himself as unstoppable," said Dr. Blotcky. "And I think he still thinks he's unstoppable. I think he thinks he's going to pull it out in the end just like he did in 2016 and if he can get it to the courts his new Supreme Court Justice will help tip the scales."
If Trump loses, Dr. Blotcky thinks he will play the victim card, allege the election was rigged, there is a conspiracy against him and that mail-in votes shouldn't even be counted.
"I think he's going to turn to his attorney general to try and get him to begin some actions," he continued. "I think he's going to try and take it to the courts and I think he's going to try to give the message to his supporters all around the country that he is the victim, that he is aggrieved, and that they need to support him in his victimhood."
For Trump's supporters, even those who held their noses and voted for him four years ago, Trump has been able to tap in them a kind of grievance that they have been ignored by politicians.
"They believe in him because they feel aggrieved," said Dr. Blotcky. "They feel like the political system has left them behind. They feel like victims. So, I think they identify with him and I think they like chaos. They like the rebelliousness of this president. They want to turn the political system upside down because they feel like the system has hurt them. So, he is kind of their supreme leader as far as wreaking havoc in the political system. When he says ridiculous things, they cheer him on because he's expressing their own pent-up frustrations and feelings our system has left them behind and have hurt them."
One of Trump's greatest accomplishments has been in fearmongering and painting former Vice President Joe Biden as a socialist to people who don't know what that even means has been a successful tactic. It's one that the GOP has employed for years, but such an accusation isn't as effective as people understand American socialist programs like Medicare, the interstate system and public schools.
"What he's been successful at is selling the idea that Joe Biden and the Democrats are socialists and they're going to change your neighborhood and that your way of life is going to be vastly different," said Dr. Blocky. "I think there's a group of Republicans that buy that. I know some people that buy that."
Trump's claim that somehow neighborhoods are going to become chaos-driven riot-zones is a "fabrication," he said, but "fearmongering works."
It is possible to bring those people back from that, but Dr. Blotcky says it will come with Biden including them as part of his new administration.
"If you cut off the head, which is Trump, I think there is going to be residual stuff, but I think if Joe Biden keeps talking about being the president for all Americans, and not just Democrats, that's the strategy. That's the attitude you have to have — that our new president has to be the president for all of us, and they have to listen to him," Dr. Blotcky went on. "A lot of his supporters, I see them in the crowds, are people who really have been left behind by this economy and they feel like they are not listened to or valued. And I think one of the major functions of the president is to listen to everybody and have everybody feel like we're a part of what we're trying to do in this democracy."
In the immediate aftermath, Dr. Blotcky agrees that the Trump supporters will still take to the streets and that there will be violence, but that Biden will have the capacity to calm the nation much more so than Trump.
"If [Trump] gets agitated and riled up, you're going to see a lot of his supporters get agitated and riled up," he explained.
In an interview Monday, Cindy, a self-described Republican evangelical explained that her children were kind and thoughtful in how they spoke to her about the election and helped her walk through options because she didn't like Trump, but still had conservative issues she was dedicated to. Dr. Blotcky agreed that the soft and kind way of speaking to Trump supporters is the best way to help move them. For some, he acknowledged that it's never going to work, but for those who are looking for other options in the final week of the election, it's the best way to persuade. No one moves voters by screaming "you're wrong!" at them.
As the U.S. goes into the holiday season, he explained that's the best way to get through with your families. Yelling and screaming over politics never persuades anyone.
Dr. Blotcky closed by reinforcing that what Trump has done to diminish the dangers of the coronavirus has been reckless and criminal.
"Donald Trump has made the decision that losing American lives is fine. Our very lives have become unimportant, ignorable, even forgettable to him," he wrote for AL.com in May.


alternet--2020-10-27--Former clerks warn the Supreme Court's legitimacy is at stake with Amy Coney Barrett confirmation

Former U.S. Supreme Court clerks are warning of the long-term impact of Republicans ' confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett and how it could raise questions about the legitimacy of the court .
In an op-ed published by The New York Times , Jamie Crooks and Samir Deger-Sen , expressed concern about the partisan and politically-motivated decision made by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell ( R-KY ) and Senate Republicans as they noted the hypocrisy in Republicans ' response to former President Barack Obama 's nomination of Judge Merrick Garland .
`` With Judge Merrick Garland denied even a hearing by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Obama , and now the rush by those same Republicans to confirm Judge Barrett , the court 's very composition will be seen as a product of the most brazen kind of politics .
We fear its decisions will be seen that way too , '' the lawyers wrote .
Although Republican lawmakers may view Barrett 's nomination as a conservative victory , Crooks and Deger-Sen have described the decision as `` shortsighted '' as they believe it `` may ultimately be self-defeating . ''
They also expressed concern about the message Barrett @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and how decisions she rules on will be viewed .
They wrote , `` Our concerns run deeper — that regardless of how or why Justice Barrett would vote on the momentous issues that would come before her , the court 's decisions wo n't be accepted . ''
We worry that a large swath of the nation , told a Democrat ca n't fill a vacancy in an election year but a Republican can , will dismiss the court as yet another partisan body .
And we worry that if our children @ @ @ @ @ @ @ `` How is the court doing ? ''
their answer will turn on which politicians last got their hands on it , and not the reasoning behind the court 's judgments .
The latest news comes as Republicans face more criticism for their confirmation of Barrett .
On Monday , MSNBC highlighted Barrett 's lacking experience as a judge which raises more questions about whether or not she is even qualified to serve on the Supreme Court bench .
Other publications have also shed light on Barrett 's experience .
Based on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the qualifications most would expect for the highest court in the United States .
Barrett 's highlights include : • Never argued before the Supreme Court • Never served as a judge until 2017 On Monday evening , Senate Republicans approved Barrett for the Supreme Court .

Former U.S. Supreme Court clerks are warning of the long-term impact of Republicans' confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett and how it could raise questions about the legitimacy of the court.
In an op-ed published by The New York Times, Jamie Crooks and Samir Deger-Sen, expressed concern about the partisan and politically-motivated decision made by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Senate Republicans as they noted the hypocrisy in Republicans' response to former President Barack Obama's nomination of Judge Merrick Garland.
"With Judge Merrick Garland denied even a hearing by Republicans after his nomination by President Barack Obama, and now the rush by those same Republicans to confirm Judge Barrett, the court's very composition will be seen as a product of the most brazen kind of politics. We fear its decisions will be seen that way too," the lawyers wrote.
Although Republican lawmakers may view Barrett's nomination as a conservative victory, Crooks and Deger-Sen have described the decision as "shortsighted" as they believe it "may ultimately be self-defeating."
They also expressed concern about the message Barrett's confirmation sends to the American public and how decisions she rules on will be viewed.
They wrote, "Our concerns run deeper — that regardless of how or why Justice Barrett would vote on the momentous issues that would come before her, the court's decisions won't be accepted."
We worry that a large swath of the nation, told a Democrat can't fill a vacancy in an election year but a Republican can, will dismiss the court as yet another partisan body. And we worry that if our children are asked, years from now, "How is the court doing?" their answer will turn on which politicians last got their hands on it, and not the reasoning behind the court's judgments.
The latest news comes as Republicans face more criticism for their confirmation of Barrett. On Monday, MSNBC highlighted Barrett's lacking experience as a judge which raises more questions about whether or not she is even qualified to serve on the Supreme Court bench.
Other publications have also shed light on Barrett's experience. Based on the outlines, it does not align with the qualifications most would expect for the highest court in the United States. Barrett's highlights include:
2 years in private practice
Never tried a case
Never argued an appeal
Never argued before the Supreme Court
Most private work involved civil cases, not criminal cases
15 years teaching experience
Never served as a judge until 2017
On Monday evening, Senate Republicans approved Barrett for the Supreme Court.


alternet--2020-10-27--The $1.1 billion rabbit hole: Here's a staggering list of Trump debts — and who he owes money to

The 2020 election may be President Donald Trump 's last attempt to dodge the consequences he could face for the staggering amount of debt that will come due over the next four years .
Ever since The New York Times ' bombshell report about Trump 's taxes , there has been heightened speculation about the president 's debt and who he owes .
Now , the Financial Times is shedding light on the illusion of Trump 's windfall .
The publication reports that Trump has more than $ 1.1 billion in debt and much of the debt is owed to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the president has used real estate —mostly linked to a small number of buildings and golf courses that form the core of the Trump business empire , according to the publication— as collateral to secure the loans .
It has been reported that approximately $ 900 million of the $ 1.1 billion debt will come due at some point during Trump 's second term if he wins the election .
According to the publication 's graph , Trump 's debts are broken down into five categories : • Vornado Realty Trust : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ real estate investment trust company .
Trump is said to have used towers in San Francisco , CA , and New York as collateral .
While , on paper , the debt is technically owed by the partnership , and not Trump specifically , defaulting on the debt could impact the value of his equity in both towers .
• The Bond Market : for loans where he borrowed against several of his biggest properties .
• Deutsche Bank : to the lender that financed the president 's hotel locations in Chicago and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his golf resort in Miami , FL .
Based on Trump 's tax returns revealed by The New York Times , the Chicago and Miami locations have suffered staggering losses over the last several years .
• Small banks and an Asset Manager : At least in debt is owed to four small banks and one of Trump 's asset managers .
While most of those debts do not mature over the next four years , they do add to the president 's staggering list of debts .
• Chicago Unit Acquisition Trust @ @ @ @ @ @ @ appears to be both the lender and the debtor as the trust appears to be owed by DJT Holdings LLC—Donald J. Trump , himself .
While Forbes still categorizes Trump as a billionaire with a net worth of approximately $ 3.5 billion , the uncertainty of the United States economy amid the pandemic could lead to long-term problems if the value of Trump 's properties declines .
There is also speculation that Trump may attempt to use the presidency as a shield to guard against potential lawsuits he could face in the event @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .

The 2020 election may be President Donald Trump's last attempt to dodge the consequences he could face for the staggering amount of debt that will come due over the next four years.
Ever since The New York Times' bombshell report about Trump's taxes, there has been heightened speculation about the president's debt and who he owes. Now, the Financial Times is shedding light on the illusion of Trump's windfall. The publication reports that Trump has more than $1.1 billion in debt and much of the debt is owed to creditors and banks.
In most cases, the president has used real estate —mostly linked to a small number of buildings and golf courses that form the core of the Trump business empire, according to the publication— as collateral to secure the loans. It has been reported that approximately $900 million of the $1.1 billion debt will come due at some point during Trump's second term if he wins the election.
According to the publication's graph, Trump's debts are broken down into five categories:
Vornado Realty Trust: $447 million owed as part of a partnership with the real estate investment trust company. Trump is said to have used towers in San Francisco, CA, and New York as collateral. While, on paper, the debt is technically owed by the partnership, and not Trump specifically, defaulting on the debt could impact the value of his equity in both towers. The Bond Market: $257 million owed for loans where he borrowed against several of his biggest properties. Deutsche Bank: $340 million owed to the lender that financed the president's hotel locations in Chicago and Washington, D.C., as well as his golf resort in Miami, FL. Based on Trump's tax returns revealed by The New York Times, the Chicago and Miami locations have suffered staggering losses over the last several years. Small banks and an Asset Manager: At least $25 million in debt is owed to four small banks and one of Trump's asset managers. While most of those debts do not mature over the next four years, they do add to the president's staggering list of debts. Chicago Unit Acquisition Trust: This $50 million debt raises questions because Trump appears to be both the lender and the debtor as the trust appears to be owed by DJT Holdings LLC—Donald J. Trump, himself.
Via Financial Times.
While Forbes still categorizes Trump as a billionaire with a net worth of approximately $3.5 billion, the uncertainty of the United States economy amid the pandemic could lead to long-term problems if the value of Trump's properties declines. There is also speculation that Trump may attempt to use the presidency as a shield to guard against potential lawsuits he could face in the event he defaults on any of the loans.


alternet--2020-10-27--Conservative New Hampshire paper endorses Biden — but Trump is still popular with the state’s rural

Conservative New Hampshire paper endorses Biden — but Trump is still popular with the state’s rural voters

Although New Hampshire has n't gone Republican in a presidential race since George W. Bush in 2000 , President Donald Trump 's campaign has been treating it like a swing state .
Polls have shown former Vice President Joe Biden with a strong lead in the New England state , and a conservative New Hampshire newspaper has endorsed Biden over Trump .
However , HuffPost 's Matt Fuller warns that rural voters have been trending more Republican in New Hampshire .
In an editorial published on October 25 , the New Hampshire Union Leader 's conservative editorial board `` wholeheartedly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ while explaining why it favors Biden over Trump .
`` President Trump is not always 100 % wrong , but he is 100 % wrong for America , '' the editorial declares .
`` Trump has many admirable accomplishments from his first term in office .
We can find much common ground with Trump supporters , including judicial appointments , tax policy , support for gun rights , even inroads to Middle East peace .
Trump has been able to accomplish this despite many in the media and Congress working to stop him @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Union Leader 's editorial board goes on to say that the United States ' national debt has `` exploded by more than 7 trillion dollars '' under Trump and that the U.S. has suffered `` record infections and deaths '' because of COVID-19 .
`` Building this country up sits squarely within the skill set of Joseph Biden , '' the Union Leader declares .
`` We have found Mr. Biden to be a caring , compassionate and professional public servant .
He has repeatedly expressed his desire to be a president for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ him at his word .
Joe Biden may not be the president we want , but in 2020 , he is the president we desperately need .
He will be a president to bring people together and right the ship of state . ''
However , the Union Leader also notes that some of its `` policy disagreements '' with Biden are `` significant '' and that `` despite our endorsement of his candidacy , we expect to spend a significant portion of the next four years disagreeing with the Biden Administration on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the polls released during the second half of October indicate that New Hampshire residents are quite willing to split their tickets in 2020 .
Democrat Biden and Republican Sununu , in those polls , have double-digit leads over their opponents .
But Fuller , in a HuffPost article published on October 27 , stresses that Trump has some very enthusiastic supporters in rural areas of the state .
`` For someone who lived in New Hampshire for the first 22 years of his life ― me ― and still visits his family who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a bit surprising to see houses that never put up political signs during the George W. Bush or Barack Obama years now proudly displaying Donald Trump flags and homemade billboards , '' Fuller explains .
`` In one sense , it should n't be surprising .
New Hampshire was the first state in 2016 where Trump won a primary , beating out the second-place finisher , John Kasich , by 20 percentage points .
And Trump only barely lost the state in the general election , with Democrat Hillary Clinton edging him out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Fuller goes on to say that even though Trump has been `` lagging badly '' in recent New Hampshire polls , Trump `` feels good '' about the state .
`` Even if Democratic rival Joe Biden and his team expect to cruise to victory , something is happening in New Hampshire , '' Fuller observes .
`` Like almost every state , there is a political realignment happening here , with rural voters trending more Republican and suburban voters more Democratic… .
The suburban/rural divide is alive and well , just like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ '' Dante Scala , a political science professor at the University of New Hampshire , told HuffPost , `` What we saw in 2016 was a microcosm for what we 're seeing nationally .
Larger numbers of Whites without college degrees shifted to Trump . ''
However , Scala also told HuffPost that `` small suburban areas that are kind of outside smaller cities like Manchester tend to act like Rural America , politically speaking . ''
A GOP operative in New Hampshire , presumably interviewed on condition of anonymity , told HuffPost @ @ @ @ @ @ @ friends is voting for Trump , and these are not insane people .
These are people who know that Trump is a flaming fucking asshole .
But they look at the alternative , and they do n't like it . ''

Although New Hampshire hasn't gone Republican in a presidential race since George W. Bush in 2000, President Donald Trump's campaign has been treating it like a swing state. Polls have shown former Vice President Joe Biden with a strong lead in the New England state, and a conservative New Hampshire newspaper has endorsed Biden over Trump. However, HuffPost's Matt Fuller warns that rural voters have been trending more Republican in New Hampshire.
In an editorial published on October 25, the New Hampshire Union Leader's conservative editorial board "wholeheartedly" endorsed Republican Gov. Chris Sununu while explaining why it favors Biden over Trump.
"President Trump is not always 100% wrong, but he is 100% wrong for America," the editorial declares. "Trump has many admirable accomplishments from his first term in office. We can find much common ground with Trump supporters, including judicial appointments, tax policy, support for gun rights, even inroads to Middle East peace. Trump has been able to accomplish this despite many in the media and Congress working to stop him at every opportunity."
But the Union Leader's editorial board goes on to say that the United States' national debt has "exploded by more than 7 trillion dollars" under Trump and that the U.S. has suffered "record infections and deaths" because of COVID-19.
"Building this country up sits squarely within the skill set of Joseph Biden," the Union Leader declares. "We have found Mr. Biden to be a caring, compassionate and professional public servant. He has repeatedly expressed his desire to be a president for all of America, and we take him at his word. Joe Biden may not be the president we want, but in 2020, he is the president we desperately need. He will be a president to bring people together and right the ship of state."
However, the Union Leader also notes that some of its "policy disagreements" with Biden are "significant" and that "despite our endorsement of his candidacy, we expect to spend a significant portion of the next four years disagreeing with the Biden Administration on our editorial pages."
Most of the polls released during the second half of October indicate that New Hampshire residents are quite willing to split their tickets in 2020. Democrat Biden and Republican Sununu, in those polls, have double-digit leads over their opponents. But Fuller, in a HuffPost article published on October 27, stresses that Trump has some very enthusiastic supporters in rural areas of the state.
"For someone who lived in New Hampshire for the first 22 years of his life ― me ― and still visits his family who live in the state, it's a bit surprising to see houses that never put up political signs during the George W. Bush or Barack Obama years now proudly displaying Donald Trump flags and homemade billboards," Fuller explains. "In one sense, it shouldn't be surprising. New Hampshire was the first state in 2016 where Trump won a primary, beating out the second-place finisher, John Kasich, by 20 percentage points. And Trump only barely lost the state in the general election, with Democrat Hillary Clinton edging him out by less than 3000 votes."
Fuller goes on to say that even though Trump has been "lagging badly" in recent New Hampshire polls, Trump "feels good" about the state.
"Even if Democratic rival Joe Biden and his team expect to cruise to victory, something is happening in New Hampshire," Fuller observes. "Like almost every state, there is a political realignment happening here, with rural voters trending more Republican and suburban voters more Democratic…. The suburban/rural divide is alive and well, just like it was in 2016 and 2018."
Dante Scala, a political science professor at the University of New Hampshire, told HuffPost, "What we saw in 2016 was a microcosm for what we're seeing nationally. Larger numbers of Whites without college degrees shifted to Trump."
However, Scala also told HuffPost that "small suburban areas that are kind of outside smaller cities like Manchester tend to act like Rural America, politically speaking."
A GOP operative in New Hampshire, presumably interviewed on condition of anonymity, told HuffPost, "Almost every one of my friends is voting for Trump, and these are not insane people. These are people who know that Trump is a flaming fucking asshole. But they look at the alternative, and they don't like it."


alternet--2020-10-27--‘Campaign photo-op’ capturing Barrett ‘flaunting allegiance’ to Trump goes viral: 'Far-right politic

‘Campaign photo-op’ capturing Barrett ‘flaunting allegiance’ to Trump goes viral: 'Far-right political hack'

Minutes after Justice Clarence Thomas swore in Amy Coney Barrett Monday night she stood by the side of President Donald @ @ @ @ @ balcony overlooking the South Lawn where guests – all Republicans – were assembled .
A @ @ @ @ @ by CBS News White House Correspondent Mark Knoller has gone viral , with many pointing @ @ @ @ @ Justice Barrett 's fealty to President Trump .
Others say it shows a lack of @ @ @ @ @ it was a choice for her to stand by his side – a poor choice @ @ @ @ @ judgment .
Some say it 's tantamount to her appearing in a campaign ad for @ @ @ @ @ pinned this quickly-produced taxpayer-funded video featuring Justice Barrett to the top of his Twitter feed @ @ @ @ @ are saying about Justice Barrett choosing to stand by align herself with President Trump .

Minutes after Justice Clarence Thomas swore in Amy Coney Barrett Monday night she stood by the side of President Donald Trump on the White House balcony overlooking the South Lawn where guests – all Republicans – were assembled.
A photo of the moment captured by CBS News White House Correspondent Mark Knoller has gone viral, with many pointing to it as proof of Justice Barrett's fealty to President Trump. Others say it shows a lack of judicial independence, and that it was a choice for her to stand by his side – a poor choice calling in to question her judgment.
Some say it's tantamount to her appearing in a campaign ad for Trump. Indeed, Trump pinned this quickly-produced taxpayer-funded video featuring Justice Barrett to the top of his Twitter feed.
Here's what people are saying about Justice Barrett choosing to stand by align herself with President Trump.


alternet--2020-10-27--Here's how the GOP is using suppression and intimidation in 2020

This is the first in a series of reports that explore various ways Donald Trump and the Republicans could try to influence , discredit or steal the election .
Ayear ago , Trump campaign senior adviser Justin Clark told a roomful of Republican lawyers in a closed-door meeting in Wisconsin that they had a `` huge , huge , huge , huge '' opportunity for what he characterized as the campaign 's `` Election Day Operations '' for 2020 — one that had not been available to them for decades : `` The consent decree 's gone . ''
Clark @ @ @ @ @ @ @ order that had barred GOP operatives from a number of voter-intimidation activities after a 1981 lawsuit , when the Republican National Committee was reprimanded for hiring off-duty law enforcement to intimidate voters at polling places in minority communities .
As part of that decision , Republicans had to obtain advance approval for any further `` ballot security '' measures at the polls .
But a federal judge let the rule , called the `` consent decree , '' expire in 2018 .
The reasoning : There was no proof that Republicans had recently @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have argued proves that the rule had been working as intended .
The decision set up Election Day in 2020 to be the first in nearly four decades when the RNC will not need to have poll security measures cleared in advance .
President Trump has in recent months repeatedly told supporters to watch the polls `` very carefully , '' a directive that , when combined with the images of militia groups gathered at state capitols this spring , has invoked fears that the president is greenlighting or even encouraging election violence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ everything , '' Trump said in August , in remarks widely observed as illegal .
`` We 're going to have sheriffs , and we 're going to have law enforcement .
And we 're going to have hopefully U.S. attorneys , and we 're going to have everybody and attorney generals . ''
This was Clark 's `` huge deal , '' which the Trump campaign has spun into a not-so-subtle attempt at a show of force intended to deter Democratic turnout ahead of an election where the president 's chances appear @ @ @ @ @ @ @ repeated that point in conversations with Salon : The risk is not violence itself , but the fear of it .
A few months after Clark 's backroom meeting , the campaign launched `` Army for Trump , '' an official website where supporters can register to pitch in with voting operations , including on Election Day .
Drawing heavily on military language and iconography — alternate URL : `` defendyourballot.com '' — the site calls on supporters of the commander-in-chief to `` fight with the president '' and `` enlist '' in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ alongside `` battle tested Team Trump operatives '' on the `` frontlines '' of the campaign .
Trump promoted the site in a Sept. 29 tweet , after the first debate , inviting supporters to become `` a Trump Election Poll Watcher . ''
The president 's eldest son , Donald Trump Jr. , also recently stumped for the project with a selfie video asking `` every able-bodied man and woman '' to join the `` army for Trump 's election security operation . ''
A Trump campaign email from June read : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of President Trump 's fiercest and most loyal defenders , and according to your donor file , you 'd make an excellent addition to the Trump Army . ''
The email offered donors `` exclusive '' camouflage hats as something of a campaign uniform .
`` The President wants YOU and every other member of our exclusive Trump Army to have something to identify yourselves with , and to let everyone know that you are the President 's first line of defense when to come to fighting off the Liberal MOB , '' @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reported that the # ArmyForTrump Twitter hashtag featured `` a large number of posts promoting violence against the president 's opposition , in some cases specifically naming Biden and other leading Democrats as enemies . ''
The hashtag , Forbes said , was used in posts attacking `` a wide range of targets , including Jewish financier and philanthropist George Soros , Black Lives Matter leaders , Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and others .
`` This week the president tweeted the URL again .
With a number of recent reports detailing plots to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rhetoric raises questions about cause and effect .
Still , some experts say fears of Election Day violence are likely overblown .
The intended effect , they believe , is simple suppression — to scare people from showing up to begin with .
Corey Goldstone , spokesperson for the Campaign Legal Center , a group that advocates for fair elections , told Salon that chances of Election Day violence , a rarity , are still low this year .
`` Five states — Georgia , Michigan , Pennsylvania , Wisconsin and Oregon — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ militia activity around the elections : everything from demonstrations to violence , '' Goldstone said , referencing conclusions from a new report from the crisis mapping project ACLED and MilitiaWatch researchers .
He does , however , see a threat to turnout — a typical election-year hurdle , in an atypical year .
`` There are strict limits on what the military , law enforcement and poll watchers can do at the polls , '' said Goldstone .
`` Voting rights advocates have dealt with these types of thinly veiled efforts to disenfranchise @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , for decades .
Democracy will prevail .
It 's important that people are n't silenced by the threat of intimidation and that everyone makes a voting plan now . ''
Turnout has long been a target of Republican operatives , as data shows that when more people vote , the electorate skews Democratic .
Trump himself acknowledged this open secret in March , when he said that if voting were expanded , `` you 'd never have a Republican elected in this country again . ''
It 's the chief reason that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ misinformation about election fraud for months , especially regarding mail-in ballots , which Republicans fear will boost an already supercharged 2020 turnout .
Election law expert Rick Hasen finds the decision baffling .
`` It is simply astounding to me that so many people are working so hard to make it more difficult to vote during a pandemic , '' he told Salon .
Hasen points to heavily Republican South Carolina 's post-primary rule change as a particularly maddening example .
`` Elected officials and the [ state ] Republican party did n't @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the signature requirement for absentee voting in the primaries , but they got the Supreme Court to kill it in the general , '' he said , adding that any rules that increase voting burdens during this public health crisis `` are just disingenuous . ''
`` Others are sincere but elevate other , lesser values over the right to vote .
It 's wrong , '' he concluded , `` and especially during a pandemic . ''
But Goldstone argues that the majority of states have been trying to make it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ `` Many secretaries of state are recognizing that they should be doing all they can to ensure that citizens can vote safely and securely , '' he added , while agreeing that some states are going in the opposite direction .
`` In Texas for example , Gov .
Greg Abbott has gone to extreme lengths to suppress voting , canceling the plans of its most populous counties to offer convenient drop boxes for voters to return their ballots , '' Goldstone said , referring to Abbott 's controversial rule currently working its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than letting the counties go through with their plans , the governor has insisted on only one dropbox per county .
This is voter suppression in its simplest form .
That 's why Campaign Legal Center sued the state , so that Texas voters could fight back . ''
`` Obviously there 's historically been suppression and barriers to voting long in place in Texas , '' Austin Mayor Steve Adler , a Democrat , told Salon , adding that Abbott 's abrupt crackdown on the drop-off sites offered a particularly sinister and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ believes the rumblings of violence have compounded the threat , but made clear that , in his official position , he had seen no evidence of any real and immediate risks .
`` In our city we need to be prepared and wary in the event that there is voter intimidation at polling places , but I have n't seen any indications that this is actually going to happen , '' he said .
`` But the fear it 's designed to create , the suggestion that there will be problems — those @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that this year , however , voters simply might not be intimidated .
`` I 'm not sure it will work this time , '' he said .
`` People have had four years of frustration , of waiting for this moment , and at this point they 're willing to crawl across broken glass to cast their ballot . ''
That argument seems to apply to Georgia , another state where Republicans have deployed notorious tactics , particularly in the Black community , which saw intense suppressive efforts when Democrat Stacey Abrams @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2018 gubernatorial race by 60,000 votes .
That plan appears to be backfiring this year , inspiring a historic turnout .
`` The thing is , this is the largest turnout , I think , statewide that I have ever seen .
And that 's usually a very good sign .
It 's a good sign for democracy , '' former UN ambassador Andrew Young recently told Politico .
`` Whoever they voted for . ''
Adler , the Austin mayor , also sees hope in the backlash .
`` A lot of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wo n't count , '' he said , `` but the amount of energy they 're putting into those efforts is an indication of how much it does count . ''

This is the first in a series of reports that explore various ways Donald Trump and the Republicans could try to influence, discredit or steal the election.
Ayear ago, Trump campaign senior adviser Justin Clark told a roomful of Republican lawyers in a closed-door meeting in Wisconsin that they had a "huge, huge, huge, huge" opportunity for what he characterized as the campaign's "Election Day Operations" for 2020 — one that had not been available to them for decades: "The consent decree's gone."
Clark was referencing a recently lapsed decades-old court order that had barred GOP operatives from a number of voter-intimidation activities after a 1981 lawsuit, when the Republican National Committee was reprimanded for hiring off-duty law enforcement to intimidate voters at polling places in minority communities. As part of that decision, Republicans had to obtain advance approval for any further "ballot security" measures at the polls.
But a federal judge let the rule, called the "consent decree," expire in 2018. The reasoning: There was no proof that Republicans had recently violated it — a conclusion that some have argued proves that the rule had been working as intended.
The decision set up Election Day in 2020 to be the first in nearly four decades when the RNC will not need to have poll security measures cleared in advance.
President Trump has in recent months repeatedly told supporters to watch the polls "very carefully," a directive that, when combined with the images of militia groups gathered at state capitols this spring, has invoked fears that the president is greenlighting or even encouraging election violence.
"We're going to have everything," Trump said in August, in remarks widely observed as illegal. "We're going to have sheriffs, and we're going to have law enforcement. And we're going to have hopefully U.S. attorneys, and we're going to have everybody and attorney generals."
This was Clark's "huge deal," which the Trump campaign has spun into a not-so-subtle attempt at a show of force intended to deter Democratic turnout ahead of an election where the president's chances appear increasingly dim. Experts and officials have repeated that point in conversations with Salon: The risk is not violence itself, but the fear of it.
A few months after Clark's backroom meeting, the campaign launched "Army for Trump," an official website where supporters can register to pitch in with voting operations, including on Election Day.
Drawing heavily on military language and iconography — alternate URL: "defendyourballot.com" — the site calls on supporters of the commander-in-chief to "fight with the president" and "enlist" in a number of election activities, working alongside "battle tested Team Trump operatives" on the "frontlines" of the campaign.
Trump promoted the site in a Sept. 29 tweet, after the first debate, inviting supporters to become "a Trump Election Poll Watcher." The president's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., also recently stumped for the project with a selfie video asking "every able-bodied man and woman" to join the "army for Trump's election security operation."
A Trump campaign email from June read: "You've been identified as one of President Trump's fiercest and most loyal defenders, and according to your donor file, you'd make an excellent addition to the Trump Army." The email offered donors "exclusive" camouflage hats as something of a campaign uniform.
"The President wants YOU and every other member of our exclusive Trump Army to have something to identify yourselves with, and to let everyone know that you are the President's first line of defense when to come to fighting off the Liberal MOB," it said.
Last month, Forbes reported that the #ArmyForTrump Twitter hashtag featured "a large number of posts promoting violence against the president's opposition, in some cases specifically naming Biden and other leading Democrats as enemies." The hashtag, Forbes said, was used in posts attacking "a wide range of targets, including Jewish financier and philanthropist George Soros, Black Lives Matter leaders, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and others."This week the president tweeted the URL again.
With a number of recent reports detailing plots to capture and kill Democratic officials, the rhetoric raises questions about cause and effect. Still, some experts say fears of Election Day violence are likely overblown. The intended effect, they believe, is simple suppression — to scare people from showing up to begin with.
Corey Goldstone, spokesperson for the Campaign Legal Center, a group that advocates for fair elections, told Salon that chances of Election Day violence, a rarity, are still low this year.
"Five states — Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Oregon — have the highest risk of seeing increased militia activity around the elections: everything from demonstrations to violence," Goldstone said, referencing conclusions from a new report from the crisis mapping project ACLED and MilitiaWatch researchers.
He does, however, see a threat to turnout — a typical election-year hurdle, in an atypical year.
"There are strict limits on what the military, law enforcement and poll watchers can do at the polls," said Goldstone. "Voting rights advocates have dealt with these types of thinly veiled efforts to disenfranchise communities, especially Black and brown communities, for decades. Democracy will prevail. It's important that people aren't silenced by the threat of intimidation and that everyone makes a voting plan now."
Turnout has long been a target of Republican operatives, as data shows that when more people vote, the electorate skews Democratic. Trump himself acknowledged this open secret in March, when he said that if voting were expanded, "you'd never have a Republican elected in this country again."
It's the chief reason that Trump and his allies have been pushing misinformation about election fraud for months, especially regarding mail-in ballots, which Republicans fear will boost an already supercharged 2020 turnout. Election law expert Rick Hasen finds the decision baffling.
"It is simply astounding to me that so many people are working so hard to make it more difficult to vote during a pandemic," he told Salon.
Hasen points to heavily Republican South Carolina's post-primary rule change as a particularly maddening example.
"Elected officials and the [state] Republican party didn't mind when a federal court got rid of the signature requirement for absentee voting in the primaries, but they got the Supreme Court to kill it in the general," he said, adding that any rules that increase voting burdens during this public health crisis "are just disingenuous."
"Others are sincere but elevate other, lesser values over the right to vote. It's wrong," he concluded, "and especially during a pandemic."
But Goldstone argues that the majority of states have been trying to make it easier to vote during the pandemic. "Many secretaries of state are recognizing that they should be doing all they can to ensure that citizens can vote safely and securely," he added, while agreeing that some states are going in the opposite direction.
"In Texas for example, Gov. Greg Abbott has gone to extreme lengths to suppress voting, canceling the plans of its most populous counties to offer convenient drop boxes for voters to return their ballots," Goldstone said, referring to Abbott's controversial rule currently working its way through the courts. "Rather than letting the counties go through with their plans, the governor has insisted on only one dropbox per county. This is voter suppression in its simplest form. That's why Campaign Legal Center sued the state, so that Texas voters could fight back."
"Obviously there's historically been suppression and barriers to voting long in place in Texas," Austin Mayor Steve Adler, a Democrat, told Salon, adding that Abbott's abrupt crackdown on the drop-off sites offered a particularly sinister and novel example.
Like Goldstone, Adler believes the rumblings of violence have compounded the threat, but made clear that, in his official position, he had seen no evidence of any real and immediate risks.
"In our city we need to be prepared and wary in the event that there is voter intimidation at polling places, but I haven't seen any indications that this is actually going to happen," he said. "But the fear it's designed to create, the suggestion that there will be problems — those are real concerns."
Adler believes that this year, however, voters simply might not be intimidated.
"I'm not sure it will work this time," he said. "People have had four years of frustration, of waiting for this moment, and at this point they're willing to crawl across broken glass to cast their ballot."
That argument seems to apply to Georgia, another state where Republicans have deployed notorious tactics, particularly in the Black community, which saw intense suppressive efforts when Democrat Stacey Abrams, a Black woman, lost the 2018 gubernatorial race by 60,000 votes. That plan appears to be backfiring this year, inspiring a historic turnout.
"The thing is, this is the largest turnout, I think, statewide that I have ever seen. And that's usually a very good sign. It's a good sign for democracy," former UN ambassador Andrew Young recently told Politico. "Whoever they voted for."
Adler, the Austin mayor, also sees hope in the backlash.
"A lot of people want you to think your vote won't count," he said, "but the amount of energy they're putting into those efforts is an indication of how much it does count."


alternet--2020-10-27--Trump is blindingly cruel and incompetent — and his presidency has been a complete failure

In the earliest days of the Trump crisis , just about a month after the inauguration , I received the horrifying news that my best friend and podcast partner , Chez Pazienza , had died of a drug overdose .
It was the evening of Feb. 25 , 2017 , and the shock still has n't quite worn off .
In fact , I ask myself nearly every day what Chez might 've said about the most recent atrocity committed by the chief executive .
I 'll never know for sure , but there 's something comforting in that exercise @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dark ride with equal parts Gen-X angst , stinging Bourdain-ish erudition and artistically worded blue streaks that would 've made George Carlin applaud .
I 'm convinced , however , that it was n't really an overdose that killed him .
Sure , it was the weapon of choice , but it was n't the ultimate cause of death .
Chez possessed the ability to foresee this Trump crisis stretched out in front of him — maybe not the specifics , but a general concept in his big brain for the horror show @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it was the crushing reality of not only being force-fed a Trump presidency every day but also covering it professionally that forced him to drift back to his old addictions to ease the pain .
And I wish more than anything that I could have stopped him .
Nevertheless , Chez could clearly see the incoming abuses , the crimes , the ungainly nonsense , the recklessness , the racism , the petty vindictiveness — all of it .
In 2015 , he accurately forecast that Trump , if elected , would spitefully @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to support his cruel whimsy .
Naturally , we 've watched this play out , and most recently , where Trump , , threatened to withhold funding for the commonwealth because of Gov .
Tom Wolf 's COVID plan .
In Trump 's view , responsible leadership is worthy of punishment because it makes him look bad by contrast , while incompetence , mainly his own , is routinely lionized .
Trump 's blinding dumbness in the areas of history , the Constitution , the presidency and democratic institutions has infected him with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ job description , inflamed by his own biases and whatever he 's picked up from watching cable news .
He 's a presidential dilettante , even now , nearly four years into the gig .
His wafer-thin understanding of presidential leadership contributes to his most self-defeating misapprehension : that he 's only the president of the red states .
Everyone else is the enemy , even more so than our actual overseas adversaries — surely more than Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin , whom Trump praises more often than many of his fellow @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us are only useful to him as punching bags and targets for his screechy , obscene , misspelled tweets and , more recently , his fascist police force .
The upside of his deformed view of the presidency is that if he loses this election , it 'll partly be because he refused to expand his support beyond his loyalists .
This is one of the reasons why he felt compelled to by attempting to blackmail the president of Ukraine into smearing Joe Biden — a plot that ended with Trump 's impeachment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all , how could he win re-election with only 40-44 percent popular support without making up the difference … somehow ?
His relationship with his disciples is a match made in hell , given that his Red Hat fanboys have an equally stunted view of the presidency .
I assure you , they 'd never allow Trump-style behavior from their doctors , their kids ' teachers or , hell , their airline pilots .
If they had n't been so badly brainwashed by the conservative entertainment complex , they never would have gifted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the presidency to such an unstable , erratic , incompetent political tourist who has utterly failed to grow into the job and rise to the occasion — who has failed to accept the intense gravity of his post .
As Barack Obama , `` It 's because he ca n't . ''
At no other time has that been more evident than in Trump 's response to the pandemic .
For the first two years of his presidency , many of us sat on the edge of our seats wondering when Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ military threat , a terrorist attack or a global pandemic .
From the moment Hillary Clinton conceded , I suspected this buffoonish greenhorn would be put to the test and fail badly .
I never imagined that his reaction , untethered from experts , would be quite this calamitous .
His response to the hurricanes that collided with Puerto Rico represented a harrowing preview of how he 'd handle the pandemic .
I was convinced at the time that he was at least temporarily unaware that Puerto Rico was even part of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could he have been so thoughtless and unsympathetic to actual Americans ?
Turns out , he probably knew — he just did n't give a shit .
Never before has a modern president behaved so callously toward a devastated population of his own people , hurling as if he were firing a T-shirt cannon at a college basketball pep rally .
Today , the island territory continues to rebuild despite Trump 's reprehensible indifference .
America is better than this .
We 're better than him .
There have to be consequences for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Rico as well as the 225,000 casualties of COVID-19 ( and counting ) .
Neither should have happened here .
But this is what it looks like when the president and his people fail to do the paint-by-numbers things in response to a crisis — things that so many other presidents managed to achieve .
Had Trump listened to the experts at the CDC and WHO , thousands of Americans would still be alive today and we might have been free and clear of this blight by now .
Instead , Trump listened @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not to mention the shrieking voices in his head , convincing him to abandon the effort at exactly the wrong time — in April , at the initial height of the infection curve .
Before giving up , he applied travel restrictions to China , but it was too little too late .
Forty thousand people arrived in the United States from China by flying through Europe and landing in New York , magnifying the catastrophic outbreak there .
After that , Trump did nothing else to slow the spread , making George @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Katrina look masterful by comparison .
Now , eight months into this disaster , Trump continues to ignore the rules , ignore safety protocols and ignore the experts , holding maskless , undistanced rally after rally , fueling his own ego , even after being infected himself .
And there 's no end in sight .
Win or lose , his bungled , herky-jerky reaction to the pandemic will be remembered as the defining failure of his presidency , and it 's the No .
1 reason why he deserves nothing but ignominy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ challenge and rising to meet it , as any other president would have , he 's spent all these months of national stress , uncertainty and illness not comforting or proactively leading the American people , but whining , whining and whining some more about how COVID ruined his presidency .
Solving the pandemic could have been his greatest achievement — but Trump always makes things worse for Trump .
Undermining himself and then playing the victim when things go sideways is the only thing he 's good at .
He possesses the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Richard Nixon — one of many character flaws that undermine his self-identification as a manly alpha .
Indeed , he 's nothing more than an easily-ruffled snowflake who constantly bellyaches about how `` unfair '' the world treats him — you know , the alleged billionaire president .
So unfair .
Donald Trump has redefined what it means to be an empty suit .
He talks an enormous game , but in reality his entire record is composed of and .
He claims to understand things he 's never able to explain openly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he 's obsessed with repealing the Affordable Care Act , but only because it was Barack Obama 's signature achievement , not because it 's bad policy — and it 's not bad policy , he just says it is and his fanboys believe him .
If challenged , I 'd wager a year 's salary he could n't name anything in the law beyond the mandate and the coverage for pre-existing conditions .
I 'm sure he does n't know about the myriad consumer protections or the mandatory benefits , or how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ expansion or the marketplaces — none of it .
Yet he 's seeing to it that the entire thing is obliterated mid-pandemic when Americans need coverage the most .
He definitely does n't know that coverage for pre-existing conditions is made possible , for example , by placing caps on premiums and co-pays , while banning and lifetime limits on coverage .
Worst of all , he does n't know that many of his own voters are covered today because of the ACA .
Between the pandemic and the possible repeal of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And because of Donald Trump , we 're spiritually sick , too .
He does n't understand that the president sets the tone for the nation .
He 'll never grasp that the way he communicates influences the way we communicate with each other .
His constant firehose of crapola encourages others to let their hatred , racism and obnoxious , crazy-eyed antagonism fly freely — playing out in our public spaces and on our social media platforms every damn day .
Trump has debased the presidency , replacing decency and humility with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nation 's most cherished values and institutions have been randomly crushed by this 90-foot kaiju monster for too long .
His constant antagonism has turned father against son , mother against daughter , family against family .
Over what ?
The damaging misadventures of a political fraud — a garish old brat who bankrupted his businesses , defrauded Americans with his and and is currently while establishing himself as .
In 1860 , our nation nearly crumbled under the weight of slavery and secession .
Today , our nation is on the verge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ painted-up clown whose performative fascism has led to the on American soil ; the use of Homeland Security as a tasked with assaulting Americans in advance of ; the use of the ; taxpayer revenue as a personal ; and , worst of all , the construction of internment camps for Central American migrant children , where some have been raped by American guards .
Rivaled only by the pandemic response , the Trump Cages are the most disgusting and unforgivable aspect of this presidential crisis .
The 2020 election is about ending @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a second Reconstruction — rebuilding our government in a way that guarantees this will never happen again , while convening a Trump Crimes Commission to hold the perpetrators accountable .
Part of that process is about remembering what happened here , in this era .
There will be voices who insist we should move on and forget about all this ugliness .
We would do well to ignore those voices .
The minute we forget the damage he 's inflicted upon us all , the next Trump will be waiting to strike @ @ @ @ @ @ @ move on is to punish the crimes and plug the holes .
We have no choice but to use this dark ride — one that took my friend Chez and many thousands of others — as an opportunity to repair the gaping Trump-shaped craters in the system exposed and exploited by this unqualified , disgracefully unpresidential and obviously unglued president .
If Joe Biden and Kamala Harris successfully oust Trump , a week from today , the Trump crisis will be on its way to ending , while the hard work of cleaning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ both the election and the aftermath , we can not fail .
Everything depends on what happens next .

In the earliest days of the Trump crisis, just about a month after the inauguration, I received the horrifying news that my best friend and podcast partner, Chez Pazienza, had died of a drug overdose.
It was the evening of Feb. 25, 2017, and the shock still hasn't quite worn off. In fact, I ask myself nearly every day what Chez might've said about the most recent atrocity committed by the chief executive. I'll never know for sure, but there's something comforting in that exercise, imagining how he'd frame this dark ride with equal parts Gen-X angst, stinging Bourdain-ish erudition and artistically worded blue streaks that would've made George Carlin applaud.
I'm convinced, however, that it wasn't really an overdose that killed him. Sure, it was the weapon of choice, but it wasn't the ultimate cause of death. Chez possessed the ability to foresee this Trump crisis stretched out in front of him — maybe not the specifics, but a general concept in his big brain for the horror show that was awaiting us. I believe it was the crushing reality of not only being force-fed a Trump presidency every day but also covering it professionally that forced him to drift back to his old addictions to ease the pain. And I wish more than anything that I could have stopped him.
Nevertheless, Chez could clearly see the incoming abuses, the crimes, the ungainly nonsense, the recklessness, the racism, the petty vindictiveness — all of it.
In 2015, he accurately forecast that Trump, if elected, would spitefully withhold federal funding from regions that refused to support his cruel whimsy. Naturally, we've watched this play out with Puerto Rico , California and most recently Pennsylvania , where Trump, this week , threatened to withhold funding for the commonwealth because of Gov. Tom Wolf's COVID plan. In Trump's view, responsible leadership is worthy of punishment because it makes him look bad by contrast, while incompetence, mainly his own, is routinely lionized.
Trump's blinding dumbness in the areas of history, the Constitution, the presidency and democratic institutions has infected him with an ugly, bastardized view of his job description, inflamed by his own biases and whatever he's picked up from watching cable news. He's a presidential dilettante, even now, nearly four years into the gig.
His wafer-thin understanding of presidential leadership contributes to his most self-defeating misapprehension: that he's only the president of the red states. Everyone else is the enemy, even more so than our actual overseas adversaries — surely more than Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin, whom Trump praises more often than many of his fellow citizens and colleagues. The rest of us are only useful to him as punching bags and targets for his screechy, obscene, misspelled tweets and, more recently, his fascist police force. The upside of his deformed view of the presidency is that if he loses this election, it'll partly be because he refused to expand his support beyond his loyalists.
This is one of the reasons why he felt compelled to cheat in the 2020 election by attempting to blackmail the president of Ukraine into smearing Joe Biden — a plot that ended with Trump's impeachment and trial in the Senate. After all, how could he win re-election with only 40-44 percent popular support without making up the difference … somehow?
His relationship with his disciples is a match made in hell, given that his Red Hat fanboys have an equally stunted view of the presidency. I assure you, they'd never allow Trump-style behavior from their doctors, their kids' teachers or, hell, their airline pilots. If they hadn't been so badly brainwashed by the conservative entertainment complex, they never would have gifted the nuclear codes and the immense power of the presidency to such an unstable, erratic, incompetent political tourist who has utterly failed to grow into the job and rise to the occasion — who has failed to accept the intense gravity of his post. As Barack Obama said in August , "It's because he can't."
At no other time has that been more evident than in Trump's response to the pandemic. For the first two years of his presidency, many of us sat on the edge of our seats wondering when Trump would be seriously challenged either by a military threat, a terrorist attack or a global pandemic. From the moment Hillary Clinton conceded, I suspected this buffoonish greenhorn would be put to the test and fail badly. I never imagined that his reaction, untethered from experts, would be quite this calamitous.
His response to the hurricanes that collided with Puerto Rico represented a harrowing preview of how he'd handle the pandemic. I was convinced at the time that he was at least temporarily unaware that Puerto Rico was even part of the United States. I mean, how could he have been so thoughtless and unsympathetic to actual Americans? Turns out, he probably knew — he just didn't give a shit. Never before has a modern president behaved so callously toward a devastated population of his own people, hurling paper towels at their heads as if he were firing a T-shirt cannon at a college basketball pep rally. Today, the island territory continues to rebuild despite Trump's reprehensible indifference.
America is better than this. We're better than him.
There have to be consequences for his indifference to the destruction in Puerto Rico as well as the 225,000 casualties of COVID-19 (and counting). Neither should have happened here. But this is what it looks like when the president and his people fail to do the paint-by-numbers things in response to a crisis — things that so many other presidents managed to achieve. Had Trump listened to the experts at the CDC and WHO, thousands of Americans would still be alive today and we might have been free and clear of this blight by now. Instead, Trump listened to the entertainers on Fox News, not to mention the shrieking voices in his head, convincing him to abandon the effort at exactly the wrong time — in April, at the initial height of the infection curve.
Before giving up, he applied travel restrictions to China, but it was too little too late. Forty thousand people arrived in the United States from China by flying through Europe and landing in New York, magnifying the catastrophic outbreak there. After that, Trump did nothing else to slow the spread, making George W. Bush's 2005 response to Hurricane Katrina look masterful by comparison. Now, eight months into this disaster, Trump continues to ignore the rules, ignore safety protocols and ignore the experts, holding maskless, undistanced rally after rally, fueling his own ego, even after being infected himself. And there's no end in sight.
Win or lose, his bungled, herky-jerky reaction to the pandemic will be remembered as the defining failure of his presidency, and it's the No. 1 reason why he deserves nothing but ignominy and prison.
Rather than accepting the challenge and rising to meet it, as any other president would have, he's spent all these months of national stress, uncertainty and illness not comforting or proactively leading the American people, but whining, whining and whining some more about how COVID ruined his presidency. Solving the pandemic could have been his greatest achievement — but Trump always makes things worse for Trump. Undermining himself and then playing the victim when things go sideways is the only thing he's good at.
He possesses the most brittle ego of any president since Richard Nixon — one of many character flaws that undermine his self-identification as a manly alpha. Indeed, he's nothing more than an easily-ruffled snowflake who constantly bellyaches about how "unfair" the world treats him — you know, the alleged billionaire president. So unfair.
Donald Trump has redefined what it means to be an empty suit. He talks an enormous game, but in reality his entire record is composed of failures and stolen successes . He claims to understand things he's never able to explain openly or in any detail. Accordingly, he's obsessed with repealing the Affordable Care Act, but only because it was Barack Obama's signature achievement, not because it's bad policy — and it's not bad policy, he just says it is and his fanboys believe him.
If challenged, I'd wager a year's salary he couldn't name anything in the law beyond the mandate and the coverage for pre-existing conditions. I'm sure he doesn't know about the myriad consumer protections or the mandatory benefits, or how the low-income subsidies work or the Medicaid expansion or the marketplaces — none of it. Yet he's seeing to it that the entire thing is obliterated mid-pandemic when Americans need coverage the most. He definitely doesn't know that coverage for pre-existing conditions is made possible, for example, by placing caps on premiums and co-pays, while banning rescission and lifetime limits on coverage. Worst of all, he doesn't know that many of his own voters are covered today because of the ACA.
Between the pandemic and the possible repeal of the ACA, America is physically sick. And because of Donald Trump, we're spiritually sick, too. He doesn't understand that the president sets the tone for the nation. He'll never grasp that the way he communicates influences the way we communicate with each other. His constant firehose of crapola encourages others to let their hatred, racism and obnoxious, crazy-eyed antagonism fly freely — playing out in our public spaces and on our social media platforms every damn day.
Trump has debased the presidency, replacing decency and humility with unearned self-praise and horrendous sadism. Our nation's most cherished values and institutions have been randomly crushed by this 90-foot kaiju monster for too long. His constant antagonism has turned father against son, mother against daughter, family against family. Over what? The damaging misadventures of a political fraud — a garish old brat who bankrupted his businesses, defrauded Americans with his sham foundation and university and is currently bankrupting the U.S. treasury while establishing himself as a Putin-style kleptocrat .
In 1860, our nation nearly crumbled under the weight of slavery and secession. Today, our nation is on the verge of collapse under the weight of a painted-up clown whose performative fascism has led to the extrajudicial murder of American citizens on American soil; the use of Homeland Security as a secret police force tasked with assaulting Americans in advance of awkward photo-ops ; the use of the Department of Justice as a personal law firm ; taxpayer revenue as a personal slush fund ; and, worst of all, the construction of internment camps for Central American migrant children, where some have been raped by American guards. Rivaled only by the pandemic response, the Trump Cages are the most disgusting and unforgivable aspect of this presidential crisis.
The 2020 election is about ending all that, while beginning the process of a second Reconstruction — rebuilding our government in a way that guarantees this will never happen again, while convening a Trump Crimes Commission to hold the perpetrators accountable. Part of that process is about remembering what happened here, in this era. There will be voices who insist we should move on and forget about all this ugliness. We would do well to ignore those voices. The minute we forget the damage he's inflicted upon us all, the next Trump will be waiting to strike.
Indeed, the only way to move on is to punish the crimes and plug the holes. We have no choice but to use this dark ride — one that took my friend Chez and many thousands of others — as an opportunity to repair the gaping Trump-shaped craters in the system exposed and exploited by this unqualified, disgracefully unpresidential and obviously unglued president. If Joe Biden and Kamala Harris successfully oust Trump, a week from today, the Trump crisis will be on its way to ending, while the hard work of cleaning up the mess will begin. In both the election and the aftermath, we cannot fail. Everything depends on what happens next.


alternet--2020-10-28--Michigan judge accused of jeopardizing safety and democracy with reversal of open carry ban at polli

Michigan judge accused of jeopardizing safety and democracy with reversal of open carry ban at polling places

Dismissing glaring concerns about voter intimidation , a Michigan judge on Tuesday struck down a directive from the secretary of state banning the open carry of firearms at polling places on Election Day .
The Associated Press reports Michigan Court of Claims Judge Christopher Murray granted a preliminary injunction in favor of gun rights advocates who had filed a lawsuit challenging an October 16 order from Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson declaring a universal ban on the open carry of guns within 100 feet of polling places on November 3 .
The injunction does not apply to places such @ @ @ @ @ @ @ open carry .
`` There are voters who are afraid , there are election workers who are afraid . ''
Benson had argued that the ban was needed to deter voter intimidation in the wake of the revelation of a plot by far-right militia members—who are supporters of President Donald Trump—to kidnap Michigan Gov .
Gretchen Whitmer , a Democrat .
However , Murray asserted that Benson was attempting to create a new administrative rule without following the proper procedures .
`` It is important to recognize that this case is not about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ openly carry a firearm at a polling place , or whether the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prevents the secretary of state 's ... directive , '' Murray wrote in his opinion .
`` The court 's duty is not to act as an overseer of the [ Michigan ] Department of State , nor is it to impose its view on the wisdom of openly carrying firearms at polling places or other election locations , '' wrote Murray .
`` More importantly its constitutional role is properly limited to only declaring @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it should be . ''
`` The secretary just did n't do this in the right way and at the right time , '' Murray said , adding that if she wanted to ban open carry at polling places she `` should have done this months ago . ''
The Detroit Free Press reports state Assistant Attorney General Heather Meingast countered that concerns regarding guns at polling places were n't as prevalent months ago as they are now , especially in light of the plot to kidnap the governor .
Meingast said that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ afraid , there are election workers who are afraid . ''
Benson and Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel , also a Democrat , vowed to appeal Murray 's injunction .
`` As the state 's chief elections officer , I have the sworn duty to protect every voter and their right to cast the ballot free from intimidation and harassment , '' Benson said .
`` I will continue to protect that right in Michigan . ''
Armed far-right groups including the Oath Keepers and Q-Anon conspiracists have said they will heed Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of supporters to `` go into the polls and watch very carefully , '' which many observers say is nothing less than an endorsement of—if not a rallying call for—illegal voter intimidation .
Steven Gardiner , a scholar at the progressive think tank Political Research Associates , told The Guardian earlier this month that `` the militias will absolutely seize on '' Trump 's comments .
`` The possibility of armed factions with military-style rifles showing up at polling places is very troubling , '' Gardiner said .

Dismissing glaring concerns about voter intimidation, a Michigan judge on Tuesday struck down a directive from the secretary of state banning the open carry of firearms at polling places on Election Day.
The Associated Press reports Michigan Court of Claims Judge Christopher Murray granted a preliminary injunction in favor of gun rights advocates who had filed a lawsuit challenging an October 16 order from Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson declaring a universal ban on the open carry of guns within 100 feet of polling places on November 3. The injunction does not apply to places such as schools or churches that already prohibit open carry.
"There are voters who are afraid, there are election workers who are afraid."
—Heather Meingast, assistant state attorney general
Benson had argued that the ban was needed to deter voter intimidation in the wake of the revelation of a plot by far-right militia members—who are supporters of President Donald Trump—to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat.
However, Murray asserted that Benson was attempting to create a new administrative rule without following the proper procedures.
"It is important to recognize that this case is not about whether it is a good idea to openly carry a firearm at a polling place, or whether the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prevents the secretary of state's ... directive," Murray wrote in his opinion.
Michigan Secretary of State @JocelynBenson was right to ban guns at the polls. They endanger our safety and our democracy. Michigan Assistant Attorney General Heather Meingast: "There are voters who are afraid. There are election workers who are afraid." https://t.co/cNIK9otnNe
— Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (@CSGV) October 27, 2020
"The court's duty is not to act as an overseer of the [Michigan] Department of State, nor is it to impose its view on the wisdom of openly carrying firearms at polling places or other election locations," wrote Murray. "More importantly its constitutional role is properly limited to only declaring what the law is, not what it should be."
"The secretary just didn't do this in the right way and at the right time," Murray said, adding that if she wanted to ban open carry at polling places she "should have done this months ago."
The Detroit Free Press reports state Assistant Attorney General Heather Meingast countered that concerns regarding guns at polling places weren't as prevalent months ago as they are now, especially in light of the plot to kidnap the governor. Meingast said that now "there are voters who are afraid, there are election workers who are afraid."
Benson and Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, also a Democrat, vowed to appeal Murray's injunction.
Press Secretary Ryan Jarvi has issued the following statement in response to MI Court of Claims Judge Christopher Murray's decision regarding the prohibition of open carry of firearms at the polls on Election Day: pic.twitter.com/mwhI6TwtP0
— Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel (@MIAttyGen) October 27, 2020
"As the state's chief elections officer, I have the sworn duty to protect every voter and their right to cast the ballot free from intimidation and harassment," Benson said. "I will continue to protect that right in Michigan."
Armed far-right groups including the Oath Keepers and Q-Anon conspiracists have said they will heed Trump's call for an "army" of supporters to "go into the polls and watch very carefully," which many observers say is nothing less than an endorsement of—if not a rallying call for—illegal voter intimidation.
What if armed, far-right groups go to the polls? Some plan to https://t.co/DRVZ9ubSQE
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) October 10, 2020
Love to watch the 2nd amendment cannibalize the 15th https://t.co/gQ7Rxuk2px
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) October 27, 2020
Steven Gardiner, a scholar at the progressive think tank Political Research Associates, told The Guardian earlier this month that "the militias will absolutely seize on" Trump's comments.
"The possibility of armed factions with military-style rifles showing up at polling places is very troubling," Gardiner said.


alternet--2020-10-28--Elderly Trump fans left 'frozen cold with an altered mental status' after they were stranded at Omah

Elderly Trump fans left 'frozen cold with an altered mental status' after they were stranded at Omaha rally

A handful of elderly supporters of President Donald Trump were treated for possible hypothermia after they were left stranded at an Omaha campaign rally .
The president spoke to thousands of supporters Tuesday night at Eppley Airfield before flying off in Air Force One , and some of the thousands of Trump fans waited in near-freezing temperatures for buses that could n't reach them , reported the Washington Post .
At least seven attendees were taken to area hospitals , according to the Omaha Scanner monitoring service .
An ambulance was sent for `` a 65 y/o male who 'got @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was talking about ' and began to experience weakness , '' the service reported , and medics treated two attendees for seizures .
After the president departed , multiple attendees were treated at the scene or hospitalized for cold exposure .
`` One officer advising 8 to 9 elderly people who are struggling , '' Omaha Scanner tweeted .
`` [ Another ] officer advising they have located an elderly party who is frozen cold unable to move with an altered mental status . ''
Local officials said at least 30 people received @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were taken to nearby hospitals .
The Trump campaign insisted enough buses had been provided , but reporters said traffic on a two-lane road outside the airport was throttled in one direction .
An estimated crowd of about 6,000 turned out to hear the president speak despite a local spike in coronavirus cases , and the campaign checked temperatures and provided masks but many attendees declined to wear them .

A handful of elderly supporters of President Donald Trump were treated for possible hypothermia after they were left stranded at an Omaha campaign rally.
The president spoke to thousands of supporters Tuesday night at Eppley Airfield before flying off in Air Force One, and some of the thousands of Trump fans waited in near-freezing temperatures for buses that couldn't reach them, reported the Washington Post.
At least seven attendees were taken to area hospitals, according to the Omaha Scanner monitoring service.
An ambulance was sent for "a 65 y/o male who 'got a little excited about what President Trump was talking about' and began to experience weakness," the service reported, and medics treated two attendees for seizures.
After the president departed, multiple attendees were treated at the scene or hospitalized for cold exposure.
One officer advising 8 to 9 elderly people who are struggling. Seperate officer advising they have located an elderly party who is frozen cold unable to move with an altered mental status.
— Omaha Scanner (@omaha_scanner) October 28, 2020
"One officer advising 8 to 9 elderly people who are struggling," Omaha Scanner tweeted. "[Another] officer advising they have located an elderly party who is frozen cold unable to move with an altered mental status."
Local officials said at least 30 people received medical treatment at the event and seven were taken to nearby hospitals.
The Trump campaign insisted enough buses had been provided, but reporters said traffic on a two-lane road outside the airport was throttled in one direction.
An estimated crowd of about 6,000 turned out to hear the president speak despite a local spike in coronavirus cases, and the campaign checked temperatures and provided masks but many attendees declined to wear them.
Thousands of people left out in the cold and stranded in #Omaha, #Nebraska after a #Trump rally. I'm told the shuttles aren't operating & there aren't enough busses. Police didn't seem to know what to do. Some walked. I saw at least one woman getting medical attention. pic.twitter.com/oIkmixaZt0
— Jeff Paul (@Jeff_Paul) October 28, 2020


alternet--2020-10-28--Here's how right-wing misinformation could be accelerated after the election

With Election Day less than one week away , anxiety is rising as the American public braces for the November 3 outcome .
As Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden campaigns with social distancing in mind , President Donald Trump is still running amok as he continues to spread misinformation in an effort to sow seeds to doubt if the election outcome is not favorable for him .
Sadly , reports now suggest that right-wing misinformation could `` pick up steam '' after the election .
Although the rise of right-wing misinformation accelerated after Trump 's 2016 win , Axios reports @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will likely continue whether the president wins or loses his bid for re-election .
Researchers with the the Harvard Kennedy School and the London School of Economics have indicated that the `` economic incentives governing the internet and the information ecosystem broadly , have created a environment that actors , particularly on the right , will easily exploit with disinformation . ''
In a new Harvard publication , Dipayan Ghosh , Ph.D. , a senior researcher at the Harvard Kennedy School , along with Nick Couldry , who works as a media and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Economics , both insist right-wing misinformation will continue to circulate because such information spreads easily .
`` Right now , there 's a whole lot of people on the right whose view of how to gain influence does have an unusual relationship with truth , '' says Couldry .
`` They are quite happy to spread misinformation , because it 's more effective . ''
He added , `` That plays into the fact that the business models of internet companies do n't differentiate between the type of actor and whether it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not . ''
Investigative findings also support the researchers ' theory .
More than three dozen Facebook groups have been identified as `` super spreaders '' of right-wing misinformation .
Nearly 40 right-wing pages reportedly focus on `` spewing this type of misinformation leans right or is affiliated with right-wing movements , including pages like Gateway Pundit , Viral Patriot and MAGA Revolution . ''
Another indication of the right-wing media spread is Fox News ' Tucker Carlson 's ratings .
Carlson 's show , which is known for echoing right-wing opinions , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ misinformation , is now considered highest-rated cable news program ever on Tuesday nights .
The Fox News host 's viewership if proof that right-wing media has become a dominant source of misinformation .

With Election Day less than one week away, anxiety is rising as the American public braces for the November 3 outcome. As Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden campaigns with social distancing in mind, President Donald Trump is still running amok as he continues to spread misinformation in an effort to sow seeds to doubt if the election outcome is not favorable for him.
Sadly, reports now suggest that right-wing misinformation could "pick up steam" after the election. Although the rise of right-wing misinformation accelerated after Trump's 2016 win, Axios reports that this type of potentially harmful rhetoric will likely continue whether the president wins or loses his bid for re-election.
Researchers with the the Harvard Kennedy School and the London School of Economics have indicated that the "economic incentives governing the internet and the information ecosystem broadly, have created a environment that actors, particularly on the right, will easily exploit with disinformation."
In a new Harvard publication, Dipayan Ghosh, Ph.D., a senior researcher at the Harvard Kennedy School, along with Nick Couldry, who works as a media and social theory professor at the London School of Economics, both insist right-wing misinformation will continue to circulate because such information spreads easily.
"Right now, there's a whole lot of people on the right whose view of how to gain influence does have an unusual relationship with truth," says Couldry. "They are quite happy to spread misinformation, because it's more effective."
He added, "That plays into the fact that the business models of internet companies don't differentiate between the type of actor and whether it is incentivized to tell the truth or not."
Investigative findings also support the researchers' theory. More than three dozen Facebook groups have been identified as "super spreaders" of right-wing misinformation. Nearly 40 right-wing pages reportedly focus on "spewing this type of misinformation leans right or is affiliated with right-wing movements, including pages like Gateway Pundit, Viral Patriot and MAGA Revolution."
Another indication of the right-wing media spread is Fox News' Tucker Carlson's ratings. Carlson's show, which is known for echoing right-wing opinions, conspiracy theories, and other potentially harmful misinformation, is now considered highest-rated cable news program ever on Tuesday nights. The Fox News host's viewership if proof that right-wing media has become a dominant source of misinformation.