3. He said VP Harris “laughs like a lunatic” and therefore “she is prohibited from laughing.”
4. He said Time Magazine didn’t take a good photo of VP Harris so they needed a sketch artist. This makes him upset.
5. He is upset now that VP Harris looked like Sophia Loren or Elizabeth Taylor on the Time Magazine cover.
6. He said “they say I ramble. But I don’t ramble. I’m a really smart guy.”
7. He said “Biden hates Kamala. He hates her.”
8. He said he should be paid $100 million for Biden being replaced by VP Harris.
9. He randomly said “Barack Hussein Obama.”
10. He said climate change is good because it will give us more beachfront property.
11. He said our country “ will die.”
12. He said he hopes we “enjoy” an economic depression.
I saw this last night and wondered how the press would cover the rally. Here’s the Post [gift link] and here’s the Guardian. The Guardian headline/subhead are better (“Trump campaign reset goes awry in Pennsylvania as he attacks Harris / Ex-president quickly broke away from prepared speech to accuse vice-president of being a communist and a fascist”). The Post’s is still good (“Trump escalates gendered personal insults against Harris, defying GOP pressure / The Republican nominee also stoked Democrats’ rift over Israel by baselessly claiming Harris passed over Gov. Josh Shapiro to be her running mate because he is Jewish.”).
The stories themselves hit some of the 12 points that Ben mentioned in the tweet. (It would be hard to fit everything into a standard-length news story, so I won’t ding them for that.) There was little-to-no cleanup / explanation of his nonsense, just quoting. I’m not going to look at the Times because I don’t read it, but if you’ve seen it, please let us know in the comments.
I think there are a couple of reasons for this:
- They’re under immense pressure from Democrats/subscribers/people on Twitter to report the facts. KamalaHQ on Twitter is really good at just quoting the nonsense he says, so if that nonsense isn’t in one of their stories, it’s clear they missed something.
- Trump is so pudding-brained that he can’t even keep on message for a few minutes, so there’s no real “hard news” to report.
- Trump is losing and once you’re viewed as a loser the press thinks they can shit on you without repercussion.
It might just be the soft bigotry of low expectations, but I see a bit of a change here. Harris/Walz is the new shiny thing. Let’s enjoy it while we can.
PatrickG Angel Match & Zoom with The Civics Center on Tuesday at 7:30 pm
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Vis a vis #1:
(R) have been working the refs like that for decades. It’s nice to see “us” do that this time around at such a level that our Failed Political Media Corps might actually start reacting to “us” the same way they have to the GQP.
Crossing fingers but not counting on shit.
KatKapCC
I just cannot get over his claim of being better looking. Like…looks shouldn’t matter and who gives a damn about conventional beauty and whatever, but I mean…come on. COME ON.
Pennsylvanian
TiVo?
JFC. Get the hook and get your guy off the stage, man.
kindness
Maybe Kamela to get Joe to do a Dark Brandon Trump is Losing It spot? The ‘It’ is left ambiguous on purpose.
NickM
Trump’s act is old and he’s getting too old to really deliver too. I saw yesterday he tried to profile some attacks as “new” – I think specifically responding to the criticism that he just repeats himself – but nothing landed. And he doesn’t have the intelligence or flexibility to really change or grow. By all rights he should be done.
West of the Rockies
Perhaps even the MSM is noticing that Trump, Vance, Lewandowski, etc., are repugnant losers who emit loser-stink now.
rk
I think this is the beginning of the end for Trump. I don’t know what the end will look like. I have a feeling (just based on life experience) that once it begins to look apparent that he will lose, the rats will start leaving, we’ll start to hear stories about him from the people who hate him the most ie. those that work for him and other Republicans. I’ve always thought that grovellers and sycophants hate the dictator the most. If he were the leader in a dictatorship, it’s around this time that he flees the country or the mob turns on him and he gets executed in the public square. I don’t know what the US version of this will look like ( numerous articles in the NYT relating horrible stories about him?)
WaterGirl
@Pennsylvanian: Hey, I love my Tivo!
click a button to skip the ads, have a collection of shows they can’t remove from streaming, etc.
But it’s certainly not new!!!
Ebony
@KatKapCC: What makes it even worst was the person who said Harris was a beautiful woman was conservative columnist Peggy Nonon, not a Harris supporter. That means Harris is an objectively beautiful woman.
Mousebumples
I heard Lips Are Movin’ by Meagan Trainor on the radio this am. Seems like a campaign theme song for Trump, if you ask me.
Mousebumples
@WaterGirl: my lifetime tivo subscription was a great purchase when I moved into my house.
No cable, just over the air TV. But I love watching and rewatching the Bucks NBA Finals victory.
MattF
TFG is, precisely, a Republican-In-Name-Only. It’s remarkable that actual Republicans let him get away with it, but here we are.
Baud
I look forward to the NYT”s series in 2025 on how the post-Trump Republican Party is completely different than Trump.
japa21
@rk: I agree. I think a lot of folks who thought about voting for him just won’t vote. They may not be able to bring themselves to vote for a Demoncrat, but can’t bring themselves to vote for Trump either. Hopefully, the majority of those, or at least a significant number, will just stay home. I think any state that Biden lost by 5% or less is in play.
Just checked and only NC and FL fall into that category, but TX was under 6.
dmsilev
His act is also getting repetitive, and once the reporters start getting bored he’s going to be in real trouble.
KatKapCC
@WaterGirl: Had to look it up: Tivo was introduced in 1999.
Other new things from 1999:
Looking forward to Trump’s thoughts on these heretofore unknown entities, as well.
japa21
@Mousebumples: Next year you can watch and rewatch the Brewers WS victory.
matt
@Baud: That’ll be the real Project 2025.
Mousebumples
@japa21: I would love that.
Both watching it, and hopefully seeing Uecker’s glee when they win.
KatKapCC
@Ebony: Kathleen Parker had a similar column. She said she wasn’t the new Obama and that “without her beauty, she might be joining Biden in retirement” and other garbage.
me
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/17/trump-pennsylvania-rally#img-1https://www.threads.net/@aaron.rupar/post/C-yU_jTgaW5
These are interesting because either a lot of people showed up after he started talking or left before he was done. Later seems more likely, he’s just really dull.
Also the bring back trump signs are funny. He’s right there, you know. He won’t go away!
CaseyL
Trump is mostly a front for the Project 2025 scum, who must see this as their best (and possibly last) chance to enact their Christofascist dream regime.
If he continues to fall behind, to the point where refusing to certify Harris-Walz victories in the swing states is no longer a viable option, I would not be surprised to see him vanish from the ticket due to an “unfortunate accident” or “health emergency.”
The problem with that is, Vance is even more repulsive to the voting public, and doesn’t have the built-in cult following Trump does.
And I’m not sure even the compromised, credulous, oligarch-owned MSM will wink at an “unfortunate accident” that takes out both Trump and Vance. (Particularly since they don’t travel or campaign together.)
FelonyGovt
He is a “better looking person”??? She is “prohibited from laughing”??? He has lost whatever few marbles were rolling around in that ugly head of his.
MattF
@FelonyGovt: The videos of Trump waving to empty open spaces should be alarming.
cckids
@Mousebumples: Nice one! I saw “Girl From the North Country” last month, and this Dylan song instantly brought Trump to mind –
Idiot wind
Blowing every time you move your mouth
Blowing down the back roads headin’ south
Idiot wind
Blowing every time you move your teeth
You’re an idiot, babe
It’s a wonder that you still know how to breathe
Scout211
I actually was composing a comment earlier that asked, “Are the rats starting to leave the sinking ship?” But my morning got too busy so I stopped. But it fits here better.
It was in reference to Lindsay Grahams’s appearance on MTP.
So he’s chiding prominent GOP pols for only giving advice to Trump in media appearances, while giving advice to Trump and GOP pols in a media appearance.
Good luck with that, Lindsay.
Mousebumples
@cckids: Oooh, good call!
Might need a music thread at some point…
Attapooch
Shouldn’t any of those press outlets have mentioned the fact that Trump thought he was in North Carolina?
Not knowing where you are at any given time is a pretty important thing.
Sure Lurkalot
@japa21: My Dem canvassing neighbor told me one of our Republican neighbors is not going to vote for President this year. He’ll vote straight republican down ticket, no doubt.
Won’t matter here in Colorado so it’s not like he’s taking a principled stand. I wonder what he’d do if he lived in a swingy state. Must be a conundrum for many swing state, oxymoronic principled Republicans.
Baud
If beauty were important, I’d already be president.
Mousebumples
@Sure Lurkalot: definitely something to consider when talking to conservatives who haaaate Trump.
FelonyGovt
@Attapooch: Like a drug-addled rock star on a world tour. Except minus the charisma and musical talent.
Elizabelle
Maybe Trump’s lawyers are looking at this whole final stretch as Exhibit A when they plead diminished capacity at his (numerous!) upcoming criminal and federal trials. Maybe Trump is in on that. (Didn’t that ploy work for a mobster or two? He watches his peer set.)
Hoodie
@MattF: The main reason they rallied to him because (1) he hated their perceived enemies and (2) they believed that he could win. Not because he is a Republican. The biggest thing for authoritarian cult members is the invincibility of the cult leader. Remember, Trump arose after the GW debacle, 8 years of getting smoked by Obama, and a pathetic clown show in the 2012 and 2016 GOP primaries (remember Jed “please clap” and Herman “999” Cain?). He scored an improbable win over Clinton (even though he lost the popular vote by several million), which added to his aura of invincibility to the base. Hence all weird imagery of Rambo Trump, Trump on a velociraptor, etc. Many of them still haven’t figured out what a loser he really is because he has a feral talent for getting people to believe nonsense – e.g., his entire purely fictional biography. In particular, he seems to have the ability to make people believe that their ideas are more popular than they really are. He was very clever to push the stolen election meme in 2020 because that allowed the rabid base to think they really won and cowed the GOP leadership into not flushing him after the second impeachment even when they knew he cost them several congressional races. If his losing becomes convincing enough, however, they’ll memory hole him and he’ll end up being labeled a Democrat on Fox chyrons. The best thing that can happen to you as a GOP leader is to die before they turn on you; then they’ll turn you into a martyr like Reagan. But even that won’t last.
TBone
Desi Lydic of The Daily Show on Donold’s “economic” “press conference.” 😆🔥
https://youtu.be/90C5rZPTy5g
trollhattan
This is where we’re at, in a nutshell.
Should be some attention boost from the convention, even while the convention offers zero drama and could easily be knocked below the fold by myriad things occurring around the globe. What won’t happen: Trump knocking it below the fold. He could try, to which I can only say “Please proceed, governor.”
Harris-Walz comms team is good enough to use his shit in real time while the cameras are aimed at them. And wouldn’t that be fun?
Anoniminous
@Mousebumples:
I prefer Lily Allen
(and then the F-bombs start)
danielx
@rk:
Never happen.
Jay C
Yeah, well with 79 days left in the campaign, there’s still plenty of time for the “MSM”s Corporate HQs to send the word down to their editors/reporters/pundits to get with the party line in their coverage of the candidates and the campaign.
Scout211
Is it just me or has Trump started doing his stand-up schtick with a weird sing-song voice? I remember his last two campaign appearances with more of an actual speaking voice.
Maybe I am misremembering and he’s always done this, but the sing-song voice is really weird and disturbing. It gives me the feeling of a psycho killer in a movie as they are just about to kill the good guys right before the hero intervenes. Creepy.
Anoniminous
@Hoodie:
I think it’s a lot simpler: Trump validated their racism and hate of everything & anything Not Them.
Geoduck
I’ll be contrarian, and say that even if/when he loses, the GOP still might not be able to get rid of him, and he could easily be the candidate AGAIN in 2028.
When he finally does croak, the resulting knife-fights will be something to behold.
Gin & Tonic
@Elizabelle:
Vincent “The Chin” Gigante.
MattF
@Scout211: Given his affinity with Hannibal Lecter…
SatanicPanic
@Hoodie: I was thinking about GWB the other day. He’s thoroughly disappeared. I bet most Americans assume he’s dead.
Lapassionara
@Hoodie: It’s the imagery they see, not the reality. They see him as a muscular stud, a la those crappy paintings. They wear the photo of him with blood on his face, pumping his fist, and “fight, fight, fight.” They worship him, and therefore he can do no wrong.
Kathleen
@CaseyL: I think Trump has outlived his usefulness to his handlers and masters. The agenda however will remain. The fascists will come back with a rebranded Christo fascist out house agenda.
Mousebumples
@Anoniminous: haha, yes, F bombs seem most appropriate.
dmsilev
@Geoduck: I think you’re right. Enough of the primary voters love love love him that even if he goes down in flames this year, he’ll be running again four years from now if he’s still alive and will be the favorite in the primary.
different-church-lady
I think the vibe is, “If you are going to force us to give up a nominee at the risk of electorally fatal chaos, then we are not going let you get away without paying a fair price for it.”
Steve LaBonne
@Geoduck: If he’s breathing, his cult members will continue to follow him, and the party both can’t do without them and is afraid of their potential for violence.
FelonyGovt
@Scout211: Yes. It’s like even he is mocking what he’s saying, or like it’s something he has to stand up in class to recite.
cmorenc
I am at a popular beach in SE NC today, and cannot help notice the complete absence of umbrella-shade encampments flying MAGA/Trump flags /regalia, in contrast to 2000 where you’d run into 3 or 4 of them along a half-mile beach stroll. I have seen but a couple of boats on the inland waterway over a two-week period (out of literally hundreds). To be fair, no Harris/Walt banners or regalia either. I do have a neighbor along my island street flying an upside-down US flag on a flagpole atop a “Trump 2024 …the rules have changed” banner, but the other two street-neighbors who flew MAGA flags on their houses in 2020 are not (so far) doing so, and I haven’t yet seen others out on Sunset Beach Island.
The MAGA fever seems to have broken in this reddish area outside the hard-core cult. True, it’s not Labor Day yet, and Brunswick county is red (60-40 Trump in 2020), and no illusions that it will go majority-D in 2024, but I like the chances to cut into the margins in redder sections of NC this time around. Reason Trump caught Biden at the end by 77k votes was Trump’s success at motivating voters in red areas to turn out in higher proportionate numbers than polling predicted, using strategically located rallies in the last two weeks bf election day.
Soprano2
@SatanicPanic: To me it was really strange that GWB wasn’t at the RNC convention at all. I don’t know if that was his choice or the party’s choice. Did anyone in the press mention how strange it was that he wasn’t there?
mr perfect
@Baud: Which will premier Jan. 2, 2025.
trollhattan
@Geoduck:
Definitely. Who’s there to topple him? DeSantis? Cruz? Don’t think so.
A prison stint would do wonders stanching his further political ambitions. He can hold rallies in the yard and see how well he’s received there.
In four years he’s going to be a shambling corpse, presuming his recent decline continues and does not in fact accelerate. Another data point: Fred Sr. lived to 93.
beckya57
If the MSM starts to see him as a loser the knives will come out. Lots of leaks from various campaign officials and frustrated Republicans. The latter group knows Haley would be winning this election (even though she’s loathsome), and they’re starting to worry about the down ballot races.
trollhattan
@SatanicPanic: @Soprano2:
Last I recall seeing him was at Trump’s inauguration where he was caught quipping something like “That was some weird shit.”
Did he appear/speak at the ’16 or ’20 conventions?
karen gail
@SatanicPanic: He was in news other day for painting he gave as gift to Hoda Kotb; it is called a portrait but he painted them from the back.
Steve LaBonne
@cmorenc: We were in North Wildwood NJ last week and sadly there were a number of Assmouth beach flags there.
CaseyL
Oh, if Trump is still alive when he loses this election, he will absolutely file his candidacy for 2028 the next day. He did that after 2016 and he did it after 2020, so he could start
extracting money from his markscampaign fundraising immediately.Jeffg166
Don Old was the blowback reaction to the Obama administration. Biden was the blowback reaction to the Don Old administration. Now Don old is stuck in 2016 and can’t get out. Harris and Walz are the shiny new thing next to Don Old. We did 2016 already. Time to move on.
Geminid
@Scout211: I hear this voicing in the soundbites I hear on radio news. Trump sounds mournful, like he’s delivering a eulogy. Maybe he is.
Another Scott
@Scout211: I saw a clip a few months ago where he was doing the sing-song voice when he was near the end and reading some of the prepared remarks. It’s when he’s going through the motions of being a “normal” candidate that he brought out the sing-song.
But I haven’t intentionally listened to more than a second or so (when I’m not quick enough to change the channel) since I decided to watch him get shot at (to try to figure out what the audience was doing (they were looking at some graph on a jumbotron)).
Dunno if that’s what you saw/heard, also too.
Cheers,
Scott.
scav
Rats v. Barnacles on the leaky ship, it should be interesting watching them sort themselves out. I don’t know if elephants actually float that well although I’m sure there’ll be a few in the surrounding waters, no doubt furiously trumpeting fruitless instructions to their more numerous (former) shipmates.
citizen dave
@TBone: Watched the Desi Lydic / Daily Show report from trump’s rally of a couple days ago. Now that is an accurate summary of the batshit crazy.
Happened to see the Sunday Today and ABC News / GMA at 8 eastern this morning with their coverage of the latest trump rally (Sunday Today led with trump; ABC did hurricane first). These two programs pick out a sane statement from trump about economic policy, then the reporter further normalizes it. Watching it, you would never know how batshit crazy the man/rally/anyone attending is. I just do not get how the mainstream media goes to the extreme to present him as normal. It’s mind boggling and infuriating.
Poe Larity
Maybe Trump should bring his brand to rescue Burning Man:
brantl
@KatKapCC: So, Kathleen Parker keeps learning new ways to be a douche. Quelle suprise!
hells littlest angel
Not like people say. like dumb.
Carlo Graziani
@rk:
True. Another example of the same dynamic, and perhaps a better-fitting model for what’s happening to Trump, is the “Mob Boss” model. A Capo is basically a successful bully, and his success results in respect and sycophancy and loyalty and emulation, which grows his following, and engenders further success…
…right up to the point where it doesn’t. It’s a knife-edge lifestyle, where mistakes and setbacks immediately threaten the success-spiral by engendering doubt, which then results in disloyalty, challenges, provoking suspicion and crackdowns and undermining the effectiveness of the outfit. The Loser Stink is a death warrant for a capo, and very difficult to recover from. The FBI likes to act in such a way as to amplify it as far as possible in dealing with organized crime, because once it sets in the crop of informants and potential wire carriers shoots up.
Trump is done with his success spiral. He got a good launch as a politician from his celebrity status due to The Apprentice, and used it to strip down and reconfigure the GOP into its modern Death Eater profile, gaining the fear and respect of Republican officeholders and apparatchiks through his control of his Brownshirt-adjacent base, and using that followership to grow his political respectability. Other GOP politicians appreciated his coattails, and found ways to exploit his activated base by emulating his cruelty.
But it’s a knife-edge lifestyle, and he eventually fell off. It’s all catching up with him now, and I bet that a good deal of his rally word salad is driven by abject fear of the high likelihood tha he will be measured for an orange jumpsuit in 2025. Maybe he can meet some of his boyhood heroes in the pen.
West of the Cascades
Like Grima and Saruman.
K-Mo
Great thread ! Sierra Mist LOL
FWIW The NYT had a similar take. Here’s a gift link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/17/us/politics/trump-harris-pennsylvania.html?unlocked_article_code=1.D04.ThVE.FDBkseR-pEuE&smid=url-share
Tractarian
It all sounds so eerily similar to 2016…..
Baud
@brantl:
She wants to keep getting paid.
SatanicPanic
@Soprano2: someone on MSNBC was asking about this, “why weren’t any former Republican presidents there?” Which was a weird question because one of the two was there- Trump.
StringOnAStick
TRump has become the worst thing ever in the modern media environment: UNCOOL. Especially in the face of the definitely cool D ticket. Flail on, you filthy not-diamond!
lamh47
Hey BJ…do these early voting/in-person absentee voting dates for your states seem about right?
I’m making a chart to post on my socials.
Alabama – Mississippi
Missouri – Wyoming
brendancalling
I sent personal emails to the Post reporters politely excoriating they for their awful coverage of the NC Meltdown. Two of them are also on the featured WAPo link, and did a much better job this time. So I emailed them again giving kudos.
Maxim
I think it’s mostly #3.
WaterGirl
@FelonyGovt: @Scout211:
People who have had a stroke or brain damage who can’t speak can sometimes sing.
Is it irresponsible to wonder whether a sing-song voice is how Trump is able to speak these days, since he seems to be losing his marbles?
Just like we memorized words to the playground songs when we were kids, maybe he has a collection of Trump’s greatest hits somewhere in his head, that he can access with that sing-song voice?
shrug
lamh47
Chump/Vance supporters are never going to shake the “weird” comments.
Yes! you read that right…ugh
Peke Daddy
We are now entering the S-curve phase of public decompensation.
TBone
Oooh Chris Evans brings the Richard Burr burn history! LFG Kamala! 😆
https://x.com/notcapnamerica/status/1825185786482032830
karen gail
@KatKapCC: Remember when he said “they just want to get a look at my manly chest:” don’t remember if he was commenting about doctors or paramedics. I figured then and there that what he sees in the mirror is not reality.
Wasn’t there a SNL skit with Alec Baldwin as Trump where what he saw in mirror was Superman body? With his “younger” face?
artem1s
@rk:
Actually we do. They were after Pence on J6. The PA assassination attempt is what the US version looks like. Knight of the Long Knives, Kristallnacht, and Second Amendment solutions are exactly what they’ve been promising for a few decades now.
Trump thinks he’s Hitler in this story, but he’s probably only Röhm.
karen gail
Found an article on why Bush won’t speak publicly
Why won’t George W. Bush talk publicly about Trump? It’s simple. (usatoday.com)
HumboldtBlue
@TBone:
“Now he understands what every woman was thinking when they slept with him.”
Hahahahahaha
brantl
People will be obsessed with a grotesquery as long as it’s the only thing shown (roadside car-wrecks, anyone?), show them something uniquely beautiful, and they will then ignore the grotesquery. This is what’s happened for anyone that isn’t part of the cult.
matt
@SatanicPanic: He’s spending his time making art, which to most Americans is a fate less interesting than death.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Baud: They used to say Washington DC was Hollywood for ugly people. Because politicians are famous but not famous for being good looking.
hueyplong
@beckya57: “… and frustrated Republicans. The latter group knows Haley would be winning this election”
I don’t know that and in fact strongly believe the opposite. How was Haley going to get the nomination without infuriating the cult? What the Dems did with Biden would have melted down the party if they hadn’t seamlessly pivoted to a fait accompli Harris nomination, and our side did not feature a Biden Cult. I did not and do not worship Biden, but if I see Eric Loomis on the street I will sucker punch a motherfucker and do my best to finish him off.
Now project that attitude onto a bunch of heavily armed yahoos who have never thought through the concept of personal consequences in their lives.
Nikki Haley. You’ve got to be kidding me.
Anoniminous
@hueyplong:
Yeah. A bunch of uneducated ignorant hick woman hating bigots lining-up to vote for Haley? Not going to happen in this Universe.
3Sice
One of those hack truisms is that multi-loss candidates keep on losing.
K-Mo
@karen gail: A significant part of the story of Trump’s rise is the weakening / disappearance of establishment Republicans (which has its own long narrative, but GWB is part and parcel).
Gin & Tonic
@lamh47:
50 years from now, I will be long dead, and my kids will be telling their grandchildren that an entire Presidential campaign went in the toilet because some Twitter rando made up a story about the VP candidate fucking a couch. And the grandkids will say “Sure, gramps, sure. It’s time for your nap now.”
KatKapCC
@karen gail: Much as I do NOT want to see it, I would love for him to show up shirtless at a rally. Let us see that manly physique, Trump. I’m sure you’d look like a marble statue of David Beckham.
StringOnAStick
@WaterGirl: I think the song song thing is when he remembers that they drilled into him specific topics that he has to mention; it’s song song-y because he just wants to get it over with so he can go back to the usual grievance filled crap he prefers to spew at his rallies. It’s him ticking an annoying thing off his list.
That Daily Show with Desi Lydic that TBone linked to is the first extended (as in longer than it takes to use the remote) bit of video I’ve watched of him in years, the close to befuddled old man energy is real, especially when he’s digging around in his jacket to find the two different sizes of Tictacs. That had “mostly kinda there grandpa” vibes all over it
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Baud: “Vance looked truly presidential in his announcement today of his 2028 run…”
Another Scott
@karen gail: Thanks for the pointer.
Shorter: “There’s nothing in it for me, it’s all icky, and (as Kanye said), I don’t care about (Black) other people, and besides it might help Demonrats, so watch this drive.”
Grr…,
Scott.
Mousebumples
@lamh47: Wisconsin seems reasonable. Not all early voting locations are open on the weekends, though.
Also can vote by mail – no excuse needed.
karen gail
@KatKapCC: eye bleach!! brain bleach!! stat!! the thought is enough to give one nightmares. I have seen bodies on beaches like his (for some reason they often wear tiny, tiny speedos) expect they are usually less pasty than he would be.
geg6
@lamh47:
Yes for PA.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Tractarian: It does sound eerily similar to 2016. He will be hard to beat. His cultists are really dedicated and plenty of soft supporters hate Democrats so much that they will vote for him despite their discomfort with it. We can’t get cocky.
Falling Diphthong
@beckya57: They’re starting to worry about the down ballot races.
This is where Trump being in control of the RNC’s budget is going to loom large. He doesn’t care about down ballot races even when he’s winning (as with prices, you can tell people have tried to convince him it’s important, but he’d rather talk about the Time magazine cover); he’s certainly not going to go all in trying to elect Republicans down ticket if he might lose up top. It would be like saying he’s a loser.
Baud
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
We can get cocky or not. Our feelings aren’t going to change how the election turns out.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Baud: You are right. I should have said we can’t get complacent. When people think they’ve got it in the bag, they don’t donate or sometimes show up. That does effect the outcome.
Soprano2
@lamh47: That’s what I see for MO.
trollhattan
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
True. Not only is this “not in the bag” we don’t even have a bag, yet. Find that bag, and make it a big one!
KatKapCC
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: However, remember that one of the talking points in 2016 was to tut-tut liberals and say “Oh, he won’t be THAT bad, he’ll just be another Republican, stop freaking out, it won’t be as awful as you think”.
And it wasn’t. Because it was monumentally worse than we thought. And in 2024 people know that, or at least a hell of a lot more people than were willing to accept it in 2016. We know exactly what kind of president he would be because we’ve seen four years of it. And we know he would somehow be even worse yet again.
Also, and I hate that this is true, but there were a lot of Dems and Independents who just did not like Clinton. For usually unfair reasons, but that’s how it was. While many of us were very enthusiastic about voting for her, a lot of people weren’t. That’s not true with Harris. Sure, she has detractors on the left, but nowhere near as many as Clinton did.
There might be similarities to 2016, but it is not 2016.
Ohio Mom
@trollhattan: As far as I know, Fred Sr. did not abuse substances. That takes a toll on a body, I would not expect Trump to last that long.
I don’t even expect him to be in shape to run again in four years.
Emily B.
@beckya57: Reporters can be reluctant to draw their own conclusions from the facts that they themselves report. It’s safer and easier to report on what other people say. The OMG Biden Is Old feeding frenzy was accelerated by the media itself, but it was also fed by comments from donors, Democratic officials, and voters (in that order). So I don’t see the MSM making the first move. If Republican donors and politicians start voicing concerns in private, that will be the media’s cue.
Mr. Bemused Senior
I have a dear friend and mentor who was [ I emphasize was] a dyed-in-the-wool Republican. In 2016 prior to the election I asked him, “don’t you think it matters who is President of the United States?” He answered, “not much.”
When I reminded him recently of that conversation he admitted he had been wrong. There’s hope.
Mr. Bemused Senior
He’s not in shape to run again now.
Another Scott
@KatKapCC:
My best friend from high school in Ohio was like that. “Anyone But Clinton!!” It was a visceral hatred, trumped up by 30 years of attacks by monsters, and too many others had it, too. :-/
James Comey was like that too, in his own special way.
Even with all that, she got more votes. But they weren’t the “right kind of votes” under our antiquated election system, so …
The short campaign helps us immensely this time. Running against an old fascist monster with an actual track record, rather than a rich guy with a popular TV show who will “shake thing up and tell it like it is”, is a huge benefit this time as well.
Grr…,
Scott.
Bill Arnold
@Tractarian:
Except for the voices in all our heads saying: “It all sounds so eerily similar to 2016…..”
burritoboy
Don’t assume that there won’t be another fascist leader within at least a mid-length timeframe. Yes, THIS one (Trump) may be played out (or not), but there’s simply too much possibility for another one to want to emerge fairly soon. All the infrastructure (the supine GOP looking for its next leader, the billionaires, the online incel weirdos, the media structures whether Fox, Sinclair or how TikTok boosts idiocy, etc) will still be around and ready (even eager) to be activated. We’ve seen that even when Berlusconi went down in Italy, or Zemmour in France, that others fairly quickly arose to take their places. Don’t get complacent!
Starfish
@burritoboy: Other proto-fascists are trying it, but they are all less likable than Trump. Since they are real politicians, they have real policy records filled with unpopular policies. When they make the big time, people clearly see their policy positions and hate them OR see them as the mean spirited jerks that they are.
BlueGuitarist
@cckids:
@Mousebumples:
I think Dylan aimed part of Idiot Wind at Nixon,
especially
”you…cover up the truth with lies”
And
“your eyes don’t look into mine”
seems likely a reference to Nixon’s famously shifty eyes
Works for both Nixon and Trump:
“Your corrupt ways have finally made you blind”
burritoboy
Starfish,
Sure – for now. But people getting complacent is – long term – one of the greatest pitfalls – maybe the most dangerous of all. The underlying impetus for fascism won’t go away forever just because the current leader stumbles. (It may mean the immediacy of the risk is less, true – but that has often hidden what a newer or emerging leader is up to until they become very dangerous in turn themselves.)
Bill Arnold
@Gin & Tonic:
High-quality random trolls (BR linked this a while back):
Source of viral rumor about J.D. Vance and couches explains himself (Travis Gettys, July 31, 2024)
Guy claims to have been inspired by Jorge Luis Borges, John Fowles, Werner Herzog, and a tale about Lyndon Johnson told by Hunter S. Thompson.
gene108
@rk:
There are dozens of former Executive Branch people who worked under Trump who spat out stories, said do not re-elect him, and other bad things about him. *
The J6 Committee shed light on what he was doing after the 2020 election loss, ie plotting a coup.
There’s several tell all books about the Trump administration during his term in office.
The only mystery swirling around Trump is how deep his relationship with Epstein went.
*Edit: From the VP on down.
catclub
Does anyone (meaning notable Republicans) except Vance actually campaign for Trump?
Is there someone like Buttigieg for Trump? It sure ain’t Mitch McConnell.
Fake Irishman
@trollhattan:
Also, a data point we have to keep in mind is that the GOP had an easy method to take him out in 2021. All they needed were roughly 20 Senate GOPers to convict him in the impeachment trial. Then they could have let the Democrats do the dirty work of banning him from federal elected office by majority vote.
But they were too cowardly to pull the trigger. That was a major political miscalculation by McConnell.
K-Mo
@KatKapCC: 💯
suzanne
@cckids: I have had the same thought about TFG when I hear “Idiot Wind”.
Gretchen
I heard that there isn’t a single Trump office in Florida. Not one. Even though there’s a competitive Senate race, and abortion is on the ballot. That might explain why Harris plans to spend money there.
And word is that Republicans cancelled ad buys in the Ohio Senate race, even though it is also very close and crucial to controlling the Senate.
I’m thinking that Lara Trump and family stole all the RNC money and there’s none for downballot races. There isn’t even enough for the top of the ticket to rent indoor venues, even though supposedly their fundraising is strong.
Geoduck
@catclub: The fact that McConnell and the Shaitgibbon personally loathe each other might be factor…
catclub
That is the hard news they should be reporting.
Geoduck
@Gretchen: With the indoor venues, they burned a lot of bridges by stiffing everyone the last time around.
K-Mo
@burritoboy: This seems right to me. Right now the GOP is a cult of personality. When that personality declines, there will be a vacuum. What fills it could be a variety of things, but another dear leader has to be considered a strong possibility.
catclub
Missing Melania was paid over $250k for a speech (in Palm Beach) to the Log cabin republicans. Also her ‘stylist’ is paid $17k/per MONTH.
catclub
@K-Mo: It will either be someone rich or someone who can pretend to be that.
evodevo
@WaterGirl: The sing-song thing is his attempt to sound like a fundie preacher…I have heard many of them, and this is typical of their cadence. I’m assuming he’s imitating them in an effort to court the religious crazies in his audience, but it may just be he doesn’t realize what he’s doing.
catclub
@WaterGirl: I heard the sing-song voice as him reading something on the teleprompter that he has been told to say.
SatanicPanic
@catclub: Byron Donalds seems to be the guy
Tony G
@rk: … But almost half the people in the U.S. who bother to vote support him. That’s what was shocking about Trump eight years ago, and that’s still what’s shocking about him. He’s a symptom — not the cause — of a deep sickness in this country.
Fair Economist
@SatanicPanic: The last couple times GWB appeared in public he was acting weirdly disinhibited. I think something is wrong with him and he is sensibly choosing to stay home.
SatanicPanic
@Fair Economist: could be. Turns out he’s 78 so it wouldn’t be surprising
VOR
There was a SNL sketch imagining the world through Trump’s eyes where he looked in the mirror and saw John Cena with giant hands. John Cena is an actor and professional wrestler who is decades younger than Trump and has a muscular, athletic build.
I think the MAGAts were always there, but he gave them permission to be their authentic selves. He told them it was okay to publicly hate and that he hated the same people they did. He made it okay to be ignorant, claiming any inconvenient fact was just fake news. He encouraged conspiracy theories. They loved that he let them off the leash. Other Republicans gave them dog whistles, Trump used a bullhorn.
I think Trump is a Bullshitter, as Harry Frankfurt defined the term. A liar knows the truth and seeks to conceal it. The bullshitter doesn’t care whether what they say is true or false, they just say whatever they think will persuade the audience.
ColoradoGuy
I think the GOP has always had an aching need for a Hitleresque Maximum Leader. Reagan left a Reagan-sized hole in the GOP. GHWB wasn’t enough, GWB wasn’t enough (and was exiled to Unperson status after the Iraq War and Katrina), and McCain didn’t want to be a cult leader.
Trump is a pure media personality, and the MSM have a soft spot for one of their own. It doesn’t matter how psychopathic he is … the media industry is full of rapist monsters, so that’s nothing exceptional or even unusual for them. He’s seen as One Of Us, and has been protected both in the NY media market by the NYT for decades, and by Fox News since 2015. Not to mention an unknown amount of covert support by overseas actors.
But the broader cult support is starting to wear out, and the novelty factor is gone. What remains to be seen is how deep his religious cult extends. The GOP is so commingled with religious fanatics it’s not really the GOP any more.
Ksmiami
@Tractarian: Clinton did not have the energy of Harris and Tim Kaine was as exciting as a piece of Wonderbread.
MinuteMan
@rk: I don’t know what the end will look like.
If the Mango Magat had a choice it’ll be Götterdämerung.
Soprano2
@Fair Economist: He could be suffering from problems caused by his early alcoholism. He was an alcoholic for a long time, that does damage to a body.
Subsole
@Tractarian:
Shit. It sounds like 2020. We were sure he was down, only for him to grow his vote.
I hesitate to give much weight to what I am pretty sure is just lingering trauma on my part, but man…I am getting eerie flashbacks.
“Oh, all the vibes are on our side!”
“Oh boy you guys, Taylor Swift just endorsed Kamala! Don Old is done for now!”
“All the yoots are releasing sick tiktok burns! We’re going to roast this ghoul!”
And then, one nauseating night later,
“Ermagerd, wha’ happen?!”
That said, a little confidence is great. And I would rather have too much than not enough.
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
Yep. This is a knife fight. It is going to take everything we have to put this joker on the curb where he belongs.
I am somewhat heartened by the fact most of our folks seem to be taking it fairly seriously.
@KatKapCC: These are very good counterpoints.
RaflW
@Scout211: Lindsey Graham is huffing glue if he’s claiming Trump has policies. There’s absolutely nothing there.
I don’t think normies have seen it yet, but the curtain is about to part revealing the mighty Oz and his frantic turning of dials and levers, signifying nothing.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Scout211: @RaflW:
Lindsey Graham puzzles me. Once upon a time one could even respect him a bit as he spoke out against torture. But now? How can anyone even take him seriously? “Policies”?? It doesn’t pass the laugh test.
OK, politicians have to say what people want to hear sometimes, but policies from Trump? It’s embarrassing.
Besides, Trump’s only advantage is showmanship.
RaflW
@Mr. Bemused Senior: On my good days, I think Graham losing his father figure, John McCain, screwed him up.
The rest of the time, I think he was just drafting on McCain’s better reputation, and when he was gone, lampreyed onto Trump out of terrible insecurity.
Darkrose
I will happily contribute to the GoFundMe for your bail.
Yes, I am still pissed off about him.
Kayla Rudbek
@Steve LaBonne: I saw Trump and Trump/Vance billboards on US 50 in eastern Maryland when I went to Chincoteague recently (the stretch between the Bay Bridge and I think about Salisbury can be pretty Trumpy, rural farming, it’s Indiana with seafood). However I did see a few Jen Kiggans signs in Chincoteague proper which I thought was a positive thing. The farm stands along US 50 seem to be smarter and don’t display any Trump signs visible from the road.
Citizen Alan
@VOR: Here’s how I describe it. Trump came to the base of the republican party with a simple proposition: “I, Donald Trump, hate the same people that you do. And if you give me power, I will hurt those people on your behalf.” And that was all it took to get him enough votes to steal it in the electoral college.
I don’t know what the solution is to the problem of there being 70+ million voters in america who are motivated primarily by vicious cruelty and hate overall other concerns. But I know we better find one and fast.
Tony G
@Citizen Alan: Yes, that’s it. The contemporary Republican Party has really only one policy: cruelty. And almost half of the people in the U.S. who bother to vote support the Republican Party for that reason. There was a recent example of that today. The initially baffling trend of Trump/Vance supporters carrying sperm-sample cups (presumably containing something else) at Trump rallies. It’s just so strange that I did a little searching to find out the reason for this bizarre practice. Apparently it’s meant to ridicule Tim Walz and his wife for having used IVF to conceive their children. (By extension, of course, it also ridicules anyone else who has used IVF.). Wow. The photographs of these people show the smug grins of people who can only be happy when someone else is in pain. The last time I encountered that combination of cruelty and stupidity was many decades ago when I was in Middle School. By the time kids got too high school they had outgrown that type of thing. But there are apparently tens of millions of “adults” in this country who think this type of this is just hilarious. A deeply sick country.
Attempted Chemistry
@SatanicPanic: Bill Clinton, W, and Trump are all turning 78 this year.
Kosh III
@lamh47: Tennessee October 16-31.
wonkie
WaPo says Trump “stoked the rift in the Democrats” but choosing Shapiro. What rift? Why did the writer state that a rift exists? Trump is trying to create a rift, but that doesn’t mean the rift is there.
wonkie
@Another Scott: I didn’t like Clinton for two reasons: She ran a botched campaign in the primary against Obama, so I didn’t trust her to run a good campaign against Trump, and she supported the war in Iraq. Why? There’s no good explanation. Either she was dumb enough to believe the Bush admin lies or she made a really awful political calculation–both immoral and politically stupid. My thought about her was that she would continue to make poor political calculations, and I still think that. I voted for her, of course, and I was just sickened by Trump’s victory. I don’t mind her getting a place at the convention to be honored. However, I also don’t see her as much more than an old school, somewhat out of touch politician who had a safe seat in the Senate and failed to use it to push progressive ideas or take strong stands on issues. She WAS the target of massive abuse. There’s no doubt about that. I’m glad she got to be on the stage while the audience chanted “Lock him up.”