Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

Celebrate the fucking wins.

In my day, never was longer.

Come on, man.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

They don’t have outfits that big. nor codpieces that small.

I really should read my own blog.

Cancel the cowardly Times and Post and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

I would try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

Petty moves from a petty man.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Apparently the Trump Campaign Is Unable to Count

Apparently the Trump Campaign Is Unable to Count

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I really wanted to title this “They thought the only thing in their speeches that would be a bridge too far would be calling the Democratic Candidate for President a c*nt.”

The Trump Campaign Apparently Thinks Last Night Wasn’t That Big a Deal (The Bulwark)

h/t BR

My favorite paragraph:

Campaign advisers are united in their opinion that the Hinchcliffe controversy will blow over. Some were heartened by the fact that for once it wasn’t Trump who was at the center of the maelstrom. Others noted that they have overcome far worse.

Another excerpt:

Carlos Odio, a Democrat and founder of the Latino research firm Equis Research, said he’s not sure about the severity of the downstream political consequences of the controversy, save that it would be bad for Trump.

“We’ve gotten so used to the idea that nothing Trump or his allies say ever seems to move the needle,” he told The Bulwark. “Maybe it is the same now. Or maybe the exception turns out to be insulting a critical community in your tipping-point state while voting is already underway, using a joke so incendiary it breaks through almost instantly.”

Can these people even count?  Do they know that black people, Puerto Ricans, and women can vote?

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

121Comments

  1. 1.

    BR

    I think a key thing in this reporting from The Bulwark is that the Trump campaign approved the speech. They nixed things that were going to be said about Harris but kept in the comments about Puerto Rico and Latinos and on and on. So no excuse distancing themselves from this can work.

  2. 2.

    Jeffro

    Walz is either well-advised or just an amazing natural…that kind of bluntness and pivot to PA cities with large Puerto Rican populations is Buttigieg-worthy.

  4. 4.

    BR

    @Jeffro:

    The timing of everything yesterday was masterful. Walz and AOC were on Twitch as counterprogramming to Trump’s hatefest, Harris had endorsements lined up with Puerto Rican megastars, AOC’s team queued up the clip after she and Walz played video games so they could both react, etc. Also Walz is a geographer by training so he really knows his stuff about places and demographics and such.

  5. 5.

    MattF

    @BR: Right. It’s been noted that the ‘jokes’ were read from a teleprompter, so the campaign knew exactly what was coming.

  6. 6.

    Steve LaBonne

    @BR: This campaign is really effing good. Sad that they have to be this good to eke out a win against a revolting degenerate. I’m guessing women (including Harris) are not at all surprised that it’s like that.

  7. 7.

    sdhays

    Attacking Puerto Rico is just weird (as well as horrifically awful, obviously). I mean, it’s a US territory. There are lots of actual countries to choose from to get their racism on (and they usually do), but they chose Puerto Rico? Puerto Rico isn’t even in the news right now. What’s the benefit of targeting them in particular?

    Did they deliberately target it, or did they just get sloppy? Maybe they chose Puerto Rico because it hadn’t been targeted recently, so it would be “raw-er”? Mission Accomplished, I guess…

  8. 8.

    Steve LaBonne

    @MattF: As BR said we now know that they nixed calling Harris the C word, so they definitely knew and approved of everything else.

  10. 10.

    hrprogressive

    It’s a number of things

    1) Yes, they have said so many batshit insane, awful things over the last 10 years plus they expect it not to matter.

    2) The press has done the yeoman’s work of sanewashing his stuff, so, they expected that to continue too. (They look to be wrong, by all accounts)

    3) They expect Puerto Ricans to just “take it” (they appear to be dead wrong, here)

    4) They believe they’ve voter-suppressed enough areas for this not to matter (I think this is unlikely, but they will still keep trying)

    5) They believe their fellow Klansman will bail them out in the ballot box. (Although the number of Americans who explicitly back this ideology is entirely too high, its also still decidedly the minority)

  12. 12.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @sdhays: Puerto Rico isn’t even in the news right now. What’s the benefit of targeting them in particular?

    These Republican politicians aren’t smart people and things continue to get out of hand.

  14. 14.

    Steve LaBonne

    @hrprogressive: With a Democratic Governor and SoS in charge they’re not going to be suppressing anybody in Reading and Allentown. And Trump has almost no path to 270 without Pennsylvania.

  17. 17.

    Captain C

    @hrprogressive:

    2) The press has done the yeoman’s work of sanewashing his stuff, so, they expected that to continue too. (They look to be wrong, by all accounts)

    This was bad enough that even the FTFNYT couldn’t put their “Funny comic at glorious TCFG rally shows humorous love for obviously non-American Puerto Ricans” spin on it.  Also, they probably have a good idea of what’s happening to the WaPo’s subscriber base after the latter’s demonstration of extreme cowardice.

    (edited for clarity)

  19. 19.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    @BR:

    Walz is a geographer by training so he really knows his stuff about places and demographics and such.

    I recall reading an anecdote about FDR, in which it was said that you could take out a map of the USA, lay down a ruler across it in a randomly chosen way, and then using the straight line drawn across the map from that ruler FDR could tell you something about the local politics of every county (not state, county) intersected by that line.

    I do not know if that was literally true, but it tells you something about the awe with which contemporaries beheld his detailed knowledge of politics across the length and breadth of the country and not just in New York.

    So, hearing about that kind of geographic talent being brought back into style and on our side, is cheering.

  20. 20.

    TBone

    @Captain C: CNN published a story today calling out the MSG racism in one paragraph and then several paragraphs PRAISING Donold for his acuity in the economic department of WTF CNN?!?!

  21. 21.

    Adam Lang

    Honestly think there is a shockingly large contingent of ‘some faces need to be eaten, and if mine is among them, well, meh, I’ll deal with that when it happens’ voters out there at this point.

  24. 24.

    sdhays

    @TBone: The campaign managers are “supposedly” professionals. I have my doubts, but if that’s true, I wonder if no one actually “vetted” anything in anything that was planned to be said at MSG because the managers were focusing on shoving every last donor penny they can get their hands on into their respective consultancy slush funds before the bottom drops out on November 5.

  25. 25.

    Princess

    They’re old and conventional and they think it will be gone from the front pages by tomorrow means it’s NBD. They use social media as a tool but they’re not part of it so they don’t realize how far and deep it will spread there or for how long.

  26. 26.

    prostratedragon

    Marc Anthony remembers (video at link):

    I’m here to tell you that even though some have forgotten … I remember.

    I remember what it was like when Trump was president.

    I remember what he did and said, about Puerto Rico…
    About our people …

    I remember after Hurricane Maria devastated our island…
    Trump blocked billions in relief … while thousands died.

    I remember that when our families lacked clean water and electricity,
    Trump threw paper towels and called Puerto Rico “dirty” and “poor.”

    But I was not surprised..

    Because I ALSO remember… he launched his campaign by calling Latinos criminals and rapists.

    He’s told us what he’ll do.

    He’ll separate children from their families and threatened to use the ARMY to do it

    This election goes way beyond political parties.

    Now let’s remember what the United States represents and stands for. It’s our name – United.

    Regardless of where we’re from.
    I’m Marc Anthony…

    I remember…

    And that’s why I support Kamala Harris for President.

  27. 27.

    hrprogressive

    @Steve LaBonne: ​
     

    Sure, but the name of the game has very clearly been “steal the election”/”try to seize power anyway” but, beforehand, if they could cast a thin veneer over it all with voting restrictions and so forth, they were gonna try that, first.

  28. 28.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @sdhays: I bet a bunch of Puerto Rican people work at marred-al-ago, and they’ll quit over this. Seems like something might be stirred up over there

  29. 29.

    TBone

    @sdhays: bingo.  These fucks were taken to task on Deadline Whitehouse today.  But since the actual c word was deleted in advance from a “joke,” someone there can at least read.

  33. 33.

    TBone

    While trying to get a (now former) friend to vote sanely today, I was informed that the “BLM people are not people.” I also had to negate her fantasy that cities were “burned down” (it was a small fire at ONE court house in Portland).  I asked if she now deems me “not people” since I am VERY pro-BLM.  The thing is, she didn’t know these talking points LAST WEEK.

    She can now rot in hell with the rest of the Nazis, the dumb fuck.

  35. 35.

    JiveTurkin

    I’m very optimistic that it hurts, and guardedly optimistic that it hurts a lot.  The Trump campaign NEVER walks anything back, and they are doing damage control on this one.  No calculation I could imagine says it helps.  If you liked his MSG rally you were already in the bucket of “Trump is God on earth (the hell with that wimp Jesus), and I will walk through the fires of hell to vote for him”.  There truly are undecideds, and no undecided is going to say “gee, I was on the fence, but now that I know he hates Puerto Ricans just like I do I’ll vote for him”.  Even with the current state of our country that is a stretch.

  36. 36.

    TBone

    @sdhays: it was there in a leaked script, according to Deadline Whitehouse today. They chose to delete that but left in every other abomination.

  37. 37.

    Scout211

    @sdhays: The c-word was actually in there? For real?

     

    The lines sparked immediate backlash and even condemnation from fellow Republicans. But four top campaign sources said it could have been even worse.

    “He had a joke calling [Vice President Kamala] Harris a ‘c*nt,’” a campaign insider involved in the discussions about the event told The Bulwark. “Let’s say it was a red flag.”

    Hinchcliffe’s remarks—and the ensuing backlash—has sparked questions about how such an offensive speech was allowed at such a high-profile rally; whether it was deliberate; and why a presidential campaign would elevate a roast-master comic edgelord in the closing days of a tight race for the White House.

    Campaign staffers had asked all speakers to submit drafts of their speeches ahead of time—before they were loaded into the teleprompter—according to the aforementioned sources. Once the objectionable “c*nt” joke was spotted, the sources said, a staffer asked Hinchcliffe to strike it. He complied.

    Those sources insisted that they did not spot the other objectionable lines in Hinchcliffe’s speech prior to him delivering it because they were ad-libbed. Hinchcliffe couldn’t be reached for comment.

    So that’s the story they are going with?  The Puerto Rico “joke” was an ad lib? Sure, totally believable.

    ETA: “roast-master comic edgelord?” Really?

  38. 38.

    Captain C

    @TBone:

    PRAISING Donold for his acuity in the economic department

    I still don’t understand why back in 2016 the Clinton campaign didn’t point out that he bankrupted 3 casinos and ran an entire football league into the ground.  TCFG is a hypeman who blew his inheritance and got lucky with an extremely misleading ‘reality’ show.

  39. 39.

    sdhays

    @TBone: …Wow. As someone was quoted in the article, that should have been the mother of all red flags.

    I wonder how pissed Trump is that nobody is talking about HIS performance at his special Nazi play rally.

  41. 41.

    karen marie

    @sdhays:  It’s of a piece where they’re now claiming that legal immigrants are illegal – like the Haitians in Springfield, Ohio.  They’re giving up the pretense that they care about immigration law.  It’s just racism all the way to the bottom.

  43. 43.

    kindness

    Interesting tactic in the last week of the campaign.  Insult and denigrate Puerto Ricans who are US citizens and can vote.  I mean sure, they also ran up the hate on Democrats, Jews & Muslims.  But not like the way they wailed on Puerto Ricans.  Damn….

  44. 44.

    Dangerman

    @HumboldtBlue: They’re gonna drop an N-Clang, watch.

    I’ve been waiting for TCFG to pull a Cleavon Little and go “pardon me while I whip this out” and everyone hides their eyes.

  45. 45.

    Dan B

    @sdhays: Almost every speaker at MSG spewed some blatant hate.  The comedian was just the beginning.  Harris was called “the antichrist”.  There was a call “to slaughter” people opposed to Trump.  From what I’ve read it appears that Latino social media is on fire at the moment.

  46. 46.

    JML

    @Scout211: of course they didn’t recognize the rest of the offensive material. those twats thought it was FUNNY. because those are the kinds of jokes the clownshow fascist shitshow campaign tells all the time to each other.

    Can’t spot racist crapitude when you marinade in it every damn day!

  47. 47.

    TBone

    They cross the line, claim it’s a joke, cross a better line, ha ha, just joking, and then it’s suddenly cult doctrine that it’s ALL just been a funny joke.

  48. 48.

    Scout211

    More good news for voters.  This time in Nevada.

    In a win for voters, the Nevada Supreme Court upheld the state’s policy of counting mail-in ballots without postmarks received up to three days after Election Day this November.

  49. 49.

    Frank Wilhoit

    The hard pivot to pure racism is all Musk.  And it coincides with the tightening of the polls: Trump is gaining more votes from it than he is losing.  Trump has always been behind his voters, trying to catch up with them.  This is the spurt of speed right at the finish line.  The only question now is what can Musk *imagine*.  But whatever it is will only be a pale shadow of what is in the minds of Republican voters.

  52. 52.

    karen marie

    @JML:   Just like they couldn’t spot the problems with Vance when he was vetted.  It all seemed absolutely acceptable once Vance apologized for calling Trump “America’s Hitler” Musk promised millions if he selected Vance.

  54. 54.

    TBone

    Ken Burns on Deadline Whitehouse SCHOOLING the nation right now!!!

    Oh dear LORT, he is so good at this!!!

  55. 55.

    Geminid

    @MattF: There are reports that at least one of the guy’s “jokes” was edited out before his performance. If that’s true, someone in authority let the others by,

    This damaging screw-up might have been made by an event organizer not on the actual campaign payroll, but “the campaign” will be still held responsible and deservedly so.

    Wiles and LaVivita knew what they were getting into when they hooked up with Trump’s army of grifters and amateurs, and they should not be surprised to see those churlish chickens come home to crap on the prospects of Rick Scott and other Florida Republicans.

    I’d love to hear the conversation Scott had with his former campaign manager, Susan Wiles after that rally. Or maybe during the rally, since it went on for hours after that comic insulted a couple million voters.

  56. 56.

    Tom Levenson

    @Jeffro: It’s notable that while PA has almost 500,000 Puerto Rican residents–a lot in a close election–Georgia’s numbers aren’t negligible in an election that last time was decided by less than 12,000 votes. Puerto Ricans there account for 1.1% of the population–over 116,000 people. I hope turnout efforts are redoubled there too.

    Also North Carolina is similar: 1.2% and about 120,000 people. It’s just astonishing that the Trump people knew that this jagwad had this teed up and didn’t think to nix it (and/or poleax him)

    ETA…Source.

  57. 57.

    Manyakitty

    @Gloria DryGarden: lately, I’ve backed off telling people to quit. Certainly, everyone has a limit, but quitting is largely an option of privilege. At the very least, people can start looking for a better place.

  58. 58.

    Velocifowl

    @Tom Levenson:

    Trump threw stuff at them and wanted to sell PR or trade it for Greenland.  They love him for it.

    Let’s see if this causes a push for statehood after Harris wins.

  61. 61.

    NotMax

    Overheard at the Kushner manse:

    “Could’a been worse. Could have insulted the Saudis.”
    //

  62. 62.

    Geminid

    @Jeffro: Trump has a rally scheduled for Salem, Virginia Saturday night. I’m not sure to what end, but it will put Glenn Youngkin on the spot. It sounds like 5th CD candidate John McGuire will attend.

    Trump:”I love Jeffro.”

    McGuire: “You know, Jeffro helped me beat Bob Good.”

    Trump: “Then I really love Jeffro.”

  63. 63.

    rk

    For the grand finale, I think Trump should have walked out of that rally and shot someone on 5th avenue to prove that he would not lose a single vote.

  64. 64.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @TBone: it was there in a leaked script, according to Deadline Whitehouse today. They chose to delete that but left in every other abomination.

    It goes to one of the most persistent bullshit lines we’ve been getting about Trump from the beginning. Prudish liberals don’t like Trump’s bad language.

    Wrong. It was never the word choice but the underlying attitudes. That’s how they can flag the ‘C’ word while remaining oblivious to reams of noxious racism. I doubt very many people here would object if I were to use the term “shit hole” to refer to a Trump golf course.

    Worth noting, I think Trump’s tendency to swear is his most relatable trait.

  65. 65.

    MisterForkbeard

    @sdhays: I mean, they attack mainland US cities for racism. What do you think the screaming about Chicago or other cities is about?

  67. 67.

    mrmoshpotato

    @rk:

    For the grand finale, I think Trump should have walked out of that rally and shot someone on 5th avenue to prove that he would not lose a single vote. 

    Do we have the same person in mind?

  68. 68.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @TBone: they’re not people?  

    Floating garbage, your former friend, perhaps. You know how they say run, don’t walk? I’m saying trash don’t compost.

    I can’t get across to my maga former friends, but calling someone not people might get me to fly off the handle and yell at them.

  69. 69.

    TBone

    @The Audacity of Krope: there are only so many words that can describe Donold’s stratospheric levels of “repulsive.”  Yes, cussing is relatable, but anything that comes out that anus mouth is just…

    Blech!

  70. 70.

    Steve LaBonne

    @Frank Wilhoit: By consolidating Republican voters and inspiring Democrats to turn out and independents to vote for Harris, they will only hit their ceiling of 47%, and lose the election.

  71. 71.

    artem1s

    @sdhays: Attacking Puerto Rico is just weird (as well as horrifically awful, obviously).

    eating dogs and cats, sharks, batteries, sharks eating batteries. Where the hell do they get any of their ideas?

  78. 78.

    ArchTeryx

    @Gloria DryGarden: I’ve been a nonperson to these people since I was born with multiple disabilites. And quite a few of them, from elementary school on to the present, have not been afraid to tell me so to my face. Though in adulthood, you tend to get the more subtle forms of bigotry, the attempt to repeal the ACA was a naval artillery shot right at my bridge, and it missed by the narrowest of margins.

    I’m quite used to being an unperson to these people.

  81. 81.

    Geminid

    @Dan B: I don’t doubt that. But when I saw the report sbout the campaign “whistleblower,”my first thought was they might be part a faction that’s been cut out of the spoils. Both Wiles and LaCivita in particular had other Republican hatchetmen coming after them this summer.

    The addition of Corey Lewandowski to the campaign team a few weeks ago seemed a result of that effort. Evidently Lewendowski’s out now, but he probably still has partisans within the campaign and one of them may be the leaker.

    But in general, my attitude about Republican backstabbing is, “Let a Thousand Knives Bloom.”

  90. 90.

    TBone

    @Mr. Bemused Senior: just two weeks ago, I had her eating out of the palm of my hand.  Someone got to her, maybe her sister or a church person.  I don’t care who, but the how is chapping my behind.

    She has mentioned watching Dr. Phil.  Hmmmm

    Her best friends are a lesbian couple and they’ve been working on her too.

  93. 93.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    So, something I think worth noting to folks who are feeling downcast about this election and gloomy about the polls – which is I think understandable given the stakes, but undersells the likelihood that we are going to win and win big.

    If one goes back and reads with care about the fascist movements in 1920s and 1930s Europe, and especially in Germany, there are a couple of factors which by way of comparison are very conspicuously missing in the Trumpist movement today. These are things we do not like to talk about much today and which have to some degree gone missing from historical memory, because those fascist movements turned out to be so profoundly evil that we tend to avert our eyes from reasons why they appealed to people so much and so broadly at the time.

    But for contemporaries (and especially so before the fascists took power and put their plans into operation) those movements were often very positive in tone, particularly when it came to the concept of the Volksgemeinschaft in Germany. That was not just a tool for marking out people to be excluded from the national community and eventually destroyed – it was also a positive concept expressing the joy of transcending what were perceived as petty and counterproductive differences of region & class into a unified whole. This in part recalled the uplifting experience of the Burgfrieden in August 1914 which many Germans had overwhelmingly positive & even ecstatic memories of (albeit it did not last very long).

    There is nothing like this in the Trumpist movement today. Watching their rallies, there is no joy in these folks, except of the nasty bullying “owning the libs” variety.

    And they don’t have much of an ethos either – borrowing the old Big Lebowski joke about “Say what you  want about the tenets of National Socialism“, it seems like here we are dealing not so much with National Socialists as with National Nihilists.

    If a fish rots from the head down, then Trump’s transactional nature has been seeping from the top down for years now. We see signs of this in the reports of grift among the top campaign staff, and even at the grassroots level with reports that attendees at his rallies are being paid to show up, and they depart as soon as the Venmo payment hits their account.

    I do not think a movement which is that lacking in joyful communitarian spirit and which is that transactional in ethos is built on solid ground. It is more like a large and impressive looking sand castle just waiting for a big enough wave to wash it away. Or so I hope anyway.

  96. 96.

    karen marie

    @JPL:   It was down starting about two hours ago for me trying to access links posted on Mastodon.  I consulted the website that tracks outages, and Threads was def down.

  99. 99.

    Steve LaBonne

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Also Hitler didn’t actually win power- the Nazis lost significant ground in the last election of the Weimar Republic, November 1932. He was placed in power by greedy right-wing shit birds not unlike Musk and Thiel, who wanted unchecked power to suppress the left and imagined they could use and control him.

  102. 102.

    Jay

    Barb McQuade
    @BarbMcQuade
    8h
    Good to see Pa. authorities step up to stop Musk’s scheme to buy votes. Civil case seeks court order to stop his illegal lottery at Trump rallies. Votes should be based on free choice, not monetary inducement. Prosecutors can’t hide let optics impede duty. apple.news/AcZ1POSKJS5OtAWi2…

    Philly DA sues to halt Elon Musk’s $1 million voter giveaway in Pennsylvania
    Philly DA sues to halt Elon Musk’s $1 million voter giveaway in Pennsylvania

    apple.news
    Oct 28, 2024 · 2:31 PM UTC

    https://nitter.poast.org/BarbMcQuade/status/1850908130080645217#m

  103. 103.

    Jay

    Taniel
    @Taniel
    8h
    An apparent act of arson in a ballot drop box in Vancouver, Washington, a blue area home to a swing House district. Local officials expect hundreds of mail (anything deposited since Sunday at 8am) ballots were destroyed: katu.com/news/local/vancouve…

    Vancouver ballot box seen smoking, same morning as Portland ballot box arson
    KATU was on the scene at Fisher’s Landing in Vancouver early Monday morning, where heavy smoke was seen coming from inside a dropoff ballot box.Our photographe

    katu.com
    Oct 28, 2024 · 2:43 PM UTC

    https://nitter.poast.org/Taniel/status/1850911245781651640#m

    KATU News
    @KATUNews
    9h
    BREAKING: An incendiary device was set off inside a ballot box in SE Portland early this morning, causing a fire.

    katu.com/news/local/incendia…

    Incendiary device set off inside SE Portland ballot box, causing fire
    An investigation is underway after an incendiary device was discovered inside a ballot box in Portland early Monday morning.On October 28, at approximately 3:3

    katu.com
    Oct 28, 2024 · 12:50 PM UTC

    https://nitter.poast.org/KATUNews/status/1850882831683346926#m

  104. 104.

    JPL

    @karen marie: Thank you.    I actually signed in with my insta account about the same time it came back up.   I’m okay with that.   It’s worth it Kamala HQ alone.

    Thanks again

  108. 108.

    Mike S. (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)

    @BR: I just watched this awsome GIS presentation by Tim Wallz. Thanks for sharing this!

  110. 110.

    Princess

    @Dan B: The idea that Trump’s campaign chairs are grifting on his grift is the kind of story that is likely to enrage Trump.

  111. 111.

    Dan B

    @Jay: We and friends are disturbed about the drop box arsons.  They occurred about 170 miles away but it portends what might happen in our “safe” blue bubble.  We’re 100% vote by mail so destroying ballots in a location important to taking over the House is deeply disturbing.  What’s next?  Is it bombing businesses in our minority majority neighborhood or the synagogues or mosques?  Is the Hmong Buddhist monastery in a quiet cul de sak safe?  How about the Vietnamese Buddhist Temple on a busy street?

  112. 112.

    Dan B

    @Princess: It’s not a direct to their bank accounts grift.  Contracts for ad placements were awarded to a couple companies for $20 million that would have been $14 million through Trump’s outfits.  One outfit is associated with LaCivita.  The other is owned by a big Dem donor.  It seems messy at least.

  113. 113.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Geminid:

    Trump has a rally scheduled for Salem, Virginia Saturday night. I’m not sure to what end, but it will put Glenn Youngkin on the spot.

    Good question –  would the Roanoke/Salem area even be that great for a fund-raiser?  Virginia’s DC outer ‘burbs would be a better bet for that.  And despite being way the hell down there from a D.C. area perspective (I say this despite having lived in Bristol for five years), it’s still not particularly close to any of North Carolina’s cities.  Maybe he’s pretending he can flip Virginia?

    Anyway, anything that puts Youngkin in a bind is good by me.

  114. 114.

    ssdd

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ:

    And they don’t have much of an ethos either – borrowing the old Big Lebowski joke about “Say what you  want about the tenets of National Socialism“, it seems like here we are dealing not so much with National Socialists as with National Nihilists. 

    Well put. And thank you, I’ve been trying and failing to put my finger on this concept and you just nailed it.

  116. 116.

    dnfree

    @The Audacity of Krope: Among my acquaintances (speaking of people mostly over age 70), people who avoid obscenities and people who use them freely are found on either side of the political divide.  But the people who seem to indicate the most prudishness are mostly on the right.

  117. 117.

    dnfree

    @Dan B: In our county in northern Illinois, the only ballot drop boxes are in government buildings, and hence only open during business hours.  So that’s an inconvenience, but on the positive side they are within view of workers in city hall, for instance.  I have wondered about the balance between restricted access vs unattended boxes outside.

  120. 120.

    Tony G

    @sdhays: My theory is that Trump — even before the beginning of his current deterioration due to dementia — is a guy who basically stopped learning new things about 60 years ago.  In his circle of acquaintances in New York City in the mid-sixties “Puerto Rican” was basically a term meaning “brown skinned people who we hate”.  He’s a man who has learned nothing in decades.

  121. 121.

    catclub

    @The Audacity of Krope: Worth noting, I think Trump’s tendency to swear is his most relatable trait.

     

    I see much increased swearing as dementia  affected loss of inhibitions. poooossibly relatable.

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