Last night the Boston Globe published a leaked email from a top volunteer with the Trump campaign, former Massachusetts Republican Party vice chair Tom Mountain, telling volunteers that the Trump campaign “no longer thinks New Hampshire is winnable” and is “pulling back” from that important swing state.
"For his part, Trump says his wandering speech is deliberate. He calls it “the weave.” I’ll talk about, like, nine different things, and they all come back brilliantly together, and it’s like, and friends of mine that are, like, English professors, they say, ‘It's the most brilliant thing I've ever seen.’”
To Donold Trump the Oscar for biggest bulls**t statement ever. The weave sits on top of his head!
When Trimp speaks, I'm always reminded of this quote from the movie Billy Madison -
"What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
Any female in this country of voting age who isn't filled with abject fear of a second MAGA/Roman Catholic Trump Administration is simply paying no attention. What motivates the Muslim Taliban also infects the American Taliban - complete and total disdain for females. What's next? Salem witch trials? Let's be candid and call a spade a spade: this is misogyny on parade.
If you scroll down and look at the responses to the Seneca Project video, that's where it get's really scary. It's almost like these people are robots with no clear brain to think with.
Be careful about lumping "Roman Catholic" as a hate group comparable with MAGA -- Joe Biden is Roman Catholic, as are a lot of good people who don't agree with the right wing of the Roman Catholic Church (the entire church isn't of one mind: there are liberals and conservatives as in other population groups).
Thank you Roxanna. I'm tired of being tarred with that broad brush. I imagine many "real" Christians are sick of being labeled along with the Talibangelicals.
I hope I am reading this incorrectly—HCR wrote that voter registration of women in North Carolina was+12 and +6 were Democrats. That means the other half were republican’ts? I’m thrilled about all the good news in her Letter, but this bothers me.
What KR (OH) said. Tom Bonier's report deconstructed (sorry about the ALL CAPS -- Substack doesn't allow bold or italics in comments):
"In North Carolina, he writes, the number of registrants was almost 50% higher during the week of July 21 than in the same week in 2020 . . ." KEEP IN MIND THAT MOTIVATION WAS ALSO HIGH IN 2020, SO THIS IS BIG.
"and the gender gap was +12 women, compared to +6 women in 2020." WOMEN LED THE SURGE IN NEW REGISTRATIONS IN 2020 AND THEY'RE LEADING IT BY A MUCH GREATER MARGIN NOW.
"The new registrants were +6 Democratic, and 43% were younger than 30." I *THINK* THIS MEANS THAT 2024 REGISTRATIONS WERE MORE HEAVILY DEMOCRATIC THAN 2020 REGISTRATIONS, BUT IT'S NOT CLEAR WHAT THE 2020 BASELINE WAS. AND "43%" IS ABOUT 2024. THE FIGURE FOR 2020 ISN'T GIVEN.
P.S. I'm guessing that "more heavily Democratic" refers to voters registering as Democrats. In North Carolina, you can register as a member of a particular party or you can register as "Unaffiliated."
Richard, Roman Catholic or Christian Nationalist or both? I may be wrong but I don’t think the RC church is against using the medical drugs to treat women from the threat of hemorrhaging.
Um, there are stories about Catholic hospitals not providing the care that women need. Some Catholics are absolutely antiabortion and they don't care about the lives of women. Of course, there are others who feel the same who are not Catholic. And the Supreme Court is heavily Catholic although a couple of them are on the liberal side.
Anne, they are against tubal ligation and vasectomies—in fact, many women that I’ve known have found this out when they had a C-section and were not allowed to have a tubal ligation.
Itsy bitsy teeny weanie syndrome. The patriarchy is too busy measuring its collective private parts to give much thought to females; it is scared to death of females and must do whatever it can to transfer that fear to us gurlz.. Religious cant is just, as usual, a means of justifying their bad behavior.
I am disgusted by the thought they want to monitor abortions. Does that mean pregnancies, too? If at all possible, no woman should go to a OBGYN( in one of those restrictive states like Texas if she thinks she is pregnant. Find someone out of state who can help you in case there are difficulties The Hand Maid's Tale
In 1964, when Republicans nominated Barry Goldwater, their slogan was z”In your heart, you know he’s right.” The Democratic rejoinder was, “In your guts, you know he’s nuts.”
@ Jennifer. If only 5% who voted for him in 2016 and 2020 flip, we sweep. I'm a member of 2 data groups who say his support is diminished. I belong to a veteran's group that has thousands of testimonials of voters who flipped. https://votevets.org/
Gary, God only lets us fall and Karma comes at us, and hopefully at some point we wake up and make the changes necessary to not have to repeat lessons. In this lifetime or the next, or next and so on.
Yes… it BS… but it’s also standard Con Man Patter. I wish journalists would stop calling him a politician and call him a con man… because that’s what he’s been his entire f-ing life!
Coming from NY I can attest to the fact that you are right. I only know him from all the gossip and the bad things he used to do that did business with him. We all knew he was a con man from the beginning.
Yes, I agree, but the main stream news organizations are owned by very rich rich people and those are the ones that like Trump policies it’s all about money and democracy be damned.
CBS, NBC, CNN, and ABC and the NYT are part of public companies, owned by shareholders. WaPo is owned by Jeff Bezos, whom Trump despises. The Guardian, Reuters, and the AP are all public companies or part of larger public companies.
Sorry they don’t live up to your expectation of Democratic propaganda machines. But they are fair.
How do you think you know what you do about the many sorry Trump sagas?
Because these media outlets reported it. Look at the citations in HCR’s work. She gets her facts from the same source. Look at the quotes and citations in her columns. From these same reporters and outlets.
Thanks Tom, personally i think the endless diatribes against the msm are overdone in Heather's community. She quotes them, and when did you ever hear her rage about bias in the press?
I personally think that they - most or many of them - failed us during the Bush/Cheney administration … however, they - “the fourth estate” - seem to have made amends since “idiot trimp” has been on the scene.
I’m not from New York, but I was well aware Trump was a grifter by the accounts from the late Jack Newfield and the late Wayne Barrett, who exposed Trump’s grifts and scams in the early 1990s, before the had squandered all of Fred Trump’s money.
Interesting - I am a White NYer. All my family and friends and associates are not just voting for Harris but actively supporting the Harris/Walz ticket. Writing postcards, knocking on doors and donating a lot of money. Greater NY included - Brooklyn etc.
I live in upstate NY, in a county that has traditionally been majority-Republican, but that is changing. I see fewer Trump flags than I did four years ago.
I guess that explains Hoschul's wishywashy performance. Is NYC/NYS overrun with immigrants in the way trump says? My new neighbors are from NYS & my republican husband immediately took a shine to them. They seem to be doing their very best to fulfill the ideal white child quota the republicans favor. She's had 2 kids since she's been here & moved in with a new baby & 2 or 3 older kids. According to Vance calculations that would be 8 votes for trump...
From all the way back in the 70s, New Yorkers have known what a racist he is. Forced to operate under a DOJ consent decree for refusing to rent to POC. Then, there was the full page ad he took out in the New York Times, calling for the execution of the Central Park 5, even after they had been found innocent of the crime of which they were accused.
In short, he’ racist garbage, he’s always been racist garbage and there’s a reason why Manhattan voted against him 9 to 1.
True. The housing discrimination litigation was how Donald met Roy Cohn, who purportedly gave instant advice to Donald to fight it. Trump thinks he’s never wrong and never apologizes for anything he does.
From Joseph McCarthy to Roy Cohn to trump, some of the sickest people to ever have inhabited earth. Roy Marcus Cohn came to prominence for his role as Senator Joseph McCarthy's chief counsel during the Army–McCarthy hearings in 1954, when he assisted McCarthy's investigations of suspected communists.
Here you are, guys. My final story from my book, "Donald's Vanity Tantrums>"
The Citizen Kane Movie of Tomorrow: Citizen Trump
February 17, 2024
The classic movie Citizen Kane directed, produced, and starred in by Orson Welles will one day in the future, have a remake only this time the main pseudo-fictional character will be Donald Trump. The movie scene will open with a very bloated relic of his former self; uneven orange-smeared makeup slobbed across his face in bed. His overgrown blond hair is found similar to the muss of Boris Johnson’s now showing gray roots from lack of up-to-date hair dye. He periodically wakes from a semi-conscious state at his future dilapidated Mar-a-Lago residence (for lack of having sufficient funds to upkeep the property due to previous constant litigation and losses.) He looks around demanding more Kentucky Fried Chicken wings as low paid personal rush in another bucket and his last word is not “Rosebud” as in the movie Citizen Kane but:
“Stormy.” And the ex 45th president of the United States expires. The camera fades to black then opens at Le Club in the early disco 1970s, a members-only Manhattan nightclub in the East 50s, where models, fashionistas and a variety of Eurotrash (including his wife) went to be seen.
“The government has just filed suit against our company,” said Trump, “saying we discriminated against Blacks. What do you think we should do?”
The Roy Cohn obedient ass-kisser to Senator Joe McCarthy hearings accusing entertainment personalities of being communists shoots back, “Tell them to go to hell and fight the thing in court and let them prove you discriminated against them.”
Roy Cohn has become Trump’s go-to lawyer and fixer.
Cohn admonishes the young Trump to 1. Never settle. Never surrender. 2. Counter-attack, counter-sue immediately. 3. No matter what happens, no matter how deep into the shit you get, claim victory and never admit defeat.
These lessons were found to be the essential attributes of his future self.
Janis, the lady who cleans our house once lived in Queens. She asked me who I was going to vote for and when I told her, she gave me a hug. She then told me about his reputation in Queens....a crook.
We're a week away from the live ABC debate. I hope the monitors can do something to control the Conman Patter and Gish-galloping in which the Abomination is sure to engage. It's all he's got. I hope VP Harris skewers him with personal attacks that will drive him even crazier. Specifically, she needs to say to his face that he has repeatedly and consistently shown that he is the emptiest of empty suits, a person without honor, decency, compassion, humor or intelligence and that he is the very definition of a loser, that everything he touches he destroys. And then let him self-destruct.
Dr. Richardson's observation that the Republican Party is giving up on trying to make Trump stick to the issues is good news. By all means let Trump be Trump. Let him rage on to the end, engaging in personal attacks that won't stick because there's nothing to stick them to.
I used to think that you should never wrestle with a pig. I think in this case VP Harris needs to get down there and stick that pig again and again until he squeals his last squeal. Preferably on camera.
James, Respectfully, my thoughts regarding how Harris should approach the debate differ from yours. Instead of resorting to ad hominem, which, in my view, would reflect poorly on her, I hope to see Harris 1) showing every American, with facts that can be nailed to the post with confirming evidence, what would be in store for them were they to elect Trump and 2) contrasting Trump’s vision with her own, expressly showing how her policy agenda relates to the interests and concerns of everyday people.
VP Harris strikes me as someone who is effective at debate and would call out Donald’s cascade of lies. I think she would effectively counter Trump’s Gish gallop of lies. After Dana Bash and Jake Tapper failed to counter Trump’s lies during the ill-fated debate with President Biden, I’m not entirely convinced that ABC’s debate monitor would call out Trump’s bs either.
This event called "Debate" is not a debate. It is a show. It is free advertising for a candidate. It is verbal combat.
To expect any journalist to moderate it effectively is like throwing a Quaker into a cage fight. Forget about it.
My advice to Harris is not to take ANY bait from Trump. Don't acknowledge any of his lies. When she has her turn to speak, simply state "Donald, you lie for a living." And then attack him with a list of his offenses that is so long, so truthful and so disqualifying that he will reel in reaction.
And she must not do what Joe Biden did. Do not react to anything he says other than to look him in the eye and say: "You lie for a living."
This "debate" is an opportunity for Harris to produce repeatable phrases that will be attached to memes and signs everywhere. The only rule for these performances is to own the theater and that means ignoring the competition and attacking it - with the truth.
His felony conviction for cheating fellow tax payers, stolen top secrets, money from Russia, Trump University, Helsinki betrayal, Ukraine betrayal, two impeachments, porn star payoffs....and applauding thugs who threatened to hang your own Vice President? "How low can you go. Donald?"
And wrap it up with a question: "Donald have you ever had a wife or a girl friend that you didn't cheat on?" and "Jeffrey Epstein was convicted of sex trafficking young girls...why was he your friend?"
America is ready to see this Orange Menace reduced to a melted creamsicle.
Kamala has been great at that. When Bash tried to get her to defend a lie, she said ľnext question and stupefied Bash, who should have been let go long ago.
I totally agree. I think she must start every response to his blather by saying, "There you go again Donold...lying. It's what you do. People at home, for the truth go to Harris/walz.com." And then answer each question posed cogently and succinctly.
When I saw Hulk Hogan's display at the RNC I imagined what a "debate" between him and Dr. Joyce Brothers would look like.
It also reminded me of a calm but determined looking nurse in scrubs and an N95 mask facing armed protestors in Michigan that seem to recall wanted Governor Whitmer to end the mask mandate. I can’t find that picture but did find a similar one at:
“…In April 2020, Lauren Leander went with two other nurses on her day off down to the Arizona State Capital building where people were protesting to reopen the state’s economy. They went to counter protest, standing up for their patients in the COVID-19 unit and their health care colleagues./Photo courtesy Sandy Leander…”
I can imagine Kamala Harris standing, arms crossed facing DJT, Hulk Hogan, and the worst of the Trump gang like Steve Bannon, Steve Miller, Roger Stone, and 70 election rejection officials planning to NOT certify results.
Behind Kamala, I imagine large crowds of Women, Educators, Doctors and Nurses, thousands of Union workers, and Republican Voters Against Trump.
Or rolling on the floor, kicking and screaming. She has to be the adult in charge. Trump would have a cow. Maybe two.
Yeah it's a game show, only missing a scoreboard and a buzzer for landed zingers. Lincoln debated. In TV land we have shows.
She might ask why Trump appointed Sec. Alex Acosta, the wink-wink, nudge-nudge prosecutor of Epstein's first sex trafficking confrontation with the law, as his Secretary of Labor. No! No! Not the comfy chair! Only the wealth get such "courtesies".
Kathy, Seeing I agree with your observations of Bash and Tapper and share your concerns regarding ABC’s co-moderators, I expect the onus will rest with Harris to call out Trump when his answers contradict verifiable facts. For what it’s worth, I wrote Harris suggesting, aside from relating her policy agenda and connecting it to the interests and concerns of everyday people, that the burden of pressing Trump to square his campaign rhetoric with facts likely would rest with her.
Yup, boxing Trump into check will be a DIY for her. I take hope in the fact that a good prosecutor is collected and focused in the face of outrageous lies.
While I agree with the importance of Harris presenting verifiable facts and sticking to her policy/vision messages, a friend of mine suggested that when Donald speaks his nonsense, she should respond with "Oh, Donald, you are just confused again," or "I see that you are not remembering what the facts are." Keeping hitting at his confusion, bad memory, rudeness seems like a good tactic to me.
Mimi, With all due respect to your friend, “when Donald speaks his nonsense,” I believe Harris would score big were she to call him out either for not answering the question or for offering up an answer disconnected from verifiable fact.
Thank you for your articulate and well-considered reply. In an ideal world, I wouldn’t disagree. But that’s not the word we’re in, alas. I don’t think VP Harris should start with ad hominem, but she should keep that skewer at close hand if things get rough. And they will, if fFG starts to lose it, as is highly likely. A debate would be great, but that’s not what TFG will be willing or able to do.. i don’t think VP Harris will have a chance to employ your two suggestions in anything beyond her opening statement. And that would be only if she gets to speak first. I doubt the monitors will be able to restrain TFG. And VP Harris can’t spend her time calmly rebutting an endless stream of rubbish. She needs to mock the interminable firehose of falsehood by calling it for what it is, loudly, forcefully, and repeatedly. Reduce TFG to a blubbering, quivering pile of glop that oozes off the stage. Thanks again for offering me another chance to rant, this time more calmly 😁
James, You’re right. “VP Harris can’t spend her time calmly rebutting an endless stream of rubbish.” Nonetheless, as I stated elsewhere, if she can selectively extract from Trump’s fire hose of lies a handful of fundamental distortions and deceptions enabling her to expose how disconnected his campaign rhetoric is from verifiable fact, she could score big.
Not loudly. She knows better. The man cheated on all 3 of his wives. Took $10 million in small bills from Egypt. Gave the Medal of Freedom to Rush Limbaugh and other liars. Mismanaged Covid by making it political. The evil compulsive liar and cheat is not her equal. He’s a slug-man. Melt him down!!
James- I am laughing my head off at your vision of a “glop” of oozing TFG! The thick, soupy remains of his blue jacket with a trickle of red necktie dripping on the floor.
She can certainly and strongly condemn what he says and does. I enjoy calling Trump terrible things here, but name calling on duty is Trump's shtick, so Kamala needs to pull out his rug, not compete on his ground.
I’ll be surprised and happy if she can do that—trump’s method of “debating “ is to throw out so much garbage so fast that the other person can’t even reply. Personally, I wish he’d back out of the debate.
Elizabeth, Both in my post on this site and in my recently deployed letter to Harris, I intentionally streamlined her debate objectives to meeting 2 (all be they broad) fundamental goals. I would add, seeing I trust Harris’s ability to think and speak extemporaneously, I believe she will be able selectively to extract from Trump’s fire hose of lies a handful of essential distortions and deceptions allowing her to expose how disconnected his campaign rhetoric is from verifiable fact. If I’m right, Harris could enormously benefit from this debate.
Harris has the advantage in that trump will never come up with anything different. He has no policy facts to debate on, just the same old whinges. "Immigrants! Inflation! Windmills!" and so on - probably ten or twelve tops. The Harris team should pull in a few favors from SNL (Al Franken - where are you?) to give her snappy brush offs to his tired complaints.
Defeating trump and influencing his base is not easy - we certainly can't shoot him, and we seem to be having trouble even jailing him - so perhaps laughter will do it.
Bringing some joy and happiness into people's lives seems to have worked well for Kamala. Perhaps it will work AGAINST trump. . .
Why do you think she keeps delivering the same speech from the teleprompter every location she goes to? Especially when she changes up her accent and is repeatedly called out by many for coming off as fake and phony. Why are her speech writers not changing it up? Republicans are already placing bets on how many times she will tell Trump “I’m speaking” during the debate as her big moment for future ads. At this point if she doesn’t start explaining her flip flopping policies and positions she’s going to lose. Especially if she can’t get all the illegals to vote for her.
Barbara, In a normal" campaign, those suggestions are spot-on.
I have watched Trump's supporters at his rallies being questioned and reminded of illegal and immoral things that Trump has done. They're given the FACTS, but refuse to listen
They are not interested in policy agendas that don't include rounding up immigrants, outlawing abortion, protecting assault weapons, and US isolation from other countries.
Many times, the question had been asked " Is there anything Trump could do to change your mind about him?" The emphatic answer us always, "NO!!"
He was "sent by God" to save the country."
As long as these misguided people feel this way, no amount of facts will change their minds. After all, they're just "Fake News."
Anyone with any sense should have already seen that Kamala is so far superior to Trump. Maybe some of Trump's supporters will listen to the debate, and realize that. Wouldn't that be something?
Pam, I should have clarified, when I initially posted, that I wouldn’t expect the greatest possible gut punch to Trump to exert any impact on hardcore MAGA voters. Nonetheless, I believe there exists a sizable bloc of moderate Republicans and Independents, persuadables if you would, for whom a stellar performance from Harris could have a huge impact on the election.
You never ask questions when God's on your side. But the hard core cult is outnumbered. Something may click for some of those for whom Trump is not strictly the alpha and omega.
Perfect. Then each time after that, just say “more weird. .” Cheetolini would likely start to meltdown in real-time. That would be fun to watch (and might get through to non-cultists that he is not a valid candidate).
She has all the ammunition to do it. Harris should ignore Trump. Politely ignore the moderators and attack him over and over and over until he can't handle it. The nation will applaud.
"You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"
Where he and MAGAs will mightily whine about how rude, mean, unfair, violent, and awful Harris is. He's already started talking about that in context of the debate.
I hope the moderators will be fact-checking in real time or a zipper strip will be doing that. The mainstream media is treating him with kid gloves and creating a false equivalency between Harris and Trump.
Going high is not papering over nor failing to confront. Going high is telling and sticking to the truth, in an adult and compelling manner. Composed adult anger can silence a room, because everybody is listening.
And there is technical truth and smart truth, the kind with impact. The kind a liar fears from a skilled prosecutor. It's Trump's worst nightmare.
He will never debate her. And no one should debate a total madman. It is insanity to think the leader of an insane asylum is even fit to be in this position in our country. Do no honor him with pretending he is fit and his name is on our presidential ballot.
My only pleasure in convict 34+ is that he and his party of bizarros have revealed so many devastating chinks in our democracy, our racism, our misogyny that we cannot help but smell the stink of colonialism leaning on crutches of fascism for control of this country. This is our moment to choose hatred or joy in standing up for what is right and ridding ourselves of the putrid, oligarchal, white-dominant-male, knee-on-our-necks.
Thank you Heather for being the voice of "weaving" our history with current history being made and the dangers of repeating what we should have learned by now. Looks like, miraculously in the nick of time, our democracy might be given an incredible second chance to rectify and thrive, thanks to the Prosecutor vs the Felon. The abuse of the past eight to 40 years is worth having a very experienced Prosecutor as President, who just happens to be a woman. Last night I watched a friend's film about the tumultuous 60's which of course included the powerful music of change, anti-war and civil rights. The reverie of Bob Dylan singing The Times They are a Changing is appropriate in 2024 as it was in the '60's:
[Verse 1]
Come gather 'round, people, wherever you roam
And admit that the waters around you have grown
And accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth saving
And you better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone
For the times, they are a-changin'
[Verse 2]
Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide, the chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon, for the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who that it's namin'
For the loser now will be later to win
For the times, they are a-changin'
[Verse 3]
Come senators, congressmen, please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled
The battle outside ragin'
Will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times, they are a-changin'
[Verse 4]
Come mothers and fathers throughout the land
And don't criticize what you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin'
Please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand
Thank you, Pensa, for typing out the words to this powerful song. I couldn't help but sing it out loud! Brought me right back to the '60s when so many of us gathered together to sing our hearts out with such meaningful words as these!
J L, Brilliantly stated. While nothing more need be said, I simply would add my observation that the one thing the radical right loathes more than liberals is the truth. And the quickest way to get under the far right’s skin is to tell the truth.
Her sanity in contrast to his insanity will be enough for the American people. Her joy and unity message in contrast to his divisive America is a sh*t hole nation will be enough for the American people. Even people I know who were staunchly against Biden are sick of his whining and psychopathic message....and just want him to go away.
Thanks to Heather Cox Richardson, we now understand gish-galloping speech. tRump used it to defeat Biden, whose "coaches" didn't teach him how to handle it!!!
And, we saw that tRump knows how to sling it. He will again.
We also now know how to "throw it back"! Harris CAN do this, I pray she's practicing!
I don't think calling him an empty suit will convince many, but quoting and detailing some of Trump's most repellent moments might. Citing the circumstances of some of the people he has callously hurt.
You’re probably right about the convincing, but it would serve the useful purpose of riling him up to self destruct. Making many of our worse selves feel better would be a collateral benefit 😁
My hope is that that she can finesse Trump's extreme self-centeredness and profoundly lazy dishonesty against him, enough rope to hang him. My daughter studied Aikido , which turns the force of an attackers assault against them. I've seen it work. Language can be used to the same end.
I don’t think she should spend all her time identifying and countering his lies, but do think she should point out that everything he has just taken credit for was done by the Obama and Biden administrations, and that all he accomplished was giving more money to the super rich, thus endangering programs that benefit ordinary people, and greatly increasing the national debt. She can also mention that everything he just said was a lie. I have confidence that she will do a great job in the non debate.
I just wish they would not cover him at all. It seems that when people dismiss, ignore or poke fun at him, he loses it! Otherwise he takes up all the oxygen in the room.
I wish they wold cover how incredibly unsuited he is for public trust. Nixon looks like relatively little league corruption compared to the monstrous MAGA cesspool.
But ignore his obvious danger at our peril. If the MSM would tell the truth about him, no big deal. Instead they cut and paste the way Rupert has done since Fox dumped Jeb Bush.
Narcissists like Trump generally do suck up all the oxygen in a room, and Trump is a prime example of someone with malignant narcissistic personality disorder, as well as antisocial personality disorder. Both of these disorders make him supremely unfit to govern.
The more Trump is in the public eye, the more he sinks in the polls. That’s why Harris wants hot mics. That’s why Dems have beeb trying to get him back on Twitter for four years.
Steve, I agree with your sentiment, but I think it's worth noting that it's not journalists who refer to him a politician. A journalist is someone who informs people profitably, and not someone who profits from misinforming people. People who tRump can gaslight with ease because they're so naive they don't notice the gas being lit are not journalists.
You and me both. Also, when did he decide that talking for 2 hours was what his followers want? It's good to know that some of them have the good sense to leave. I just hope they have the good sense to cast their vote for Harris-Walz.
He has no prefrontal cortex left. Unable to make plans, follow plans, change plans when new information becomes available. No ability to control his emotions to achieve his goals. Imagine an angry, impulsive president like that?!
One shudders to consider another term for Trump. My fear isn't about him so much as about the people using his psychopathy and decline in cognitive ability for their own purposes. He can deny he has anything to do with Project 2025 but it's as sure as the Earth rotates on its axis that his staff and cabinet very much do.
Any parent will tell you they know how to drill down when their child uses either the term “they” or “everyone” when trying to get away with something.
When the Trump Era is over, more books about it will be written by students of abnormal psychology than by political scientists or historians. There may even be a few more terms added to the official psychology lexicon;
Over a month ago, there was a video clip on YouTube of one of his speeches, the one in NJ I believe. It ran continually for about 30 minutes, showing people walking out on his speech in droves. You can hear him rambling away in the background, while the bored people file out.
That was over the dinner table one night, you know one of those dinners you see on "Downton Abbey", with the silver and the candles on the table and a big old log fire in the ten foot fireplace. They were all sitting round a twenty foot table, smoking cigars and passing the port. tossing the odd grape to a slave or two, and the Dean of the English Faculty at Harvard said "I need some advice on something, Donald, and your the only man who can help me - should I have just typed this "You're?"
And then the half eaten burger fell onto his pyjamas and Donnie woke up. . .
Keith, how in the world have we been able to survive his wandering mind with the Gish gallop and fruit salad that spews from his mouth. I honestly think one day he will finally blow a gasket and start speaking in tongue for the rest of his life, totally unintelligible which of course is only a hop skip and jump from where he is now.
I finally had to let my Mom go live in a nursing home. Another lady there (who had previously held a high rank in the military) had developed a form of dementia where she could only verbalise "burbles" - she would stop you and hold your arm and stare into your eyes trying to say something but just going "Brlblrbrlblbbblbrlbleberb. . . ." it was very sad.
Saddest part about that friend was that she'd been one of the first members of the SOE, and was dropped into France and served there undercover with the Resistance for two years.
And she had no family or friends who visited. So when she went "Brblbrbrlbr" I'd sit with her a while because she deserved a lot of respect.
True J D Chicutt, so I am happy to read in today’s Letter about the money Harris-Walz is giving to the down ballot races. This will help them spread the message in local efforts. So many areas of America have towns where Dems feel they are the only one. My hope is this down-ballot-race money will show up in yard signs, local billboards, etc to remind Dems in these areas to stand up and have courage.
Well Trevy, since his 'English professor friends' (i cant believe i just typed that) any how, they are all and only in his mind, maybe he could do a ventriloquist type of discussion with himself to get their true opinion on this subject. LOL 😊😂🤣
I have a better term than "the weave." I call it gaslighting. The key to understanding gaslighting is that it’s about power and control. It's an attempt by the perpetrator to gain domination over the victim by getting the victim to question their own reality. My guess is the only thing he understands about it is that it appears to be working. I don't think he understands why it works for the simple reason that that understanding, along with the victim, are not one of the three things he cares about (me, myself, and I).
That's a good way to think of it. Or you can think of it as a human being using words the way an alpha male chimpanzee uses whatever comes to hand (a tree branch, for example) in a dominance display.
I'm looking forward to watching him "weaving" his way through the debate with VP Harris and making a total fool of himself. (worse than he already has)
Hope it encourages many more people to vote against him.
If Kamala does not knock him out in the first round we will be disappointed. Unbelievable there is so much emphasis placed on such an idiotic way to choose a presidential winner. And then we are told by others that even if you win the debates (Hillary), no guarantee of a win on election day.
An anecdote about "The Weave": When I was in high school, in the early '60s, I was lucky enough to spend an hour or so listening to R. Buckminster Fuller speak, in a small-group setting. After he was introduced, he stood silently, eyes closed, for perhaps thirty seconds, long enough that an uneasy sense came over the room. Was he OK? What's going on?
Then he started speaking, without any notes or papers, and proceeded to launch several different tangents, each interesting but seemingly unrelated to the others. Again, an unease came over the room. What's he talking about? Where's this going? This is all over the place.
Fuller continued his talk, painting increasingly complex pictures with words, developing each of the "tangents" he introduced earlier, stretching our minds a little further with each paragraph, keeping us spellbound but still unsure where he was going. Then in the last five minutes or so, he wove his "tangents" together, unifying them into a coherent whole, a single, powerful theme. We sat silent for a moment or two, clobbered by the vision he had gotten us to see and staggered by the depth and breadth of his thinking, before breaking into loud applause.
In the following Q & A, someone asked Fuller what was up with his standing silent, eyes closed, at the start of the talk. He replied simply, "I was organizing what I wanted to say to you today. "
_That_ was The Weave, worked by a brilliant intellect who sought to broaden perspectives and advance thinking.
The sorry spectacle so routinely polluting the public square today, utterly incapable of The Weave, seeks to obstruct and bamboozle, hoping to baffle us all some more with his never-ending and nonsensical bullshit.
"Bucky", as some of my Design School profs called him occasionally lectured at the NCSU School of Design back in the day. Built quite a few large geodesic domes in the neighborhoods near campus. Thanks for the story about Bucky and the "weave".
Larry David made brilliant use of “the weave” writing scripts for Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Multiple seemingly unrelated plot lines would somehow come together at the end of the episode with hilarious effect.
Whatever Trump is doing is the opposite of what Larry David did. At the end of his insane, rambling, self-congratulating, lie-filled rants, one has no idea what they just heard. Rather than coming together, Trump’s story lines diverge into nothing. Exactly what I hope his political campaign does.
Talk about the ability to rationalize. "People say he is brilliant". You must give him credit for having such brilliant friends - in his dreams. His brilliant VP is not supporting him. He is through, washed up, finished!!!!
I laughed ROL…. one second reflection of ..yup , no guilt!
Great news, Letter from an American🫶
The DNC timing is perfect for their funding going here and there, keep the lights on Kamala and Tim..the momentum is steady.
Personally? Thanking the McCain family for the vote, the voice, it’s all valediction of the right thing to do.
For a the few Republicans I too know lending some more votes , also ..Thank you..and for the many others stepping up to save our Democracy, proclaiming it loudly..this is what America does well.
"For his part, Trump says his wandering speech is deliberate. He calls it “the weave.” I’ll talk about, like, nine different things, and they all come back brilliantly together, and it’s like, and friends of mine that are, like, English professors, they say, ‘It's the most brilliant thing I've ever seen.’”
To Donold Trump the Oscar for biggest bulls**t statement ever. The weave sits on top of his head!
When Trimp speaks, I'm always reminded of this quote from the movie Billy Madison -
"What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
LOL, that is a winner Gary. Thanks for that.
I keep sayin' MAGATs are visceral and most of them know in their guts that Trump is nuts.
The remedy is purgation by blue tsunami.
https://www.fieldteam6.org/
Especially need phone bank volunteers. Florida, Pennsylvania tomorrow. https://www.mobilize.us/ft6/?q=phone%20banks&tag_ids=20038
Any female in this country of voting age who isn't filled with abject fear of a second MAGA/Roman Catholic Trump Administration is simply paying no attention. What motivates the Muslim Taliban also infects the American Taliban - complete and total disdain for females. What's next? Salem witch trials? Let's be candid and call a spade a spade: this is misogyny on parade.
Keep sharing this powerful 1 min video by the Seneca Project as they say the silent part out loud ! 📣
https://x.com/senecaprojectus/status/1810372496878874790
So Louisiana is taking life saving medication off the Louisiana obstetric STAT carts.
There is another word for that overt act; Womanslaughter.
Thank you for sharing. These men hate women or perhaps even more are fearful of women. “I am woman hear me Roar”, on 11/5/24. “ We are NOT Going Back”
If you scroll down and look at the responses to the Seneca Project video, that's where it get's really scary. It's almost like these people are robots with no clear brain to think with.
Be careful about lumping "Roman Catholic" as a hate group comparable with MAGA -- Joe Biden is Roman Catholic, as are a lot of good people who don't agree with the right wing of the Roman Catholic Church (the entire church isn't of one mind: there are liberals and conservatives as in other population groups).
Thank you Roxanna. I'm tired of being tarred with that broad brush. I imagine many "real" Christians are sick of being labeled along with the Talibangelicals.
I hope I am reading this incorrectly—HCR wrote that voter registration of women in North Carolina was+12 and +6 were Democrats. That means the other half were republican’ts? I’m thrilled about all the good news in her Letter, but this bothers me.
What KR (OH) said. Tom Bonier's report deconstructed (sorry about the ALL CAPS -- Substack doesn't allow bold or italics in comments):
"In North Carolina, he writes, the number of registrants was almost 50% higher during the week of July 21 than in the same week in 2020 . . ." KEEP IN MIND THAT MOTIVATION WAS ALSO HIGH IN 2020, SO THIS IS BIG.
"and the gender gap was +12 women, compared to +6 women in 2020." WOMEN LED THE SURGE IN NEW REGISTRATIONS IN 2020 AND THEY'RE LEADING IT BY A MUCH GREATER MARGIN NOW.
"The new registrants were +6 Democratic, and 43% were younger than 30." I *THINK* THIS MEANS THAT 2024 REGISTRATIONS WERE MORE HEAVILY DEMOCRATIC THAN 2020 REGISTRATIONS, BUT IT'S NOT CLEAR WHAT THE 2020 BASELINE WAS. AND "43%" IS ABOUT 2024. THE FIGURE FOR 2020 ISN'T GIVEN.
P.S. I'm guessing that "more heavily Democratic" refers to voters registering as Democrats. In North Carolina, you can register as a member of a particular party or you can register as "Unaffiliated."
Let's instead see them as part of the group "Republicans for Harris"!!
I think the +12 and +6 are relative to new registrations four years ago, not + over current republican registrations.
I believe it’s that women are 56 percent of new registrants, and Democrats are 53 percent of new registrants.
Halves are equal, so not half. Also, a significant portion were probably Independents.
Yes, that about sums it up, moreso if those women are white.
Richard, Roman Catholic or Christian Nationalist or both? I may be wrong but I don’t think the RC church is against using the medical drugs to treat women from the threat of hemorrhaging.
Um, there are stories about Catholic hospitals not providing the care that women need. Some Catholics are absolutely antiabortion and they don't care about the lives of women. Of course, there are others who feel the same who are not Catholic. And the Supreme Court is heavily Catholic although a couple of them are on the liberal side.
Anne, they are against tubal ligation and vasectomies—in fact, many women that I’ve known have found this out when they had a C-section and were not allowed to have a tubal ligation.
But the RC church totally supports the patriarchy.
Women are the property of their husbands and so are the children.
And a single woman with children isn't welcome in the RC church.
So well said ..can not fathom any woman not seeing how these people send us back to the 1800’s
Itsy bitsy teeny weanie syndrome. The patriarchy is too busy measuring its collective private parts to give much thought to females; it is scared to death of females and must do whatever it can to transfer that fear to us gurlz.. Religious cant is just, as usual, a means of justifying their bad behavior.
On parade, with a spotlight, and amplification.
I am disgusted by the thought they want to monitor abortions. Does that mean pregnancies, too? If at all possible, no woman should go to a OBGYN( in one of those restrictive states like Texas if she thinks she is pregnant. Find someone out of state who can help you in case there are difficulties The Hand Maid's Tale
The way I heard it, the proposed national database would include pregnancies. I can't even imagine....
In 1964, when Republicans nominated Barry Goldwater, their slogan was z”In your heart, you know he’s right.” The Democratic rejoinder was, “In your guts, you know he’s nuts.”
Thanks Daniel for posting this regularly, this is how we keep the eye on the prize.
They will still vote for him.
@ Jennifer. If only 5% who voted for him in 2016 and 2020 flip, we sweep. I'm a member of 2 data groups who say his support is diminished. I belong to a veteran's group that has thousands of testimonials of voters who flipped. https://votevets.org/
Others. MAGA grandmas for Kamala. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crMe-O10j9g
Republicans voters against Trump. https://rvat.org/
Haley voters for Harris. https://www.haleyvotersforharris.org/
I don't know about the rest of the country, but in our county, there are only a few Trump signs and fewer hats and flags.
Hopefully the red states will wise up and vote for Kamala
Yes, large electoral majorities all to often by relatively small shifts in voter sentiment, first past the post has its drawbacks.
Add https://www.evangelicalsforharris.com/
Gary, God only lets us fall and Karma comes at us, and hopefully at some point we wake up and make the changes necessary to not have to repeat lessons. In this lifetime or the next, or next and so on.
I'm amazed that the movie so accurately described Donald Trump. Was he used as the role model?
👏👏👏😹
Perfect! *chef's kiss
Perfect! And my thoughts exactly.
He calls it the weave. I think he meant the weird
Describing tffg's speech to a T!
Yes… it BS… but it’s also standard Con Man Patter. I wish journalists would stop calling him a politician and call him a con man… because that’s what he’s been his entire f-ing life!
Coming from NY I can attest to the fact that you are right. I only know him from all the gossip and the bad things he used to do that did business with him. We all knew he was a con man from the beginning.
We New Yorkers knew who he was… but the mainstream news never interviewed us! 😡
Yes, I agree, but the main stream news organizations are owned by very rich rich people and those are the ones that like Trump policies it’s all about money and democracy be damned.
CBS, NBC, CNN, and ABC and the NYT are part of public companies, owned by shareholders. WaPo is owned by Jeff Bezos, whom Trump despises. The Guardian, Reuters, and the AP are all public companies or part of larger public companies.
Sorry they don’t live up to your expectation of Democratic propaganda machines. But they are fair.
How do you think you know what you do about the many sorry Trump sagas?
Because these media outlets reported it. Look at the citations in HCR’s work. She gets her facts from the same source. Look at the quotes and citations in her columns. From these same reporters and outlets.
Get a grip.
Thanks Tom, personally i think the endless diatribes against the msm are overdone in Heather's community. She quotes them, and when did you ever hear her rage about bias in the press?
I personally think that they - most or many of them - failed us during the Bush/Cheney administration … however, they - “the fourth estate” - seem to have made amends since “idiot trimp” has been on the scene.
I’m not from New York, but I was well aware Trump was a grifter by the accounts from the late Jack Newfield and the late Wayne Barrett, who exposed Trump’s grifts and scams in the early 1990s, before the had squandered all of Fred Trump’s money.
we sure did. Everyone thought he was a joke.
Apparently not everybody.
I heard that phrase is now "corporate media", not mainstream.
Yeah. They were out interviewing hicks in the sticks about why they liked Trump.
Interesting - I am a White NYer. All my family and friends and associates are not just voting for Harris but actively supporting the Harris/Walz ticket. Writing postcards, knocking on doors and donating a lot of money. Greater NY included - Brooklyn etc.
I wonder where you get your info from?
Oooops- I left out that many of my NY friends and associates are a wonderful mix of many ehnicities. Not all White - but all New Yorkers.
BUT - many of us White too.
Still wondering, where did you get your information?
I dont know either. I suggested check the polls.... https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/new-york/
What part of upstate are you from? Harris will certainly win a substantial majority of white votes in New York.
I wish former commenter Mike S. would weigh in. He's from Buffalo and has eyes on the stuff that goes on there.
I live in upstate NY, in a county that has traditionally been majority-Republican, but that is changing. I see fewer Trump flags than I did four years ago.
I guess that explains Hoschul's wishywashy performance. Is NYC/NYS overrun with immigrants in the way trump says? My new neighbors are from NYS & my republican husband immediately took a shine to them. They seem to be doing their very best to fulfill the ideal white child quota the republicans favor. She's had 2 kids since she's been here & moved in with a new baby & 2 or 3 older kids. According to Vance calculations that would be 8 votes for trump...
Where do you get your info? NYC is very, very pro-Harris.
BTW, circumspect means wary and risk-avoiding, not whatever you think it means.
Really? How do explain 538's poll compilation? NY looks like it's going blue. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/new-york/
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/04/us/politics/liz-cheney-kamala-harris-vote.html?unlocked_article_code=1.IE4.x-1y.nB1k9r1TpE71&smid=url-share
From all the way back in the 70s, New Yorkers have known what a racist he is. Forced to operate under a DOJ consent decree for refusing to rent to POC. Then, there was the full page ad he took out in the New York Times, calling for the execution of the Central Park 5, even after they had been found innocent of the crime of which they were accused.
In short, he’ racist garbage, he’s always been racist garbage and there’s a reason why Manhattan voted against him 9 to 1.
True. The housing discrimination litigation was how Donald met Roy Cohn, who purportedly gave instant advice to Donald to fight it. Trump thinks he’s never wrong and never apologizes for anything he does.
From Joseph McCarthy to Roy Cohn to trump, some of the sickest people to ever have inhabited earth. Roy Marcus Cohn came to prominence for his role as Senator Joseph McCarthy's chief counsel during the Army–McCarthy hearings in 1954, when he assisted McCarthy's investigations of suspected communists.
Here you are, guys. My final story from my book, "Donald's Vanity Tantrums>"
The Citizen Kane Movie of Tomorrow: Citizen Trump
February 17, 2024
The classic movie Citizen Kane directed, produced, and starred in by Orson Welles will one day in the future, have a remake only this time the main pseudo-fictional character will be Donald Trump. The movie scene will open with a very bloated relic of his former self; uneven orange-smeared makeup slobbed across his face in bed. His overgrown blond hair is found similar to the muss of Boris Johnson’s now showing gray roots from lack of up-to-date hair dye. He periodically wakes from a semi-conscious state at his future dilapidated Mar-a-Lago residence (for lack of having sufficient funds to upkeep the property due to previous constant litigation and losses.) He looks around demanding more Kentucky Fried Chicken wings as low paid personal rush in another bucket and his last word is not “Rosebud” as in the movie Citizen Kane but:
“Stormy.” And the ex 45th president of the United States expires. The camera fades to black then opens at Le Club in the early disco 1970s, a members-only Manhattan nightclub in the East 50s, where models, fashionistas and a variety of Eurotrash (including his wife) went to be seen.
“The government has just filed suit against our company,” said Trump, “saying we discriminated against Blacks. What do you think we should do?”
The Roy Cohn obedient ass-kisser to Senator Joe McCarthy hearings accusing entertainment personalities of being communists shoots back, “Tell them to go to hell and fight the thing in court and let them prove you discriminated against them.”
Roy Cohn has become Trump’s go-to lawyer and fixer.
Cohn admonishes the young Trump to 1. Never settle. Never surrender. 2. Counter-attack, counter-sue immediately. 3. No matter what happens, no matter how deep into the shit you get, claim victory and never admit defeat.
These lessons were found to be the essential attributes of his future self.
And so it was.
had me scared there for a minute
Janis, the lady who cleans our house once lived in Queens. She asked me who I was going to vote for and when I told her, she gave me a hug. She then told me about his reputation in Queens....a crook.
PS Oh sorry, also importantly Queens, where I’m assuming there may be more t supporters.
We're a week away from the live ABC debate. I hope the monitors can do something to control the Conman Patter and Gish-galloping in which the Abomination is sure to engage. It's all he's got. I hope VP Harris skewers him with personal attacks that will drive him even crazier. Specifically, she needs to say to his face that he has repeatedly and consistently shown that he is the emptiest of empty suits, a person without honor, decency, compassion, humor or intelligence and that he is the very definition of a loser, that everything he touches he destroys. And then let him self-destruct.
Dr. Richardson's observation that the Republican Party is giving up on trying to make Trump stick to the issues is good news. By all means let Trump be Trump. Let him rage on to the end, engaging in personal attacks that won't stick because there's nothing to stick them to.
I used to think that you should never wrestle with a pig. I think in this case VP Harris needs to get down there and stick that pig again and again until he squeals his last squeal. Preferably on camera.
James, Respectfully, my thoughts regarding how Harris should approach the debate differ from yours. Instead of resorting to ad hominem, which, in my view, would reflect poorly on her, I hope to see Harris 1) showing every American, with facts that can be nailed to the post with confirming evidence, what would be in store for them were they to elect Trump and 2) contrasting Trump’s vision with her own, expressly showing how her policy agenda relates to the interests and concerns of everyday people.
VP Harris strikes me as someone who is effective at debate and would call out Donald’s cascade of lies. I think she would effectively counter Trump’s Gish gallop of lies. After Dana Bash and Jake Tapper failed to counter Trump’s lies during the ill-fated debate with President Biden, I’m not entirely convinced that ABC’s debate monitor would call out Trump’s bs either.
Agreed, Kathy. I'll take it further.
This event called "Debate" is not a debate. It is a show. It is free advertising for a candidate. It is verbal combat.
To expect any journalist to moderate it effectively is like throwing a Quaker into a cage fight. Forget about it.
My advice to Harris is not to take ANY bait from Trump. Don't acknowledge any of his lies. When she has her turn to speak, simply state "Donald, you lie for a living." And then attack him with a list of his offenses that is so long, so truthful and so disqualifying that he will reel in reaction.
And she must not do what Joe Biden did. Do not react to anything he says other than to look him in the eye and say: "You lie for a living."
This "debate" is an opportunity for Harris to produce repeatable phrases that will be attached to memes and signs everywhere. The only rule for these performances is to own the theater and that means ignoring the competition and attacking it - with the truth.
His felony conviction for cheating fellow tax payers, stolen top secrets, money from Russia, Trump University, Helsinki betrayal, Ukraine betrayal, two impeachments, porn star payoffs....and applauding thugs who threatened to hang your own Vice President? "How low can you go. Donald?"
And wrap it up with a question: "Donald have you ever had a wife or a girl friend that you didn't cheat on?" and "Jeffrey Epstein was convicted of sex trafficking young girls...why was he your friend?"
America is ready to see this Orange Menace reduced to a melted creamsicle.
Kamala has been great at that. When Bash tried to get her to defend a lie, she said ľnext question and stupefied Bash, who should have been let go long ago.
I totally agree. I think she must start every response to his blather by saying, "There you go again Donold...lying. It's what you do. People at home, for the truth go to Harris/walz.com." And then answer each question posed cogently and succinctly.
When I saw Hulk Hogan's display at the RNC I imagined what a "debate" between him and Dr. Joyce Brothers would look like.
It also reminded me of a calm but determined looking nurse in scrubs and an N95 mask facing armed protestors in Michigan that seem to recall wanted Governor Whitmer to end the mask mandate. I can’t find that picture but did find a similar one at:
https://roselawgroupreporter.com/2021/06/icu-nurse-lauren-leander-who-stood-up-to-mask-mandate-protestors-honored-in-virtual-ceremony/
“…In April 2020, Lauren Leander went with two other nurses on her day off down to the Arizona State Capital building where people were protesting to reopen the state’s economy. They went to counter protest, standing up for their patients in the COVID-19 unit and their health care colleagues./Photo courtesy Sandy Leander…”
I can imagine Kamala Harris standing, arms crossed facing DJT, Hulk Hogan, and the worst of the Trump gang like Steve Bannon, Steve Miller, Roger Stone, and 70 election rejection officials planning to NOT certify results.
Behind Kamala, I imagine large crowds of Women, Educators, Doctors and Nurses, thousands of Union workers, and Republican Voters Against Trump.
Beautifully stated!
Excellent
There is no debating with a bullshitter. There COULD be an interesting exchange or two, but...
Or rolling on the floor, kicking and screaming. She has to be the adult in charge. Trump would have a cow. Maybe two.
Yeah it's a game show, only missing a scoreboard and a buzzer for landed zingers. Lincoln debated. In TV land we have shows.
She might ask why Trump appointed Sec. Alex Acosta, the wink-wink, nudge-nudge prosecutor of Epstein's first sex trafficking confrontation with the law, as his Secretary of Labor. No! No! Not the comfy chair! Only the wealth get such "courtesies".
Bill! Tell Kamala this!
Kathy, Seeing I agree with your observations of Bash and Tapper and share your concerns regarding ABC’s co-moderators, I expect the onus will rest with Harris to call out Trump when his answers contradict verifiable facts. For what it’s worth, I wrote Harris suggesting, aside from relating her policy agenda and connecting it to the interests and concerns of everyday people, that the burden of pressing Trump to square his campaign rhetoric with facts likely would rest with her.
Yup, boxing Trump into check will be a DIY for her. I take hope in the fact that a good prosecutor is collected and focused in the face of outrageous lies.
While I agree with the importance of Harris presenting verifiable facts and sticking to her policy/vision messages, a friend of mine suggested that when Donald speaks his nonsense, she should respond with "Oh, Donald, you are just confused again," or "I see that you are not remembering what the facts are." Keeping hitting at his confusion, bad memory, rudeness seems like a good tactic to me.
Mimi, With all due respect to your friend, “when Donald speaks his nonsense,” I believe Harris would score big were she to call him out either for not answering the question or for offering up an answer disconnected from verifiable fact.
Mimi, Barbara - I think Kamala could work both into her repartee!
"I'm speaking" dignity and composure works for me.
Thank you for your articulate and well-considered reply. In an ideal world, I wouldn’t disagree. But that’s not the word we’re in, alas. I don’t think VP Harris should start with ad hominem, but she should keep that skewer at close hand if things get rough. And they will, if fFG starts to lose it, as is highly likely. A debate would be great, but that’s not what TFG will be willing or able to do.. i don’t think VP Harris will have a chance to employ your two suggestions in anything beyond her opening statement. And that would be only if she gets to speak first. I doubt the monitors will be able to restrain TFG. And VP Harris can’t spend her time calmly rebutting an endless stream of rubbish. She needs to mock the interminable firehose of falsehood by calling it for what it is, loudly, forcefully, and repeatedly. Reduce TFG to a blubbering, quivering pile of glop that oozes off the stage. Thanks again for offering me another chance to rant, this time more calmly 😁
I'm with you, James. We Dems have taken the high road for too long. No bully respects a nice guy. Gotta punch 'em in the face, at least once or twice.
James, You’re right. “VP Harris can’t spend her time calmly rebutting an endless stream of rubbish.” Nonetheless, as I stated elsewhere, if she can selectively extract from Trump’s fire hose of lies a handful of fundamental distortions and deceptions enabling her to expose how disconnected his campaign rhetoric is from verifiable fact, she could score big.
Not loudly. She knows better. The man cheated on all 3 of his wives. Took $10 million in small bills from Egypt. Gave the Medal of Freedom to Rush Limbaugh and other liars. Mismanaged Covid by making it political. The evil compulsive liar and cheat is not her equal. He’s a slug-man. Melt him down!!
James- I am laughing my head off at your vision of a “glop” of oozing TFG! The thick, soupy remains of his blue jacket with a trickle of red necktie dripping on the floor.
She can certainly and strongly condemn what he says and does. I enjoy calling Trump terrible things here, but name calling on duty is Trump's shtick, so Kamala needs to pull out his rug, not compete on his ground.
I’ll be surprised and happy if she can do that—trump’s method of “debating “ is to throw out so much garbage so fast that the other person can’t even reply. Personally, I wish he’d back out of the debate.
Elizabeth, Both in my post on this site and in my recently deployed letter to Harris, I intentionally streamlined her debate objectives to meeting 2 (all be they broad) fundamental goals. I would add, seeing I trust Harris’s ability to think and speak extemporaneously, I believe she will be able selectively to extract from Trump’s fire hose of lies a handful of essential distortions and deceptions allowing her to expose how disconnected his campaign rhetoric is from verifiable fact. If I’m right, Harris could enormously benefit from this debate.
Harris has the advantage in that trump will never come up with anything different. He has no policy facts to debate on, just the same old whinges. "Immigrants! Inflation! Windmills!" and so on - probably ten or twelve tops. The Harris team should pull in a few favors from SNL (Al Franken - where are you?) to give her snappy brush offs to his tired complaints.
Defeating trump and influencing his base is not easy - we certainly can't shoot him, and we seem to be having trouble even jailing him - so perhaps laughter will do it.
Bringing some joy and happiness into people's lives seems to have worked well for Kamala. Perhaps it will work AGAINST trump. . .
A clever prosecutor lays a trap.
Why do you think she keeps delivering the same speech from the teleprompter every location she goes to? Especially when she changes up her accent and is repeatedly called out by many for coming off as fake and phony. Why are her speech writers not changing it up? Republicans are already placing bets on how many times she will tell Trump “I’m speaking” during the debate as her big moment for future ads. At this point if she doesn’t start explaining her flip flopping policies and positions she’s going to lose. Especially if she can’t get all the illegals to vote for her.
Not me. IMHO the debate will really help us. Kamala will tear him a new one and I can't wait to watch.
Barbara, In a normal" campaign, those suggestions are spot-on.
I have watched Trump's supporters at his rallies being questioned and reminded of illegal and immoral things that Trump has done. They're given the FACTS, but refuse to listen
They are not interested in policy agendas that don't include rounding up immigrants, outlawing abortion, protecting assault weapons, and US isolation from other countries.
Many times, the question had been asked " Is there anything Trump could do to change your mind about him?" The emphatic answer us always, "NO!!"
He was "sent by God" to save the country."
As long as these misguided people feel this way, no amount of facts will change their minds. After all, they're just "Fake News."
Anyone with any sense should have already seen that Kamala is so far superior to Trump. Maybe some of Trump's supporters will listen to the debate, and realize that. Wouldn't that be something?
Pam, I should have clarified, when I initially posted, that I wouldn’t expect the greatest possible gut punch to Trump to exert any impact on hardcore MAGA voters. Nonetheless, I believe there exists a sizable bloc of moderate Republicans and Independents, persuadables if you would, for whom a stellar performance from Harris could have a huge impact on the election.
You never ask questions when God's on your side. But the hard core cult is outnumbered. Something may click for some of those for whom Trump is not strictly the alpha and omega.
I’d like to see Kamala come up with a consistent (mocking) line in response to his BS. Something like Reagan’s “there you go again”.
Don’t try to rebut his endless lies, simply mock him for lying and avoiding the questions, and move on.
His fragile ego won’t be able to take it. . .
I think she should, after a tirade of his, simply say, “Well THAT was weird.”
Oh, that’s perfect.
😂👍💯
🤣😆🤪
Love it!
Perfect. Then each time after that, just say “more weird. .” Cheetolini would likely start to meltdown in real-time. That would be fun to watch (and might get through to non-cultists that he is not a valid candidate).
It isn’t just Donald. It’s the whole outfit. There are still way too many folks thriving on this garbage.
Thriving and enjoying the mud wrestling. It’s beyond embarrassing
That, Susan, is why I cancelled my Washington Post and NYT subscriptions two years ago.
Can you imagine a country, Susan, with so many schools turning out so "many folks thriving on this garbage"?
She needs to get him to storm off the stage.
She has all the ammunition to do it. Harris should ignore Trump. Politely ignore the moderators and attack him over and over and over until he can't handle it. The nation will applaud.
"You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"
In so many words.
Where he and MAGAs will mightily whine about how rude, mean, unfair, violent, and awful Harris is. He's already started talking about that in context of the debate.
Hard to believe MAGA once thought he was the epitome of strength and masculinity.
I wish they could see him today.
They can.
And they hear him.
But they can't say "Wow! I was wrong!"
So they have to pretzel themselves to make it all seem right.
I can't imagine what all this is doing to their psyches. No wonder we have so many crazy gun incidents.
That would be one useful outcome. Be afraid Donald. Be very afraid.
I hope the moderators will be fact-checking in real time or a zipper strip will be doing that. The mainstream media is treating him with kid gloves and creating a false equivalency between Harris and Trump.
Yes, yes, yes and yes again.
When they go low we go high is an incredibly stupid thing to do.
It didn't work the first time and it won't work this time.
Going high is not papering over nor failing to confront. Going high is telling and sticking to the truth, in an adult and compelling manner. Composed adult anger can silence a room, because everybody is listening.
And there is technical truth and smart truth, the kind with impact. The kind a liar fears from a skilled prosecutor. It's Trump's worst nightmare.
He will never debate her. And no one should debate a total madman. It is insanity to think the leader of an insane asylum is even fit to be in this position in our country. Do no honor him with pretending he is fit and his name is on our presidential ballot.
My only pleasure in convict 34+ is that he and his party of bizarros have revealed so many devastating chinks in our democracy, our racism, our misogyny that we cannot help but smell the stink of colonialism leaning on crutches of fascism for control of this country. This is our moment to choose hatred or joy in standing up for what is right and ridding ourselves of the putrid, oligarchal, white-dominant-male, knee-on-our-necks.
Thank you Heather for being the voice of "weaving" our history with current history being made and the dangers of repeating what we should have learned by now. Looks like, miraculously in the nick of time, our democracy might be given an incredible second chance to rectify and thrive, thanks to the Prosecutor vs the Felon. The abuse of the past eight to 40 years is worth having a very experienced Prosecutor as President, who just happens to be a woman. Last night I watched a friend's film about the tumultuous 60's which of course included the powerful music of change, anti-war and civil rights. The reverie of Bob Dylan singing The Times They are a Changing is appropriate in 2024 as it was in the '60's:
[Verse 1]
Come gather 'round, people, wherever you roam
And admit that the waters around you have grown
And accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth saving
And you better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone
For the times, they are a-changin'
[Verse 2]
Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide, the chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon, for the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who that it's namin'
For the loser now will be later to win
For the times, they are a-changin'
[Verse 3]
Come senators, congressmen, please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled
The battle outside ragin'
Will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times, they are a-changin'
[Verse 4]
Come mothers and fathers throughout the land
And don't criticize what you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin'
Please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand
For the times, they are a-changin'
Dylan wrote that 60 years ago.
Seems to me we should get those changes moving a bit faster.
We have a chance to in November.
:D
I'm seeing Dylan for the first time this upcoming weekend!
Thank you, Pensa, for typing out the words to this powerful song. I couldn't help but sing it out loud! Brought me right back to the '60s when so many of us gathered together to sing our hearts out with such meaningful words as these!
J L, Brilliantly stated. While nothing more need be said, I simply would add my observation that the one thing the radical right loathes more than liberals is the truth. And the quickest way to get under the far right’s skin is to tell the truth.
applause
Her sanity in contrast to his insanity will be enough for the American people. Her joy and unity message in contrast to his divisive America is a sh*t hole nation will be enough for the American people. Even people I know who were staunchly against Biden are sick of his whining and psychopathic message....and just want him to go away.
From your keyboard to God’s monitor,
Thanks to Heather Cox Richardson, we now understand gish-galloping speech. tRump used it to defeat Biden, whose "coaches" didn't teach him how to handle it!!!
And, we saw that tRump knows how to sling it. He will again.
We also now know how to "throw it back"! Harris CAN do this, I pray she's practicing!
Please God....
I don't think calling him an empty suit will convince many, but quoting and detailing some of Trump's most repellent moments might. Citing the circumstances of some of the people he has callously hurt.
You’re probably right about the convincing, but it would serve the useful purpose of riling him up to self destruct. Making many of our worse selves feel better would be a collateral benefit 😁
My hope is that that she can finesse Trump's extreme self-centeredness and profoundly lazy dishonesty against him, enough rope to hang him. My daughter studied Aikido , which turns the force of an attackers assault against them. I've seen it work. Language can be used to the same end.
I don’t think she should spend all her time identifying and countering his lies, but do think she should point out that everything he has just taken credit for was done by the Obama and Biden administrations, and that all he accomplished was giving more money to the super rich, thus endangering programs that benefit ordinary people, and greatly increasing the national debt. She can also mention that everything he just said was a lie. I have confidence that she will do a great job in the non debate.
I just wish they would not cover him at all. It seems that when people dismiss, ignore or poke fun at him, he loses it! Otherwise he takes up all the oxygen in the room.
I wish they wold cover how incredibly unsuited he is for public trust. Nixon looks like relatively little league corruption compared to the monstrous MAGA cesspool.
But ignore his obvious danger at our peril. If the MSM would tell the truth about him, no big deal. Instead they cut and paste the way Rupert has done since Fox dumped Jeb Bush.
Narcissists like Trump generally do suck up all the oxygen in a room, and Trump is a prime example of someone with malignant narcissistic personality disorder, as well as antisocial personality disorder. Both of these disorders make him supremely unfit to govern.
Yes, malignant narcissists suck up the energy in a room. Dangerous.
Riddikulus! (points wand at Mar-a-Lago)
😉
The more Trump is in the public eye, the more he sinks in the polls. That’s why Harris wants hot mics. That’s why Dems have beeb trying to get him back on Twitter for four years.
Wish everyone would refer to him as an insult to their intelligence.
Grifter. Con man is too nice.
Steve, I agree with your sentiment, but I think it's worth noting that it's not journalists who refer to him a politician. A journalist is someone who informs people profitably, and not someone who profits from misinforming people. People who tRump can gaslight with ease because they're so naive they don't notice the gas being lit are not journalists.
You're so right. In the 1800s he would have sold snake oil at the county fair or in the 20s land in Florida
I’d like to press TFG for the names of his English professor friends. If he did name a professor or two, they would likely sue for defamation.
You and me both. Also, when did he decide that talking for 2 hours was what his followers want? It's good to know that some of them have the good sense to leave. I just hope they have the good sense to cast their vote for Harris-Walz.
He has no prefrontal cortex left. Unable to make plans, follow plans, change plans when new information becomes available. No ability to control his emotions to achieve his goals. Imagine an angry, impulsive president like that?!
One shudders to consider another term for Trump. My fear isn't about him so much as about the people using his psychopathy and decline in cognitive ability for their own purposes. He can deny he has anything to do with Project 2025 but it's as sure as the Earth rotates on its axis that his staff and cabinet very much do.
Ummm, he lied. We all know that.
Like his proverbial "they" as in "they tell me"....people must know he just makes stuff up.
The only friends he has live in his imagination. They will keep him good company in prison.
Any parent will tell you they know how to drill down when their child uses either the term “they” or “everyone” when trying to get away with something.
But you very andnover again we see the same stupid people attend his rallies 😬😡
Made me laugh out loud
The fact he created a name for his “style” is even funnier. If he did…
Even his imaginary friends don't like him. . .
When the Trump Era is over, more books about it will be written by students of abnormal psychology than by political scientists or historians. There may even be a few more terms added to the official psychology lexicon;
Trump syndrome?
Trump derangement syndrome?
How about Trumpanoia?
I'd go for "Trump - annoy - ya" - because he certainly does!
LOL!
Over a month ago, there was a video clip on YouTube of one of his speeches, the one in NJ I believe. It ran continually for about 30 minutes, showing people walking out on his speech in droves. You can hear him rambling away in the background, while the bored people file out.
That whole scene of him speaking to English profs is hilarious! In what world did this happen!!
That was over the dinner table one night, you know one of those dinners you see on "Downton Abbey", with the silver and the candles on the table and a big old log fire in the ten foot fireplace. They were all sitting round a twenty foot table, smoking cigars and passing the port. tossing the odd grape to a slave or two, and the Dean of the English Faculty at Harvard said "I need some advice on something, Donald, and your the only man who can help me - should I have just typed this "You're?"
And then the half eaten burger fell onto his pyjamas and Donnie woke up. . .
Brilliant!
Hoyt Trump’s ‘weave’ reminds me of the saying:
“I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth I know not where.
I lose too many damned arrows
That way.”
When Trump starts extemporizing, he hasn’t as clue where he is going. He’s like a ship with a malfunctioning gyroscope. He clearly sounds bonkers.
His is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.
Best description EVER
Shakespeare always has the right words for any occasion, and that quote from Macbeth fits tffg perfectly.
“Brush up your Shakespeare and they’ll all kowtow “
Actually, he IS an idiot, simplifying nothing. . .
Keith, how in the world have we been able to survive his wandering mind with the Gish gallop and fruit salad that spews from his mouth. I honestly think one day he will finally blow a gasket and start speaking in tongue for the rest of his life, totally unintelligible which of course is only a hop skip and jump from where he is now.
I finally had to let my Mom go live in a nursing home. Another lady there (who had previously held a high rank in the military) had developed a form of dementia where she could only verbalise "burbles" - she would stop you and hold your arm and stare into your eyes trying to say something but just going "Brlblrbrlblbbblbrlbleberb. . . ." it was very sad.
I think trump is already ready to join her. . .
So sad for you Moms friend. And very possible for trump.
Saddest part about that friend was that she'd been one of the first members of the SOE, and was dropped into France and served there undercover with the Resistance for two years.
And she had no family or friends who visited. So when she went "Brblbrbrlbr" I'd sit with her a while because she deserved a lot of respect.
The Fat Fool doesn't.
But he labels it genius, and the MAGAts are so impressed.
True J D Chicutt, so I am happy to read in today’s Letter about the money Harris-Walz is giving to the down ballot races. This will help them spread the message in local efforts. So many areas of America have towns where Dems feel they are the only one. My hope is this down-ballot-race money will show up in yard signs, local billboards, etc to remind Dems in these areas to stand up and have courage.
God, I hope local billboards. The chump billboard close to me is so ugly in every way. Go Maddogpac.com
Nice bit of humor.. image on top of his head!
I'd like to hear from his English professor friends.
Well Trevy, since his 'English professor friends' (i cant believe i just typed that) any how, they are all and only in his mind, maybe he could do a ventriloquist type of discussion with himself to get their true opinion on this subject. LOL 😊😂🤣
He could do a Clint Eastwood and get "them" to sit on the chair. . .
I have a better term than "the weave." I call it gaslighting. The key to understanding gaslighting is that it’s about power and control. It's an attempt by the perpetrator to gain domination over the victim by getting the victim to question their own reality. My guess is the only thing he understands about it is that it appears to be working. I don't think he understands why it works for the simple reason that that understanding, along with the victim, are not one of the three things he cares about (me, myself, and I).
Trying to drive someone crazy by questioning their sanity would of course be useless on trump, normal humans not so much..
James Is Trump gaslighting similar to verbal farting?
That's a good way to think of it. Or you can think of it as a human being using words the way an alpha male chimpanzee uses whatever comes to hand (a tree branch, for example) in a dominance display.
I'm looking forward to watching him "weaving" his way through the debate with VP Harris and making a total fool of himself. (worse than he already has)
Hope it encourages many more people to vote against him.
If Kamala does not knock him out in the first round we will be disappointed. Unbelievable there is so much emphasis placed on such an idiotic way to choose a presidential winner. And then we are told by others that even if you win the debates (Hillary), no guarantee of a win on election day.
Spot on. Positively Caligularian.
Mind you a speaking horse’s head might make more sense.
Incitatus would have governed better than Caligula and Trump. The horse would be better than the horse’s ass Trump as president.
An anecdote about "The Weave": When I was in high school, in the early '60s, I was lucky enough to spend an hour or so listening to R. Buckminster Fuller speak, in a small-group setting. After he was introduced, he stood silently, eyes closed, for perhaps thirty seconds, long enough that an uneasy sense came over the room. Was he OK? What's going on?
Then he started speaking, without any notes or papers, and proceeded to launch several different tangents, each interesting but seemingly unrelated to the others. Again, an unease came over the room. What's he talking about? Where's this going? This is all over the place.
Fuller continued his talk, painting increasingly complex pictures with words, developing each of the "tangents" he introduced earlier, stretching our minds a little further with each paragraph, keeping us spellbound but still unsure where he was going. Then in the last five minutes or so, he wove his "tangents" together, unifying them into a coherent whole, a single, powerful theme. We sat silent for a moment or two, clobbered by the vision he had gotten us to see and staggered by the depth and breadth of his thinking, before breaking into loud applause.
In the following Q & A, someone asked Fuller what was up with his standing silent, eyes closed, at the start of the talk. He replied simply, "I was organizing what I wanted to say to you today. "
_That_ was The Weave, worked by a brilliant intellect who sought to broaden perspectives and advance thinking.
The sorry spectacle so routinely polluting the public square today, utterly incapable of The Weave, seeks to obstruct and bamboozle, hoping to baffle us all some more with his never-ending and nonsensical bullshit.
"Bucky", as some of my Design School profs called him occasionally lectured at the NCSU School of Design back in the day. Built quite a few large geodesic domes in the neighborhoods near campus. Thanks for the story about Bucky and the "weave".
Trump's weave is actually a brain-eating worm. It infects listeners, too.
Trump's weave is more of a weevil.
something else he and rfckjr have in common
There are so many candidates for his "biggest bulls***t statement ever.
Oh yeah there are.
Larry David made brilliant use of “the weave” writing scripts for Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Multiple seemingly unrelated plot lines would somehow come together at the end of the episode with hilarious effect.
Whatever Trump is doing is the opposite of what Larry David did. At the end of his insane, rambling, self-congratulating, lie-filled rants, one has no idea what they just heard. Rather than coming together, Trump’s story lines diverge into nothing. Exactly what I hope his political campaign does.
Great points Charles. His weave is a bit tattered. And yes Larry David is successful, trump not so much.
Talk about the ability to rationalize. "People say he is brilliant". You must give him credit for having such brilliant friends - in his dreams. His brilliant VP is not supporting him. He is through, washed up, finished!!!!
I laughed ROL…. one second reflection of ..yup , no guilt!
Great news, Letter from an American🫶
The DNC timing is perfect for their funding going here and there, keep the lights on Kamala and Tim..the momentum is steady.
Personally? Thanking the McCain family for the vote, the voice, it’s all valediction of the right thing to do.
For a the few Republicans I too know lending some more votes , also ..Thank you..and for the many others stepping up to save our Democracy, proclaiming it loudly..this is what America does well.
I will not relax either. This is my Tribe 🫶
I would like to see a list of these English professors. And, how many of Trump's "friends" are, like, English professors?