First off, do listen to Sam Elliott tell you why you should vote for Kamala Harris.
Love it. Next, Paul Waldman writes about the media elites who complain that Kamala Harris doesn’t let them interview her enough.
Other than one sit-down she and Tim Walz did with CNN, her campaign has treated the elite media as though they have no particular claim on her time; she has done more local radio and TV interviews than national ones.
You can read many complaints about Harris’s lack of media accessibility (see here or here or here or here), though reporters seem unconcerned about the fact that Donald Trump does no interviews with them either. He talks to Fox News, other right-wing outlets, and dudebro podcasts, but he does not sit down with major newspapers or television networks, and somehow they don’t seem to mind. But as always, Democrats are held to a higher standard, scolded for failing to uphold the most elevated democratic norms while Republicans’ violation of those norms is taken for granted.
I started to watch that CNN interview with Dana Bash, but bailed before it was over because the questions were stupid. It was all “gotcha” (Why did you flip flop on fracking?) or bits of right-wing talking points, re-framed as questions. Instead of asking about her energy policies, Bash tries to trip her up by grilling her for changing a position on fracking. As a viewer, I found that annoying and tiresome. If I were the candidate I’d be frustrated also.
Basically, Waldman says, media elites are souring on Harris because she is not coming to them as a supplicant and asking humbly for their attention, and he fears they may collectively find some reason to portray her negatively going forward. So let’s watch for that.
At SF Gate, see Drew Magary, The New York Times is Washed. The writer is annoyed because the NY Times persists in calling the presidential race “deadlocked.”
We’re just over a month away from the presidential election and, if you ask the New York Times, the race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president/Keystone kriminal Donald Trump remains “deadlocked.” Despite the fact that Trump is losing in Pennsylvania, a state he needs to win, by four points. Despite the fact that polls in North Carolina just turned in Harris’ favor. Despite the fact that a grassroots campaign for Harris, one that numbers in the hundreds of thousands, sprung up the instant her boss ceded his spot in the race to her. Despite the fact that Trump got his ass beat in a nationally televised debate with Harris after repeating, with supreme gusto, the lie that Haitian immigrants in Ohio are eating people’s pets. The lie that his own running mate openly said was a lie.
You don’t have to work terribly hard to sum up this race as it stands: Harris is destroying Trump, because Trump is a deranged old s—tbag. See how easy that was?You don’t have to work terribly hard to sum up this race as it stands: Harris is destroying Trump, because Trump is a deranged old s—tbag. See how easy that was?
Well, it is pretty close in the polls.
Someone must have told Trump that he’s losing women’s votes, because now in his speeches and social media “truths” he’s trying to appeal to women. But all he’s doing is being creepy, because that’s who he is. The adjuticated rapist and serial maligner of E. Jean Carroll held a national convention that was said to be all testosterone, all the time. But lately he’s taken to telling women “I am your protector” and if he gets another term they’d be so much happier. And it’s creepy. Even Jonathan Chait thinks so.
The Trump pitch begins with a winking acknowledgment that he is losing among female voters. (He calls his deficit among female voters “fake news” but proceeds to follow the premise anyway.) Then Trump makes a normal, or normalish, pitch that his administration will deliver lower crime, inflation, and illegal immigration. Then the pitch gets very weird.
Trump casts himself as a kind of husband to America’s women. “I am your protector,” he declares repeatedly. He presents himself as the solution to all the problems he imagines they are having in their personal lives:
You will no longer be abandoned, lonely, or scared. You will no longer be in danger. You’re not gonna be in danger any longer. You will no longer have anxiety from all of the problems our country has today. You will be protected, and I will be your protector. Women will be happy, healthy, confident, and free. You will no longer be thinking about abortion.
He has no idea what women’s actual concerns are, obviously. But yeah, this is creepy.
Trump’s “you will no longer be thinking about abortion” is, clearly, an attempt to tell us what to think. He’s stressed because he’s getting a clue that the abortion issue could cost him the election. So he’s trying to exert his authority by ordering us not to think about it.
Bill Kristol — yeah, it’s Bill Kristol — co-authored a piece at the Bulwark that is downright feminist — When The Predator Says He’s Your Protector: Trump’s latest appeal to women is the essence of paternalism. And it’s not just Trump.
Trump’s handpicked Ohio Republican Senate nominee, Bernie Moreno, at a town hall in Warren County last Friday night, deplored the fact that some women choose to vote on the issue of abortion rights. Indeed, he continued, “It’s a little crazy, especially for women past 50. I’m thinking to myself, ‘I don’t think that’s an issue for you.’”
So Moreno, like Trump, likes to tell women what issues they should care about. He’s even got this one conveniently broken down by women’s age.
Of course, in his MAGA-male way, Moreno can’t seem to imagine anyone caring about anything for any reason other than the narrowest self-interest. Could women past 50 care about their daughters? Or about younger women in general? Or about personal freedom?
Not in Moreno’s world.
In Moreno’s world, and Trump’s, men act in their self-interest, and women are not to think for themselves.
Rightie men as a whole cannot hear what women say. It’s like their brains blank out as soon as they hear a feminine voice. Which is one reason I got a kick out of the Sam Elliott video.
Yeah – "Media Accessibility", my achin' behind! Where is the media complaint when Trump calls a press conference to bad-mouth women he thinks have wronged him for 45 minutes and then leaves without taking a single question! I understand that the media must show up when a major candidate calls a press conference, but where's the media outcry when it's a bait-and-switch lecture with zero questions allowed? It's happened more than once. If the media had nailed Trump for the overt and deliberate deception, he might quit doing it. But the spineless guardians of freedom give him a pass.
Yeah, but Stranger, d'ya have to use s'many cuss words?
Sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes you dump the bear in Central Park.
Going OT, I recommend reading this article from Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler.) There's some movement on the DC Insurrection Trial. Bottom Trump's lawyers tried to derail the submission by Jack Smith (due Thursday), which was the result of the USSC Immunity decision. Read it – she writes better than I ever will,
The judge replied almost immediately – she will accept the 180-page argument from Jack Smith, his argument that the superseding indictment is not in conflict with the USSC decision will probably be sealed. I read that Smith will make suggestions re redactions. I predict that Chutkin will give Trump's lawyers extra time to reply. SO we won't see anything soon, but we may see something before the election.
https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/09/24/the-trained-unseal-that-performed-for-trumps-lawyers/
That's a great ad, they should take the f-word out and run that on the tee-vee, "it's time to be a man and vote for a woman" that's gold! I watch cnn quite a bit, their political coverage is mostly horrible but unlike msnbc they do report actual news stories outside of politics. I have noticed a sofening on Stump the last week or so, it dawned on me today that maybe they are going easy on diaper don in the hopes he'll accept the debate they proposed that Harris has agreed to, that's some journalistic integrity! Why does Stump need to win PA by 4 points?
In some polls, Harris is up by 4 in PA. I would not bank on that margin until I see it in more polls for a solid week. But the "only" reasonable path to 270 for Trump goes through PA. Not so for Harris if NC is in play and if AZ and NV can fall for Harris.
Only in a primary are details important. Fortunately for Harris that was avoided, and she only has to run against 2025. 2025 is very unpopular with a reported approval rating in the single digits. That is flat earth range of agreement. Ergo, the Heritage Foundation and MAGA people gave Harris the option to run just to the left of absurdly unpopular. Why not take seven or eight lanes if they are in the right ditch. Sure, the press wants to get a shot at a story, but 2025 is the only story they have. It is obviously not the one they want. Good luck in trying to get Trump to point out sections he would rip out and send back for a rewrite. For any question reporters throw at him, tariffs are his 'go to' answer. Go to the weave and end up with a punitive tariff is also not the story reporters want. Why? Because no one will watch or read it.
What a manly ad. Thumbs up to the Lincoln project, Abe would be proud.
I agree that's a great ad, maybe the best I've ever seen. Take the F-word out and run that thing on CNN, FAUX me thinks it will sway some right leaning low info types?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnxc8VFYG_8
I'm 72, and in my life I've known 2 women who've given birth naturally to normal kids after age 50, because they thought that they were through menopause, and could not get pregnant, and were no longer taking any kind of birth control.
This article by Heather Digby addresses something I've long wondered about. Namely, if abortion is banned and minorities have babies at a faster rate than WASP communities, that accelerates the rate Whites become a minority. Digby, IMO, nails that Vance and Trump get it. (Trump to a lesser degree rationally, but at a gut level – completely.
https://digbysblog.net/2024/09/25/trumps-creepy-paternalism-is-about-more-than-just-abortion/
Yeah, and I'd like to pull on that paternalism thread a little bit.
The "culture" that MAGA wants to "return" to has a strong paternalistic underpinning. Its all about a hierarchy of authority. In that world, nobody needs to earn authority (i.e. in both senses: 1 determining what's true and in line with the culture, and 2 directing those below you what to do); In that world all one needs to do to have "authority" is be a white male.
This is, and will likely continue to be appealing to all those who have no confidence that they can earn authority though effective and reasonable thought and action.
The Trump Party is pushing an authority structure that is all of these: paternalistic, misogynistic, racist, and anti-intellectual.
Yep, perverted elitism. It seems related to divine right. The justification royalty used in days of yore. It is an idea that is not considered compatible with democracy.
.
I will say this and only this for him: He's known that, and said so, for a long time. He could exert his authority by coming out for women's authority over their own bodies, but …
Being an abuser, he can't imagine what else there is to do.