Well, I’m back, reporting from enemy territory. The wedding I attended was in Huntsville, Alambama. However, Huntsville may not be representative of Alabama, as the main industry there literally is rocket science. There’s a major NASA facility and also a major military facility, both into creating better rockets. I understand there’s a high concentration of Ph.D.s living in Huntsville. In all my looking around I saw maybe two Trump signs, plus a couple of Harris Walz signs. No one was talking about the election. You wouldn’t know there was an election about to happen.
Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally is getting a lot of blowback. David Rothkopf
of Daily Beast says Trump committed political suicide last night. Remarks by “comedian” Tony Hinchcliffe are getting the most attention, and today Hinchfliffe is saying of his critics, “These people have no sense of humor.” Of course. But it wasn’t just Hinchcliffe. David Graham writes at The Atlantic,
A childhood pal of Donald Trump’s called Vice President Kamala Harris “the anti-Christ” and “the devil.” The radio host Sid Rosenberg called her husband, Doug Emhoff, “a crappy Jew.” Tucker Carlson had a riff about Harris vying to be “the first Samoan-Malaysian, low-IQ former California prosecutor ever to be elected president.” Stephen Miller went full blood-and-soil, declaring, “America is for Americans and Americans only.” (In 1939, a Nazi rally at the old Madison Square Garden promised “to restore America to the true Americans.”) Melania Trump delivered a rare public speech that served mostly as a reminder of why her speeches are rare.
Only after this did Trump take the stage and call Harris a “very low-IQ individual.” He vowed, “On day one, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history.” He proposed a tax break for family caregivers, but the idea was quickly lost in the sea of offensive remarks.
Republicans who are not MAGA diehards reacted with dismay and horror—presumably at the political ramifications, because they can’t possibly be surprised by the content at this point. Politico Playbook, a useful manual of conventional wisdom, this morning cites Republicans fretting over alienating Puerto Ricans and Latinos generally. (Yesterday, Harris visited a Puerto Rican restaurant in Philadelphia and received the endorsement of the Puerto Rican pop superstar Bad Bunny.)
Adam Wren wrote at Politico, “If Donald Trump loses on Nov. 5, the racist carnival he curated at Madison Square Garden could be remembered as the day that cost him this margin-of-error election.” Which does make one wonder, what were they thinking? But of course they weren’t thinking at all. The hate is their best argument for why we should vote for Trump. They don’t have anything else to offer.
Years ago I read a social-psychological study of white supremacists that said such racists sincerely believe other white people are as racist as they are but just won’t aedmit it. And that may be the assumption behind last night. They’re assuming that for every Puerto Rican vote they lose there are more closet white racists they will gain.
Perhaps the best analysis came from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) who properly places the MSG rally in the context of what comes next (4:00 mark):
“This was a hate rally. This was not just a presidential rally, this was also not just a campaign rally. I think it’s important for people to understand these are mini January 6 rallies, these are mini Stop the Steal rallies. These are rallies to prime an electorate into rejecting the results of an election if it doesn’t go the way that they want.”
AOC’s assessment is backed by experts like Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who pointed specifically to rally speakers claiming an unspecified “they” tried to assassinate Trump: “The purpose of this is to conjure a threat environment sufficient to justify authoritarian action if they win. Old trick of those planning coups as well.”
The MSG rally was a harbinger of what’s to come, not just in a Trump II presidency, but as soon as election night next week. Consider yourself warned.
See also Josh Marshall, A Good Piece on Polling
We’ve discussed repeatedly in recent months how poll results aren’t just “the numbers” in some hard, incontestable sense. They include a set of assumptions about the nature of the electorate…. But this post by a professor at Vanderbilt provides a really helpful real-world illustration. Josh Clinton takes sample data and shows that by using different reasonable and good faith assumptions about the electorate he can get results ranging from Harris +.9 to Harris +8. Don’t pay attention to the fact that these results are all still in her favor. The point is that the assumptions baked into the poll can yield results 7 points apart.
It may be that the election really isn’t as close as the polls are reporting, beccause the assumptions are wrong. But we won’t know until the votes are counted.
Update: I’m watching a video of part of the 1939 Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden, and the speaker was going on about how Jews are not Aryans. The joke is that the speaker wasn’t an Aryan, either. Here’s something I wrote about what we know about the actual Aryans and how Europeans somehow created the myth they were special white people.
At this point tRump is more interested in winning the chaos that begins on his behalf on Nov. 6 than the election on Nov. 5. He is more interested in motivating his faithful troops than persuading undecided voters.
Yes, that’s what AOC said.
I disagree. He thinks he's winning, and he thinks this is why he's winning. If he does win, then this probably is why he's winning — he motivates a lot of infrequent voters with undiluted hate while not alienating a sufficient number of other voters who just want lower egg prices.
Most likely yes, why wouldn't he so far he has gotten away with J6. If Harris wins I hope she fires that milktoast toad Merritt Garland and puts someone in at AG that will actually follow the law and pursue every charge possible against diaper don and his magat cult.
Seems clear to me it is in his nature to prefer rape over seduction anyway, figuratively and literally, always. Maybe my imagination gets a little "out there" but I can't help imagining plans are being finalized at this moment by his diehard loyalists. I do hope there are people keeping an eye on Eric Prince, Michael Flynn, Eddie Gallagher, and so on.
Hey, don't forget the shambolic Steve Bannon! He just got out of stir today.
Now he can go back to looking like a drunk who just woke up in the gutter.
Re: white supremacists thinking everyone thinks the same as they, that's pretty close to true. You can't think Black people, as a whole, are bad, and think that other people, examining the same evidence, think you're a complete flipping bigot. You have to think that you're right, and everyone, who *really* think things through, sees that you're right, and only some n-word lovers and ivory tower academics try to say otherwise.
To people who don't understand bigotry, it's hard to believe – it's not unlike how gay people were questioned in the 80s and 90s – "are you SURE you're gay? Have you tried NOT being gay?" and we feel like, "wait – are you sure you're a bigot? Have you tried not being a bigot? Trust me, it feels a lot better than hating all the time…."
But the answer is the same – yes, they're sure, and no, they have no interest in changing something so fundamental to their world view.
I just don't know how many people tuned in to the hate-fest at MSG. In theory, this is the moment that head-up-their-ass low-info voters are collecting one or two facts on which they will base their decision. For some, the decision may be that they won't vote for Trump but cant9;t vote for Harris. I don’t think Trump picked up ANY new votes. Any time a Trump-leaning voter sits out the election, it's a vote for Harris.(This was true of anti-semitism in Germany or Hitler would not have hidden the execution of millions of Jews from Germans.)
I don't think it's accidental that the rally singled out Puerto Ricans. Trump does not want the US to be on the hook for the condition of an island of dark-skinned Hispanics. My guess is that Trump was oblivious to the legal status of Puerto Rico when they got slammed with two hurricanes while Trump was in office. He could not accept that the US would send one dime to a foreign shithole country. I'd guess he never wrapped his head around the fact that the US "adopted" Puerto Rico way back when and they are free to travel to the US without a visa. And they can vote in the presidential election when they are here.
The other group Trump targeted who are legal – not undocumented – are Haitians. Again, dark complexion and legal. (They can't vote.) Trump finds their presence an obscenity. Trump wants white immigrants. The message resonates with MAGA, but it might be repulsive to undecided voters and to some non-MAGA Republicans who had convinced themselves Trump is not racist. Harris thinks that these GOP voters can be reached – that's why she's campaigning with Liz Chenney and other Republicans. Trump just helped Harris in the last week, I think.
I think people are working late tonight fine-tuning the message from DC, at the site of Trump's attempted insurrection. I think the message from the Trump rally at MSG is going to be broadcast and called out for the central racist message Trump intended.
Trump more-than-hinted at a plan he cooked up with Johnson to use the House to steal the election. I see a problem here if any element is illegal. Johnson could go to jail if he's a conspirator in a scheme to steal the election – EVEN IF HIS PART IN THE CONSPIRACY WAS NOT UNCONSTITUTIONAL If other players in the conspiracy break the law as an element in dumping the election into Johnson's venue, Johnson is part of an illegal conspiracy. And Idiot J. Trump outed Johnson as a conspirator. Johnson wants Trump to win but how far is he willing to hang his ass out legally, I'm not sure. Rudy's total crash-and-burn should be sobering.
Jeff Bezos has lost nearly a quarter of a million subscribers to the Post. At least he admitted his involvement in the decision not to endorse. but few commentors bought his rational. True his argument that the media has lost the trust of the public. Most of it has sold out to the advertisers and the local institutions. The Post was one of the few who maintained a bit of an honest reputation until now. Yes, he put his thumb on the scale at the wrong time as the commenters claimed. There will be many more who bail from his many money pumps if he does not rescind his huge error. He wallows at the public trough like Musk does and thrives on our tax dollars and governmental favors and business. Are they both wanting oligarch status? Has privatization led to way too little governmental control? You can make laws only for those small enough to be allowed to fail. You have governmental control only if your politicians have not sold out yet.
I'll give Bezos a chance to find his decency. The elongated one appears beyond redemption.
"Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally is getting a lot of blowback"
As it should but honestly I don't understand the sudden outrage. Stump and his apple-polisher's have been saying racist shit for ten years now. I'm glad he's getting some bad press but I just don't get that people are surprised by it. Calling it "political suicide" seems a bit ridiculous, Stump's racism is the only thing that makes him viable in a general election, the country is full of fucking racists, that's pretty much the only reason 70 million plus voted for him?
Sorry I am still OT, but this story is also big. Theodore Widlanski gets credit for this comment to a Jennifer Rubin article.
On topic, the MSG rally took the GOP from conservative to fascist in a big way. Any republican is now under that label by default without statements and actions to the contrary. Just a denial is not adequate. The party went full hate-based with that extravaganza of this fascist mutation.
How is it a mutation? Well, about fifty years ago, my alma-mater invited the head of the American Nazi Party to speak. His speech was antisemitic exclusively as I recall and provoked several faculty members to give strong rebuttals. The MSG rally was a much broader hate fest, with quite a number of groups labeled for sub-human status. As with conspiracy theories, followers must concur with the ones Trump selects. Of late Trump has quite a few groups on his hate list and it seems to keep growing. It is apparent that no one is assured a spot in his ever-smaller tent. So far Lindsey Graham stays in by doing a full grovel. He kind of seems to be kind of a role model for the MAGATS.
Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally is facing significant backlash, and honestly, I don’t get the shock. He and his sycophants have been spouting racist rhetoric for years now. While it’s good to see him catching some heat, the surprise seems misplaced. Labeling it "political suicide" feels off-base—Trump's racism is, frankly, the main thing that keeps him relevant in national politics. The reality is, a large portion of this country still harbors racist views, and that’s one of the main reasons he got over 70 million votes last time around.
Why the copy of and rerun of a comment by uncledad?