Speaker Mike Johhnson has joined the Republican chorus ripping the Biden Administration’s response to Hurricane Helene. At the same time, he’s refusing to call the House back into session to appropriate more money for disaster relief. Today’s Republican party in a nutshell. See also Newsweek, How Mike Johnson’s Big Decision Could Impact Helene Relief Efforts.

Liz Cheney has been saying that if Trump loses in November, what’s left of the Republican party might have to form a new party. Zachary Basu of Axios also writes that a Potential Trump loss threatens destruction of the modern GOP. “Never before has a party’s identity been so deeply entwined with the fate, fortunes and flaws of one man. Four consecutive poor election cycles would unleash a wave of sustained scrutiny that the GOP — as it currently exists — may not survive,” writes Basu. 

If the Republicans suffer significant losses, including the White House, in November, then certainly the MAGA movement can’t survive as a political force except maybe as a local or regional entity. It won’t die right away, of course, but since it’s a cult of personality it won’t survive without Donald Trump.

And Trump is being eaten alive by senlility with every passing day. Whether he wins or not, I expect that by some time next year the Trump family will be forced to admit he has Alzheimers. His short-term memory issues are getting more pronounced. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if he’s already been diagnosed and the family is keeping it secret as long as possible, And most likely MAGA will go the way of the Temperence Movement once he’s no longer able to lead it. Do read this weekend’s New York Times exposé of Trump’s mental state.  See also The Media Is Finally Waking Up to the Story of Trump’s Mental Fitness by Michael Tomasky at The New Republic.

If MAGA dies in a timely manner, IMO there might be enough left of the old GOP establishment to reconstitute something approximating the old GOP. And if the MAGAts stomp out and form their own party, so much the better. But Cheney and Basu apparently think it’s more likely that the remnants of the old establishment will have to form a new party and let the Republican Party die from MAGA cancer, so to speak. And they’re closer to the thing than I am.

But if Trump wins, the Republican Party is still toast. It will be utterly consumed by MAGA, and MAGA is not a political party but only a caricature of one. The real question then will be if the United States survives, especially as we’ll end up with President J.D. Vance. I don’t even want to think about it.

Meanwhile, the rhetoric coming from Trump and his allies is increasingly dangerous. Now they’re openly claiming that Democrats were behind the two assasination attempts.

At Talking Points Memo, David Kurtz writes that West Virginia is considering secession if Trump loses.

Take, for instance, the resolution that four GOP lawmakers introduced Sunday in the special session in West Virginia. It’s as extreme as anything I’ve seen in the last few years. The proposed resolution, inter alia, calls on West Virginia not to “recognize” the results of the 2024 presidential election if “election fraud in any state was a major reason that resulted in a candidate for President obtaining a majority in the Electoral College.”

“Election fraud” is defined in the text very broadly to include a laundry list of bogus right-wing claims ranging from non-citizen voting to “prosecutions for apparent political motives.” By this definition, Special Counsel Jack Smith’s ongoing prosecution of Donald Trump could be sufficient grounds on its own for West Virginia to refuse to recognize a victorious Kamala Harris as the legitimate president. 

This is from the draft resolution:

That, the State of West Virginia will not recognize any election of the Democrat candidate for President during the 2024 election cycle if the Republican presidential or vice-presidential candidate is assassinated, seriously injured during an assassination attempt, incarcerated, de facto eliminated or barred from the ballot in any states, or is the subject of legal actions that preclude their effective campaigning …

This probably won’t go anywhere, of course, but the fact that actual state legislatures are thinking about this is worthy of note.

Just letting you know I’ll be away from my computer until Sunday. Spending some time with my children and grandsons. Please feel free to leave comments about whatever is going on.

I believe the most linked thing on the Intertubes today is this piece by Richard Hasen,
“Jack Smith’s Big New Jan. 6 Brief Is a Major Indictment of the Supreme Court” at Slate. It begins,

It’s rare to simultaneously feel red-hot anger and wistfulness, especially when merely reading a document. But those are exactly the emotions that washed over me when I read the redacted version of special counsel Jack Smith’s brief reciting in detail the evidence against Donald Trump for attempting to subvert the 2020 election. The anger is at the Supreme Court for depriving the American people of the chance for a full public airing of Donald Trump’s attempt to use fraud and trickery to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential victory before voters consider whether to put Trump back in office beginning January 2025. The wistfulness comes with the recognition that there is about an even chance that this will be the last evidence produced by the federal government of this nefarious plot. If Donald Trump wins election next month, the end of this prosecution is certain and the risks of future election subversion heightened.

And then, after a concise review of the many times Trump could have been stopped and at least disqualified from running again, Hasen concludes,

The New York Times recently reported on the internal Supreme Court deliberations, and they paint Chief Justice John Roberts, author of the Trump immunity decision, as having turned from a justice known for seeking common ground and minimalist outcomes to one set out to protect the office of the presidency at all costs. The opinion was so focused on the risks to the vigorousness of the activities of future presidents that could come from the threat of future prosecutions that it was willing to ignore the current threat to democracy today from Trump’s actions in 2020, not to mention his continued insistence that he won the last election.

Right now it appears to be a toss-up whether Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris will win office in the November election. If Trump wins, he will have his attorney general fire Smith and shut down this prosecution. If he keeps his promises, he even may seek to investigate and prosecute Smith, Harris, Biden, and others. There is a risk of authoritarianism down the line.

The fact that no jury may pass on the deadly serious allegations in Smith’s complaint will do more than simply let Trump and others off the hooks for their potential crimes. It will make future criminal activity related to American elections much more likely. And it all could have been avoided if McConnell, Garland, and especially the Supreme Court had done the right thing.

Hat tip to Scott Lemieux of Lawyers, Guns and Money for referring to the immunity decision as “the Dred Scott of the 21st century.”

There’s another good analysis of Where We Are by Kavid Kurtz at TPM, The Jan. 6 Case Against Donald Trump Is Part Of America’s Founding Story.

The case laid out by Smith broadly follows the already-familiar contours of the conspiracy to overturn the results of an election Trump lost. It’s a narrative we know because we saw most of it with our own eyes. What we couldn’t see directly was pieced together by the House Jan. 6 committee and journalists working tirelessly to document the conspiracy’s many disparate elements and to identify the vast cast of characters that ended the United States’ streak of peaceful transitions of power.

There remains great civic value in repeating that story for ourselves and for future generations so that it becomes woven into our collective memory like the Boston Tea Party or the firing on Fort Sumter or the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

The Jan. 6 debacle is a part of the nation’s founding story, even though it comes nearly 250 years later, because the same principles that animated its creation were under sustained attack, the same threats that the constitutional system was specifically designed to protect against were on full display, and the reactionary forces of chaos and destruction that always linger just over the horizon advanced to within minutes and feet of prevailing over democracy and the rule of law.

Heather Cox Richardson’s October 2 letter is also worth reading. The danger is palpable, yet so many of us do not see it. And may I say I’d like to personally look up every undecided voter in the U.S. and smack them in the head? Pull your heads out of your asses, people.

And I don’t doubt Philip Bump at WaPo is right when he writes that No amount of evidence will convince Republicans of Trump’s 2020 guilt. This is just willful blindness and tribal loyalty.

Update: Here are two more links. Marcy Wheeler, John Roberts’ Sordid Legacy: 14 Pages of Mean Tweets; and Josh Kovensky at TPM, The Striking Details That Jack Smith Used To Tighten His January 6 Case Against Trump.

There are hopeful signs. Yes, the polls are tight, but I keep reading that the Republicans are worried about their ground operations. One of Trump’s decisions this year was to dismantle the RNC’s ground operations so that GOTV efforts could be outsourced to groups like Turning Point. Then the Guardian reported last week that Trump’s ground operation is now largely being run by Elon Musk, or at least a group funded by Elon Musk. Now Republicans have been worried because they’re not seeing much GOTV activity. With such a tight election, it’s going to be all about getting people to the polls. (Of course, Trump says he’s got enough votes already.)

Josh Marshall, today:

The thing you hear again and again about canvassing and ground operations is that you cannot just overwhelm it with money. Money is obviously critical. But you need a lot of institutional experience and time to make it work. …Canvassing and field operating takes time and institutional experience.

TPM Reader BP in Maine notes this article in The Bangor Daily News which reports that Elon Musk’s America PAC is hiring canvassers in Maine now — as in, a little more than a month before Election Day. On September 23rd, Bloomberg News reported hiring in New York, California and Michigan. (In the first two, that’s going to be for House races rather than the presidential.) I don’t want to rule out the possibility that this is additional hiring in Maine for the final push. But it doesn’t sound like it. Other reports noted that Musk’s group recently fired the firm they’d hired for field work in Nevada and were looking for a new firm. Again, this all seems quite late in the game to be in the hiring stage. But I stress again that we’re possibly getting an incomplete view.

Another tidbit comes from this article from a couple weeks ago which notes that Turning Point Action, which was supposed to be an anchor of the Trump campaign’s outside group strategy, ramped its efforts back to focusing on Arizona and Wisconsin and didn’t have the resources to be operating in Michigan, Nevada, Georgia and other swing states.

From what I’ve read, the Democrats have tons more money and have had their field offices open and fully operational, and canvassers out and about, for quite some time already. Republicans are putting more efforts into preparing legal challenges to the vote if Trump loses. And, of course, if all else fails, start some riots.

There are some redactions, I understand, but most of it is now public. I’m still digesting this, but here are some links.

New York Times, Judge Unseals New Evidence in Federal Election Case Against Trump

Talking Points Memo, UNSEALED: Jack Smith Details Why Trump Isn’t Immune From Prosecution For Jan. 6 Crimes

CBS News, Key takeaways from special counsel Jack Smith’s major filing in Trump’s 2020 election case

MSNBC, Read Jack Smith’s unsealed redacted motion on Trump presidential immunity

I’m sure there will be more commentary tomorrow.

I bailed on the veep debate, thinking it was going better for Vance than for Walz. Today the general consensus appears to be that the debate was either a Vance win or a draw, but I take it Walz did land a few punches. See Josh Marshall’s debate wrap-up for an “it was a draw” argument.

If we still have a country when this election is over, somebody needs to sit down with the networks and permanently nix the “no fact checking” provision. If a candidate refuses to participate if there will be fact checking, turn the debate into a prime time interview with the other candidate. And the candidate who refused to debate gets no equal time. Or maybe Democrats should refuse to paraticipate if there will be no fact checking. This is ridiculous. “No fact checking” gives too much of an advantage to liars.

Here’s some better news: “The Cook Political Report on Tuesday shifted Texas’s Senate race from “likely Republican” to “lean Republican,” signaling momentum for Rep. Colin Allred’s (D) challenge against incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz (R) in the red state.” Fingers crossed.

Perhaps the larger news story from yesterday is that Trump gave a news conference in Milwaukee yesterday in which he was so out of it that even the Washington Post noticed.

He spoke of “a million Rambos.” “Turnarounds” and “gotaways” and “dead-head spending.” He mixed up Iran with North Korea and strained to pronounce United Arab Emirates. He marveled at Hurricane Helene coming so late in the storm season, which typically runs through November. He falsely claimed government agencies can’t name the U.S. population, and he compared the conflict between Israel and Iran to “two kids fighting in the schoolyard.”  …

… Trump spoke slowly and appeared tired. It was his second stop of the day, and he has picked up the pace of campaigning in recent weeks. …

… Trump was more energetic during a speech to supporters in Waunakee, Wis., earlier Tuesday. He went on an extended riff about the 1987 film “Full Metal Jacket” and made up a false claim that Harris raised taxes as the San Francisco district attorney, which is not a power of that office.

See also Aaron Rupar’s Public Notice substack.

Apparently the event in Milwaukee was originally supposed to be a rally, and tickets were distributed. But when ticket holders showed up they were not allowed in; just media. I don’t know what’s up with that.

It was just a couple of weeks ago that Bill Scher at Washington Monthly was writing about Trump’s laziest campaign. Apparently he’s been picking up the pace in response to the poll numbers. I know I wouldn’t have the stamina to maintain a presidential campaign schedule without falling apart, but I’m not running for president. Trump is. I wonder if he’ll make it to election day.

Consider this an open thread to talk about whatever, including the debate. The debate starts at 9 EST. That’s 10 Central and some time tomorrow in Hawaii. I’ve worked really hard at not anticipating how the debate will go.

If you’d like something interesting to read while you wait, I recommend If Helene affects voting, Trump may pay the price by Philip Bump at WaPo, It so happens that nearly a quarter of 2020 Trump voters in Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas live in counties declared federal disaster areas. They’ll be receiving all the federal aid from the Biden Administration that the Administration can shovel at them as fast as it can.

Trump has backed out of an interview on 60 Minutes. The plan had been to broadcast back-to-back interviews of Harris and Trump. The Harris interview is still on, but Trump is refusing to be interviewed.

In a statement, the Trump campaign denied it had agreed to the interview.

“Fake News. 60 Minutes begged for an interview, even after they were caught lying about Hunter Biden’s laptop back in 2020. There were initial discussions, but nothing was ever scheduled or locked in,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said.

“They insisted on cutting out of the interview to do fact-checking,” he added.

Asked by CNN if there’s still a chance Trump might sit for the interview, Cheung replied: “Now that they’ve lied about the interaction, they just f**ked themselves.”

The odd thing is Trump is still telling people that Harris doesn’t do interviews because she’s too incompetent or brain damaged or something. Even Trump’s culties might notice that she’s being interviewed and he isn’t.

The Debate Begins

Here we go …

Okay, I’ll watch for a while, but if it’s going to be Vance lying his ass off about Trump’s record, with no fact checks, I’m not sure I can stay with it.

Vance’s answer to the climate change question was weird.

I don’t have a clear sense of how this might be viewed by the infamous undecided voters. Maybe the best we can hope for is a wash.

If anyone’s here, feel free to comment. I’ll check in later.

With Trump it has sometimes been hard to tell if he knows he’s lying. Sometimes I think he knows but doesn’t care. Sometimes I think he honestly doesn’t know. Maybe a little of both. “Truth” to him is just something to be manipulated, not something to be valued for its own sake. Plus his mind is turning into mush.

Lately I’m thinking that what he says is often just an unfiltered reflection of his id.  “The id engages in primary process thinking, which is primitive, illogical, irrational, and fantasy-oriented. This form of process thinking has no comprehension of objective reality, and is selfish and wishful in nature,” it says here. He’s a deeply insecure man who got through life by using money and belligerence to seize control and keep himself safe. And now he’s terrified he’s losing control. He may not get to be president again. He may not be able to stop the legal system from taking all control away from him.

So he gets in front of a microphone and shows us how terrified he is. He’s threatening to prosecute Google for running “bad stories” about him. He attacked Fox News for carrying a speech by Harris (which surprises me). According to Trump, Fox shouldn’t be allowed to present a speech by Harris. He’s not just being irrational; I say he’s being irrational because he’s terrified. If he weren’t terrified he wouldn’t care. But he is, so he crazily lashes out because these entities are not protecting him and ceding him control. He can’t stand it.

This is recent:

“These people are animals” (referring to migrants).

“I will liberate Wisconsin from this mass migrant invasion of murderers, rapists, hoodlums, drug dealers, thugs, and vicious gang members. We’re going to liberate our country.”

“You gotta get these people back where they came from. You have no choice. You’re gonna lose your culture.”

And, finally, this gem: “They will walk into your kitchen, they’ll cut your throat.”

In Trump’s rhetoric, vast hoards of subhuman brown people may already be swarming through innocent midwestern communities, raping and pillaging and taking over homes while tossing the lifeless bodies of homeowners into dumptsters. You may not be seeing that on the news, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. And if you don’t elect him, Kamala Harris will see to it it happens to you.

And, of course, none of this is real, but his followers believe him.

What I suspect is that what he’s really expressing is his own existential angst, his own fear that without the power of the presidency the Justice Department will take everything away from him. His homes, his golf courses, everthing. He’ll be tossed out and into prison. FBI agents will come for him, and life as he knows it will be over.

And then there’s his new ramble on crime, in which he fantacizes that just letting the police bring the hammer down for one day — or just “one rough hour,” — would end crime. This is of a piece with his fantasy about being “a dictator on day one.” Just give him unlimited power to do anything, and he’ll take care of all of his problems and destroy the things that scare him.

And if his poll numbers sag further, or Judge Chutkan releases incriminating information from Jack Smith’s recent super-brief, expect him to get crazier.

Update: This is Jonathan Chait, Trump Wants to Lock Up Kamala Harris Now He’s now three-for-three in demanding imprisonment of opposing candidates

Over the weekend, Donald Trump began branding Vice-President Kamala Harris a criminal. “She should be impeached and prosecuted for her actions,” he claimed at one point. At another, he ostentatiously paused his speech while the crowd chanted, “Lock her up!”

It is obviously unsurprising that Trump would conjure up imaginary crimes by his political opponent. In 2016, he made “Lock her up!” a signature campaign chant. In 2020, he branded Joe Biden a criminal. The pretext for Harris’s prosecution is that, as vice-president, she presided over border-enforcement policies that Trump opposes. In 2016, the pretext was Clinton’s violation of State Department email protocol. In 2020, it was disproven charges that Biden profited from his son’s business activity in Ukraine.

Obviously, none of the particulars of these allegations — in Harris’s case, Trump hasn’t even managed to manufacture a pretextual criminal allegation — matter to Trump in the slightest. His view of the law is fully relativist. Actions taken on Trump’s behalf are by inherently legal, and actions taken against him are inherently illegal.

That is why Trump continuously brands his political opponents as criminals. In addition to all three of his Democratic campaign opponents, Trump has called for criminal charges to be brought against a long list of targets, including (but not limited to) Barack Obama, John Kerry, Liz Cheney, anybody who criticizes pro-Trump judges, “lawyers, political operatives, donors, illegal voters, and corrupt election officials” involved in the 2024 election, among many others. …

… Trump’s view of crime, as an activity that definitionally encompasses all political or media activity disadvantageous to him and excluding all activity by him or his allies, is so extreme that few of his allies will defend it on its own terms. Sometimes they insist his personalistic view of the justice system is not a reason to exclude him from office, since his efforts to implement failed more than they succeeded in the first term.

At this point I’m not sure he fully grasps the contept of “law.”

In other news, recently Trump has been promising no taxes on tips and also no taxes on overtime. (Harris has also taken up no taxes on tips, with the provision that this only applies to service workers. Otherwise certain highly compensated professionals could reclassify parts of their income as tips.) But in a recent speech he confessed that as an employer he refused to pay overtime.

If you missed Kamala Harris’s speech on border security yesterday, here it is.

I’ve not seen much in the way of editorial commentary on this speech. I thought it was politically smart. She’s throwing the border security issue right back at Trump and saying he did nothing but make it worse. I wouldn’t be surprised if parts of this speech end up in campaign ads.

Today I’m having a hard time focusing, so here’s some other stuff to read:

Internal Docs Show Trump Media Investors Were Duped

The Republican Freak Show

Schiff introduces bill that would stop presidents from dismissing prosecution against themselves

The Eric Adams Case Is About More Than Public Corruption

We need to talk about Jared Kushner’s sketchy Saudi-backed fund

Trump keeps talking about criminalizing dissent

Those of you who have to deal with Hurricane Helene today, please stay safe.

I don’t pay much attention to New York City politics, but I suppose I should note that Mayor Eric Adams has been indicted by the feds for something or other. I am not shocked. I was surprised he was elected in the first place, because he seemed hinky to me. IMO he’s been a poor mayor, and even if he somehow beats the rap I doubt he’ll be re-elected. If the city’s Democratic progressives can all get behind one candidate instead of canceling each other out on the ballot, maybe NYC can get a decent mayor some day. Axios is reporting that Andy Cuomo is thinking about running for the job, so a united front front from the progressives might be the only thing keeping that waste of space out of Gracie Mansion. See also Josh Marshall, Adams Indicted; Gotham Yawns.

Jack Smith’s really long brief will be submitted to Judge Tanya Chutkan today. Politico:

The filing — a legal brief accompanied by supporting exhibits — is expected to contain never-before-seen evidence about Trump’s efforts to subvert the last election. It could include snippets of interviews prosecutors conducted with some of Trump’s top advisers, documents Smith procured from the National Archives and a log of Trump’s Twitter activity as violence raged on Jan. 6, 2021.

But prosecutors are not going to file these documents publicly. They must first submit them “under seal” to Chutkan, who will then decide how much of the evidence is fit for public release.

So it’s up to Judge Chutkan now. See also Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns and Money, Remember that time Donald Trump tried to overthrow the government?

Dem Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon has just introduced a sweeping Supreme Court reform bill that includes adding six new justices, which sounds about right. I don’t expect it to pass in this Congress, but let’s get the proposal out there for the next one. And this might give the Chief Justice something to think about.

Some good news I missed: On Tuesday a judge ordered that all of Alex Jones’s media empire must be liquidated to pay the Sandy Hook families. CNN:

Everything from the Infowars.com domain, to its social media accounts, subscriber list, and even production equipment and studio set will be auctioned off piece by piece to the highest bidder on November 13, according to the auction house handling the bidding.

The proceeds of the sale, which could fetch millions of dollars, will be used to chip away at the nearly $1.5 billion Jones owes the families of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. Jones went into personal bankruptcy after he was ordered to pay the massive sum for pushing false conspiracy theories about the 2012 massacre that left 26 people dead.

Bye, Alex Jones.

Yesterday J.D. Vance got in front of some cameras and said Kamala Harris lacks “character” because she “is so afraid of the American media ? the friendly media ? that she won’t even do an interview.” Kamala Harris was being interviewed by MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle at the time.

And Ruhle wasn’t throwing softballs; it was an intelligent and occasionally challenging interview. Yes it was MSNBC, but note that no one ever complains that all of Trump’s interviews are with Fox or some other clown from the Right Wing Circus. Trump wouldn’t last five minutes with Rachel Maddow.

The Hill noted that “Harris’s interview with Ruhle went deeper into her proposed economic policies than any of the other media appearances and interviews she’s done as the Democratic nominee.” That’s because Ruhle wasn’t asking stupid Dana Bash gotcha questions about why Harris changed her mind about fracking and instead asked questions about Harris’s actual economic policies. It was very informative, I thought. Here’s the video:

The economic policy speech she gave earlier in the day has been well received, as near as I can tell, by mainstream news sources. Right-wing media are tearing it apart, of course.

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.