The (no longer) much too early 2024 election thread

[Voronwë the Faithful]

It was on Fox, not CNN.

[N.E. Brigand]

It was on Fox, not CNN.

1. I think that attests to how foggy my brain has been since yesterday.

2. That's even better.

[N.E. Brigand]

This bizarre trend continues:



I'd like to see follow-up questions about why people think that others are doing poorly while they're doing well.

And maybe also how they respond when told of these self-contradictory results!

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I see that image got cut off. Here are the responses:

---Excellent or good: national economy 35%, personal finances 61%
---Not so good or poor: national economy 65%, personal finances 38%

[Sunsilver]

Let's not forget Trump loves to get people to manipulate polls for him!

[N.E. Brigand]

There's a long-standing debate among political consultants about which matters more: turnout or persuasion? Appeal to your base or appeal to the center? Hal Malchow has a new take on that question in his book, Reinventing Political Advertising:

Political communicators are sticking to approaches developed for an era when ticket-splitters and swing voters composed a sizeable chunk of the electorate. But with a body politic that has sorted into two highly polarized parties — with just one-tenth of voters torn between them — the logic of persuading voters to support a candidate has grown obsolete. Ad campaigns should instead promote the Democratic Party itself, Malchow proposes, particularly at moments when news events might help it win new adherents, such as after a mass shooting, when gun-control policy is thrust back into the news and voters might be ready to reconsider their allegiances.

“Ninety percent of voters are choosing parties,” he writes. “Yet our approach to advertising has not changed at all. Almost 100 percent of our advertising dollars are spent on candidate choice. The decision driving 9 out of 10 votes is not being addressed at all.”

Unfortunately, Malchow fears "the apex predators of his party’s consulting ecosystem have the proper mindset to seize the opportunity to change voters’ opinions. 'The data is threatening to the TV people, they don’t pay attention to it. They’re doing their targeting in exactly the wrong way.'"

(For reasons explained at the link, he won't be around to see if that changes.)

[N.E. Brigand]

Are Serbia and Albania secretly paying Donald Trump in order to get his support (should he retake the White House) for redrawing the borders of southeastern Europe?

[N.E. Brigand]

An early sign that the RNC is suffering for having fired so many staff?



In case you can't read the "community note" appended to that RNC tweet: those aren't President Biden's "handlers" descending the Capitol steps with. That's Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and Ireland's Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar. (Also that doesn't seem particularly slow to me.)

[N.E. Brigand]

I've seen a number of charts like this one over the past year but I don't think I've posted any here. The poor are benefiting most from the economy:



Note that the starting point is January 2020, before the pandemic started.

A fascinating item among the replies is the person who says that the chart uses the wrong measure of inflation (it uses CPI, the most common measure). When asked which measure he would prefer, he goes into a multi-part digression, the gist of which is that the Federal Reserve shouldn't exist because "Money shouldn't be created out of thin air. It should be mined." Sam Bankman-Fried, is that you?

[N.E. Brigand]

Not Matt Schlapp. AP: "Trump-backed Senate candidate faces GOP worries that he could be linked to adult website profile."

But ahead of Tuesday’s primary election, there’s mounting anxiety inside the GOP that Bernie Moreno may emerge with the nomination. After vaulting into the top tier of contenders with a coveted endorsement from Donald Trump, Moreno — who has shifted from a public supporter of LGBTQ rights to a hardline opponent — is confronting questions about the existence of a 2008 profile seeking “Men for 1-on-1 sex” on a casual sexual encounters website called Adult Friend Finder. ... Questions about the profile have circulated in GOP circles for the past month. On Thursday evening, two days after the AP first asked Moreno’s campaign about the account, the candidate’s lawyer said a former intern created the account as a prank. The lawyer provided a statement from the intern, Dan Ricci, who said he created the account as “part of a juvenile prank.”

Obviously the worst thing here is the part I have underlined, but that's the only part that many Republican voters will like. His car dealership sponsored the Gay Games when they were in Cleveland in 2014, and he even wrote an op-ed supporting that event. And his son is gay. But since first running for office in 2021, he has attacked gay rights.

Introducing Donald Trump today at a rally in Dayton, Bernie Moreno, who is Trump's endorsed candidate for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination, said this:

"You get to heaven. And imagine what that's like, what that feels like. And imagine who you get to meet. You get to meet the 55 people that signed our Declaration of Independence. You get to meet James Madison, Abraham Lincoln, John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington."

This video of that moment is being shared on social media. As you can see, it cuts off right after "George Washington," so I was suspicious of a misleading edit. It took me a little while to find this video on Youtube because the first 15 or so search results, even those purporting to be a live stream from today's event, only start with Trump's speech. But here's a fuller transcript of that part of Moreno's speech:

Now all of us here, all of us here love this country. We deeply, deeply love this country. We're also, I would venture to guess, all people of faith and believers. So let me just tell you something that's going to happen. All of us here, one point or another, will be dead. And we're going--we're going to get to go to heaven. And I want you to imagine that moment for a second. You get to heaven. And imagine what that's like, what that feels like. And imagine who you get to meet. You get to meet the 55 people that signed our Declaration of Independence. You get to meet James Madison, Abraham Lincoln, John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington. And you're gonna talk to them, and you gonna say--they're gonna tell you their story. They're going to tell you what they did when this country -- which is a gift from God -- what they did for their country when their country needed them. Imagine what that moment is gonna be like, where you think, 'My God, these are some pretty incredible people.' But then they're gonna stop talking. They're gonna look to all of you. They're gonna look at me. They're gonna look at each one of us. And say, 'What is your story? What did you do when your country needed you? You know what? You know what? You know what starts today? We're gonna build a pretty damn good story. Because our country needs us right now. Our country needs us. It's being a-taken away from us, and we're not going to let that happen, because the best American years are in front of us and not behind us. We're gonna make American great again. We're gonna make America strong again. And we are gonna give this country to our kids and grandkids better than the way we got it. Thank you! God bless America!

Democrats should steal most of that paragraph. Edit the introduction to be more inclusive of non-Christians and throw in some people who aren't White men, but the rest is American pie stuff that always sells. Don't let Republicans own it.

OK, first things first: 56 people not 55 signed the Declaration of Independence. But what about the import of the social media bit? Is Moreno mistakenly claiming that Abraham Lincoln, who wouldn't be born for another 33 years, signed the Declaration?

Well, I'm not sure. None of those five people signed it. Anyone who knows their Stan Freberg knows that George Washington and his wooden teeth didn't sign it. But neither did the United States' fourth president, James Madison, who was commissioned in the Revolutionary War but didn't hold public office until 1881; or John Jay, who would go on to co-author the Federalist Papers that urged ratification of the Constitution and would be the first Chief Justice, but whose "duties as a New York Congressman prevented him from voting on or signing" the Declaration; or Alexander Hamilton, the nation's first Treasury Secretary, most famous dueling victim, and inspiration for one of the most popular musicals ever, who was only 19 or 21 at the time (accounts vary), was still in college, and while there formed a militia, from which he rose to become Washington's chief of staff.

Did you know that George Washington was again the leader of the U.S. military when he died in 1799? Before today, I didn't. He was appointed by his successor, John Adams, and he didn't do anything but prepare for the possibility of a war with France that didn't come to pass. He was succeeded by Alexander Hamilton.

Anyway, since Moreno didn't list anyone who did sign the Declaration, I am uncertain as to whether the five names he listed were meant in addition the actual signers or if he really believes they signed it. Certainly he sets himself up for misunderstanding in presenting it that way. Why not add, "like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Sam Adams, and John Hancock"? And who in that audience even knows who John Jay was much less whether he did or did not sign the Declaration? It's just a list of five famous names. It's like this bit from The Music Man:

I said River City's gotta have a boys' band, and I mean she needs it today!
While Professor Harold Hill's on hand
River City's gonna have her boys' band
And sure as the Lord made little green apples
And that band's gonna be in uniform
Johnny, Willy, Teddy, Fred
And you'll see the glitter of crashing cymbals
And you'll hear the thunder of rolling drums
And the shimmer of trumpets, tum ta da!
And you'll feel something akin to the electric thrill I once enjoyed
When Gilmore, Liberace, Pat Conway, the great Creator
W.C. Handy, and John Philip Sousa
All came to town on the very same historic day

Other notes from Moreno's speech:

Right at the top, he pointed to his wife of 35 years and two of his kids.

I didn't realize that Moreno immigrated to the U.S. from Colombia. He used that background to build toward the statement that "if you are in this country illegally, starting in January of 2025, you will be deported

He's not very politically inclusive either: "None of us here vote for Democrats, right? We vote for Republicans."

He says it's embarrassing for one of his opponents to have been endorsed by the Cleveland Plain Dealer, which despite a major decline over the past ten years is still by far the most read newspaper in Ohio. (If he got the endorsement, it would surely be in his ads.)

He gets the audience to boo Ukraine.

He's 57 and noted that if he's elected, he'll feel young in the Senate, because: "They're gonna look at me and say, 'He could make the stairs by himself.' Right? 'You don't need a wheelchair?' They could have extra pudding available. Not that there's anything wrong with that." The next speaker today was U.S. Senator J.D. Vance, who is 39.

He also called for the Dept. of Education to be abolished, warning people who work there to start looking for new jobs now.

He had some weird bit where he encouraged members of the media to vote 11 times. It seemed to be the set up for a joke, but there was no punchline. Instead, he went into another topic, saying that he's "sick of going to the grocery store and returning groceries because the groceries are unaffordable." He's rich and he lives in the well-to-do suburb of Westlake about 15 miles from here.

And he's insane. He claimed that the "WEF and the World Health Organization" were responsible for "unleashing a virus on America, locking us down, forcing us to get vaccinated, forcing us to get masks". I'm not sure what the WEF is, but that's absolutely bonkers.

[River]

WEF = World Economic Forum. The Davos crowd. Not that that helps make any sense of Moreno's campaign pitch.

[N.E. Brigand]

Thanks for explaining the abbreviation, River!

And now turning to Donald Trump's speech in Dayton: after citing three polls showing him well ahead in Ohio (he only mentions one, an Emerson poll that has him up by nine points: he won the state by eight points in 2016 and 2020), he says this (starts at 1:09:27):

Nationwide we're leading in every single swing state against Biden. The largins--in the largest margins ever. You know what was interesting? Joe Biden won against Barack Hussein Obama. Has anyone ever heard of him? Barack Hussein Obama. Or as Rush Limbaugh would say: Barack Hussein Obama. He used to scream out the name Hussein. But he was, uh, think of this, just think of this: every swing state Biden beat Obama, but every other state he got killed. You think that's an honest election? I could give you a hundred different things. We better straighten out our elections. We better get smart because the people of the country are not gonna take it. We're not gonna take it. We're not gonna take it any longer. The radical left Democrats rigged the presidential election in 2020 and we're not going to allow them to rig the election in 2024. Not gonna allow it to happen.

The only time Barack Obama and Joe Biden competed against each other was in 2008 Democratic primaries. The only time Biden and Obama faced each other was in the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3, 2008. Biden placed fifth behind Obama, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, and Bill Richardson. And Biden dropped out of the race that day.

[N.E. Brigand]

On CNN Fox today, Donald Trump's 2017-21 Vice President, Mike Pence, said he would not be endorsing Trump in this year's election.

When confronted with lists like this of top Trump administration officials who now won't support him:



How do Trump's supporters reply? Presumably that these men were never really conservative. Trump can never fail, he can only be failed.

[N.E. Brigand]

"If I don't get elected, it's gonna be a bloodbath. ... It's going to be a bloodbath for the country." That's Donald Trump, speaking Saturday in Dayton.

This one I think is a deliberate attempt by Trump to have it both ways. In that part of his speech (about a half-hour in), he's complaining about electric cars and the UAW, and he's laying out his plans to prevent China from selling cars here (I think it's weird how Trump says that he and President Xi are "friends"; President Biden never says that about Xi), including those China is manufacturing in Mexico, by imposing a 100% tariff on any such imports:

"And you're not gonna be able to sell those cars. If I get elected. Now if I don't get elected, it's gonna be a bloodbath for the whole--that's gonna be the least of it. It's gonna be a bloodbath for the country. That'll be the least of it. But they're not gonna sell those cars."

So the Trump defense will be that he's speaking about the economic calamity that will arise should China be able to undermine U.S. auto-manufacturing. But what does "for the whole country" and "that'll be the least of it" repeated twice mean? And remember, he opened this speech by standing at a salute as a recording played of the national anthem being sung by the violent criminals who tried to overturn the 2020 election: the people he promises to pardon.

So I think it's fair to read this as a promise of violence.

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Edited thirteen hours later to add that I see Jen Psaki made the same points as me later today and that she added, among some broader context, that Trump said in yesterday's rally that if he doesn't win the election, "I'm not sure that you'll ever have another election."

[Voronwë the Faithful]

That's certainly how certainly elements of the liberal twitter-verse are spinning it. To me, that is clearly not what Trump was saying (though what he was saying was ridiculous enough).

However, he did follow that up with another all-caps rant about presidential immunity on Truth Social, saying that a president has to have immunity even if they "cross the line."

A PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES MUST HAVE FULL IMMUNITY, WITHOUT WHICH IT WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE FOR HIM/HER TO PROPERLY FUNCTION. ANY MISTAKE, EVEN IF WELL INTENDED, WOULD BE MET WITH ALMOST CERTAIN INDICTMENT BY THE OPPOSING PARTY AT TERM END. EVEN EVENTS THAT “CROSS THE LINE” MUST FALL UNDER TOTAL IMMUNITY, OR IT WILL BE YEARS OF TRAUMA TRYING TO DETERMINE GOOD FROM BAD. THERE MUST BE CERTAINTY. EXAMPLE: YOU CAN’T STOP POLICE FROM DOING THE JOB OF STRONG & EFFECTIVE CRIME PREVENTION BECAUSE YOU WANT TO GUARD AGAINST THE OCCASIONAL “ROGUE COP” OR “BAD APPLE.” SOMETIMES YOU JUST HAVE TO LIVE WITH “GREAT BUT SLIGHTLY IMPERFECT.” ALL PRESIDENTS MUST HAVE COMPLETE & TOTAL PRESIDENTIAL IMMUNITY, OR THE AUTHORITY & DECISIVENESS OF A PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES WILL BE STRIPPED & GONE FOREVER. HOPEFULLY THIS WILL BE AN EASY DECISION. GOD BLESS THE SUPREME COURT!

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrum ... 6994298544

[RoseMorninStar]

Regarding the rant, there is an old saying, 'If you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen.' The job of president comes with rules & laws.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Regarding the bloodbath comment, I thought this thread by George Conway was worthwhile.

[N.E. Brigand]

Finally someone wrote about this:

CNN: "Fact check: Trump, telling a completely fictional story, falsely claims he released ‘the tape’ of his Zelensky call."

According to that article, there was no tape.

[N.E. Brigand]

Regarding the rant, there is an old saying, 'If you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen.' The job of president comes with rules & laws.

And I would add that by this point, Donald Trump never, ever deserves the benefit of the doubt. He has forfeited that right utterly, and to the degree that we allow him any such consideration, it's a gift he should accept graciously and never take for granted.

Edited to add: But also, I think he wanted us to talk about this today.

Edited to add: Because he wants people to be afraid to vote against him, lest they be victims of his bloodbath.

[N.E. Brigand]

President Biden will not be able to comment on any pending Trump trials because Trump then could argue, and various courts likely would accept, that this was undue government interference in his trials.

Now I happen to think that's unreasonable. If you don't want your political opponent commenting on your ongoing criminal proceedings, don't run for office! One very reason that Trump is running for president again is to be able to avoid criminal procedure. That shouldn't be a permissible way out. Plus President Biden has taken a hands-off approach to Justice Dept. matters, and if he says so again in writing, that should be enough. The courts were certainly willing to grant extraordinary deference to the Trump administration in all such gray areas, despite my urgings to the contrary. If they took President Trump at his word, they should take President Biden at his. But I accept that's not going to happen.

So I hope pro-Biden PACs hit Donald Trump hard on his alleged theft of classified document and his alleged role in insurrection.

And I hope Biden himself makes the most of everything else, including one item that may have been forgotten by many voters after more than a year (if they ever knew it in the first place): Donald Trump's namesake company, the Trump Organization, was found guilty by a jury in 2022 of 17 felony counts. And Trump's company lost money every year from 2009 through 2018 (including $1 billion in both 2009 and 2010) while he was pretending to be so financially successful that he deserved to be president. He's a loser who only started making money once he was in the White House.

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That's certainly how certainly elements of the liberal twitter-verse are spinning it. To me, that is clearly not what Trump was saying (though what he was saying was ridiculous enough). However, he did follow that up with another all-caps rant about presidential immunity on Truth Social, saying that a president has to have immunity even if they "cross the line." ...

I hope that Trump's repeated return to this claim means he fears the Supreme Court will (eventually) rule against him.

He also called today for Liz Cheney and other members of the January 6th Committe to be imprisoned.

Returning to the "bloodbath" comment, I think Josh Marshall's take is also valuable: "If Trump didn't mean what everyone heard, maybe he can clear it up by agreeing not to call for any more violence? Maybe he can renounce other times he called for violence if he loses? I'll wait."

I defended Sen. Chuck Schumer's March 2020 remarks at a pro-choice rally in front of the Supreme Court:

I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh: you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions. The bottom line is very simple: we will stand with the American people, we will stand with American women, we will tell President Trump and Senate Republicans, who have stacked the court with right-wing ideologues, that you're going to be gone in November, and you’ll never be able to do what you're trying to do now ever, ever again. Do you hear that over there on the far right? [gestures toward counter-rally] You're gone in November!"

Schumer didn't have a history of violent rhetoric, he hadn't incited a riot, he was clearly referencing Kavanaugh's own comments during his Senate confirmation hearings by using the phrase "released the whirlwind," the phrase "you're going to be gone" was explicitly directed at "President Trump and Senate Republicans," and thus it was reasonable to interpret "you won't know what hit you" and "you will pay the price" as rhetorical. (Just as one might interpret "bloodbath" as merely rhetorical if not for all the context, starting, I would repeat \, with "that'll be the least of it"* in reference to the auto industry: Trump clearly means something bigger than that.) And in fact, once the Court did overturn Roe v. Wade, the "far right" was "hit" by a wave of pro-choice votes.

Nonetheless, Schumer apologized for his rhetoric a few days later.

When has Donald Trump ever apologized for anything?

*By the way, based on a scan of various pundits' comments, I'm not sure anyone pointed out the "least of it" bit before me.

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Edited to add: To give folks a sense of the dishonesty on the right: this is one of the top replies to Marshall's post. It claims that (then? or former?) Attorney General Loretta Lynch was "actually calling for violence in 2017". And it includes video of Lynch giving a speech intercut with scenes of riots, but Lynch's speech is a call for patience and calm. (Also intermixed is an apparently fake video of comedian Kathy Griffin which referencces an infamous image of Griffin's that definitely crossed the line -- but which had nothing to do with Lynch.)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Donald Trump has never apologized for anything in his life. If we sink to his level, he will have won.