- Trump’s closing argument is vulgarity;
- How Trump is unable to produce evidence of voter fraud; Similarly, how a far-right social media personality is unable to substantiate his calumny against James Carville;
- Shorter items: How Trump pardons only those loyal to him; how a Christian pastor cherry-picks the Bible; how presidents do not actually control much of the economy; how those who support Trump’s mass deportation aren’t thinking things through; how immigration actually affects the US economy; and how a Christian pastor still believe in demons.
Washington Post, Editorial Board, 29 Oct 2024: Opinion | Donald Trump’s closing argument: Vulgarity, subtitled “Trump has made politics coarser, and somehow he’s managed to become even cruder in recent days.”
Democracy depends on many things: institutions, traditions, public legitimacy and, yes, a culture of civility. The peaceful transfer of power requires people to have at least a minimum degree of trust in their fellow citizens — that the stakes are not existential. In this regard, former president Donald Trump showed, in his closing argument at a raucous rally at Madison Square Garden, that whether he wins or loses on Nov. 5, he has already done severe damage to American politics by coarsening and corroding public discourse.
Seeking to limit the fallout after a rally speaker referred to Puerto Rico as “a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean,” campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt lamented on Monday on Fox News: “It’s sad that the media will pick up on one joke that was made by a comedian rather than the truths that were shared by the phenomenal list of speakers that we had.”
Here are some of the “truths” from the other “phenomenal” speakers, none of which the Trump campaign disavowed: Businessman Grant Cardone likened Vice President Kamala Harris to a prostitute. “Her and her pimp handlers will destroy our country,” he said. David Rem, billed as a childhood friend of Mr. Trump’s, called Ms. Harris the “Antichrist” and “devil” while waving a cross onstage.
I continue to be astonished by how Trump’s supporters aren’t the least bit ashamed or apologetic for the crudity of the man; rather, they cheer him on. What about the civility and manners of their supposed good old days?
Final paragraph:
When he finally took the stage on Sunday, the former president declared without irony: “The Republican Party has really become the party of inclusion.” Then, over 80 minutes, he promised to invoke the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport undocumented immigrants, called Democrats “the enemy within” and the mainstream media “the enemy of the people,” described the United States as “an occupied country,” and predicted Nov. 5 will bring “Liberation Day.” Even without a vulgarity, it was the most offensive language of all.
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Asked if he will ever produce evidence of voter fraud, Trump waffles.
Salon, Griffin Eckstein, 26 Oct 2024: “Are you going to present it ever?”: Trump stunned by Rogan’s ask for evidence of voter fraud, subtitled “Trump told the podcaster “we’ll do it another time” when asked to explain election rigging allegations in depth”
Trump also raged about CBS and ABC’s purported mistreatment of him, suggesting the presidential debate’s moderators “David Muir and that woman” weren’t fair to him because they fact-checked his claims.
“That’s their job, unfortunately,” Rogan responded.
Why wouldn’t Trump want to be fact-checked? Obviously, because he’s not telling the truth. (See yesterday’s point about what truth means to Republicans.)
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Similarly this.
AlterNet, Carl Gibson, 29 Oct 2024: ‘Produce one credible person’: James Carville unloads on social media disinformation artist
Bad Hombre, a “far-right social media personality” (which seems to mean liar) tweeted that James Carville predicted doom for Kamala Harris. Carville challenged him to produce one credible witness to him saying any such thing. Of course Bad Hombre cannot.
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Shorter items.
Basic tribal loyalty, more primitive than principles.
- Slate, Molly Olmstead, 28 Oct 2024: I Revisited Everyone Donald Trump Pardoned. One Alarming Consequence Was in Plain Sight., subtitled “His disgraced political operatives have been busy.” The gist: his own people. Those loyal to him.
It’s a blind embrace of conspiracy theories. The phalanx of loyal messengers who were pardoned have, since Trump was voted out of office, continued to amplify the election-conspiracy claims that flatter Trump’s ego and strengthen the idea that he was robbed of power. They were shown by Trump that extreme and total loyalty would be rewarded and have pushed his vision—betting on cashing in on that loyalty again.
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- Cherry-picking and motivated thinking (and reliance on a highly dubious source about anything). Friendly Atheist, 30 Oct 2024: Pastor: The Bible says Harris can’t be president since her parents immigrated here, subtitled “Andrew Isker cited a bizarre passage from Deuteronomy to justify his unconstitutional argument”
You know what? No one should care what Deuteronomy says.
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- Salon, Zina Kumok, 27 Oct 2024: Does the president control the economy?, subtitled “They can do some things on their own, but their effect on the economy and stock market is more nuanced”. Gist: No. Only in very limited ways. It’s simple-minded to think that one president or another can wave a magic wand and fix everything.
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- Salon, Kristian Ramos, 27 Oct 2024: Trump’s main selling point turns toxic: Mass deportation is a polling loser, subtitled “Trump knows that explaining what mass deportations entail would be a disaster for him”. Because it would turn the US into a police state, and it would wreck the economy. Trumpists who cheer this aren’t thinking things through.
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- LA Times, Christopher Tang, 24 Oct 2024: Opinion: It’s time to tell the truth about how immigration affects the U.S. economy. Talking points: there are plenty of unfilled jobs in the US; immigrants tend to be job creators, not job takers; immigrants often fill jobs that US citizens don’t want; immigrants are *less* like to commit crimes that US-born citizens. Trumpists who demonize immigrants are simply racist and xenophobic. And this:
“Zero sum” notions of a fixed number of American jobs are simply false. The more people work and spend their wages, the more our economy grows and provides jobs for everyone, regardless of where they were born.
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What is it with the religious and their demons?? There are no demons. These are fantasies invented by the most primitive eras of humanity that we have records of. Why do the religious defer to the ancients? Don’t they think humanity has learned anything over the past 2000, or 6000, years?
- Friendly Atheist, Hemant Mehta, 24 Oct 2024: Pastor running for Missouri Senate blames mental illness on “demon possession”, subtitled “Joe Nicola, a Republican candidate in Missouri, has a long history of faith-based extremism”
