- Trump’s Wild Claims, Conspiracies and Falsehoods Redefine Presidential Bounds;
- Trump says rallies are full while a cameraman pans over an empty arena;
- CNN fact-checks Trump’s final day of his campaign;
- When called out, Trump says never mind, I was kidding;
- Robert Reich offers some reassurance;
- WaPo asks whether Americans are better off now than they were four years ago, and the answer, for most people, is yes;
- David A. Graham at The Atlantic asks yet again, how is the election this close?
- Quick takes on voting like atheists, and Tucker Carlson stating that hurricanes are because abortions.
Again and again, why do so many people support a man who lies constantly? You can’t believe anything he says! That means you can’t *count* on anything he says, no matter what he promises. He’s a con man. Why do his fans believe him??
NY Times, news analysis by Peter Baker, 3 Nov 2024: Trump’s Wild Claims, Conspiracies and Falsehoods Redefine Presidential Bounds, subtitled “Throughout his life, Donald J. Trump has bent the truth to serve his needs, never more so than on the campaign trail to win back the White House.”
It took just two minutes for former President Donald J. Trump to utter his first lie of the evening, claiming once again that the 2020 election had been stolen.
By four minutes into the televised interview on Thursday night, he was claiming that this time around “we’re leading by a lot” in the polls, setting up another false claim of a stolen election should he lose on Tuesday.
By five minutes into the program, he had turned to assailing his successor’s record in office and was claiming that in the last few years the country had experienced “the worst inflation we’ve ever had.”
None of that was true. And that was just the first 300 seconds. For the rest of the evening, Mr. Trump spouted one statement after another that was fanciful, misleading, distorted or wildly false. He rewrote history. He claimed accomplishments that he did not accomplish. He cited statistics at odds with the record. He described things that did not happen and denied things that did.
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Salon, Marin Scotten, 4 Nov 2024: As Trump brags “every rally is full,” cameraman pans over empty arena, subtitle “Trump was addressing supporters at a rally in Greensboro, North Carolina”
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CNN, Daniel Dale, 4 Nov 2024: Fact check: Trump begins final full day of campaign with repeat lies about immigration and jobs
Former President Donald Trump began the final full day of the 2024 presidential campaign as he has spent many of the days prior: lying about immigration, the economy and other subjects.
At the first campaign rally of his planned four-rally day, in Raleigh, North Carolina, Trump repeated numerous immigration-related lies he has told over and over during the last month. He also revived a baseless conspiracy theory about the Bureau of Labor Statistics, adding in some new imaginary details for good measure, and made two separate false claims about former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
With fact checks on many, many topics.
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And when he is challenged about especially outrageous or absurd statements, he says, never mind I was kidding.
JMG, 4 Nov 2024: Trump: Biden “Officially Announced” He Voted For Me
You can fool some of the people all of the time.
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Robert Reich reassures.
Robert Reich, 4 Nov 2024: We the People will succeed
We supported one another during the Great Depression. We were victorious over Hitler’s fascism and Soviet communism. We survived Joe McCarthy’s communist witch hunts, Richard Nixon’s crimes, Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam War, the horrors of 9/11, and George W. Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. So far, we have survived Donald Trump’s malignant narcissism.
The common good in America is still alive.
If we are true to our history and ideals, Kamala Harris will win, and we’ll get through the destruction Trump will again try to wreak on our democracy in the wake of his defeat, as we did before. And we will get on with the work of achieving broadly-shared prosperity and strengthening our democracy.
We the people will succeed.
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Washington Post, Heather Long, 4 Nov 2024: Opinion | Are Americans better off than they were four years ago?, subtitled “A look at the full picture shows the answer for most people is yes.”
Historians are likely to give the Biden economy a better grade than voters. But what’s really important is how Biden and the Federal Reserve have proved endless experts wrong and pulled off the deftest macroeconomic maneuver in decades: a true soft landing. They’ve set up the next president for success. The economy has healed. Inflation is back under control. For the past 17 months, wages have grown faster than inflation, and with each passing month, more people tangibly feel that. And most important of all: The economy is experiencing a surge in productivity, meaning workers are able to get a lot more done every hour thanks to technology. That’s the secret sauce that can fuel better days ahead for all Americans for years to come.
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One more asking of this question.
The Atlantic, David A. Graham, 4 Nov 2024: How Is It This Close?, subtitled “The most remarkable thing about the 2024 presidential election is that roughly half the electorate still supports Donald Trump.”
His answer supports one of my key observations: the president doesn’t actually have much control over many of the things that voters care about. Voters blame him anyway, despite knowing what the president *does* have control over. It’s the same around the world.
Some of the important reasons the election is so close are structural and have little to do with Trump or Harris. Underlying characteristics of the election benefit the Republican nominee: Voters in the United States are unhappy about the direction of the country, and voters around the world have been punishing incumbents. Although Harris is not the president, she has struggled to figure out how much to distance herself from Joe Biden and the administration in which she serves as vice president. Americans are also sour on the economy, and although the U.S. has weathered the post-COVID world and global inflation better than any of its peers, saying that is no use if voters don’t feel and believe it.
He concludes,
In most respects, Harris is a totally conventional Democratic nominee—to both her advantage and her disadvantage. One might imagine that, against a candidate as aberrant as Trump, this would be sufficient for a small lead. Indeed, that’s exactly the approach that Biden used to beat Trump four years ago. But if the polling is right (which it may not be, in either direction), then many voters have stuck with Trump or shifted toward him. For many others, the closeness of the race is just as baffling. “I don’t think it’s going to be near as close as they’re saying,” Tony Capillary told me at an October 21 rally in Greenville, North Carolina. “This should be about 93 percent to 7 percent, is what it should be.” He’s sure that when the votes are in, Trump will win—by a lot.
This last comment supports my provisional conclusion that most Trump voters are simply insane — disconnected from reality, and any sense of morality.
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Quick takes.
- Friendly Atheist, 4 Nov 2024: At anti-abortion rally, Florida Lt. Gov. urges everyone to not “vote like atheists”, subtitled “‘We cannot go to church and pray like Christians and turn around and vote like atheists,'” Florida Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez said.
- My response: how about voting like citizens, for whom the Constitution trumps your religious peccadilloes?
- JMG, 4 Nov 2024: Carlson: Hurricanes Are The “Consequence” Of Abortion
- So Tucker Carlson really is that kind of moron who thinks the universe revolves around himself? It’s all about him? (Next week, of course, someone else will blame hurricanes on the gays.)
