The Changing Spotlight
An odd juxtaposition in the major press.
Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, NYT (“Trump and His Allies Adapt to a New Role: Fighting for Attention“):
For the first time since Donald J. Trump was indicted in the spring of 2023, he has lost his grip on the news cycle and — temporarily at least — his message. Instead of commanding morning-to-night media attention, the former president and his allies suddenly find themselves reacting to their opponents.
It’s an unfamiliar experience for Mr. Trump, who has monopolized America’s televisions, newspapers and smartphones for more than 12 months through indictments, primary victories, 34 felony convictions, an assassination attempt and a Republican National Convention at which he was celebrated as a quasi-religious figure.
In the three days since President Biden announced he was quitting the 2024 race, Mr. Trump has entered foreign territory. He has been largely crowded out from “earned media,” or organic news coverage that spreads rapidly among voters and costs campaigns nothing to produce. And his message has been, for the moment, scrambled as Democrats have replaced an old, frail white man with a younger Black woman who is campaigning energetically and giving new life to the Democratic base.
Vice President Kamala Harris, whom Mr. Biden endorsed on Sunday and around whom Democrats rapidly coalesced, has enjoyed a political hot streak that Mr. Biden’s advisers could have only dreamed of during the 2024 campaign.
She has brought in more than $120 million in new donations. She has already drawn bigger crowds than he ever did this election season. She has electrified TikTok and put a jolt into Democrats’ volunteer efforts, especially among Black voters and women. And, unlike Mr. Biden, she is receiving blanket news media coverage that is, so far, overwhelmingly positive.
Certainly, Biden’s dropping out, the coronation/consensus of Harris as his replacement, and speculation as to who would be her VP pick have dominated the news cycle over the last (checks notes) four days (yes, it seems much longer). Trump’s weird RNC acceptance speech, which was just a week ago, has been all but forgotten and, indeed, there has been no “bounce” at all from the convention. And Trump’s surprising defiance after being hit by a would-be assassin’s bullet, which seemed like it would permanently shift the momentum in his direction, is all but forgotten. (That, by the way, was less than two weeks ago.)
Steve Peoples, AP (“The fight to define Harris is on. And for now, Republicans are dominating Democrats on the airwaves“):
Just days into her new role as the Democratic Party’s likely presidential nominee, Kamala Harris is already facing a wave of Republican-backed attack ads questioning her personality, her progressive record and what she knew about President Joe Biden’s decline.
But for now, at least, Democrats have yet to engage in the summertime advertising fight. And in a sharp reversal from much of the year, Republicans are suddenly dominating the airways.
Overall, Trump and his allies are outspending Harris’ team 25-to-1 on television and radio advertising — more than $68 million for Republicans compared to just $2.6 million for Democrats — in the period that began on Monday, the day after Biden stepped aside, through the end of August, according to an AP analysis of data compiled by the media tracking firm AdImpact.
The stunning disparity reflects actual spending for this week and reservations for subsequent weeks, which will almost certainly change in the coming days. But for now, the numbers highlight a dangerous imbalance for Democrats at the very moment that millions of voters are re-shaping their opinions of the vice president, who has spent much of the last four years in Biden’s shadow.
Some Harris allies are already sounding the alarm.
“Public opinion is like cement. It’s soft at first and then it hardens,” said Sarah Longwell, co-founder of Republican Voters Against Trump. “The next three weeks are definitive. She needs to define herself before Trump defines her.”
To be sure, Harris only earned Biden’s endorsement on Sunday. And in the days since, friends and foes agree that she’s benefited from a flood of so-called “earned” news media coverage, much of it positive. Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio described it as “Harris’ honeymoon” in a memo on Tuesday that predicted a surge in the polls for the Democratic vice president.
Asked about the advertising disparity, Harris spokesperson Kevin Munoz said the vice president “will make her case aggressively alongside a campaign infrastructure designed to win close elections.”
I don’t know that I’ve intentionally watched any live television since the Super Bowl, so am in no position at all to evaluate advertising saturation. I’ve seen none of the ads.
It’s certainly possible that Harris and the Democrats are dominating “earned” media while Trump and the Republicans are “dominating the airwaves” in terms of ad spots. Given that the former is free and more blanketed, I would say the advantage goes to the Democrats here.
“Fair” or not, the 11th hour candidate switch has completely upended the race. It’s gone from one that Democratic Party leaders almost universally believed they could not win—and would likely lead to a Republican takeover of the Congress, as well—to one that’s very much up for grabs.
There has been a flurry of Felon trump is too old stories, along with notes about how his campaign has been 2-3 events a week in friendly environs, while returning home to Mara Lago and a few rounds of golf. Either way, that plan has been upset, if Felon trump continues that schedule he’ll be susceptible to the accusation that he’s too infirm to be president and if he attempts to keep up with her pace, he risks demonstrating that he’s too old.
From what I have been reading, Harris is completely dominant on Tik-Tok and any other media young people pay attention to. Radio advertising reaches the GOP’s rural base of elderly, I doubt young people have any awareness of all that GOP advertising.
We have an opportunity to completely re-write the narrative. I favored Biden handing off to Kamala for this reason above any other. But it’s rolling out better than I expected. I thought there’d be a big financial haul, but did not think it’d be 120 million in a long weekend. I thought there’d be enthusiasm, did not expect 40,000 new volunteers.
I’ve confessed that I have a writer’s bias in favor of new stories. But we needed a new story, something better than, ‘yes, our guy is too old, but at least he’s not evil.’ We have an opportunity now to make this hopeful future vs. rancid past. If Americans don’t know how to vote in a hope vs. hate choice, we have fallen as a people.
If we write this story intelligently, every new racist, misogynist Trump tweet will reinforce our narrative. Every MAGA rant will seem sour and dated. We have youth and hope, they have a creepy old man yelling at clouds.
@charontwo: Urban coastal young people are not going to win you an election.
Electoral College geographies. The Swing States, more rural, less urban.
TikTok buzz nice, but likely entirely besides the point other than BoBo Left warm fuzzy feelings.
@charontwo: Like James, I am not a TV guy and my radio is tuned to NPR so whatever the Republicans are airing, I am not seeing or hearing. I do read about it, like here. I will say that Harris-love is dominating my social media feed.
@charontwo: Only somewhat related, in 2020 my sons were 7 and 5 and the older one has always had some slight language processing issues, putting his linguistic skills close to his younger brother’s. I often listened to sports podcasts in the car and aside from occasionally recognizing a team or player name, the pace and complexity of conversations always went over their heads. But one day I had the radio on and excerpts of a Trump speech was playing. They both cued in immediately, asking questions that showed a certain base understanding of his toddler-esque speaking style. It was fascinating to behold. So be careful… Trump may yet reach the (very!) young crowd! :-p
@Joe:
I only do ad-free streaming, so see no TV ads. My car radio plays the PBS classical music station.
@Lounsbury:
Wisconsin’s total college enrollment (full time and part time) is 316,000, more than half women. Let’s say we get a 10% enthusiasm/turnout bump, 30,000 votes is a lot in Wisconsin. Biden won Wisconsin in 2020 by just 20,000 votes. In Arizona it’s 250,000 college kids and Biden won Arizona by 10,000 votes.
Worth noting as well that a number of swing states show strangely large disparities between support for Democratic senators and governors, and Biden’s numbers.
On the larger message, though, I do agree we need to get out of the seminars and into the world of people who are one paycheck away from homelessness. We have too many BAs and not enough GEDs. We need to hammer economy and abortion in the context of a forward-looking, hopeful campaign. We are selling hope and optimism and freedom. They are selling fear and repression.
@Lounsbury:
You’d be amazed to find out that young people everywhere use tiktok, including in swing states. Consider: repeating “BoBo” and “uni” does not an argument make.
Florida is the 9th most urban state, Arizona 11th, Colorado 13th, Pennsylvania 14th, Virginia 17th, Ohio 18th, Michigan 19th, Georgia 20th. The only swing state to not be amongst the most urban states is Wisconsin (28th, and trending more blue than your more-urban states of AZ, PA, MI, and GA). And North Carolina (26) if you count that as swingy (I don’t).
Even these numbers are comparing really-really urban states to just really-urban states. 80% of the United States population lives in an urban area or urbanized-suburb.
Your entire analysis (I’m being generous with the term) is premised on the false notion that there’s crowded coastal states filled with cities and a continent-wide hinterland where most people live on a farm and (apparently?) young people don’t exist or vote.
The last two decades of party re-alignment can be told through a lens of urbanization. Almost by definition a swing state is going to be urban and growing more so.
ETA after reading Michael’s comment: agreed generally about ‘real world’ messaging, but I don’t think Charon’s comment was about the content, but the medium. Real-world messaging can and should exist on TikTok and everywhere else young voters spend their time
Approximately 3.5 million Michiganders are between the ages of 18 and 40.
Approximately 1.5 million Michiganders live in a rural area.
‘Twould be the height of political folly to go after 3.5 million voters when you could go after 1.5 million voters.
I’d be willing to lay down a considerable sum that the Convicted Felon was hit by glass shrapnel and not a bullet.
And if it was the bullet, he was barely grazed by it, not hit.
We fret about the uninformed voter. Let’s instead exploit it.
Young liberals heard all the olds panicking about Biden’s age so through osmosis they collectively rolled their eyes at grandpa. Now everyone’s going on and on about how cool Kamala is (some important young person called her a “brat” which I guess in cool kid talk is very not Ohio?) and suddenly they’re excited! Do they understand any substantive difference between Biden and Harris? Nope! And who cares? Keep Kamala cool, keep the youts excited!
ETA Vance being from Ohio may be the death knell for him among the youth.
Harris has a number of very attractive options for her VP pick. Does Vance get Trump any votes at all that he did not already have in the bag?
@charontwo:
I love classical music but it puts me to sleep. Which isn’t a good idea when trying to operate a motor vehicle.
@Kazzy:
Vance’s death knell with all voters should be that he is an unqualified, wet-behind-the-ears novice and an unlikeable weirdo. Vance thinks that women should stay in abusive relationships and that Americans without children should not be able to vote. Hopefully, voters of all ages will recognize Vance as cringey, strange, and out of his depth.
No surprise that the rapist Epstein-bestie picked Vance to satisfy Trump’s weirdo sons. Yikes.
@Neil Hudelson:
Michigan’s upper peninsula also known as the final frontier?
On the other hand, Harris will be getting more exposure via the coverage. She certainly got none for her campaigning before Biden withdrew.
I posted an X link in yesterday’s Open Thread showing Harris’ foreign policy chops as she stood at the Demilitarized Zone and touted the US alliance with North Korea.
Missing, of course, is Harris’ foreign policy triumphs of solving the Border crisis by going to the sources in Central America as she proclaimed she would when appointed “Border czar”. Someone, surely, will write those up.
I think one of the best thing to start bubbling out of the swamp is the rampant rumor that Vance fucked a couch. I don’t care if that’s reality or not. It’s going to piss off Trump and make him do his trademark erratic crap. Watch him start pounding on his choice for VP in the next couple days.
His team has been remarkably disciplined for them, watch that start to unravel as Trump reverts to mean.
@DK: No argument there. I was largely playing off the joke that calling something “Ohio” is youth slang for “not at all cool.” Or something. It’s used as an adjective. I guarantee you some non-zero number of 18 year olds will see him described as the “Ohio Senator” and will think it is commentary on how lame he was at his job as opposed to where he’s from.
@JKB:
Can I get your thoughts/comments on your choice for VP’s sexual relations with furniture? Do you think he sprayed a bunch of Pledge on it before he made sweet sweet lemony live it it?
@Michael Reynolds: Additional buzz is good, and I am perfectly happy to see this, make no doubt, I dearly, even desperately want Madame Harris to win.
It is simply the BoBo Left here is overweight to paying attention to the fraction of the population that is very educated, very verbal, very online. It is a fundamental bias. (see also the reflexively snotty reactions to anyone bringing attention to this, and see as well the long-running inflation denialism, whereas recent econometric data has begun to confirm Andy’s long-standing point of very likely quite different experienced economies – that people reporting inflation pain were not merely experiencing delusional false-consciousness sold by Fox News [which a certain thread of commentary here can be summarised as]).
The degree to which the college students vote – and in that geography is such that I would not be particularly overly happy – useful but not confident.
@Neil Hudelson: No I would not be amazed at all, not being in USA land and quite exposed to these outre-mere, however I am a connaisseur of demographic statistics, and generally statistical analyses over feelings analyses.
No, this would be your reductionist strawman and denialist over-reaction to my observation of the overweight focus.
Setting up strawmen I am sure is quite fun, it brings comfort to the party political partisan. The Corbynists were quite good at it. (I draw attention one will find nary a mention of farm in any post of mine, and mention of overeight attetion to coastal urban Uni edcuated does not imply nor mean that the middle states, swing states are all farms or sans cities – this is the logical error, the fallacy of the excluded middle (hard to tell if it is one from poor reading or partisan reaction)
One should saved misplaced sneering for when one is not engaged in logical fallacies and reductionist strawmen building.
@Neil Hudelson: The percentage who are registered to vote and reliably actually do vote are your relevant statistics.
You may profitably decompose however your 18-40 between Uni educated and non-Uni degree holders, And equally on urban versus small-city, suburban and rural. It is a statistical fact your electoral performance has been worsening amongst these segments over the past two decades.
A blindness bordering on willful blindness.
Rather better and more attention would be rather advisable to that labouring class fraction of the demographic which once upon a time Democrats rather dominated but now actually lose on the male non-Uni educated demographic, percentage points that can be critical and rather shouldn’t be sneered at, given the more elevated propensity to actually vote than youth, whose perfmance always draws breathless predictions (not just in USA land of course).
But this returns to Organiser over Uni-Activists modes of political action reflexion.
@JKB:
Can I get your thoughts/comments on your choice for VP’s sexual relations with furniture? Do you think he sprayed a bunch of Pledge on it before he made sweet sweet lemony live it?
I’ve been amazed at how quickly “JD Vance fucked a couch” was brought to the forefront. I didn’t think “JD Vance fucked a couch” could be made into a useful weapon just by repeating “JD Vance fucked a couch” but it seems Google searches for “JD Vance fucked a couch” have shot through the roof and now a lot of people are asking if it’s true “JD Vance fucked a couch.”
On the one hand the question of whether or not “JD Vance fucked a couch” isn’t all that germaine to the larger campaign, but it does tickle the curiosity. Did JD Vance fuck a couch? If he didn’t, why hasn’t the campaign addressed these rumors of “JD Vance fucked a couch.”
Lol you were responding to a two-sentence post.
@Neil Hudelson:
I mean, Vance should really just come out of the closet with this. Us bobounilefties are quite accepting of sexual minorities. I mean, except me, I’m a CERF (Couch Exclusionary Radical Fox).
@Neil Hudelson:
There’s no way to disprove it, to be honest. And the insult isn’t that he fucked a couch. Teenagers have sex with all types of inanimate objects and everyone involved has a great time. It’s how he looks and acts which makes him a couch-fucker rather a simple horny teenager. You have to suspect the couch wasn’t into it, and never got back to him.
@Neil Hudelson: This has got to be a reply to something Lounsbury wrote up above! (Life is too short to bother tracking it down…)
@JKB:
Do come back regularly to display the latest pathetic MAGAt efforts at attacking Kamala. It’s very reassuring, and good for a laugh.
@JKB:
Your comfort parroting BS GOP talking points has been noted before, but hey, I will note it again.
I worry that some day you might have an original thought, causing your head to explode…
I think Harris is at the familiar point where she can win the popular vote but lose the EC, which Biden was probably falling short of. She has a lot of work to do, and we need luck on our side. I can’t imagine what appeals she can make to voters in states that barely voted for Biden during Trump’s Covid debacle.
@JKB:
Yes, you are totally correct that in a speech, she flubbed one line and then got all the remaining references correct (they even documented the mistake in the readout: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/09/29/remarks-by-vice-president-harris-after-tour-of-the-korean-demilitarized-zone/ ). Is someone speaking a hill you, as a bend-over backward to explain what Trump really meant, really want to die on? Or should I trigger you again by bringing up swallowing black lights and bleach?
BTW, if we’re comparing administrative achievements (or lack there of) maybe, just maybe, North Korea wouldn’t be the place I would start given how little Trump got for how much he gave there.
But what do I know? Here’s to you and your fellow travelers keeping on pushing that Harris is the DEI candidate, a cop, a childless woman (ignoring, of course stepchildren because we all know they don’t count) and that she speaks from time to time.
@JKB:
Stop with your ignorant baloney, no one made her a border Czar and you know it.
You are an educator, right? So stop going through life blissfully ignorant, you should be better than this.
Also, she was tasked with looking into the root causes of the spikes in immigration and try to ameliorate the situation and she did succeed in overseeing a reduction in immigration numbers.
This information is not hard to find on the Internet, you just need to make the effort.
Kamala Harris should actually make a commercial touring her success, turning a perceived weakness of Democrats into one of strength on the subject.
She should also demand of Vance and Trump that they show Americans the plan they have to fix immigration on day one, a fix that Congress can vote on in the first week of Trump possibly returning to the White House, otherwise the GOP has no legs to stand on seeing as how they deliberately scuttled a perfectly workable plan agreed to by both aisles in Congress
@Beth: (chef’s kiss). 10/10.
@Neil Hudelson:
What is it with you, man? “JD Vance fucked a couch,” is all you got? It doesn’t matter how many times you repeat it, it changes nothing. Watch: “JD Vance fucked a couch.” “JD Vance fucked a couch.” “JD Vance fucked a couch.” “JD Vance fucked a couch.” “JD Vance fucked a couch.” “JD Vance fucked a couch.” “JD Vance fucked a couch.”
See?
ETA: Also, “JD Vance fucked a couch.”
@Neil Hudelson:
This is a new concept for me. Fucking on the couch, sure. That can be big fun. The couch itself? Weird stuff indeed.
Really, when Obama was in office, Little Rocket Man was threatening to nuke Hawaii and San Francisco. Trump put a stop to that posturing. And all he had to do was talk. You know how you stop wars, you talk.
@Lounsbury: “TikTok buzz nice, but likely entirely besides the point other than BoBo Left warm fuzzy feelings”
Do you really think that it’s only young people on the coasts that use TikTok?
@Lounsbury:
I think we would all welcome your ‘generally statistical’ analyses over your feefees. Mostly you just take pot shots at a vaguely defined BoBo that I’m pretty sure comprises everyone to the left of you, everyone you don’t like, everyone who shares an opinion different than yours, and everyone who can craft a readable paragraph. Can you point me to a single comment of yours in the last two months that has had a statical analysis and wasn’t just crying about how uni students hurt you? I would truly love to see it!
The ‘bobo left here’ is generally engaged in a conversation with other commentors, who by definition are online. By the same token, your only focus is engaging the very lefty online bobo unis.
Nah man, Charontwo observed Kamala was popular on TikTok and you decided that was sneer-worthy. It’d be fine if your sneer brought a single new idea to the table. Here, I’ll quote the interaction because you seem to have forgotten how it went down.
Charontwo anodyne and accurate observation:
Doesn’t even say whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, just mentioning where one is dominant!
Your response:
What incredible ‘general statistical analyses! Not at all drivel fueled by your impetuous fee-fees! Our own lil Nate Silver here.
Not a strawman. You posited that motivating young people was foolish, I replied with data.
Ok bro! You got me, I did use “farm” when referring to rural. Sick catch!
Those are relevant statistics! Mind sharing your analyses of it? No feelings though!
Which segments? You mention 6 segments in short succession, many of them diametric. You are quite possibly the worst writer in the comments section. You consistently misuse words, employ contradictory clauses, and hold firmly to the belief that redundancy equals eloquence (“party political partisan,” just amazing stuff, similar to a “military army soldier fighter”, or a “preacher pastor religious minister.”)
The rather better would be rather advisable, would it? And the labouring class fraction of the population fraction, huh? Gotcha!
Not a single person on this thread has sneered at the “male non-uni educated demographic of the labouring percentage of the demographic” or whatever you were attempting to say. Again, one person posted that kamala was really strong on tiktok, you sneered that there was “overweight focus on the coasts” (huh?). Labor was never brought up nor sneered at. What was that about strawmen, again? Can you remind me your thoughts on whether strawmen are good or bad? Bad, right?
Turnout among non-college educated voters in 2020averaged 35%. Voters age 18-29 turnout in 2020 was 50%.
Is this your vaunted ‘general statistical analyses?”
Ah yes, that well known Organizer Political Action Reflexion [sic] versus Uni Activists Political Action Reflexion [sic].
Because I just suffer from poor reading comprehension, could you give me a quick definition of Organizer Political Action Reflexion and a definition of Uni Activist Political Action Reflexion?
The couch could not be reached to confirm or deny this rumor. Which has been shown to be fake news.
However, Willie Brown is on public record confirming he fucked Kamala in her 20s when he was in his 60s. And that he appointed her to state commissions based on her sexual services.
Also, amusingly, J.D. Vance was 15 then ‘American Pie” hit the theaters.
Harris: Border Czar
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56516332
I suppose we could go with:
A A juvenile game of semantics, or
B OTB commenters and media are bald faced lars, or
C You are right, she wasn’t put in charge of the border, so she has zero to show for her tenure.
I’m thinking A, B. Of course, she has zero to show……..
Screw a couch.
Pee-pee tapes
Russia, Russia, Russia
Blood bath if I lose.
I’m an Aryan supporter
How can anyone take you people seriously?
@JKB: Ok, so there was the long range missile program Kim had. And there was the false air-raid alarm in Hawaii, which gave a couple of friends of mine who were in Hawaii at the time a pretty good scare.
I never considered that any kind of threat so much as a deterrent. (You know the sort of thing, “Don’t push me around, I’m dangerous!!!”. I think Kim was really afraid that we’d invade him.)
And I live in the Bay Area. Do you have something more than that?
The real question is how will Harris stem the tide of working class voters away from Democrats?
What’s that you say, Trump got the head of the Teamsters to address the RNC? And opening dialogue is how you build coalitions.
@Jack:
I recommend just sitting back and enjoying the show. I put “border czar” in quotes to avoid the “well, there wasn’t a letterhead with that title” pithy comebacks.
Axios rushed to deny “border czar” on X and was quickly hit with a Community Notes with a half dozen links to Axios articles calling Harris the “border czar”.
@JKB: @Jack:
Here’s your cult leader’s foreign policy chops:
That’s your MAGA foreign policy chops. Encourage the butcher of Ukraine to attack our allies unless they, ‘pay up.’ Don Trumpleone, mob boss. Pay up or somethin’ could happen to your kids, know what I mean?
Like the two of you Trump sees the United States military – the people who saved the world in WW2 – as mercenaries. Imagine any other president saying something that contemptuous of our treaties, our allies and our military. But then, we know Trump’s contempt for American soldiers, don’t we?
@ JKB – Nice Gish Gallop dude. You should probably lay off the sugar, you’re starting to remind people of that “Great Cornholio” dude.
Did you notice I put “Great Cornholio” in quotes?
@Jack: I’m with you on “screw a couch” and “pee tapes”. They were a distraction.
Trump said, “there will be a blood bath if I lose.” That’s not a fabrication, it’s something he said. Do you think that’s ok for a president/presidential candidate to say? Threatening violence against what, poll workers? Voters? Do you find that acceptable?
What happened on 1/6 is fundamental to the case against Trump. That’s the big deal. He tried to overturn a legally conducted election. He was entitled to pursue lawsuits. He did, they went nowhere. At that point, he should have walked away, just like Gore did.
And afterwards, instead of remorse, he’s promising more.
Again, I ask you, do you endorse that?
@JKB:
Oh, yes. I looked at that link. Now, before I go into that, I’m not sure you want to go into verbal slips or weird phrases anymore. Even with the relatively small sample size of Harris’ recorded statements, I’m guessing her percentage of saying weird shit or flubbing something is much lower than Trump’s.
Trump says bizarre things and confuses people and places all the time.
I am adding all of the following to highlight that many of the people who continue to support Trump are vile. I have no doubt there are plenty of shitty people sit on the other side of the fence. But Trump has refused to condemn this kind of rhetoric and often encourages it both directly and indirectly. If I was a conservative, this would give me pause. I would reconsider my support.
That Twitter thread is a doozy, or at least the thread under one of the responses is.
So one guy says, “She is unfit for office. DEI dumb.”
The response is linked above:
Let me stop here, and point out that if the first guy had left DEI out of it, he probably could escape any credible accusation of racism. But he went to the DEI canard.
Of the 7 responses to the accusation of racism, 3 didn’t understand that the addition of DEI is what brings race into the discussion.
Caution: I am not going to censor anything in the quotes below.
‘Lucky Singh’ says:
This account was started in June 2024 and has only reposted other people and commented. Mostly conservative outlets, and Elon Musk tweets. Oh, and racist things like commenting on a picture of LeBron and others wearing BLM shirts kneeling for the anthem. That comment was, “No they do jot always matter.” Bot or just super racist Indian man? Who knows?
Plasmaphile says:
Unoriginal, but succinct.
Maybe Q should get on that and find out if plasmaphile drinks the plasma of children for super strength and immortality.
chump_supreme says:
The emoji that follow chump’s handle are, in order: American flag, gun, beer mug.
Call me crazy, but maybe having the gun aiming at the American flag is a poor choice. I don’t know if the mug stands for “cheers” after he shoots holes in the flag or if he is just drunk all the time and enjoys handling firearms while impaired.
Then again, far-right Republicans have been disrespecting the flag for years by modifying it, placing it along side flags that indicate support for Christian Nationalism and other ideologies that go against the values expressed in the Constitution and other founding documents, and hanging it upside down.
The first and third of those examples are considered disrespectful according to US Code.
Take all of this as you will, @JKB. I understand you are free to make your choice. But I suggest asking some questions about why Trump attracts and actively courts these types of people.
@Beth: I think it is unlikely that Vance actually did anything with a couch other than sit on it and masturbate to a photo of Hitler, but nonetheless, this one is funny.
@Modulo Myself:
Reports of the couch coitus came complete with page numbers in Hillbilly Elegy.
Not correct page numbers, but page numbers. People love a citation. They love a citation so much they won’t check it.
I think it was for a five page range, suggesting a long, erotic passage about the love seat.
@JKB:
OMG, that’s gold! Trump gets Kim Jong Un to stop sabre-rattling by starting up a mutual admiration society and the next step is the end of war. Global World Peace is so easy. We should get that memo to Netanyahu while he’s still close by.
@MarkedMan:
Link seems to be broken.
@Joe: I stream on free platforms driven evil, soul-sucking advertising aired exclusively for the profit of our capitalist oligarch overlords. And I’m not seeing any Republican political advertising, Presidential or otherwise.
That may be because Oregon went D+16 in the last election, but I’m grateful, whatever the reason.
Did J D Vance fuck a couch? It would be irresponsible not to ask. And why is it so easy to believe?
In the Downfall send up somebody linked a few days ago Hitler/Trump makes a remark about Vance and a mattress. Now I get it.
I’m going to try to pull the commentary away from the trolls and back in the direction of the original post.
Understanding that Trump benefited from billions in “earned” (or “free”) media in 2016, it’s nice to have the tables flipped if even briefly.
Beyond the $120M influx, the Democrats have better underlying financials than Trump’s campaign with the added benefit that no Dem campaign funds need to go to pay criminal lawyers.
I’m confident the Dem campaign will get to work on defining Harris before Trump does very quickly. Her first ad is out today and I’d say she’s off on the right foot with her emphasis on the future over the past. “We choose freedom” and “We are not going back” are pretty strong hooks.
ETA: Also, “JD Vance fucked a couch.”
Did the couch consent? Did they use protection?
“JD Vance fucked a couch” speaks to a higher truth. He’s a weird man with deeply unsettling views about sex and women’s rights. Based on his public statements, he doesn’t think women should be able to have an abortion, birth control, and that they should probably stay in an abusive marriage if there are children involved. He doesn’t think marital rape is a thing that can happen.
He basically seems to think women are fuckable furniture.
@JKB:
You are right that Kim threated that, despite not having the capability to actually follow through on it.
Then Trump entered office and turned up the tensions:
And while the talks had some outcomes–at least in terms of turning down the public rhetoric–they didn’t result in the denuclearization that Trump claimed Kim agreed to.
Trump gave away a lot and left with very little.
I suspect if a Democratic President had similar success you’d call that a failure. But you and Trump can never be wrong.
@Michael Reynolds: @Neil Hudelson: Keep up the good work, but also remember that Lounsbery as much as admitted being a troll who posts here for his personal entertainment just (checks notes) two days ago. I understand being a counterweight for the lurkers and I especially appreciate a good pigmy-baiting opportunity, but I’ll suggest caution in investing too much time and effort on someone who may well be here because he enjoys hearing the sound of his own voice echoing in the corridors.*
*And I can really relate to that. When I was studying voice in grad school, I found there was nothing more satisfying than rehearsing in a big empty old-timey lecture hall. Great acoustics!
@JKB:
I, for one, think that the “she slept her way to the top” is an excellent line of attack. Especially with women. I suggest you keep posting that from now until election day.
Stay classy. Also, for the record, Donald Trump was 59 when he married Melania. She was 35 at the time. So granted less of an age difference, but not exactly nothing.
BTW, Jack, I know you thought suggesting JKB has issues with women were beneath me. But it’s comments like this one, and the harradan one, that I submit as evidence.
@CSK: My bad for attempting to link to Twitter. Try this one
@Beth:
I think it’s entirely possible that JD was engaged in some IVF-related activity.
@DK: Still, unlikable weirdo seems to be a feature that right-wingers gravitate toward (and yes, I did suddenly think of Lounsbery as I wrote that). Strange, isn’t it?
@Matt Bernius:
In defense of JKB, he is expanding the misogynistic vocabulary of a lot of people here. I can’t be the only one who never heard of a harradan before.
“Trollop” has fallen out of fashion, so maybe he can help popularize that again. Give his writing a little more panache.
@inhumans99: To the extent that I’m aware, JKB is not an educator, merely a critic of some styles of university teaching methods who uses the same source repeatedly as evidence. Sort of a one-trick pony, if you wish.
On the larger point, I’m not even sure that he’s educated though it’s unlikely that he avoided going to school.
@anjin-san: Not so weird. I think in some circles it’s called fapping these days. Kinsey reported it as being fairly common in his study of sexuality.
It seems the Convicted Felon’s boo-boo is a subject of controversy now.
The FBI director said he’s not certain whether it was a bullet or glass shrapnel (I assume from the teleprompter). Some Texas congressman and alleged physician says he saw the wound! and it was a bullet!
I assume the authorities at the scene recovered all the bullets and other evidence, and these can be tested for traces of blood and DNA. Wounds can be distinctive, but a minor one, like the Felon’s boo-boo, are not exactly clear evidence of what grazed where.
In the end, who cares? Being grazed a bullet is nowhere the same as “taking a bullet.” The latter means having a bullet lodged inside one’s body, or having one pass through one’s body. A graze is more like being struck superficially with shards of glass, say.
@JKB: No, he didn’t. What put a stop to Kim’s posturing was several failed attempts to launch ICBMs.
NYT Siena poll:
Registered voters: 48 to 46, Trump.
Likely voters: 47 to 48 Trump.
So much for the theory that Kamala would tank the polls.
@Gustopher:
Has he used “strumpet” yet? Auto-correct doesn’t even recognize it. It does recognize “trollop”.
@just nutha:
I understand not caring for @Lounsbury’s style. But he does not appear to be RW.
One thing that’s been rattling around my head about Vance is, what does his wife make of his extreme patriarchal misogyny? From my understanding, she’s a very intelligent, successful woman. A quick perusal of Wikipedia gives me the impression that she’s smart and driven and quite possibly on her way to tradwifeville. I also didn’t know that she was a practicing hindu. That fact itself isn’t remarkable, however, when you consider how hardcore Catholic her husband has become, along with his forthrightly stated patriarchal misogyny. It makes me wonder.
I find her interesting. I hope I don’t watch her get dragged on stage with an obviously covered up black eye.
@Beth:
They fell in love. She wouldn’t be the first successful, driven person to end up with an annoying and underwhelming bozo. We all have these head-scratcher couples in our social circles. Love got the likes of Hillary Rodham, a feminist’s feminist, stuck with serial philandering Bill Clinton.
@Matt Bernius:
I don’t know about that. Kim got a US President to sit down with him as an equal, without precondtions. That was a huge win for him.
@JKB: “However, Willie Brown is on public record confirming he fucked Kamala in her 20s when he was in his 60s.”
That’s a winning strategy — go on and announce that for your side, people who have sex are bad and should not be considered for public office.
Or you could just climb to the roof of a tall building and scream “No woman has ever been willing to go out with me and I hate everyone who’s ever had a relationship.”
Both equally persuasive.
@wr:
Go easy on JKB today, he’s dealing with couch envy…
@Michael Reynolds: There will be some peaks, some valleys. We’re currently in the new face/euphoria phase.
But I don’t think there will be big moves either way, unless Trump gets winded and stumbles and looks really old. With Ohio’s ballot deadline looming, there’s some speculation that Harris will need to name her running mate by this coming Wednesday, that could be another bumplet in coverage, and then the convention is in August. Hopefully they can stretch these out so that positive earned coverage will extend right up to September when early voting starts.
@Kurtz: Then he shouldn’t parrot RW talking points. But we’re all entitled to make our own interpretations of what we read. You and I are “hearing” the same things differently.
The fact that he acknowledged that he’s here and comments for his own entertainment may well make him a classic troll from the DARPA days, but I’ve not enough knowledge of the old internet to speak credibly to that point. It’s just an impression based on oral history–principally from here.
@wr:
Apparently Blake Masters is out in AZ saying stuff like that and that people without biological children* shouldn’t be allowed to be politicians. The subtext of that of course is that women shouldn’t be politicians/leaders cause they should be at home cranking out kids.
@Jack & @JKB how to you two feel about that. Should women be allowed out of the house?
ETA: *I need to find a better way of saying this. It cuts too close to an anti-trans talking point for me.
@DK:
Don’t I know. Just ask my spouse. Hey-O!
@Kurtz: He has that Classic Liberal disdain for anyone more than a half step to the left of him.
He’s the type that Phil Ochs sang about in “Love Me, I’m A Liberal.”
@Lounsbury:
BoBo Left – didn’t he play bass for Mingus back in ’56?
@Kurtz: I saw that some preacher called her (and I quote) “a jezabel”.
@Lounsbury: The swing states are not more rural. Most rural states are reliably red, which a couple of exceptions (Vermont and Maine). The swing states are all significantly urban: Michigan 74%, Georgia 74%, Pennsylvania 77%, Arizona 89%, and Florida 92%. North Carolina is a least urban swing state at 67%, and note that 2/3 of the state is urban.
@anjin-san:
Who even still uses the term “Bobo?” It must be years since David Brooks was ranting about bobos.
@Mike in Arlington:
Ha! Someone here mentioned the book Bad Faith. Wait, I think. Maybe they mentioned the documentary. I could not discern whether the doc is based on the book or not.
Anyway, I watched the documentary. There is a clip of a mega church preacher telling any Democrats to get out, and then he screams “Get out, demon!”
Seriously, anyone who thought Paul Dano was over-acting in There Will be Blood should watch that documentary. Because, he definitely was not. It’s to the point that I wondered if the preacher had just watched TWBB the night before and thought Eli Sunday is the hero.
@charontwo: We do in Europen in Francophone political discourse. What Mr Brooks used is not familiar to me.
Bohemian Bourgeousie is a perfect descriptor of the higher-education professional class Left.
Well I see the adolescent cliqueshness is on full display as reaction to the most mild of observations.
@Neil Hudelson:
Well you do have the most interesting display of the likely entirely unconscious conflation of youth and Uni degree holders – as of course the two categories are non-esclusive and are not properly in contrast at all (leaving quite aside that regional data and not national aggregat is important).
Well, since the structural desire is Team Cheerleading and typical team group think, allez-y
@DK:
You know what’s funny about this? I’ve had the experience of people thinking I was that. Which, sure, I am underwhelming from a particular perspective, but I draw the line at bozo. I can run cognitive circles around a lot of successful people, including the people I can think of who would hold “underwhelming” against me.
But that’s okay. I made my choices. I realized a long time ago that I’d rather be intelligent, knowledgable, and poor than wealthy, narrow-minded, and arrogant because of the number of places to the left of a decimal.
To quote Kima Greggs:
@Beth:
I suspect it’s like James Carville and Mary Matalin. It’s all performative, Vance’s wife knows he has no genuine beliefs beyond careerism.
This could be interesting. Law prof William Jacobson on his Legal Insurrection blog after Harris’ remarks post Netanyahu meeting
@JKB:
Link that you failed to include.
Interesting in what way exactly?
Also, “don’t kid yourselves” after a sky-is-falling, apocalyptic prediction is usually, at best, exaggerating, perhaps shooting an angle, or at worst, a bullshitting, fanatic with a strong bias. With a little “angry Black woman” stereotype as the cherry on top.
It’s true, the IPC said that the projections of the amount of food that would enter Gaza was underestimated. But its report also said:
At least I know where you get your habit of eschewing links and citations along with your quotes. He didn’t provide any links to show that starvation and famine in Gaza is not happening. Strange considering it as so ‘widely [been] debunked’.
Also a bad look for a lawyer and law professor–I hear citations are pretty important in law.
@Jen:
It looks like a turnout election, and we are much better organized and have a much better turnout organization. Trump neutered the GOP and stepped all over early voting. If, in the end, the polls are 50/50 we are better positioned than they are. 40,000 new volunteers, damn. My little sister signed up. My wife and I sent money. You can feel the change. You can sense the panic in MAGAland.
That said, yeah, it ain’t over by half. But I’m trying to experience actual human emotions, and this week I’m sampling hope.
@Lounsbury:
This sounds right.
Lounsbury, as he acknowledges, is here, not to communicate ideas, but to amuse himself by distracting. Francophone gibberish makes a fine distraction, less obvious than, say, white noise or TFG babbling..
My conclusion: best to just scroll past any more of this (i.e., Lounsbury) going forward.