democratic impasse.com

Kamala Harris has said of Trump: "He is someone who will stop at nothing to claim power for himself" and "... a second Trump term would be a huge risk for America -- and dangerous." A considerable number of the people who surrounded Trump in his first term agree.

Harris added: "Donald Trump is increasingly unstable and unhinged." On that point, it's not clear that the critics who served inside the Trump administration would agree. Why not? Because they spoke with him in the White House in private: they heard then what Trump is only now saying in public. The Trump they saw in private is the man now emboldened to reveal himself in public.

In an interview with CNN's Kaitlan Collins, former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper affirms that he takes Trump's threats against "the enemy within" seriously and reminds her that last year the former president spoke about a second term being about retribution. Collins asks if he fears that Trump would use the military against U.S. citizens. Esper responds:

Yes, I do. Of course, because I lived through that. And I saw over the summer of 2020 where President Trump and those around him wanted to use the national guard in various capacities in cities such as Chicago and Portland and Seattle. And of course there was a moment in time, as you just described, where he -- on that early date in June where he wanted to bring in active military as well. . . .

“Yes, I think we should take those words seriously,” former Trump Defense Secretary Mark Esper says after Trump suggested using the U.S. military against the “enemy from within.” pic.twitter.com/rVAjQgjR60

— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) October 15, 2024

Carol Leonnig, who co-wrote I Alone Can Fix It with her Washington Post colleague Philip Rucker about Trump's final year in the White House, also pushes back on the idea that Trump has significantly changed in the past four years ["Deadline: White House," MSNBC, October 15, 2024]:

I look back on his first administration and see all of the ways that he said exactly the same things he’s saying now.
He just said them privately. You know, he wanted – Let’s go back in time a little. . . . In 2018, 2019, and 2020 he was pressing his military officials to let him use the U.S. military, the national guard against the public. Most notably in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and the protests that rose up from that Minneapolis man’s death at the hands of police.
He wanted to use the power of the Department of Justice and the FBI to target people who had been political and policy enemies of his. For example, Mr. Comey, the FBI Director; Andrew McCabe, the Deputy FBI Director. Other individuals who had pressed for an investigation of his campaign – he wanted them audited, he wanted them investigated, he wanted them indicted.
And in some respects, he was lobbying all of this privately. Now he is just saying it a lot more out loud. And he’s no longer hemmed in by a White House Counsel, or a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or a Secretary of Defense who told him, No.

Mark Esper, Mark Milley, Don McGann, and others all told Trump, No. Those folks will not be part of a second Trump administration.

Leonnig continues, "But what you see, Nicole, and what you are amplifying and giving a spotlight to is how Donald Trump believes he will get his way on those questions and those orders as the president if he elected in November. He is saying out loud that he will use the government the way he sees fit, the military, the Justice Department. And people who are on the wrong side of him will be the targets."

Chris Hayes reviews General Milley's judgment that "Trump is fascist to the core" in assessing the possibility of a second Trump presidency. How, Hayes asks, could half the nation be poised to elect such a man? He answers: first, because tens of millions of Americans, after decades of far-right programming, are primed for an authoritarian leader. They want a strongman.

Second, the press has proven incapable of conveying just how perilous our situation is. "In part, somewhat understandably, because Donald Trump is in fact the world's most famous liar. He is such a liar that even many of his biggest supporters simply think he'll never do the things he says he'll do."

The people who worked closely with Donald Trump know that this isn't true. Trump tried (out of sight) to use the levers of power, to employ the military and the justice department against his enemies. He was stymied during his first term by advisors and appointees who pushed back. In a second term, he will choose men and women (mostly men) who are willing to do his bidding.

JD Vance is the first up. Many more Republicans, as we have seen, are primed to step up and serve Donald Trump. Some are eager to embrace a strongman; some prefer religious zealotry to majority rule; some just seek lower taxes and less regulation; some are simply ambitious individuals indifferent to the cause that advances their careers. All are hostile to democracy.

Authoritarianism or democracy. That's the choice we face.

Donald Trump is amplifying his authoritarian message in the final weeks of the campaign. Kamala Harris, appealing to Americans who revere the Constitution and the rule of law, is making sure that Americans (few of whom attend Trump's rallies) understand their choice in 2024. The vice president played video clips of Trump speaking his mind at her rally Monday.

"You heard his words, coming from him ... Donald Trump is increasingly unstable and unhinged" -- oh wow -- Kamala Harris at her rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, plays the clip of Trump telling Maria Bartiromo that he would use the military against his domestic foes pic.twitter.com/nLKxyhoq4U

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 15, 2024

Trump expounds on "the enemy from within," people who are "more dangerous than Russia or China." He says, "These people should be put in jail ..." Regarding urban policing, he suggests, "Now if you had one really violent day ... one rough hour. And I mean real rough..." And then the former president adds, regarding his domestic political foes (after mentioning Congressman Adam Schiff by name):

I think the bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical-left lunatics. And I think they’re the — and it should be very easily handled by — if necessary, by National Guard or, if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen.”

In the past half century, this country has had its share of demagogues, but mostly sheriffs, governors, senators -- never a president. Until Newt Gingrich and FNC emerged on the scene and the GOP began to change, neither the Republican Party, nor the Democratic Party would have tolerated an openly authoritarian president or presidential candidate. But in 2024 Republican leaders are either openly onboard with Trump's authoritarianism, they pretend not to see it, or they intone that the policy preferences of Democrats are more dangerous to the republic than Trump's lawless, reckless worldview.

Trump vs. Harris. The contrast between authoritarianism and democratic governance couldn't be more stark. In three weeks, Americans will decide which future they prefer.

One month ago, Trump exclaimed in his debate with Harris:

In Springfield, they're eating the dogs. The people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating -- they're eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what's happening in our country.

JD Vance, who made the same false claim earlier that day and who knew the story was a lie from the beginning, justified telling the tale again and again: "If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that's what I'm gonna do, Dana."

In Aurora, Colorado last week Trump's fabrications and rhetoric grew more frenzied, this time about Venezuelan gangs taking over the city. The Republican mayor dismissed Trump's slander just as the Republican mayor of Springfield, Ohio had repudiated the lies Trump spread about his city. But, as I suggested recently, in escalating racist rhetoric and lies, Trump is hitting his stride. Peddling fear, Trump persists in vilifying immigrants:

At the rally, Mr. Trump continued to use dehumanizing rhetoric, referring to violent immigrants as “animals,” “barbaric thugs” and “sadistic monsters.” At one point, he falsely claimed that Ms. Harris had “infested” buildings in Aurora with gang members.

In December in New Hampshire, Trump declared:

“They’re poisoning the blood of our country. That’s what they’ve done,” he said in New Hampshire. “They poison — mental institutions and prisons all over the world. Not just in South America. Not just the three or four countries that we think about. But all over the world they’re coming into our country — from Africa, from Asia, all over the world.”

Racial animosity in American politics
The campaigns of Southern Democrats during the Jim Crow era were transparently racist; the language openly employed was vile and degrading. Republicans, as the party of Lincoln, stood apart from those Democrats who demanded all-white rule. After passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 1965 Voting Rights Act during the Johnson Administration, the parties began to switch sides. When Nixon launched his Southern Strategy, the message had become (mostly) coded in whispers and dog whistles (as Lee Atwater, a master of racist campaigns, explained). The language was veiled. Plausible deniability required a respectable veneer (most of the time).

By 2024, after Trump's MAGA takeover of the Republican Party, the message is no longer a whisper or a whistle. Although Trump sneers at majority-Black cities and denigrates Black public officials, he has directed his wrath primarily at immigrants, most especially those from "shit-hole countries" (in contrast to, for instance, Norway).

After gliding down the golden escalator, Trump telegraphed the louder, harsher change in rhetoric with his 2015 campaign launch. Now, an even less restrained Trump is shouting the message -- with a torrent of lies -- before raucous crowds. Moreover, he has often veered into darker territory, articulating his campaign pitch with straight-up fascist language, echoing Nazi Germany.

The 1950s and '60s were too near to World War II to make the white supremacist parlance of the Third Reich acceptable. Three-quarters of a century later, the same Donald Trump who scorns NATO is borrowing Hitler's rhetoric. A diminishing handful of Americans experienced WWII; even the Cold War, started after the armistice, is a mere memory. The election of the nation's first Black president in 2008, and a more highly diverse America, initiated with passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (LBJ again), have brought us into a new era.

Native-born Americans: the enemy from within
Over time, Trump has widened the scope of his attacks, from undocumented immigrants, to legal immigrants, and more recently to his political opponents: native-born Americans who comprise "the enemy from within."

Pledges of violence
Hateful rhetoric and lies -- directed at Black Americans and immigrants from nonwhite countries -- have been followed with explicit threats of violent repression of his political enemies writ large, even Americans whose families immigrated generations ago (as the vast majority in this country of immigrants have done).

There has been speculation recently about whether Trump is becoming less coherent because of his increasing age. He would be the oldest president ever elected in our history. One age-related analysis noted his appeal to violence: the suggestion that police to exact punishment on shoplifters on "one really violent day."

But put age aside, Trump may have simply become angrier, or convinced that this is the most strategic path to victory in the final weeks of the campaign, or perhaps SCOTUS's immunization decision has freed him to lash out less cautiously. Whatever the cause, the violent rhetoric and threats to employ the military to go after his perceived enemies is a flashing red light to anyone concerned about the eroding guardrails of American democracy. How far we've come since 2015.

Unmistakable authoritarianism
Trump has become more openly authoritarian. The vitriol, vilification, and lies have become more incendiary. The breadth of his ire, with an expanding list of enemies, has increased. The invocations of violence come much more frequently. We have witnessed this in plain sight. It couldn't be clearer, which makes General Mark Milley's assessment that Trump is "fascist to the core" much more difficult to dismiss as overstatement.

Trump has wagered that an over-the-top authoritarian campaign will return him to the White House. I have often articulated my faith that American voters will reject this man this time around. But I must acknowledge, the odds look even at this stage, barely three weeks from election day.

The quotations in the headline are from an analysis by CNN's Joan Biskupik ("Analysis: John Roberts remains confounded by Donald Trump as election approaches"). She reports that, at a time when the public's view of the Supreme Court has fallen dramatically, "Roberts was shaken by the adverse public reaction to his decision affording Trump substantial immunity from criminal prosecution. His protestations that the case concerned the presidency, not Trump, held little currency." (That decision would be Trump v. United States, handed down on July 1 of this year.)

Roberts seems perplexed with the sour view the American public has of the current Supreme Court, which (as I've frequently noted) reliably sides with Republicans in the most significant cases that starkly divide the two parties. Whether Roberts is being disingenuous, or he's too deep within a hermetically sealed bubble to comprehend, I can't say. But Americans have every reason to mistrust this court -- and the court's Republican supermajority.

Balls and strikes
The chief justice professes to regard the court and the justices as divorced from politics, as he insisted in a written statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2005, when he was confirmed as chief justice:

… Judges are not politicians who can promise to do certain things in exchange for votes. I have no agenda, but I do have a commitment. If I am confirmed, I will confront every case with an open mind. I will fully and fairly analyze the legal arguments that are presented. I will be open to the considered views of my colleagues on the bench, and I will decide every case based on the record, according to the rule of law, without fear or favor, to the best of my ability, and I will remember that it’s my job to call balls and strikes, and not to pitch or bat.

That's how Roberts would like us to view his decisions. It's fair to say that a multitude of observers have had occasion to question Roberts' fidelity to this declaration of his judicial approach. For many, Roberts appears more like a intense competitor on the playing field, not an impartial umpire.

Biskupik doesn't quote the infamous balls and strikes metaphor. Instead, she points us toward a 2009 interview with the chief justice on C-SPAN. Let's look at what Roberts says regarding the role of the court [my italics]:

I think the most important thing for the public to understand is that we’re not a political branch of government. They don’t elect us. If they don’t like what we’re doing, more or less it’s too bad. Other than impeachment, which has never happened – conviction and impeachment has never happened with the court.
So they need to understand, when we reach a decision, it is based on the law and not a policy preference. For example, when we reach an environmental decision that comes out in favor of environmental groups, you often read in the paper that the court ruled in favor of environmental group or court supports environmental protection.
All we’re doing is interpreting law. The decision has been made by Congress and the president. And we’re just exercising our responsibility to say what the law is. We’re not ruling in favor of one side or in favor of another.

It's hard to square this with the actual decisions of the court. Many significant cases before the high court pit the interests of the two political parties against one another. In case after case after case, the court's Republican-appointed majority favors the Republican side in these conflicts. These decisions, often 6-3 or 5-4, consistently advantage the Republican Party. And that frame, Republican Party vs. Democratic Party, is a much better predictor of majority opinions than reliance on, say, originalism or textualism or strict constructionism.

Biskupik observes [my italics]:

Roberts, who will turn 70 in January, faces a new slate of major cases to be heard in the coming months, including disputes over transgender rights, gun control, the death penalty and a possible return of Trump litigation. But perhaps the more significant immediate test of Roberts’ leadership will be litigation around the November 5 presidential election and the counting of votes.
The Roberts Court has been in sync with the GOP political agenda largely because of decisions the chief justice has authored: For Trump and other Republicans. Against voting rights and racial affirmative action. Against federal regulations over environmental, public health and consumer affairs.
Roberts’ pattern of favoring GOP interests has been entrenched by his decisions in such cases as the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder (gutting part of the Voting Rights Act) and the 2019 Rucho v. Common Cause (preventing US courts from stopping political parties from gerrymandering voting districts to their advantage).

Policy preferences
It won't do for John Roberts to insist that policy preferences do not guide the Republican majority's decisions. The 2013 Shelby County decision is illustrative. As a young attorney in the Reagan Justice Department, John Roberts vigorously opposed strengthening the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He was named point-man in the administration to defeat an amendment increasing voter protections. The Act passed the House as amended, 383-24; the Senate concurred, 85-8. President Ronald Reagan signed the bill into law on June 29, 1982.

Roberts lost the 1982 battle (which benefited Democratic constituencies), but 30 years later in Shelby County, the Roberts Court in a 5-4 ruling succeeded in disabling the Act (which advanced Republicans' electoral prospects) by throwing out preclearance. Roberts wrote for the majority:

“Racial disparity in those numbers was compelling evidence justifying the preclearance remedy and the coverage formula. There is no longer such a disparity.”

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg wrote in dissent:

Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.

The decision served its purpose. Republican states immediately began enacting voting restrictions, resulting in a drop in Black voting registration. That result is a strong policy preference of the Republican Party.

Hacks Politicians in robes
Let's dispense with subtlety. John Roberts has been a Republican political operative throughout his adult life. He has never strayed from that career track, never ceased to act in service to the Republican Party and its interests. That's why he was rewarded with a seat on the Supreme Court. So too the other four Republican men on the court: all have devoted their careers to the Republican Party and the issues it embraces. That, not fidelity to the Constitution, nor originalism (and certainly not conservative judicial principles, such judicial restraint, adherence to precedent, or even federalism and respect for the other two coequal branches of government) explains their partisan decisions.

Partisan Constitution
The raison d'être of the Republican supermajority on the Supreme Court is to revamp the Constitution of the United States to favor the policy preferences of the Republican Party. That's why Republican presidents, Senator Mitch McConnell, Leonard Leo, and a multitude of other GOP partisans have endeavored to place these men on the nation's highest court. The overriding mission of the Roberts Court is to harm the Democratic Party, by suppressing the voting and representation rights of its constituents and obstructing Democratic public policy initiatives.

The first primary thread in this campaign is to disadvantage Democrats by permitting Republican states to impose voting restrictions and gerrymander districts. The second primary thread is to rule out of order Democratic public policy preferences after Democrats have won elections (in spite of the obstacles to voting and representation crafted by Republicans). The Republican majority on the court seeks to render Democratic Congresses and Democratic presidents incapable of enacting legislation and engaging in rule making to fulfill their campaign pledges. Thus, the assault on the administrative state.

The Supreme Court is part and parcel of the MAGA culture war, which seeks to return the country to a previous era before racial and religious minorities, women, and economically disadvantaged Americans began to challenge the status quo.

The unelected, unrepresentative Republican majority on the court seeks to dominate the elected branches of government, which, when Democratic majorities win, seek to enact Democratic policies. By transforming the Constitution, they need not win policy debates or even elections. Their policy preferences are established by fiat by the Republicans on the highest court. The Voting Rights Act ceases to empower voters. Gerrymandering is permitted. Handcuffs are put on Congress to enact its will. A Republican president is given free reign to violate the law without accountability.

Contra John Roberts, the Roberts Court is forcing its policy preferences on the country. In this, the Republican Party seeks to replicate what Victor Orbán has done in Hungary. This judicial campaign is fundamentally undemocratic and does violence to our Constitution, especially to the Civil War amendments, which are abhorred by the MAGA Republican Party.

Americans have every reason to mistrust this court. Let's hope the country rejects the lawless Republican candidate for president, who stacked the court with loyal true believers, this fall.

Today's print edition of the Los Angeles Times highlights an exchange in the debate between the two vice presidential candidates and the court filing from Special Counsel Jack Smith that revealed many additional details of Donald Trump's scheme to nullify his defeat in the 2020 election ("Election denial returns as focus with Vance’s ‘non-answer,’ new Trump indictment details").

Tim Walz, raising an issue where the parties "are miles apart," asked a question of JD Vance:

TW: This was a threat to our democracy in a way that we had not seen. And it manifested itself because of Donald Trump's inability to say, he is still saying he didn't lose the election. I would just ask that. Did he lose the 2020 election?
JDV: Tim, I'm focused on the future. Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 COVID situation?
TW: That is a damning. That is a damning non answer.

Smith's court filing, unsealed by Judge Tanya Chutkan, presents a wealth of evidence of the criminal conspiracy directed from the White House to keep Trump in power after he had lost the 2020 election by more than 7 million votes, resulting in a clear Electoral College victory -- 306 to 232 -- for Joe Biden.

Senator Vance would not concede that Trump lost. Could not do so and remain in the good graces of the former president who leads the Republican Party. Indeed, no prominent Republican can make this concession if s/he wishes to remain in the good graces of the GOP leader and his MAGA followers. Election denialism, refusal to bend to the reality of Trump's 2020 loss, is an article of faith in the party. The leader will brook no dissent regarding this fabrication. It is fundamental to the 2024 Republican presidential campaign.

On Sunday, House Speaker Mike Johnson also declined to acknowledge Trump's 2020 defeat. These refusals serve to prop up the Big Lie that Trump won the last presidential election and to convince Republican voters, who naturally look to their leaders, of that fabrication. The LA Times article cited above notes polling that found just 31% of Republicans believe that Biden legitimately won in 2020.

Johnson, then a Louisiana congressman, took the lead in a December 2020 lawsuit to block certification of the November election. He "also echoed some of the wilder conspiracy theories pushed by then-President Donald Trump to explain away his loss." On January 6, 2021 -- when Congress reconvened after rioters had left the Capitol -- Congressman Johnson was among 121 Republicans (a majority of the caucus) who voted to challenge Arizona's election results. Vice President Pence declined to be a party to this stratagem. Senator Vance has stated repeatedly that he would not have acted as Pence did in certifying the 2020 election results. His recent refusal to concede Trump's loss suggests that, if given the chance in January 2029 as VP (if elected this fall), he would not hesitate to block a November 2028 Democratic victory.

The significance of the Big Lie going forward is that in 2024 Donald Trump (as he did in 2016 and 2020) refuses to commit in advance to accepting the election results. He has begun (as he did in the previous two presidential campaigns) to lay the groundwork for refusing to accept a defeat. Ed Kilgore notes that, in preparation for the possibility of experiencing another election defeat in November, Trump's list of things that comprise "election interference" has multiplied in 2024.

Last week in Milwaukee, Trump was asked, "Do you trust the election process this time around?" His response: "I'll let you know in about 33 days."

REPORTER: Do you trust the election process this time around?

TRUMP: I'll let you know in about 33 days pic.twitter.com/nLCUOoy9IF

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 1, 2024

Trump has insisted repeatedly, as he did in August in North Carolina, that the only way he could possibly lose the election is if Democrats cheat:

“Our primary focus is not to get out the vote,” he said. “It’s to make sure they don’t cheat, because we have all the votes you need. You can see at every house along the way, has signs: Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump-Vance, Trump-Vance.”

In September he repeated his fabricated tales with threats to imprison the cheaters who stole the 2020 election: "... WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences ..."

American democracy is at stake
Much more is required of American democracy than majority rule. But this much is clear: we can't have democratic governance without upholding our traditions of free and fair elections, of the losers conceding their losses and seeking to win the next time around, and of the peaceful transition of power after voters have rendered a judgment.

Donald Trump, with his fragile ego, extravagant lies, and willingness to rouse the passions of his followers to the point of violence is not a small-d democrat. His election denialism, fraudulent claims of election fraud, and refusal to concede when he has lost makes him unfit for elected office (though hardly the only thing that disqualifies him for the presidency):

“It doesn’t matter if you won or lost the election. You still have to fight like hell.” -- Donald Trump watching as rioters (whom he has pledged to pardon) stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Through his actions Trump has shown himself to be hostile to the Constitution, indifferent to the rule of law, and contemptuous of democratic values. The Republican Party, abandoned by elected and unelected officials of principle, is now comprised of men and women in positions of influence willing to do Trump's bidding or to duck out and refuse to take a stand for democracy. Country over party has been embraced by a handful of conservatives who held office when Trump entered the White House; but Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Jeff Flake, Geoff Duncan, and a number of less prominent leaders (some who regard themselves as former Republicans; some who still embrace the label) are no longer welcome in the current Republican Party, which cannot be counted on as a bulwark of democracy.

This is why the 2024 election is so critical.

"You will no longer be abandoned, lonely or scared. You will no longer be in danger. You're not going to 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..."
-- Donald Trump, at a Pennsylvania rally, September 23, 2024

Listening to this man, who has boasted about sexual assault and been found liable for rape, pledge to be a protector of women is analogous to being given a Rorschach test: Donald Trump or Kamala Harris?

Some women will find Trump's message inviting and will cast a ballot for him. Others will find Harris, an independent woman who has campaigned on reproductive freedom, to be a better choice. Could anyone straddle this divide, unsure of which way to go?

This goes for men as well. Some men would like to keep women in their places, in traditional gender roles. Other men are onboard with the equality of women and men.

Make America Great Again clearly harks back to earlier eras when men's domination of women was not in question. That dichotomy, between the respective social and legal roles of men and women, as much as racial hierarchies, is embedded in Trump's pitch. Not for nothing are white evangelicals, who abhor strong, independent women unwilling to bend a knee to men, the core of the MAGA base. The blather by JD Vance and others about childless women, women over 50, grandmothers, and so on -- it's all part of the opposition to women's equality and autonomy.

Clearly, Kamala Harris is outside the bounds of acceptability for the MAGA cohort (and not just evangelicals).

The contrast is stark. And completely consistent with the choice American voters are being offered. Access to women's healthcare, including abortion, is an issue because with Trump's appointment of three Supreme Court justices, cementing a Republican supermajority, the high court overthrew Roe v. Wade. Trump continues to boast about this. A slew of Republican-ruled states immediately instituted bans on abortion. Many women have been harmed by the bans; some have lost their lives.

Meanwhile, Republicans continue to look for ways to restrict women's choices. In states that have banned abortion in clinics and hospitals, Republicans have sought to ban the use of abortion pills and to criminalize travel out of state to secure legal abortions elsewhere. Securing successful prosecutions of such women would require diving into their medical records. Proposed laws include monitoring women's pregnancies, including menstruation surveillance.

In Virginia, bipartisan legislation passed by the state house would have prohibited the government from securing menstruation data from computers, smartphones, and other electronic devices. The Republican state senate, at the behest of the Republican governor, killed the bill. In Missouri, the state's Department of Health and Senior Services Director has previously acknowledged tracking the menstrual periods of women who visited Planned Parenthood clinics. Project 2025 would impose abortion surveillance in all 50 states, reported to the CDC, and enforced by withholding federal funding to states that failed to cooperate.

On Wednesday, senior Trump advisor Jason Miller told a Newsmax interviewer that Trump would not prohibit pregnancy monitoring by states.

Jason Miller says it’s “going to be up to the states” whether or not they set up regimes to monitor women’s pregnancies so they can prosecute them for getting out of state abortions.

pic.twitter.com/KLoQyB42Pf

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) September 26, 2024

In fact, Donald Trump made the same commitment -- to allow Republican-led states to monitor pregnancies -- back in April.

So, when Trump pledges to be women's protector, know that he's intent on making decisions for women's own good. No need for anyone to worry her pretty little head about it. As he pledged in a Truth Social post, days before his rally in Pennsylvania:

"Women will be happy, healthy, confident and free! You will no longer be thinking about abortion, because it is no where it has always had to be, with the states, and a vote of the people."

Reassured? Or not? We'll choose in November.

Donald Trump was poised to defeat Joe Biden. A short time ago, his campaign expected to win in a landslide. They might well have done so -- with a game plan tailor-made for defeating an old, diminished candidate. And then Democrats pulled an unprecedented switch: Biden was out; Kamala Harris was in (while Trump became the old, diminished candidate).

The Trump campaign, thrown for the loopiest, most confounding of loops, began scrambling to find its footing. Trump was on his heels. The Trump-Vance campaign strategists were off their game. The question posed prominently in the media for the next several weeks: How would Trump and his campaign respond to the Harris candidacy?

By the September 10 debate with Harris, Trump had already played the race card, challenging her racial identity. At the debate he launched another line of attack: "In Springfield, they're eating the dogs. The people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating -- they're eating the pets of the people that live there."

In the same response (in answer to a question about why he had killed the bipartisan immigration bill, which "would have put thousands of additional agents and officers on the border"), Trump began by insisting that he had "the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics," pronounced the U.S. a failed nation, invoked World War III, and then decried immigration into our country. Hence the lie about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, OH eating pets.

This lie about Haitian immigrants, which found fertile ground in the fever swamps of MAGA social media (after having begun with a third-hand account posted on Facebook), had been raised by Trump's running mate JD Vance a day earlier. "Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn't be in this country. Where is our border czar?" Prominent Republicans jubilantly spread the lie.

When pressed, at times, Vance didn't deny that the accusation was unsupported (though his explanation changed day to day), but he stuck with the story. In fact, he excused the baseless report as a means to draw the media's attention to Springfield, telling CNN's Dana Bash, "If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that's what I'm gonna do, Dana."

Vance claims he and Trump have to "create stories" about migrants eating cats and dogs "so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people."

There is then some awkward dead air as Bash tries to highlight the absurdity of what he just said pic.twitter.com/IN26ZGYsvE

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 15, 2024

Immediately after Vance's initial post days earlier, his staff had called city officials in Springfield to confirm the story. They were told clearly and unambiguously that it was baseless:

Springfield city manager Bryan Heck told the Wall Street Journal that a Vance staffer reached out to him on Sept. 9 to conduct a fact-check.

• • "He asked point-blank, 'Are the rumors true of pets being taken and eaten?'" Heck said.
  • "I told him no. There was no verifiable evidence or reports to show this was true. I told them these claims were baseless."

So Vance knew it was a lie from the start. But it didn't matter. Vance continued to spread the 'rumor' because it highlighted an issue the Trump campaign wished to amplify in the mainstream media. The senator encouraged his followers to continue spreading the tale about Haitians eating cats: "In short, don't let the crybabies in the media dissuade you, fellow patriots. Keep the cat memes flowing."

The effects have been widely reported: bomb threats, closed schools, lockdowns at hospitals and city hall. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine sent in state troopers to guard local schools. Fine, but how do parents of 6- and 7-year olds explain "bomb threat" in a way that doesn't terrify their kids? And the controversy emboldened the Proud Boys to stage a march and the KKK to distributes fliers. Haitians are uneasy, as are many other residents of Springfield.

Haitians, who have revived the local economy with their hard work, have begun to learn the language, register their kids in schools, join local churches, and seek to assimilate as best they can. The Republican governor celebrates the contribution of Haitians, while acknowledging the challenges their arrival in large numbers has brought. DeWine decries the lies spread about Springfield, but still supports the Trump-Vance ticket. He writes in a New York Times op-ed:

As a supporter of former President Donald Trump and Senator JD Vance, I am saddened by how they and others continue to repeat claims that lack evidence and disparage the legal migrants living in Springfield. This rhetoric hurts the city and its people, and it hurts those who have spent their lives there.
The Biden administration’s failure to control the southern border is a very important issue that Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance are talking about and one that the American people are rightfully deeply concerned about. But their verbal attacks against these Haitians — who are legally present in the United States — dilute and cloud what should be a winning argument about the border.

As with many elected Republican loyalists, the governor misses the point (or pretends to). Donald Trump doesn't seek to win an argument about the border or about immigration. He seeks to evoke fear and stoke division about race, to scare white folks about newcomers who are not white. And neither Trump, nor Vance care one whit about harm to the Springfield community engendered by their hateful rhetoric and lies.

Trump instituted a Muslim ban, separated children from their families at the border, and denounced "shit-hole countries"-- including Haiti, African nations, and El Salvador. This week, at a rally in New York, Trump offered shovelfuls of more lies:

... I've been talking about migrant crime for five years. I said, if you let 'em in, it's going to be hell. They are vicious, violent criminals that are being led into our country. They are people that their countries, who are very smart, they don't want them. That's why all over the world -- a lot of people coming from jails out of the Congo in Africa.
Where do you come from?
The Congo.
Where in the Congo?
We come from jail.
What did you do?
We will not tell you.
They're coming from the Congo, they're coming from Africa, they're coming from the Middle East. They're coming from all over the world. Asia. Lot of it coming from Asia.
And what's happening to our country is we're just destroying the fabric of life in our country. And we're not going to take it any longer. And you gotta get rid of these people.

At an April rally in Green Bay, Trump referred to immigrants as subhuman, "The Democrats say, 'Please don't call them animals. They're humans.' I said, 'No, they're not humans, they're not humans, they're animals.'" The former president has repeatedly asserted that immigrants are "poisoning the blood of our country," employing language echoing Hitler.

"Migrant crime," a MAGA and Fox News talking point, doesn't represent a surge. Quite the contrary. That's a lie.

But it scares voters. And that's the point. So we have our answer. How will the Trump campaign respond to the challenge posed by Kamala Harris, a Black/South Asian woman? With the familiar Trump playbook that focuses on racial resentment and fear, supercharged with lies.

I don't think this is going to work. I base that on a faith in the American people, though the race is too close to call, which voters turn out is unpredictable, and the Electoral College doesn't always favor the democratic choice. I'll stick with my simple faith until proven wrong.

September 25 update: Adam Serwer posted on Bluesky, "I wrote about a dynamic that I haven’t seen acknowledged: The Trump campaign is desperate to make race the issue of the election even if they have to lie about it, because their strategy is to scare white people ..." His article ("The Trump Campaign Wants Everyone Talking About Race"), which appeared the day after my post, illustrates why he is a professional and I'm an amateur. Describing a comment by JD Vance, he crisply sums up the MAGA game plan: "What’s going on here is emblematic of the Trump campaign’s strategy, which is to try to make race the big issue of the campaign, via incessant trolling, lying, and baiting of both the press and the Harris camp. The racism rope-a-dope is one of Trump advisers’ favorite moves—say something to provoke accusations of racism, then ride the wave of outrage over your critics’ perceived oversensitivity."

[Photo from Corey Lewandowski on X.]

Demeaning the sacred

Donald Trump gets his campaign photo-op at Arlington National Cemetery and provides video coverage for Fox News ("Trump lays wreathes at Arlington National Cemetery honoring 13 US service members killed at Abbey Gate bombing") to boot.

Nothing is sacred to Donald Trump. Grinning, thumbs-up, he is (as is often observed) shameless. Deliberately violating established federal regulations to politicize laying a wreath in Section 60, an area regarded as hallowed ground at this military cemetery, is just another illustration of Trump's disregard for anything that obstructs whatever he sees as advantageous to himself. His four years in the White House demonstrated his indifference to the Constitution, the rule of law, and democratic norms. That goes for federal law related to the Defense Department.

Donald Trump has no respect for the men and women who have served their country in the military, as shown again and again and again. Moreover, he is plainly ignorant of the Gospels, his life reflects no principles remotely resembling Christian teachings, he has steadfastly shunned religious practice, yet the Religious Right is central to his political fortunes and Trump has begun to speak of God and to mouth words that might advance his prospects on the November ballot. The photo-op is a cynical pose in a ceremony traditionally implying veneration for military service and often imbued with religious meaning.

Thuggish bullying

Yet, that's hardly the most disturbing aspect of this sordid episode at Arlington. Pentagon officials explained the cemetery's policy in advance of the visit: "What was abundantly clear-cut was: Section 60, no photos and no video." Trump's campaign chose to defy the regulations. When an official attempted to stop campaign staffers from entering Section 60, she was verbally abused and two men pushed her aside. Then the campaign smeared her as someone "clearly suffering from a mental health episode" and said it was "prepared to release footage" that proved there was no physical altercation. It hasn't done so.

The U.S. Army, which has jurisdiction over Arlington National Cemetery, responded by noting first: "ANC conducts nearly 3,000 such public ceremonies a year without incident." The statement continued: "Participants in the August 26th ceremony and the subsequent Section 60 visit were made aware of federal laws, Army regulations and DoD policies, which clearly prohibit political activities on cemetery grounds. An ANC employee who attempted to ensure adherence to these rules was abruptly pushed aside. Consistent with the decorum expected at ANC, this employee acted with professionalism and avoided further disruption."

And then the lies

JD Vance responded to questions about the incident by blaming the press and adding:

Kamala Harris is disgraceful. We’re going to talk about a story out of those 13 brave, innocent Americans who lost their lives? It’s that Kamala Harris is so asleep at the wheel that she won’t even do an investigation into what happened.

As the Washington Post notes, there have been several investigations of the incident. Vance continued, falsely accusing Kamala Harris of criticizing Trump's visit to Arlington: "And she wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up? She can — she can go to hell.”

Although his accusation regarding Harris is false, Vance doubled down later when questioned about it: “Don’t focus on Donald Trump showing up to grieve with some people who lost their children. Focus on your own job. Don’t do this fake outrage thing. If Kamala Harris was really outraged about what happened, then she would do her job differently, start a real investigation, and fire some of the people who are involved.”

The aftermath

The New York Times reports:

A woman who works at the cemetery filed an incident report with the military authorities over the altercation. But the official, who has not been identified, later declined to press charges. Military officials said she feared Mr. Trump’s supporters pursuing retaliation.

So ... the Army decided to drop the matter, even though it is a felony under federal law to assault, resist, impede, intimidate or interfere with a federal employee performing official duties. The Trump campaign's brazen conduct, followed by intimidation, has succeeded. No one will be held accountable.

So ... Trump has exploited the deaths of 13 U.S. troops in Afghanistan on Biden's watch. To put this into context, Trump has also claimed, “When I was in charge, in 18 months, we didn’t lose one American soldier.” That is a lie. The 18-month span with no casualties included the end of Trump's term and the beginning of Biden's.

During Trump's term in the White House there were 46 combat deaths among U.S. service members and 18 "non-hostile" deaths. Don't expect Trump to memorialize those service men and women, nor his campaign to run roughshod over federal law to record such a memorial.

Donald Trump held a press conference this week. A handful of highlights:

Helicopter adventures
Trump told of a near-death helicopter ride with California's former Speaker of the Assembly, Willie Brown. And he reported that Brown (the self-described Ayatollah of the Assembly and later Mayor of San Francisco) said "terrible things" about Kamala Harris. But Willie Brown disputed the story: he had never been in a helicopter with Trump. (When this was reported, Trump threatened to sue the New York Times.) Willie Brown's denial led to speculation that the former president had confused one Brown for another, Jerry Brown, who had flown in a helicopter with Trump and Gavin Newsom -- but there had been no mechanical trouble on that flight.

Finally, another black man (though not named 'Brown') corrected the history. Former California state senator and Los Angeles city councilman, Nate Holden, revealed that in 1990 he and Trump had shared a rough helicopter flight that had to make an emergency landing. This account was confirmed by former executive in the Trump organization, Barbara Res (who had written about it in her book in 2020).

The 78-year old Trump appears to be confused. And the "terrible things" said about Kamala Harris? Trump either made that up or he is more confused than ever.

Crowd sizes
In answer to a question about January 6, Trump insisted that the biggest crowd he had ever spoken to was that day at the National Mall. He elaborated [initial question at 39:48 on PBS video link]:

I've spoken to the biggest crowds. Nobody's spoken to crowds bigger than me. If you look at Martin Luther King, when he did his speech, his great speech, and you look at ours -- same real estate, same everything: same number of people. If not, we had more.
And they said, he had a million people, but I had 25,000 people. But when you look at the exact same picture -- and everything's the same because there was the fountains, the whole thing, all the way back from Lincoln to Washington. And you look at it. And you look at the picture of his crowd, my crowd -- we actually had more people. They said I had 25,000 and he had a million people.
And I'm okay with it, 'cause I like Dr. Martin Luther King.

Estimates of the crowd at the 1963 March on Washington generally range from 200,000 to 300,000. The number often cited is 250,000. Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said that law enforcement estimates for the January 6, 2021 crowd "were all over the board," ranging from 2,000 to 80,000. The January 6 Committee placed the number at 53,000.

No credible source believes that Trump's crowd on January 6 exceeded King's on August 28, 1963.

Overview
NPR did a fact check of Trump's remarks during his 64-minute news conference ("162 lies and distortions in a news conference. NPR fact-checks former President Trump"):

There were a host of false things that Donald Trump said during his hour-long news conference Thursday that have gotten attention.
A glaring example is his helicopter emergency landing story, which has not stood up to scrutiny.
But there was so much more. A team of NPR reporters and editors reviewed the transcript of his news conference and found at least 162 misstatements, exaggerations and outright lies in 64 minutes. That’s more than two a minute. It’s a stunning number for anyone – and even more problematic for a person running to lead the free world.

Problematic indeed.

Colossal liar
Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised by this. During Trump's four years in the White House, the Washington Post kept a tally of his false or misleading claims. He established quite a record.

Frightening, not funny
Tom Nichols is unnerved by Trump's incoherence. He writes that, "so much of what Trump said seems too bonkers to have come from a former president and the nominee of a major party that journalists are left trying to piece together a story as if Trump were a normal person. This is what The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, has described as the 'bias toward coherence,' and it leads to careful circumlocutions instead of stunned headlines."

Nichols reviews a selection of Trump's false and wacky claims and compares the headlines atop the reports of the press conference.

All of these headlines are technically true, but they miss the point: The Republican nominee, the man who could return to office and regain the sole authority to use American nuclear weapons, is a serial liar and can’t tell the difference between reality and fantasy.
Donald Trump is not well. He is not stable. There’s something deeply wrong with him.
Any of those would have been important—and accurate—headlines.

Watch just a few minutes of Trump's press conference. What we see is remarkable. The volume of lies, of strange stuff, of utter nonsense is overwhelming. And Nichols (and Goldberg) are right: the press picks out items here and there to piece a coherent story together, something that makes Trump more like "a normal person."

But he isn't. This man shouldn't be anywhere near the Oval Office ever again. Let us hope that we are not going back.

.@GovTimWalz: "People like JD Vance know nothing about small town America... He gets it all wrong. It's not about hate." pic.twitter.com/Z5E3SGdqB4

— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) July 23, 2024

From the governor's "Morning Joe" interview:

. . .
What I know is, is that people like JD Vance know nothing about small town America. . . . And he gets it all wrong. It’s not about hate. It’s not about collapsing in. The Golden Rule there is mind your own damn business.

Their policies are what destroyed rural America. They’ve divided us. They’re in our exam rooms. They’re telling us what books to read. And I think what Kamala Harris knows is bringing people together around the shared values – strong public schools, strong labor unions that create the middle class, healthcare that’s affordable and accessible. Those are the things.

You look what they’re talking about: they went right to division. They did not give us a plan on healthcare. Donald Trump talked about infrastructure. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris built bridges, built roads.

So I think this is going back to the bread and butter, getting away from this division. We do not like what has happened where we can’t even go to Thanksgiving dinner with our uncle because you end up in some weird fight that is unnecessary. And I think bringing back people together --

Well, it’s true. And these guys are just weird. It is. They’re running for He-Man Women Hater’s Club or something. That’s what they go at. That’s not what people are interested in.
. . .

Consider the question of "what people are interested in" just in regard to women's healthcare:

Are Americans interested in criminalizing, step by step, healthcare for women? (After the overthrow of Roe v. Wade, there are already draconian bans in several states on medical procedures that threaten women's lives, well-being, and reproductive health -- even if a woman is carrying a fetus that is not viable. Republicans have proposed giving police departments access to medical records. They have set their sights on banning birth control and IVF. That's quite an agenda for employing the coercive power of the state.)

Or are Americans interested in lowering the cost of healthcare and making it more accessible? (In other words, in solving a pair of social problems experienced by many, through implementation of public policies that offer to improve the lives and life-circumstances of people without ready access to medical care.)

The first vision, the MAGA vision, grants a role for legislatures, courts, prosecutors and police in decisions that women and families would otherwise make in consultation with doctors and other counselors of their choice.

Weird? Or a deliberate method of constraining the rights and autonomy of women relative to men?

Neither Donald Trump, nor JD Vance have offered a healthcare plan. On the other hand, Trump has denigrated Kamala Harris's racial identity and Vance has vilified women without children who have feline pets.

The two Democrats set to be on the ticket are having a blast, celebrating America, pledging -- if elected -- to represent all Americans, not just some of us. They've been dubbed happy warriors. And the Democratic campaign differs as much in substance from the GOP campaign as it differs in tone. The two Democrats are traditional political pragmatists. They seek to enact public policies, after winning elections, to better the lives of the folks in their communities. The Republican Party used to be this way. But since Newt Gingrich's brief ascension, the Tea Party revolt (after Obama's election), and the embrace of Donald Trump as the undisputed leader of the Republican Party, the GOP has moved further and further away from a traditional Republican agenda.

Listen to what Trump and Vance are saying to suss out what the 2024 MAGA agenda is. We can tell they're angry. They're trying hard to scare folks. And they most certainly delight in trolling their political opposition. But it is hardly clear that what these guys are selling actually offers anything like practical solutions to the problems that beset the party's voting base, or rural America, much less issues of concern to a broader swath of Americans.

Here's how the Republican Party greeted the selection of Tim Walz as number two on the ticket:

Are these guys weird? Yeah, though that's not all. Often they just seem like assholes. That's probably a consequence of the tough guy/never back down/chip on the shoulder persona they display for other guys in the tribe. From outside, it looks different than from inside. And it's that tribal focus that sets them apart: they lack empathy, respect, regard for anyone outside the tribe who might disagree or push back on their point of view. They are profoundly undemocratic. Because in a democracy, everyone's point of view counts. You don't get to reject democratic majorities when you lose just because you don't like the people in the opposition.

"He'll unleash HELL ON EARTH ..." / "THE WORST VP IN HISTORY," / "Even worse than Dangerously Liberal and Crooked ..." are messages that resonate with true believers, with folks deep inside the tent. But, for the broader community, for much of America, for most of us outside the tent, that message separates these guys from the mainstream. (Yes, they seem weird at least.)

The two parties are offering different visions for America and for our country's future. We'll have a choice in November. I'm betting that most Americans will opt for the Harris-Walz vision on November 5.