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It is August 5. The election is exactly three months away, November 5. Some observations:

Cheap Heat
In my last post I noted Donald Trump's confusion/anger/grievance about Kamala Harris's racial identity. Jonathan Last describes Trump's lie about Harris as a move straight out of professional wrestling. Desperate to draw attention away from Harris (whose campaign has generated overwhelming enthusiasm in its first two weeks) to himself, Trump deliberately generated "cheap heat."

As Last has explained, Trump has had a long association with WWE and "Trump’s forays into wrestling formed his understanding of how populism and demagoguery function." Wrestlers, both heels (villains) and faces (heroes), generate heat insofar as the audience reacts to them. With loathing or adoration; it doesn't matter. The heat shows that the audience "cares."

Trump, of course, loves to get a reaction.

Cheap heat is "when a wrestling heel says or does something in an obvious attempt to antagonize the audience and make them hate him." Trump, per Last, by playing the heel, succeeded in "recapturing the spotlight" (which interrupted the rapturous attention Harris was getting) and created "a tactical dilemma" for Harris (whose response might harm her campaign). Though in this case it didn't.

Crowd Size
In Trump's first full day on the job in the White House, he began whining/lying/obsessing over crowd size. He insisted that the size of the crowd at his inauguration was larger than the crowd at Obama's addresses. And for much of his term in the White House, Trump returned to this obsession.

So, when Trump spoke at a rally last weekend, in the same venue as Harris has spoken earlier -- he returned again and again to the size of the crowd he had drawn, compared to Harris.

Trump can't help being Trump. And that has become increasingly obvious at this stage of the 2024 campaign.

Fat Elvis
With Biden's exit, Trump is now the old, out of touch guy running for president. He continues to draw on a well-worn repertoire of tricks, but he doesn't have much new to offer. He is in the Fat Elvis stage of his career. As Charlie Sykes put it, "Don’t ignore the evidence of your eyes: Donald Trump is floundering, stumbling, and fumbling. Like a superannuated Fat Elvis, he’s desperately trying to play his greatest hits — Racism! Insults! Bullshit! — but it’s not landing the way it used to, is it?"

While Harris continues to generate enthusiasm a day before introducing her running mate, Trump's campaign is giving off a whiff of desperation.

Invisible Hand
Speaking of Biden's bowing out, Nancy Pelosi offered remarks today on her role in persuading the president:

“My goal is defeat Donald Trump,” Ms. Pelosi, the former speaker, said in a recent interview before the release this week of a book on her years in Congress. “And when you make a decision to defeat somebody, you make every decision in favor of that. You don’t mess around with it, OK? What is in furtherance of reaching that goal? I thought we had to have a better campaign.”

Not surprising to learn that Nancy Pelosi doesn't mess around.

Still Tight
We're a 50-50 nation, or close to it. This election will be hard fought. And Americans will decide: Do we accept the allure of Make America Great Again? Or do we insist that "We're not going back!"

We'll see soon enough.

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Remember when Democrats were demoralized? When they dreaded another Trump term? When they realized, with shock and horror, that the candidate they backed displayed age-related infirmities (confirming public opinion that he was too old for another term in the White House)?

Remember when Republicans at their convention were roused up, anticipating a landslide victory in November? When they were confident that Americans would be more put off by Joe Biden (looking and acting older than 4 years ago) in November than by Donald Trump (with his history of lying, fraud, sexual assault, racism, misogyny, contempt for democratic norms and the rule of law, deliberate divisiveness, and compulsive narcissism)? When their nominee doubled down on MAGA belligerence and selected J.D. Vance as his running mate?

National Democrats had another idea, which -- remarkably -- they succeeded in putting in place. And on Sunday, July 21 things flipped. With a new candidate came new messaging, more energy, and an "overnight shift in tone," as NBC's Sahil Kapur illustrates with contrasting press releases from the Democratic campaign. Before: "Statement: Workers Cannot Afford A Second Trump Term." After: "JD Vance is a Creep (Who Wants to Ban Abortion Nationwide)."

Note the first sentence of the Harris campaign statement: JD Vance is weird.

JD Vance has quite a history vis-a-vis Donald Trump. Personal ambition seems to have pushed him from a stance as a no-holds-barred Trump critic. In 2016 he wrote, "Trump is cultural heroin." And, the same year, "I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn't be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he's America's Hitler."

Since then, Vance has decided to hitch his wagon to Trump, and he's gone all-in, with podcast after podcast with true-believing MAGA acolytes. Women, women's roles, and women's rights are trumped by the Christian Right's fondness for traditional families headed by a patriarch, again and again and again. Whether or not that's weird, it may be toxic to swing voters.

July 21 was ten days ago. The Trump campaign is still floundering. Now Trump is the old, out of touch guy -- confused by or angry about, for instance, multiracial families -- running for president. Yesterday the man who led the birther movement challenged the racial identity of the Black/South Asian woman running against him:

“I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black,” Trump said. “So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”

It's not all that complicated. Harris's father was Jamaican; her mother, Indian. The vice president attended Howard University, joined the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, and has identified as Black throughout her political career in California. She didn't "turn Black" (though she been open about and has never denied her Asian roots). Trump's claim is plainly false, whether he is consciously lying or simply indifferent to the truth. And that's classic Trump.

As is making personal attacks. As is couching those attacks in racial terms. Many Trump allies have urged his campaign to refrain from racial attacks on Harris, to no avail. But Trump being Trump means playing the MAGA version of the race card. It would be surprising, given his history, if the man didn't rush to focus on race in attacking an opponent.

His outburst has succeeded in dominating a day (or a few hours) of the news cycle. Was this a tried and true political tactic then? Or Trump's narcissism -- his compulsion to be the center of attention that surfaced? Or just habitual grievance-mongering, never mind if it was nonsense?

Whatever. We saw Donald Trump (whether unfiltered or playing a part) in action. This is who he is.

Kamala Harris responded, noting Trump's comments:

And it was the same old show: the divisiveness and the disrespect. And let me just say, the American people deserve better.
The American people deserve better. The American people deserve a leader who tells the truth. A leader who does not respond with hostility and anger when confronted with the facts. We deserve a leader who understands that our differences do not divide us. They are an essential source of our strength.

The man who riffs on sharks and electrocution, celebrates Hannibal Lector, and inevitably drags race, gender, nationality, and/or religion into our political discourse in order to divide us, is there for all to see. It's worse than weird, though weird might serve to repel the Trump campaign.

We'll see come November 5.

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I. President Joe Biden bows out

On July 24, President Biden followed up on his July 21 with an Oval Office address to the nation.

I draw strength and I find joy in working for the American people. But this sacred task of perfecting our Union — it’s not about me. It’s about you, your families, your futures. It’s about “We the People.” We can never forget that, and I never have.
I’ve made it clear that I believe America is at an inflection point, one of those rare moments in history when the decisions we make now will determine our fate of our nation and the world for decades to come. America is going to have to choose between moving forward or backward, between hope and hate, between unity and division.

II. Vice President Kamala Harris steps in

After quickly consolidating support to become the Democratic nominee, the vice president immediately launches her campaign against Donald Trump.

III. Trump whines

IV. Republicans revert to type

The GOP pulls out the race and gender cards: "Rightwing playbooks deployed in past election campaigns are being dusted off for an all-out assault against Vice-President Kamala Harris, the de facto Democratic nominee aiming to become the first Black woman and first person of south Asian descent to be US president."

Trump is still Trump: “I call her Laffin’ Kamala,” he said. “You ever watch her laugh? She’s crazy. You can tell a lot by a laugh. She’s crazy. She’s nuts.”

And, continuing the middle school insults, "She's dumb as a rock."

V. While Democrats (and small-d democrats) celebrate

First, Democrats acknowledge that Nancy Pelosi is masterful. She coaxed our president to defer to a new generation of leadership. "Can we all admit there was something supremely gratifying about watching Nancy Pelosi work over the last few weeks?" Yes, we can. A recent Rueters Ipsos poll showed that Democrats overwhelmingly approved (86%) of Biden bowing out and an even higher number of Democrats (89%) endorsed Harris as the nominee.

As Democrats rally behind Kamala Harris ("We're not going back!"), she is offering a vision for the future for all Americans that challenges MAGA appeals to return to a fabled past when only some of us counted.

Come November 5, the American people will decide which path the country takes.

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"Word on the street was that the RNC speeches were going to be civil and polite now."

"The Daily Show" (broadcast on night three of the convention) has the video clips to prove it. But, as we saw on both night three and on the final night, MAGA is unchanged and so is Donald Trump. As I noted two days ago, "Trump can't help being Trump." And the MAGA Republican Party is all-in with a deliberately divisive Trump and a divided America.

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July 19 update: Either I missed this, or it appeared after I drafted my post: Jon Tester has called on President Biden not to seek another term.

There were quite a few developments since I posted yesterday:

Adam Schiff publicly called for Joe Biden to bow out, followed by a public report of an earlier appeal by Jamie Raskin.

Congressional leaders have approached Biden in private to urge him to bow out. Now these conversations with Nancy Pelosi, Hakeem Jeffries, and Chuck Schumer have been confirmed via the media.

An AP/NORC poll revealed that only 34% of Democrats believe Biden should continue running for president. Sixty-five percent believe he should withdraw in favor of someone else.

This is the last day of the Republican National Convention, when Democrats' focus should be on the scary agenda coming out of the MAGA world. Instead, it is on Biden. This is because the president's frailties are on display every day, reminding a majority of voters why they believe he is too old to run for another term.

The president showing his age as he does daily (though he just tested positive for COVID).
The president can't remember the name of his Secretary of Defense.

Democrats -- determined to run an all-out campaign to prevent another Trump term -- can't afford daily distractions about their nominee's age and age-related infirmities. Nor can they afford a nominee who is incapable of waging that all-out campaign.

The decision of Congressional Democrats to go public with their doubts and entreaties represents an unprecedented effort to convince a recalcitrant candidate to bow out.

There is no guarantee that another candidate -- Kamala Harris, a prominent governor, or any other Democratic leader -- can beat Trump. (I assume Harris will most likely head the ticket if Biden steps aside. She will be subject to attack in virtue of being a woman with a Black/Asian heritage. Hers will be a tough hill to climb. So be it.) At least a younger, more vigorous candidate -- whoever it is -- will have the stamina to run a strenuous, day-in, day-out campaign without raising doubts about being too frail to govern until January 2029.

The Democratic (and small-d democratic) coalition needs a reset to take on Trump.

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Mostly behind the scenes, Democrats continue to be concerned -- despondent, resigned, angry, panicked -- about the oldest president in history who will not be deterred from running again in spite of Americans' belief that he is too old to serve another term in the White House.

Speaking in New York at a fund raising event for three Democratic Senate candidates -- Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland, and his own California bid -- Representative Adam Schiff warned that Joe Biden's name at the top of the ticket threatened Democratic prospects to retain the White House and the Senate majority, as well as retaking the House majority.

I think if he is our nominee, I think we lose. And we may very, very well lose the Senate and lose our chance to take back the House.

Biden and the Biden campaign have closed the door to voices of pollsters and political professionals who present an extraordinarily dire picture of public opinion regarding the president and of his realistic prospects of success. Reports suggest the president is "increasingly isolated" and only willing to listen to "a small number of aides who are limiting the data he receives," which is consistent with his strategy of running out the clock to stay in place atop the ticket.

Adam Schiff is a close ally of Nancy Pelosi, who continues to advise worried Democrats. Last week on "Morning Joe" (which the president watches) she nudged him, after he sent his defiant letter to Congressional Democrats: "It's up to the president to decide if he is going to run. We're all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short."

Journalists, as they did in 2020, continue to look at Ben Cramer's What It Takes: The Way to the White House to explain why Biden is unlikely to budge. Cramer suggested that for Biden, every obstacle was "malleable to his will."

“There was (to be perfectly blunt, as Joe would say) a breathtaking element of balls,” Cramer writes. “Joe Biden had balls. Lots of times, more balls than sense. This was from the jump—as a little kid. He was little, too, but you didn’t want to fight him—or dare him. There was nothing he wouldn’t do.”

President Biden is highly unpopular. Americans overwhelmingly believe he is too old to continue in office another four years. In the past two weeks the evidence for their doubts has increased. Outside Biden's inner circle, it is clear that Biden is well behind Donald Trump. Schiff sums up: "Joe Biden’s running against a criminal. It should not be even close. And there is only one reason it is close and that’s the president’s age."

A reset at the top of the ticket would at once provide a fresh boost for Democrats and eliminate the major, persistent doubts that weigh down their nominee for president.

I won't concede that Biden is a sure loser. Trump can't help being Trump. And J.D. Vance, who has let his overweening ambition shape his public persona, only compounds the Trumpiness of the MAGA Republican Party. The campaigns are just beginning.

In the words of Mark Shields, "A week is a lifetime politically, and three months is an eternity."

There are not quite four months to go.

But what a deep hole Democrats are in with the candidacy of Joe Biden. Americans' doubts of Biden's fitness will persist. I trust Nancy Pelosi's judgment far more than that of Joe Biden, his family, and his inner circle of loyalists. And, unless the man has a change of heart that his ego and character haven't revealed is likely, he will be the Democratic Party's nominee to take on Trump.

What a perilous time.

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“Everything is riding on this. And I know people feel an urgency. I feel an urgency. But I would tell the president: slow down and take the time to make the right decision here that’s best for the country.”
— Adam Schiff

Democratic leaders, most prominently Nancy Pelosi, have offered lavish praise of the president, just before advising him to slow down and make the right decision (even though Joe Biden has repeatedly said that he has already made up his mind to run again). Representative Adam Schiff, soon to be Senator Schiff, is among the former speaker’s closest allies.

Near the beginning of the interview (quoted above) with NBC’s Kristen Welker, Schiff offers effusive praise of Joe Biden’s record over the past 3 ½ years and sums up: “He’s done more in one term than most presidents do no matter how many terms they get.” He contrasts this record with Donald Trump’s mismanagement in office and  lack of character: “Someone who is … not only a pathological liar, but is immoral, indecent, and unfit for office.”

He continues:

But the performance on the debate stage, I think rightfully raised questions among the American people about whether the president has the vigor to defeat Donald Trump. And this is an existential risk.
Given Joe Biden’s incredible record, given Donald Trump’s terrible record, he should be mopping the floor with Donald Trump. Joe Biden’s running against a criminal. It should not be even close. And there is only one reason it is close and that’s the president’s age.

That’s the terrible, debilitating issue that hangs like an anchor around Joe Biden’s neck. A majority of Americans think he is too old. No matter what he does, he can’t get any younger, or more vigorous, or less forgetful. So, even after he displays mastery of international relations and articulates sensible policies to advance our nation’s interests abroad (as he did yesterday following the NATO conference), he still bears the burden of old age and the nagging, persistent belief of most Americans that he is too old to run for another term as president.

Another candidate of course would be free of this burden. But only if President Biden agrees to bow out. And sooner rather than later.

Schiff goes on to recommend that the president seek out people he trusts, beyond his family, “people with some distance and objectivity. He should seek out pollsters who are not his own pollsters. He should take a moment to make the best, informed judgement …”

Later in the interview, Welker plays a clip of Schiff’s comments laying out the stakes, just before last month’s debate, of a possible second Trump term: “The only remedy really is the one in all of our hands and that is to make sure that Joe Biden wins overwhelmingly. That this is not close.”

Welker follows up with a question, “Can President Biden win overwhelmingly by any stretch at this point?”

Schiff responds: “Either he has to win overwhelmingly or he has to pass the torch to someone who can.”

We have no reason to think it is likely that President Biden can win overwhelmingly or that he will pass the torch. Mr. Biden has repeatedly dismissed the polls as inaccurate or claimed that the polls he has seen show him ahead. This is self-delusion (reminiscent of Mitt Romney’s belief – with Karl Rove – in 2012 that the polls showing him behind were wrong. And that he would defeat Barack Obama.) The image above is a counterpoint to the president’s confidence. (“I don’t think the polls are off. I think that at this moment in time all the data that we have — and again, we don’t know — but the data we have says Joe Biden is losing this race right now.” — Chris Hayes, July 9, 2024)

The Biden family and the president’s inner circle are understandably loyal to him. They are brimming with confidence. And in 2020 they proved the naysayers wrong, when Mr. Biden won the Democratic primary and then defeated the sitting president. But note: their plan to launch his 2024 campaign at the June debate blew up in their faces. We have ample reason to question their judgment at this stage. That’s why Congressional Democrats (and candidates around the country) are in a panic.

There’s still time for President Biden to do the right thing. Staying in the race, as an old man who is widely perceived to be too old for the White House, does the country a disservice.

[I was banned from dailykos.com on July 12 within minutes of putting up the above post, which was removed from the site -- all without explanation, though this was my fourth post of the week advocating that Biden bow out, so Democrats could nominate Kamala Harris or another leader to take on Trump.]

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The attempted assassination of Donald Trump was shocking and (as Joe Biden suggested) sickening. Though Trump survived, the death of a Trump supporter and serious injury of two others is horrible. In a highly polarized era, it is heartening that condemnation of this act has found voice across the political spectrum. Nonetheless, it is a sad day for our country.

With that preamble, I have a few remarks about politics. I will reference Bernard Crick, from the opening chapter of his book, In Defense of Politics [British spelling of 'defense' from an edition of his book published in Great Britain]:

Crick, who credits the ancient Greeks with the "unique invention or discovery" of politics, attributes to Aristotle the view of politics as described in the passage presented above. In a state comprised of people belonging to disparate groups -- not simply "a single tribe, religion, interest, or tradition" -- politics offers a method for making social decisions, choices that touch everyone who lives within that society. For politics to function, participants must accept the legitimacy of other groups and different interests within that society. Through politics we consider a diversity of interests and come to decisions that respect a range of viewpoints, not simply those of one group or another. Politics (which imbues our democratic institutions) is a peaceful method for resolving disagreements and preserving an orderly society for all.

Politics, on this view, is central to democracy and to democratic institutions (such as free and fair elections and the rule of law). Politics doesn't exist in the absence of democracy. In a tyranny, for instance, only the interests of the tyrant or of his favored group are represented. Others -- those in disfavored groups -- are intimidated or coerced to accept a state of affairs that redound to the benefit of the tyrant (and perhaps of his acolytes). Coercion and politics are in opposition to one another.

Political violence and the practice of politics are antithetical. Political violence threatens our democratic institutions, which rely on participants acting in good faith, respecting their political opponents, and accepting that compromise is often required, but that we are each free to state our views, to seek to persuade others, and to look forward to achieving victories in the future.

Violence strikes at the heart of politics. It shatters the foundations of democracy. It must be rejected emphatically.

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That invocation of a fight to the death would be courtesy of Steve Bannon, revving up the crowd (whom he likened to the "vanguard of the revolution") at Turning Point Action earlier this month. Amid lies and bunkum, he hurled insults and glorified violence. He repeatedly invoked the stolen 2020 election and celebrated the January 6, 2021 rampage; remarked of Joe, Jill, and Hunter Biden, "They're a bunch of feral dogs"; and reviewed the Trumpian agenda for a second term, including the pledge to "seal the Southern border and ... start the deportation of 10 to 15 million illegal aliens," which generated a crescendo of applause. He led a brief chant, "Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump!"

Looking to a second Trump term, he promised, "We're going to purge DOJ. We're going to take out the FBI: the American Gestapo," and dismantle the FBI building, "ugly slab by ugly slab," adding: "And we're going to do what the Romans did at Carthage. We're going to salt the earth around it."

He name-checked Roger Stone, Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson, Peter Navarro, James O'Keefe, and himself -- as "the first wave" (à la Normandy), that is, men who have encountered a variety of consequences (from deplatforming to losing a law license to criminal prosecution), which he blamed on Trump's opponents. And he reserved a special malice toward those opponents, to whom he ascribed treason and criminality. He pledged to Lock 'em up (though not in those exact words, the vintage vocabulary of 2016).

Ten minutes into his remarks he bellowed, "On the afternoon of January 20th we must free the 1400 patriots and must incarcerate the criminals!"

[Listen to him holler.]

A Trump opponent responds

Andrew McCabe, former deputy director of the FBI, shrugged off Bannon's (and Donald Trump's) threats to folks perceived as enemies of Trump. He then segued into questions about the country we think we are and what direction we'd like to go.

We know that Donald Trump and his friend are, you know – these are people who are obsessed with personal grievances and settling scores. Their entire way of thinking about leading, administering this country is in the context of having been wronged and trying to engender support among their supporters by, you know, throwing this kind of red meat out to people who are, uh – who respond to this sort of language.
So we shouldn’t be surprised by it all. They are both paranoid old men – one of whom is on his way to jail and the other one, we’ll see. That may happen for him as well. So that part doesn’t surprise me.
What’s really to me shocking and disgusting about the rhetoric is what it says about who we are becoming as a nation. And the fact that a person who is, you know, quite possibly the next President of the United States is engaging in this level of absolutely, fundamentally anti-democratic rhetoric and behavior and ideation.
Everything he says, it stands in direct contrast to the nation that we think we are, the nation that we have always been. But I think people have got to start asking themselves: Is this the direction that we wanna go? Is this the country that we’re becoming? A place where an incoming president takes the levers of power and uses them for his own gratification to pursue enemies?

Those of us who disagree with the direction MAGA seeks to take us will have a say on November 4.

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A look back (but not that far back) by Reggie Jackson:

In a post in January I wrote:

With ratification of the Constitution in 1789, the founders launched our American democracy. It did not satisfy the ideal of the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal," but it set the course for our country. For about a decade, following the Civil War and passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, the Reconstruction era brought us nearer to a multiracial democracy (at least for men; women gained the right to vote with passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920). Reconstruction was short-lived, coming to an end by 1877, replaced in fits and starts by nearly a century of Jim Crow in the Southern states (and restricted rights for black residents of the North as well).
With passage of the Civil Rights Act (in 1964) and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the United States approached nearer the ideal of a multiracial democracy. These were bipartisan achievements. The Republican Party, founded in the mid-19th century to oppose slavery (and a Democratic Party committed to white supremacy), endorsed this expansion of democracy.

Reggie Jackson's anecdote brings home the reality of Jim Crow. Notice also that Jackson played for the Birmingham A's at Rickwood Field in 1967 in the Double-A Southern League, before joining the Kansas City Athletics that summer for the MLB season.

Jim Crow 2.0

Jim Crow didn't die all at once. And, if we look at the Supreme Court's decades-long assault on the Voting Rights Act and undermining of the Fourteenth Amendment led by Chief Justice John Roberts, we can see that the crusade against equal rights continues to this day. The anti-democratic rulings of the Roberts Court have served as an invitation to Republicans across the country. In statehouse after statehouse, Republican lawmakers have joined the crusade to implement Jim Crow 2.0 with voting restrictions and gerrymanders to ensure minority rule. 

In June 2024, the Republican Party has gone all-in with Trump's lie that he won the 2020 presidential election and with his celebration of the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. Today's Grand Old Party opposes the Declaration's ideal of equality. The party is in a furious fight against a diverse America, where we can respectfully disagree with each other while holding fast to small-d democratic principles. Free and fair elections and the peaceful transfer of power be damned. The Republican Party is committed to the MAGA party line, rather than to our Constitution and the rule of law. The Republican Party is following an authoritarian playbook, which threatens the democracy that the Constitution imperfectly gave birth to. 

Americans face a stark choice as we approach November 4.