The Stakes of This Election: A Reminder
57 days to go.
“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.” ―William Shakespeare, The Tempest
My friend David French would probably not go as far as the Bard in describing our infernal political moment, but he’s sounding the alarm.
“My goodness,” he posted on the site formerly known as Twitter, “but the masks are coming off.”
David provided a quick tour d’horizon:
“Tucker interviews a Nazi sympathizer, and Elon promotes it.
”A new indictment alleges MAGA influencers are on the Russian payroll.
“Candace Owens is lost to the total darkness of conspiracies and antisemitism.
“And don't forget the absolute avalanche of right-wing slander and defamation during the Big Lie.
“There are no more dog whistles. The racism, antisemitism, and corruption are shouted on bullhorns.”
When you put it that way, it does sound bad, doesn’t it? Of course, none of this is new, but it all does seem to be coming to a head now, just in time for the November election. Subtlety, decency, and discretion are hardly the watchwords of the day. And let’s not pretend that there’s any mystery about why this is happening.
Happy Sunday.
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Believe it or not…
There was once a time when conservatives — with mixed success— at least tried to patrol the borders of crazy. William F. Buckley Jr. excommunicated the Birchers and bigots. He marginalized Pat Buchanan and fired writer Joseph Sobran after he was accused of trafficking in “crude and naked” antisemitism. National Review also fired Ann Coulter after she suggested that the United States invade Muslim countries and “kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.”
The party cut loose senate candidates who talked about “legitimate rape,” or felt the need to explain that they weren’t witches. Republicans actively distanced themselves from figures like former KKK leader David Duke, and conservatives shunned white nationalists like Richard Spencer and writers like Sam Francis, who had advocated a “white racial consciousness.”
Trump let them all back in — the wingnuts, bigots, antisemites, and conspiracists. And then he embraced and empowered them.
The only reason anyone gives a rat’s ass about Tucker’s crackpottery is that he has the former (and perhaps future) president’s ear.
Matthew Continetti warned us about this back in May 2016:
The nasty mouth-breathers Buckley expelled from conservatism have returned. The proximate cause of this efflorescence of the pre-Buckley right is Donald Trump’s campaign for president. Trump has dog-whistled at racists so much for so long that they feel resurgent.
Who were they?
They call themselves the “alt-right,” a grab-bag category that includes nativists, eugenicists, bigots, anti-Semites, misogynists, reactionaries, aristocrats, monarchists, isolationists—basically anyone who hates today’s America and the modern world and the men and women, of any race or religion, who flourish in it.
Today the ‘alt-right” has become the MAGA right, and the GOP is prostrate before them.
There are 57 Days Until Election Day
The headlines (and freakouts) today are focusing on the new NYT/Siena poll which shows Trump in a dead-heat with Kamala Harris — which some pundits suggest is a sign that Harris’s support “has stalled after a euphoric August.”
And a new CBS poll finds the race on a razor’s edge in key swing states:
As usual, I’ll leave the horse-race pearl-clutching to others, because I want to call your attention back to the stakes of this election.
ICYMI over the weekend:
Trump again promised that he would pardon the January 6 rioters. “"The moment we win, we will rapidly review the cases of every political prisoner unjustly victimized by the Harris regime, and I will sign their pardons on day one I will sign. Right? Day one."
Speaking in Mosinee, WI, Trump said he would "eliminate the federal Department of Education and send education back to Wisconsin and back to the states. We'll send it back to the states so that Ron Johnson can run it." [Johnson has no role whatsoever in the education system.]
Via the Milwaukee-Journal Sentinel: “Trump was at times nonsensical, rambling.”
His speech, which lasted nearly two hours, followed the whims of Trump's train of thought, rapidly spinning through different topics. Going from criticizing Harris for her lack of action on the southern border, Trump would then switch to blaming the media's portrayal of his rhetoric.
At one point, he brought up Hannibal Lecter, the fictional serial killer from the early 1990s.
Via the Wapo: “Trump rants, resurfaces sexual assault allegations for 49 unfocused minutes.”
Donald Trump railed against women who have accused him of sexual assault. He baselessly blamed the Biden-Harris administration for his legal difficulties. He appeared to criticize the physical appearances of some of his accusers. “She would not have been the chosen one,” he said of one, later adding that he would “not want to be” involved with another accuser, even as he acknowledged his advisers urged him not to make such a comment.
Politico: “Donald Trump could turn Elon Musk into an American oligarch.”
Former President Donald Trump’s plan to have Elon Musk lead a government efficiency commission would vault the world’s richest man to an unprecedented role: American oligarch.
The details of the commission and Musk’s involvement are still vague, but any formal role in government would give greater influence to the billionaire owner of Tesla, Space X, satellite company Starlink and the social media platform X — signature ventures that have benefited from federal contracts, tax credits and government incentives.
“This is like red lights blaring, all kinds of conflicts of interest,” said Danielle Brian, president of the Project on Government Oversight.
All of this was, however, merely a warmup for the weekend’s most fascisty moment:
With his customary lack of subtlety, Trump is openly pre-planning his post-election coup.
“CEASE & DESIST,” Trump wrote in a social media post. “I, together with many Attorneys and Legal Scholars, am watching the Sanctity of the 2024 Presidential Election very closely because I know, better than most, the rampant Cheating and Skullduggery that has taken place by the Democrats in the 2020 Presidential Election.”
He continued: “It was a Disgrace to our Nation! Therefore, the 2024 Election, where Votes have just started being cast, will be under the closest professional scrutiny and, WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again.
“We cannot let our Country further devolve into a Third World Nation, AND WE WON’T! Please beware that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials. Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.”
As NBC News noted: “The threat was one of the most wide-ranging that he's made while running for president after his 2020 defeat — going beyond threatening old foes and issuing warnings to those involved with the current election.”
Principles First Founder Heath Mayo had a blunter assessment: “This is some fascist crap. Vote like the country depends on it, folks. Because with this psycho on the ballot, it does.”
Sanewash this
Mark Cuban (an actual billionaire) proposes a new game: “Let’s play Trump Jeopardy! The following is the answer. What is the question?”
“I had a great relationship with President Xi of China. Really very close relationship. Now he likes China. I like us. So. But I don't want to. He was my dear, dear friend. He's a tough guy. He's a fierce person. I say very smart. You know, when you say he's smart, the fake news goes crazy. He said, President Xi is smart. And I say, you know, he controls 1.4 billion people with an iron fist. He's smart. But we had a very good relationship with China until Covid. And when that came in, it was a whole different ballgame as far as I was concerned. And we made a great China trade deal, maybe better than the USMCA. And I'd never talk about it because what happened with COVID for the whole world, $60 trillion in, you know, deaths, 70,000,060, nobody even knows how many deaths. And it all came out of Wuhan. So it changed my relationship. But I think I'll have a great relationship with China. I had one before, and they respected us. But they respected us because they no longer thought we were fools. They used to think we were fools because we built China. They would take over $500 billion a year and use it for their military and other things. And we got nothing on that. We got some cheap product. We got, you can buy 19 pencils instead of two. Who the hell cares? You can buy 16 dolls for your daughter instead of two nice dolls. And we got very little out of that relationship. They got a tremendous military power, and they still have it today. So. But I believe we will have a very good relationship with China and with a lot of other countries that we're not getting along with too well today. And things are going to straighten, we're going to get an straightened out very quickly, very important that we get along with the rest of the world. You know, we have things today called nuclear weapons. I rebuilt our whole military, including our nuclear capability. And so I got very familiar with it.
And, you know, I say this often because I had an uncle who was the longest serving, I believe the longest serving. I was told that by MIT, but he was at 39, I guess 41 years, longest serving professor in the history of MIT in nuclear, something he knew a lot about. And we used to talk about, and I'd say, uncle John, there's no way he was telling me about this incredible power that was being unleashed potentially. And I say, Uncle John, you could never. And you know what? He was very modest because I've seen the destructive capability, and this world is going to have to get along because if that's ever unleashed, we already have too many countries that have at least remnants of it, some of it probably five countries, if you think. And Kim Jong un. When I went to the White House after winning in 2016, I sat with President Obama, which is a ritual. And you said, and you talk. And I said, what's the biggest problem? He said, north Korea is the biggest problem. I don't think it's solvable. I said, have you tried calling him or talking to him? Actually, the answer was yes, and he wasn't responded to, but I did, and we were very safe. It started off a little rocky, if you remember a little rocket man. I called and told me things, too. He's got a red button on his desk. I said, I have a bigger red button, and my red button works, I said. And then it started getting a little nicer. And then one day I got a call that they'd like to meet. And it was a great thing. We had a great meeting. We had two meetings, actually, two great meeting summits, and we had no problem with them. Now they have a problem because they're not, like, in this administration. They don't respect this administration at all. So we have to get along. We have to get along. We can't have world War Three. You're going to end up in World War III, just like you should have never had Russia go in. It would have never happened. If a competent person led us, it would have never happened. He led them into it. And I'm not blaming Biden, but you know what? What he was saying was exactly the wrong thing. I said, we're going to have an invasion because of a lot of the rhetoric. It was stupid rhetoric, but it would have never happened. Not only for that reason. Oil was down low. You know, oil was almost at a barrel. So Putin is one of the only people. I mean, nothing's easy in life, but Putin at $100 a barrel, war works at $40 a barrel. It didn't work at all. So we're going to get back to an intelligently run place, a place where other countries aren't using the word nuclear. That word was never talked about during my. Because I knew the power of it and I talked to Putin about it. I talked to President Xi about it. I think we were going to. Do you remember the talk where we were going to reduce nuclear capability substantially, all three of us, we're going to start, we're going to reduce very substantially. And then we had the election. And after the election, they didn't talk about that or anything else likely.
But we have to be very, very careful because the destructive capability of nuclear, when people talk about global warming, I say the ocean is going to go down 100th of an inch within the next 400. That's not our problem. Our problem is nuclear warming. And we better be smart, and we better have smart people at the top that know how to deal, because these people don't know how to deal. Putin came out today. He endorsed Kamala. And I didn't know what they were supposed to call him up and say, thank you very much. I appreciate it. But he endorsed Kamala. I have a feeling. I don't know. I don't know exactly what to say about that. I don't know if I'm insulted or he did me a favor. But we have to get along with the world. We can't have war because the destructive capability. You can be the head of the biggest bank, wherever the hell Jamie is sitting. You can be the head of the biggest bank in the world, and a couple of nukes in your bank doesn't mean a thing. You gotta get along because this is such an important job. It's a dangerous job too. Very dangerous job. Statistically, being president is very dangerous. That throbbing feeling I have. Oh, that throbbing feeling now. It's a very dangerous job and you have to do it right. And if you don't do it right, bad things will happen to the world. Things like you've never seen before. Okay, thank you very much.”
And now word from Pete
Chill, folks. It’s still summer.
**
He’s even got a book…
From the headline: "Almost 30 percent of voters said they needed to learn more about her."
Alternate headline: "Almost 30 percent of voters have their heads up their asses."
Really, the election fundamentally is about one thing when all of the political spin and deflection is set aside: how informed are the voters, and what difference does it make when they do their due diligence?
On paper this election should not be even remotely close. For all the grousing about inflation, it is down and has been declining for some time. Jobs are plentiful. Incomes are up. Gas prices are lower and trending toward $2.XX in many markets. People are spending money on what matters to them -- witness the full airports for summer travel season and holidays, and check out the parking lots of those popular restaurants on Friday and Saturday evenings. Even the immigration issue has been moving in the right direction. On the other side, we hear a doom loop of scare tactics about everything and absolutely no plan and details for how they would make everyone's life better -- save for Project 2025, which they fervently seek to keep under cover as much as possible until after election day. One slate of candidates is hopeful, optimistic, and has a warm, human personality that most people can relate to. The other screams creeps and weirdos who lack any semblance of humanity and prioritize how they can get themselves ahead and at whose expense. It may be the most-black-and-white major election in American history.
So, why, then the razor's edge? What seems obvious to us isn't necessarily so to people who do not digest this stuff every day and in quantity, or who rely on dubious sources with an agenda to inform them about important current events and life issues. Take the above paragraph, remove all personal names and political affiliations from it, put it in front of an average voter, and guess which side they would choose? Yeah, you know. Yet it is not nearly that easy in practice. So many people are so blinded by biases and by not doing any real research on the candidates and the issues. Willful ignorance is a very hard thing to overcome. So is inertia. We try to be better than that but also realize that a very large segment of our population cannot be bothered to raise their game. And so we teeter on the edge of the cliff. As I often say in this space: when you choose to settle for something rather than strive, you tend to get what you deserve more than what you want. Take an ignorant, intellectually lazy approach to selecting your leaders, get people who are bottom feeders and self-enablers to fill the vacuum. That is what we are up against -- doing what's right versus doing what is easy. Soon enough we will see exactly what kind of a nation we live in, with the consequences that come along with it.