#(reference to the us presidential debate)

[tardis-technician]

Transgender illegal alien in prison

based on this post by @terranceholdsapencil

[coldhands-sunkeneyes]

I personally would love to see both candidates on the floor of a model un conference. Against bitches trying to gavel

[weathernerdmando]

Y'know what's funny about the debate is that I did debate in high school. I wasn't very good, but I also didn't really try, and I still did better than Trump did this past week.

Kamala took notes, which you do in any type of debate. You use those later on to refute or attack your opponents points. She stayed on topic, and she actually did make a point to rebutt his specific attacks WHILE making her arguments....and that's how you DO a debate!

She would absolutely destroy me in a debate, but that's fair. I still could probably debate Donald Trump and win, lmao.

[celeste-fitzgerald]

Me, staring at a blank document: I have a concept of a fanfic

[pinkpastels113]

not the numerous personal insults that has no relations to her ability to be a president

[mariacallous]

I LOVED this article. Leslie Gray Streeter expresses it perfectly.

https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/opinion/column/kamala-harris-no-press-interviews-OPD4MAXYKRB4XJHB2TFB6ZJX6Q/

Since becoming the presumptive Democratic candidate for president, Vice President Kamala Harris has done myriad public appearances and given speeches but has not, as of this writing, talked to journalists outside a brief session on the tarmac before a flight.

I’m a journalist and have been for more than half my life. And you know what? I don’t blame her one bit.

Because of her refusal to sit for an interview with any print or broadcast media, Harris has been the target of a lot of indignant insistence that she change her mind — that she’s not giving the American public answers they deserve. Critics say she’s subverting an expected system that all other elected officials have gone through. They say she’s hiding behind a wall of hype and “irrational exuberance” that is proof she lacks the toughness to hold the office she seeks.

Be ever so real, y’all. You know that quote, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”? It would be insane to subject yourself to unfettered questions by an industry that doesn’t seem to know how to handle interviews with true journalistic integrity and practices. Why beat your head against a wall you know is made of brick and disinformation?

Harris has seen a media landscape that arguably legitimized soon-to-be-President Donald Trump as a normal candidate when he was sowing seeds of unrest, writing about him agreeing to accept the 2016 election results, “if I win,” and then denying those results in 2020 with not an nth of the absolute pushback and condemnation it deserved. She saw, as we all did, major outlets referring to obvious racist attacks by the current Republican nominee and others as “racially tinged” and to blatant bloody lies as “falsehoods” and “misstatements.”

The vice president recently approached the press gaggle with a deliberately direct “Whatcha got?” That is the same thing my late daddy used to ask me point-blank when I’d been calling and calling and he knew I wanted something. The reporters had been clamoring for this. And their response? A bunch of requests for a response to crazy stuff Trump said about her.

This is the same industry that initially wrote presidential fanfic pondering replacement candidates that weren’t Harris. Then, when President Joe Biden stepped down from the race and named her as his chosen successor, they compiled panels ruminating on Trump’s assertions about her racial identity. Fox News has gone on the attack about her every day, but she’s being called a coward for not agreeing to a debate on that network in front of an arena of opposing fans.

Yeah, no. She is not, as we say in my culture, Boo Boo the Fool, nor is she, as she’s stated, falling for the okey-doke. Would you rush to sit down to withstand more of that foolishness? I would not. Despite the protestations of several writers from traditional media absolutely aghast at her avoidance of them, the truth is that Kamala Harris doesn’t need them.

Just as Trump has flocked to friendly outlets like Fox and a live conversation on X with app owner Elon Musk (or what Harris’ team referred to as “whatever that was”), Harris has done speeches at a rally in North Carolina and last week in Prince George’s County, and she has her savvy and very online comms team to get her message out. It’s smart, because most outlets have proven they don’t know how to approach her.

The vice president has expressed interest in setting something up, but I wouldn’t be shocked if she sidesteps your Dana Bashes and Kristen Welkers and does something inventive. If I were her, I’d talk to MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, who has himself been critical of media colleagues, including his own network.

Maybe she should completely pivot and do something fun like “Hot Ones,” where she can answer policy questions while eating spicy wings. Talk to Teen Vogue. Do podcasts. Hang out with “The Real Housewives of Potomac.” I know these sound like lightweight options, but are any of these suggestions less weighty than Harris’ opponent, who bleats lies and racism on his own app, or his approved media partners who go on about Harris’ laugh, dating history and heritage? It’s all a circus. I say make your own big top.

And if madam vice president decides to talk to the traditional media, be it the New York Times or CNN, I think she should only do so with interviewers who have proven themselves to have cultural competency about race, gender, historically Black colleges and universities, the Divine 9 Greek system, step parenting and being a baddie in the 1990s. I’m not saying it has to be a friendly person like Trump seeks, but it does have to be someone who respects Harris enough as a candidate to do research and not spend the whole time asking gotcha questions about her opponent’s lies. Heck, I’ll do it! I know this is a long shot, but at least I know what okey-doke means.

I am excited for Harris’ future media choices because they are sure to be unprecedented, just like her candidacy. And it’s going to be on her terms. Everyone gets to set theirs, after all.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Promises Kept.

January 5, 2024

ROBERT B. HUBBELL

When Joe Biden declared his candidacy for president in 2019, the nation was bruised, battered, and divided by three years of Trump's unrelenting chaos and carnage. During Biden’s year-long campaign, Trump plunged America into darker waters as he tried to extort Ukraine into fabricating lies about Joe Biden and his son. Trump then engaged in gross dereliction of duty by mishandling the nation’s response to Covid, ultimately resorting to lies and quackery as the death toll mounted.

Biden stepped into the breach, promising “to restore the soul, honor, dignity, and decency” of America. In word and deed, Biden has kept those promises—despite virulent and violent opposition by MAGA extremists who sought to prevent the peaceful transfer of power—and who still seek to destroy our democracy today.

Historians may view Biden’s greatest success as the restoration of normalcy, decency, and rationality to the executive branch of the US government. Biden’s legislative accomplishments are historic and will be an enduring legacy standing alone.

Identifying Biden’s legislative successes is easy; identifying the depth and breadth of Biden’s restoration of decency and rationality is more difficult—because living in a normal frame of reference is subtle and ineffable. It infuses every aspect of democracy and political discourse. It is the absence of chaos, it is not waking up every morning thinking, “Oh, God. What has he tweeted now?”, and it is not hearing every governmental action re-interpreted through Trump's lenses of narcissism, delusion, and insecurity.

Joe Biden acts within a rational political framework. His policies can be praised or criticized because they exist (in writing) and reflect the reasoned judgment of Biden and his staff after a period of reflection and debate. They are not made up “on the fly” in response to reporters’ questions shouted over the noise of helicopter rotors.

The return to normalcy, decency, and dignity is neither sexy, compelling, nor “made for TV.” But it was precisely what the nation needed after the chaos of Trump's tenure as president. Joe Biden kept his promises. For that, we owe him a debt of gratitude that we must repay in 2024.

On the eve of the third anniversary of January 6, Biden is launching his 2024 campaign in earnest. In a political ad previewed on MSNBC, Biden said that he is making “the preservation of democracy” the centerpiece of his campaign. In the ad, Biden says, in part,

All of us are being asked, “What will we do to maintain our democracy?” History is watching. The world is watching. Most importantly, our children and grandchildren will hold us responsible . . . .

A campaign theme of “preserving democracy” is neither sexy, compelling, nor “made for TV.” But it is precisely what the nation needs as it stares into the abyss of a second Trump term as president.

I have heard from dozens of readers this week who are disappointed with Biden’s responses regarding immigration and the war in Gaza. Some have suggested that they will not vote or will vote for a third-party candidate. Both of those options are the functional equivalent of voting for Trump.

The freedom to criticize the president is a privilege of our democracy guaranteed in the Constitution. We can debate presidential policies only if we have a democratic frame of reference within which to hold those debates.

That democratic frame of reference will exist under a second Biden term. Under Trump, the democratic frame of reference will be replaced by a simple test: Does speech praise Trump? If not, the speaker will act at their peril. Trump’s vigilantes will threaten the speaker, and state and federal agencies will pretend the threats are harmless jokes or over-exuberant expressions of loyalty to Trump.

The threat of vigilantism to punish speech is not hyperbole. As we approach the third anniversary of January 6, elected officials who criticize Trump or apply the law to his unlawful conduct are being deluged with death threats. They are being “swatted” by sick individuals who call 9-1-1 to make false reports of crimes in progress—resulting in the deployment of armed emergency responders to the elected officials’ homes.

Like Joe Biden, Trump has made promises. He has promised his followers that, if re-elected, “I will be your retribution.” He has also promised that he will be a dictator “on day one” if he is elected to a second term.

Joe Biden has kept his promise “to restore the soul, honor, dignity, and decency” of America. We should take Biden at his word that he will work to preserve democracy if re-elected in 2024.

As with Biden, we should take Trump at his word: He will exact retribution and act as a dictator on day one of his second term.

The competing promises of Trump and Biden tell us everything we need to know about the choice we face in the 2024 election.

Concluding Thoughts.

The choice between presidential candidates in 2024 could not be starker. There is no ambiguity, nuance, or grey area. We must help Joe Biden communicate that fundamental difference and help people understand that the choice in 2024 is not about policies or the economy. It is about democracy—and whether we are for it or against it.

[vomitdodger]

This is interesting if you like debate, take an active interest in true constitutionality issues and mental gymnastics. About a six min vid. Discusses whether Harris is eligible for presidency based on the constitutional requirements. Not that I think it will make a difference. Discussion centers around what is a “natural born citizen” and “subject to the jurisdiction within”. Point being Harris was born on US soil while her non-US citizen parents had expired stays.

I’ve tried to find a definite answer for about two days and no such luck.

Points of considerations:

The Supreme Court has never officially ruled on this. There is much academic inference but it’s never ruled on a case/scenario like this.

The founding fathers original intent of “natural born citizens” was what most people would think…born to US citizens…not an anchor baby (Harris). Note they included the specific word “natural”.

Citizenship was later clarified to children of citizens born overseas…basically. Example: Ted Cruz born in Canada and McCain born in Panama Canal zone. Both considered “natural born citizens” so eligible to run.

Anchor baby’s are often referred to as “birthright citizens”. This is comrade Haley. Difference is her parents were in the US legally although not yet naturalized. Harris’ parents were neither…they stayed past their defined term. This is really key.

Most academics and some court rulings have made or attempted to make the terms “natural born” and “birthright” interchangeable. Others have said..not so fast…go back to original intent…they are not the same for constitutional legalities.

Truly a constitutional scholar/legal issue that would only be officially settled by the SCOTUS. Again not that it will likely make a difference anytime soon, if at all.

If you try to find info disregard anything in the last year or so…it’s clearly a setup for future Harris runs. Disregard fact checkers and the usual media. Disregard any source that simple lists the 3 presidential requirements as worthless, low IQ input.

I also suspect there’s heavy media censorship of arguments against Harris’ scenario. Most articles simply list those 3 basic requirements without any constitutional scholar authority….so again low IQ, meaningless input to influence the masses with repetition. Which is exactly what the media does.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Daniel Arkin at NBC News:

Pop superstar Taylor Swift endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris' presidential candidacy on Tuesday night after the high-stakes debate with former President Donald Trump, calling the Democratic nominee a "steady-handed, gifted leader." "I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election," Swift said in a post on Instagram to her more than 283 million followers. "I’m voting for @kamalaharris  because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them. I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos. I was so heartened and impressed by her selection of running mate @timwalz, who has been standing up for LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman’s right to her own body for decades."

"I’ve done my research, and I’ve made my choice," the Grammy-winning artist added. "Your research is all yours to do, and the choice is yours to make. I also want to say, especially to first time voters: Remember that in order to vote, you have to be registered! I also find it’s much easier to vote early. I’ll link where to register and find early voting dates and info in my story." Swift, 34, signed her post "Childless Cat Lady" — a reference to language used by Trump's running mate, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, to describe women who do not have kids. Swift included a photo of herself holding her cat, Benjamin Button, who has graced the cover of Time magazine with the singer. Swift's endorsement came as a surprise to the Harris campaign, two campaign officials told NBC News. The campaign views the singer's backing as part of a "decisive victory" for the vice president and speaks to her ability to attract support, one of the officials said.

The endorsement had been widely anticipated. Swift threw her support behind President Joe Biden and Harris during the 2020 presidential election.

Immediately following the debate Tuesday night, pop superstar Taylor Swift endorses Kamala Harris. #SwiftiesForHarris

[sophieinwonderland]

Let's talk parallels between the state of politics, xenophobia and syscourse!

Specifically, libeling marginalized communities to spread hate against them. Because I've noticed a lot of interesting connections, and I feel like I just watched something in syscourse play out on the national stage.

It turns out that bigotry is the same wherever you are. When you pay attention to a lot of bigoted rhetoric, it's always using the same sort of playbook.

When it comes to plurality, the bigots are system medicalists and anti-endos. Those who hate non-traumagenic systems just for existing.

If you listen to anti-endo rhetoric, the specific talking points reek of xenophobic rhetoric. Anti-endos will claim that endogenic systems, simply by existing and being plural, are invading their spaces and stealing their resources. What resources, you might ask? It's always unclear. It's not DID therapists since most endogenic systems don't have DID and aren't seeking help from them. It's not apps like Plurakit or Simply Plural, since they were made by endogenic and pro-endo systems, and wouldn't exist without the pro-endo community.

In some cases, you will even see anti-endos go so far as to classify endogenic systems as invaders.

I am not saying that sysmeds are xenophobic. But rather, I feel that a lot of sysmed rhetoric is at least in part, due to the normalization of xenophobic talking points and those talking points being unconsciously internalized. And I feel that both also stem from the same sort of tribalism and fear of this outside group "invading" spaces you view as your own.

The System Hopping Libel

A libel is a published lie that is written with malicious intent.

When I refer to the "system hopping libel," I'm referring to a popular claim by sysmeds that "system hopping" is a RAMCOA term that was stolen by endogenic systems. The claim goes that survivors of RAMCOA (a term for ritual and organized abuse) originally used "system hopping" to refer to travel between different side systems. Later, endogenic systems stole this term and used it to refer to a headmate traveling from one different-bodied system to another.

This was quickly spread through sysmed circles, especially on Twitter and TikTok, as an example of how evil endogenic systems were, to steal terms from this super vulnerable group who suffered the most extreme trauma imaginable.

Except... this was a complete lie.

In reality, system hopping had always been used by endogenic systems to refer to travel between systems of different bodies. We've tracked its first use with this definition at least as far back as 2005. While the RAMCOA definition is much more recent, coming from a Tweet in 2021, 16 year later, seen here:

This, at no point, claimed it was a stolen term either. But sysmeds ran with it anyway, using this post as the basis for a massive libel against a marginalized community.

Later, the system who originally posted the Tweet that started the libel deleted it, disgusted that sysmeds took their words as a RAMCOA survivor and used those words to spread hate.

And they made it clear that this wasn't ever a RAMCOA term, saying this:

But the system hopping libel is something that still persists in syscourse today, despite being completely debunked.

MAGA's Pet-Eating Blood Libel

During the recent presidential debate, Donald Trump claimed that Haitian immigrants were stealing and eating people's cats and dogs.

If you haven't been keeping up on American politics, you might assume that this wasn't real or is just a meme. Trust me, I wish that it was.

This entire rumor started because a woman in Springfield Ohio made a Facebook post alleging that an immigrant had eaten a neighbor's cat. This rumor though was completely unsubstantiated, and the woman who made it... she's now deleted the post, regretting that it's been used by bigots to fuel their hate.

It's remarkable to me to watch the same exact scenario I saw with system hopping play out in politics.

One person makes a social media post. Bigots jump on that post to use it as an excuse to spread hate. The person who made the post regrets and deletes the post, making it clear they don't support the bigotry that stemmed from it. But it's too late because the bigotry machine is already in full swing and bigots don't care about facts or reality.

They are more than happy to spread malicious lies to slander an entire marginalized community. Even once the person whose words they used to start those lies have publicly denounced and turned against them, and deleted the posts that started it.

Stand Against Bigotry

While bigotry comes in a variety of different favors, it's important to recognize the commonalities between it. All bigotry is rooted in the same sort of fear and hate of the Other. The more you listen to racists and xenophobes and TERFs and transmeds and homophobes and sysmeds, the more you realize how much all of these groups think alike.

No, sysmeds might not be xenophobic. But they do think like someone who is xenophobic.

They see the world through the same sort of lens. And we need to stand against hate of marginalized people in whatever forms it takes.

With that in mind, I don't think I should need to say this, but get out and vote. Vote for the candidates who will stand against bigotry and hate. Vote against Trump for President. But also vote against MAGA supporters on down ballot races.

A plural future is a future where hate cannot be allowed a foothold, anywhere.

#Plurals for Harris

[stormsthatrage]

Hey folks. Real talk time. I've been seeing some discourse on the USAmerican side of tumblr that genuinely scares me, so I felt the need to put together a few reminders to hopefully spread around Tumblr. If you have the spoons, please create your own posts about these things so we can make sure as many people as possible are informed.

Tumblr staff did not just decide for themselves that certain accounts might be Russian trolls. US law enforcement agencies conducted a federal investigation, and found that Russian trolls were conducting Psy-Ops operations across multiple social media sites. The Russian trolls had the express goal of influencing the outcome of the 2016 election. If an account was banned for being a Russian troll, it was due to this federal investigation. It was not a false accusation from a tumblr staff member that didn't like what a liberal activist was saying.

It is highly likely that Russia has not stopped using this tactic.

Many of these trolls twisted the truth to split the Democratic party. I can't find it anymore, but there's an old post where you can literally see this in action. In the post, a Russian troll -- who had been pretending for a long time to be a liberal activist on tumblr, and was thus trusted by the community -- misquoted Hillary Clinton to make it seem like she was against free college and student debt forgiveness. The Russian agent quoted something Clinton said in a debate with Bernie Sanders: "I disagree with free college." Not included by the Russian agent was the vital context, in which Clinton argued for free and debt-free community college and public universities. This is the full quote the Russian agent didn't use, which was made in reference to private schools only: "I disagree with free college... I don't think the American people should pay for Donald Trump's kids to go to college."

The Republican party often struggles to win the popular vote in presidential elections. It is in the Republican party's best interest to split the Democratic vote.

In order to win the presidential election, MAGA needs to get liberals to vote for third-party candidates or to not vote at all. Please do not let them trick you into serving their agenda.

A third-party candidate has not won the presidential election since the 1800s.

If you do not have the spoons to read news articles or watch multiple news channels, it is vital to be aware that you are especially vulnerable to propaganda on social media. You do not get the full story from tumblr posts. You do not get nuance on current events from tumblr posts. You may be being straight-up lied to on tumblr posts. Remember to take things with a grain of salt. Remember that a lot of propaganda relies on inducing outrage and strong emotional reactions.

If you are upset about the Gaza-Israel situation, and it is going to affect your vote, you must read news articles -- not tumblr posts -- about what Biden has done, what Biden has failed to do, and what Biden's opponents' plans and stances are. This is an area where the propaganda is going to be strongest, and if you want to do right by the citizens of Palestine and Israel, you have to research what's happening. Do not act based off of information from social media, because so much of it will be biased if not downright false. If you don't have the spoons to read or watch the news on these things, I urge you not to vote based off of just this issue, because it would be so easy to vote against your own morals if your only info is from tumblr. And if you think the situation is important enough to determine your vote -- well, then it's clearly important enough to research properly.

Again: In order to win the presidential election, MAGA needs to get liberals to vote for third-party candidates or to not vote at all. Please do not let them trick you into serving their agenda.

Anyway, please reblog or create your own posts on these topics. Let's work together and aim for herd immunity against propaganda.

[meganelixabethh]

In light of Biden stepping down and Kamala Harris potentially being the presidential candidate, I have seen Americans begin to have the debate online about why they should vote for Kamala when they don’t agree with her actions. As an English person I want to talk to you about this because we’ve just done this like a month ago.

Let me briefly introduce you to the British voting system- each country is split into sections that- at one time- had roughly equal populations and each one is called a constituency. Each constituency has an elected leader called a Member of Parliament (we call them MPs so I will be using that term moving forwards) and each of them has a seat in parliament and is able to cast the vote for their constituency on behalf of the people who voted them in. Most MPs are affiliated with either the Conservative Party (colloquially referred to as the ‘tories’ and most similar to the Republican Party) or the Labour Party (no nickname, like the Democrats). There are other parties such as The Liberal Democrats, The Green Party, Reform UK, The DUP, UKIP, BNP and there are even a few MPs who are independent and therefore not affiliated with any party. The general idea is that all the MPs who are in the same party will vote the same way, so if you have over half of the seats in parliament affiliated with your party, you are prime minister and you can usually expect your party to vote the things in that you endorse. This is a TLDR of the British system so it’s way more complicated than this but all this to say, if a party gets 326 seats they have the power.

In 2010 the Tories gained a majority over the Labour Party for the first time in 13 years, and immediately began stripping money out of public services and funnelling this to Tory donors (again I just want to take a moment to say all this is very complicated and I’m glossing over a lot so missing a lot of nuance) so essentially we were paying tax and that money was just not going towards sustaining our national infrastructure. In 2016 Brexit happened and this worsened the problem. In 2019 there was a concerted effort from the left to get the tories out, and while the tories needed to be propped up by The DUP, they maintained their majority. Enter COVID. Our already crumbling public services were put under a level of pressure they simply could not sustain. People were going bankrupt trying to heat their homes during winter, food prices spiralled, schools crumbled both physically and metaphorically. You can’t get a GP appointment to save your life. People are dying in corridors at A&E after waiting 9 hours to be seen. You can’t buy a house nor can you rent one and homelessness soared. The future is bleak here. Children are starving. But it’s fine- life goes on- you come to understand how the people you read about in history books carried on like they did. You come to grow used to living in unprecedented times as everyone else in the world seems to be. You complain to your colleagues about how long it will take to get through to the doctors to try and get a repeat prescription, you turn the heating off in another room and eventually just take to getting in bed as soon as you get home in winter. You know someone who has a wood burning stove so you consider how often is too often to invite yourself over. As you sew up the rip in the seam of your jeans again, you wonder if the world was actually better before 2010 or if everything just seemed better because you were a kid. You know whatever the answer to that question is, you never struggled to get a doctors appointment back then.

Our elections don’t function quite like yours- they don’t happen at a set time. The ruling party have to dissolve parliament to call an election, and they have to do it within 5 years of their last win. The normal convention is 4 years, but 5 is what’s actually in the law. We knew the tories would try to cling on to power as long as they could- so we knew it would be 2024 before we got an election. We had a local election when we would usually have a general election, but finally, FINALLY, on a rainy day, the prime minister told an angry people that we would have an election in six short weeks and we immediately had exactly the same argument you’re currently having. The left argued back and forth about whether tactical voting is moral and if moral voting was actually enough to dig us out of the nightmare. We considered the party leaders actions, we agreed that we didn’t like them, that he was basically in the centre, that he supported the genocide in Palestine and that he didn’t do enough to protect trans people, that he wasn’t what we WANTED. And then we looked at the burned out husk of our lives and we voted for him anyway. He is now Prime Minister and Labour have a very significant majority.

He’s scrapped the Rwanda Scheme (very expensive scheme to ship asylum seekers who reach Britain to Rwanda for some reason?), he’s lifted an onshore wind ban that’s prevented the country expanding its green energy infrastructure for the last decade to try and reduce energy prices, he’s made more progress with striking doctors in about 3 days than the tories did in years, announced plans to nationalise major infrastructure back from private industry, held water companies to account for dumping raw sewage in our waters and ordered an immediate assessment of public funds to try and stop so much public money pouring out of infrastructure after 14 years of Tory restructuring (to make themselves richer if you remember from above). He’s only been in about a month. I was 13 when the tories took power, and for the first time almost since I can remember, there’s a very small stirring of… hope I think? The nightmare might be over soon.

He’s not perfect and neither are Labour, but if I have a choice between being shot in the face and drinking cyanide, I’d drink the cyanide because I might live to drink another glass of water that’s got less cyanide in it. There is no best, there is only better; and if we keep voting for better we might end up at the best we wanted in the beginning. Sometimes, you just have to vote for better and hope. She might not be what you want, but she’s probably not going to set the world on fire and play the fiddle while it burns, and that might have to do for now unfortunately.

[cbartonscoffee]

I was watching a tiktok edit of the presidential debate when I suddenly remembered. Alien is a term that you can use to refer to foreign people. The thing about transgenders makes so much more sense now (still doesn't), because I was really confused about how aliens and prisons and trans connected and why no one was dragging trump for believing in aliens.

[introverting-rn]

IN TODAY’S PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE

Number of sentences in which Trump referred to Kamala Harris as “she”, “her” etc:

IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII I

(101)

Number of sentences in which Trump referred to Kamala Harris by any form of her name or title:

(0)

This isn’t including the many, many sentences in which he used “they” to refer to Harris and Biden. This isn’t including the seven times, six of which were in a thirty second segment of the closing statements, in which he spoke to her in second person. I used the subtitles when unsure of whether a sentence had ended. I’m pretty sure I missed a few, feel free to check again.

I didn’t count what Harris said, but I don’t think there were any segments of the debate in which she didn’t say either “Donald Trump” or “former President” at least once.

I don’t think I need to say anything else.

[ivan-fyodorovich-k]

In the summer of 2015, back when he was still talking to traitorous reporters like me, I spent extended stretches with Donald Trump. He was in the early phase of his first campaign for president, though he had quickly made himself the inescapable figure of that race—as he would in pretty much every Republican contest since. We would hop around his various clubs, buildings, holding rooms, limos, planes, golf carts, and mob scenes, Trump disgorging his usual bluster, slander, flattery, and obvious lies. The diatribes were exhausting and disjointed. But I was struck by one theme that Trump kept pounding on over and over: that he was used to dealing with “brutal, vicious killers”—by which he meant his fellow ruthless operators in showbiz, real estate, casinos, and other big-boy industries. In contrast, he told me, politicians are saps and weaklings. “I will roll over them,” he boasted, referring to the flaccid field of Republican challengers he was about to debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library that September. They were “puppets,” “not strong people.” He welcomed their contempt, he told me, because that would make his turning them into supplicants all the more humiliating. “They might speak badly about me now, but they won’t later,” Trump said. They like to say they are “public servants,” he added, his voice dripping with derision at the word servant. But they would eventually submit to him and fear him. They would “evolve,” as they say in politics. “It will be very easy; I can make them evolve,” Trump told me. “They will evolve.” Like most people who’d been around politics for a while, I was dubious. And wrong. They evolved. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Trump told me the following spring, as he was completing his romp to the 2016 nomination. We were talking on the phone, and Trump had just wrapped up a rally in Anaheim, California. Former Texas Governor Rick Perry had recently endorsed him, despite dismissing Trump earlier as a “cancer on conservatism” and “a barking carnival act.” “He made a statement saying something like I’m ‘the smartest guy ever to run for office,’ ” Trump told me (Perry didn’t say exactly that, but close). “How do you get from ‘cancer on the party’ to that? I get it, I get it; it’s how politicians are. But I couldn’t do that.” Trump accepted Perry’s support, and then promptly taunted him. “He was going [around] saying the worst things about me!” Trump said at the Anaheim rally. “I have never seen people able to pivot like politicians.” “It’s happening with all of them,” Trump said. “Lindsey Graham just called and was very nice … even though he used to say the worst things.” (Graham had called Trump, among other not-nice things, “a race-baiting, xenophobic religious bigot” and “a kook.”) Soon enough, the last holdouts would come around too. “It’s just so easy, how they do that,” Trump said. As went individual Republican politicians, so went the party. Reince Priebus, the chair of the Republican National Committee in 2016, would become frustrated with Trump over his obvious scorn for his organization. Still, Priebus would gamely try to assure me that the GOP was shaped not by one man but rather by a set of traditions, principles, and conservative ideals. “The party defines the party,” Priebus kept telling me. After Trump won the nomination in 2016, “The party defines the party” became a familiar feckless refrain among the GOP’s putative leaders. House Speaker Paul Ryan vowed to me that he would “protect conservatism from being disfigured.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told the radio host Hugh Hewitt that “Trump is not going to change the institution,” referring to the GOP. “He’s not going to change the basic philosophy of the party.” In retrospect, this was hilarious.

[mariacallous]

Over the past decade, China has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in its international media network. The Xinhua News Agency, China Global Television Network, China Radio International, and the China Daily web portal produce material in multiple languages and use multiple social-media accounts to amplify it. This huge investment produces plenty of positive coverage of China and benign depictions of the authoritarian world more broadly. Nevertheless, Beijing is also aware that news marked “made in China” doesn’t have anything like the influence that local people, using local media, would have if they were uttering the same messages.

That, in the regime’s thinking, is the ultimate form of propaganda: Get the natives to say it for you. Train them, persuade them, pay them—it doesn’t matter; whatever their motives, they’ll be more convincing. Chinese leaders call this tactic “borrowing boats to reach the sea.”

When a handful of employees at RT, the Russian state television network formerly known as Russia Today, allegedly offered to provide lucrative payments to the talking heads of Tenet Media, a Tennessee-based far-right influencer team, borrowing boats to reach the sea was exactly what they had in mind. According to a federal indictment released last week, RT employees spent nearly $10 million over the course of a year—money “laundered through a network of foreign shell entities,” including companies in Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the Czech Republic, and Hungary—with the aim of supporting Tenet Media’s work and shaping the messages in its videos.

The indictment makes clear that the influencers—propagandists, in fact—must have had a pretty good idea where the money was coming from. They were told that their benefactor was “Eduard Grigoriann,” a vaguely Euro-Armenian “investor.” They tried to Google him and found nothing; they asked for information and were shown a résumé that included a photograph of a man gazing through the window of a private jet. Sometimes, the messages from Grigoriann’s team were time-stamped in a way that indicated they were written in Moscow. Sometimes the alleged employees of Grigoriann’s alleged company misspelled Grigoriann’s name. Unsurprisingly, in their private conversations, the Tenet Media team occasionally referred to its mysterious backers as “the Russians.”

But the real question is not whether the talking heads of Tenet Media—the founders, Lauren Chen and Liam Donovan, who were the main interlocutors with the Russians, but also Tim Pool, Lauren Southern, Dave Rubin, and Benny Johnson—had guessed the true identity of their “investor.” Nor does it matter whether they knew who was really paying them to make videos that backed up absurd pro-Moscow narratives (that a terrorist attack at a Moscow shopping mall, loudly claimed by the Islamic State, was really carried out by Ukrainians, for example). More important is whether the audience knew, and I think we can safely say that it did not. And now that Tenet Media fans do know who funds their favorite influencers, it’s entirely possible that they won’t care.

This is because the messages formed part of a larger stream of authoritarian ideas that are now ubiquitous on the far right, and that make coherent sense as a package. They denounce U.S. institutions as broken, irreparable: If Donald Trump doesn’t win, it’s because the election is rigged. They imply American society is degenerate: White people are discriminated against in America. They suggest immigrants are part of a coordinated invasion, designed to destroy what remains of the culture: Illegal immigrants are eating household pets, a trope featured during this week’s presidential debate. For the Russians, the amplification of this narrative matters more than specific arguments about Ukraine. As the indictment delicately explains, many of the Russian-sponsored videos produced by Tenet Media were more relevant to American politics than to the Ukraine war: “While the views expressed in the videos are not uniform, the subject matter and content of the videos are often consistent with the Government of Russia’s interest in amplifying U.S. domestic divisions.”

But these themes are also consistent with the Trump campaign’s interest in amplifying U.S. domestic divisions. People who have come to distrust the basic institutions of American democracy, who feel aggrieved and rejected, who believe that immigrants are invaders who have been deliberately sent to replace them—these are not people who will necessarily be bothered that their favorite YouTubers, according to prosecutors, were being sponsored by a violent, lawless foreign dictator who repeatedly threatens the U.S. and its allies with nuclear armageddon. On the contrary, many of them now despise their own country so much that they might be pleased to hear there are foreigners who, like the ex-president, want to burn it all down. If you truly hate modern America—its diversity, its immense energy, its raucous debate—then you won’t mind hearing it denounced by other people who hate it and wish it ill. On X earlier this year, Chen referred to the U.S. as a “tyranny,” for example, a phrase that could easily have been produced by one of the Russian propagandists who regularly decry the U.S. on the evening news.

These pundits and their audience are not manipulated by Russian, Chinese, and other autocrats who sometimes fill their social-media feeds. The relationship goes the other way around; Russian, Chinese, and other influence operations are designed to spread the views of Americans who actively and enthusiastically support the autocratic narrative. You may have laughed at Trump’s rant on Tuesday night: “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. And it’s a shame.” But that language is meant to reach an audience already primed to believe that Kamala Harris, as Trump himself said, is “destroying this country. And if she becomes president, this country doesn’t have a chance of success. Not only success. We’ll end up being Venezuela on steroids.”

Plenty of other people are trying to reach that audience too. Indeed, the Grigoriann scheme was not the only one revealed in the past few days. In a separate case that has received less attention, the FBI last week filed an affidavit in a Pennsylvania courthouse supporting the seizure of 32 internet domains. The document describes another team of Russian operatives who have engaged in typosquatting—setting up fake news websites whose URLs resemble real ones. The affidavit mentions, for example, washingtonpost.pm, washingtonpost.ltd, fox-news.in, fox-news.top, and forward.pw, but we know there are others. This same propaganda group, known to European investigators as Doppelganger, has also set up similar sites in multiple European languages. Typosquatters do not necessarily seek to drive people to the fake sites. Instead, the fake URLs they provide make posts on Facebook, X, and other social media appear credible. When someone is quickly scrolling, they might not check whether a sensational headline purporting to be from The Washington Post is in fact linked to washingtonpost.pm, the fake site, as opposed to washingtonpost.com, the real one.

But this deception, too, would not work without people who are prepared to believe it. Just as the Grigoriann scam assumed the existence of pundits and viewers who don’t really care who is paying for the videos that make them angry, typosquatting—like all information laundering—assumes the existence of a credulous audience that is already willing to accept outrageous headlines and not ask too many questions. Again, although Russian teams seek to cultivate, influence, and amplify this audience—especially in Pennsylvania, apparently, because in Moscow, they know which swing states matter too—the Russians didn’t create it. Rather, it was created by Trump and the pundits who support him, and merely amplified by foreigners who want our democracy to fail.

These influencers and audiences are cynical, even nihilistic. They have deep distrust in American institutions, especially those connected to elections. We talk a lot about how authoritarianism might arrive in America someday, but in this sense, it’s already here: The United States has a very large population of people who look for, absorb, and believe anti-American messages wherever they are found, whether on the real Fox News or the fake fox-news.in. Trump was speaking directly to them on Tuesday. What happens next is up to other Americans, the ones who don’t believe that their country is cratering into chaos and don’t want a leader who will burn it all down. In the meantime, there are plenty of boats available to borrow for Russians who want to reach the sea.