#the reason it's ohio is because this was for a president from there

[oveliagirlhaditright]

This whole train derailment thing in East Palestine, Ohio is so horrific.

And those toxic chemicals got into the Ohio River!

And I heard people saying that there was danger that it could possibly get into another body of water?

Apparently, this is going to affect 10% of the country's water supply, as things are? (According to one comment I saw, anyway.)

The place really has become the next Chernobyl, and everything has been handled so badly! (I feel if this had happened in a bigger state, that wouldn't have happened. And I strongly feel they should have evacuated everyone on day one.)

And no one's talking about it! In fact, at first they were covering it up and tried to arrest at least one reporter on the job of reporting the truth (finally more people are starting to discuss all of this, but still not as many as you would think. Especially with the massive ramifications this could have for so many!)

And why hasn't the president or any of the big wigs talked about this or done anything about it? Why didn't people in hazmat suits knock on the people in East Palestine's doors to tell them to evacuate when they finally did give them that order, instead of acting so blasé? You know if it was a place that people actually cared about, people would do so much more. I'm disgusted with my country.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Many of Harris’s mistakes were similar to those Hillary Clinton made in 2016. Like Clinton, Harris cozied up to billionaire donors. Mark Cuban, for instance, said he was delighted that Harris was abandoning Democrats’ commitments to progressive principles and letting the business community propose the policies it wanted. Like Clinton, Harris and Tim Walz made hubristic campaign stops in solidly red states like Texas and Kentucky rather than spending the final days laser-focused on crucial battlegrounds. Like Clinton, Harris emphasized celebrity endorsements while failing to successfully court unions. (Most notably, the Teamsters declined to endorse her after she refused to pledge that she wouldn’t break a national railway strike.) Like Clinton, Harris focused too much on the danger of Donald Trump (which is very real) and not enough on the reasons why she would be good at being president herself. Most importantly, like Clinton, Harris ultimately decided upon a strategy of trying to woo moderate Republican voters away from Trump, reasoning that it didn’t matter if doing so alienated progressive voters and the Democratic base. Chuck Schumer, speaking of Hillary’s 2016 strategy, infamously promised: "For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia. And you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin." In fact, they just lost the blue-collar Democrats and didn’t pick up the Republicans! In 2024, Harris, too, aggressively touted endorsements from Republicans, promised to put a Republican in her cabinet (she even cited that as the answer to what she would have done differently from Biden!), and went so far as to praise and embrace Dick and Liz Cheney! The strategy was an abject failure. Because she wanted to appease both Republicans and progressive voters, Harris had to further indulge her weakness for speaking in meaningless word salads, since taking stances that were meaningful could have alienated one of these constituencies. Trump, who is canny about portraying himself as more anti-war than Democrats, correctly pointed out that an endorsement from the hawkish Cheneys should be a badge of shame, not honor. (Specifically he said Cheney is “"the King of Endless, Nonsensical Wars, wasting Lives and Trillions of Dollars, just like Comrade Kamala Harris. I am the Peace President, and only I will stop World War III!")

[...]

The lesson to Democratic leaders in 2016 should have been that Bernie Sanders had been right, that the party had betrayed working-class voters and would be doomed if it could not effectively counter Trump’s pseudo-populist appeal with a visionary alternative. (See the excellent analysis in Thomas Frank’s Listen, Liberal.) Unfortunately, the lessons weren’t learned then, and it doesn’t seem like they’re going to be learned now, either! MSNBC anchor Joy Reid is already insisting that Kamala Harris’s campaign was “flawless” (because she got “every prominent celebrity voice”), and pundits like Jill Filipovic are saying things like, “this election was not an indictment of Kamala Harris. It was an indictment of America.” (Good luck ever winning with the slogan “You’re the problem, America!”) USAToday’s Michael Stern says that instead of talking about “where the Harris campaign went wrong” we should talk about “where the American people went wrong.” The Harris campaign itself is blaming unspecified “obstacles that were largely out of our control.” 

6 November 2024

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Anne Applebaum :: @anneapplebaum

This was the moment that mattered. Trump's political movement relies on total impunity for liars, and mostly gets it. The lies bind them together, cement their feeling of power.

* * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

October 1, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Oct 02, 2024

More than 45,000 U.S. dock workers went on strike today for the first time since 1977, nearly 50 years ago. The International Longshoremen's Association union, which represents 45,000 port workers, is negotiating with the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) employer group over a new contract. The strike will shut down 36 ports from Maine to Texas, affecting about half the country’s shipping. Analysts from J.P. Morgan estimate that the strike could cost the U.S. economy about $5 billion a day. The strikers have said they will continue to unload military cargo.

Dockworkers want a 77% increase in pay over six years and better benefits, while USMX has said it has offered to increase wages by nearly 50%, triple employer contributions to retirement plans, and improve health care options. In the Washington Post, economics columnist Heather Long pointed out that the big issue at stake is the automation that threatens union jobs.

Although the strike threatens to slow the economy depending on how long it lasts, President Joe Biden has refused requests to force the strikers back to work, reiterating his support for collective bargaining. He noted that ocean carriers have made record profits since the pandemic—sometimes in excess of 800% over prepandemic levels—and that executive compensation and shareholder profits have reflected those profits. “It’s only fair that workers, who put themselves at risk during the pandemic to keep ports open, see a meaningful increase in their wages as well,” Biden said in a statement.  

In the presidential contest, the Trump-Vance campaign is trying to preserve its false narrative. In Wisconsin today, Trump accused Vice President Harris of murder—although he appeared to get confused about the victim—and claimed that she has a phone app on which the heads of cartels can get information about where to drop undocumented immigrants. He also said that Kim Jong Un of North Korea is trying to kill him.

When asked if he should have been tougher on Iran after it launched ballistic missiles in 2020 on U.S. forces in Iraq, leaving more than 100 U.S. soldiers injured, Trump rejected the idea that soldiers with traumatic brain injuries were actually hurt. He said “they had a headache” and said he thought the attack “was a very nice thing because they didn’t want us to retaliate.”

Trump also backed out of a scheduled interview with 60 Minutes that correspondent Scott Pelley was slated to conduct on Thursday. 60 Minutes noted that for more than 50 years, the show has invited both campaigns to appear on the broadcast before the election and this year, both campaigns agreed to an interview. Trump’s spokesperson complained that 60 Minutes “insisted on doing live fact checking, which is unprecedented.” Vice President Kamala Harris will participate in her interview as planned. 

The campaign’s resistance to independent fact checking of their false narrative came up in tonight’s vice presidential debate on CBS between Minnesota governor Tim Walz, Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’s running mate, and Ohio senator J.D. Vance, running mate for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. CBS Evening News anchor Norah O'Donnell and Face the Nation moderator and chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Brennan moderated the debate.

Walz’s goal in the debate was to do no harm to Vice President Harris’s campaign, and he achieved that. Vance’s goal was harder: to give people a reason to vote for Donald Trump. It is doubtful he moved any needles there. 

The moments that did stand out in the debate put a spotlight on Vance’s tenuous relationship with the truth. When Vance lied again about the migrants in Springfield, Ohio, who are in the United States legally, Brennan added: "Just to clarify for our viewers, Springfield, Ohio, does have a large number of Haitian migrants who have legal status."

Vance responded: "The rules were that you guys weren't going to fact-check.”

There were two other big moments of the evening, both based in lies. First, Vance claimed that Trump, who tried repeatedly to repeal or weaken the Affordable Care Act, “saved” it. Then, Walz asked Vance directly if Trump lost the 2020 presidential election. Vance refused to answer, saying he is “focused on the future,” and warned that “the threat of censorship” is the real problem in the U.S. 

Walz said: “That’s a damning non-answer.” 

Former chair of the Republican Party Michael Steele said after the debate: “I don't care where you are on policy…. If you cannot in 2024 answer that question, you are unfit for office.”

It was significant that Vance tried to avoid saying either that Trump won in 2020—a litmus test for MAGA Republicans—or that he lost, a reflection of reality. While this debate probably didn’t move a lot of voters for the 2024 election, what it did do was make Vance look like a far more viable candidate than his running mate. Waffling on the Big Lie seemed designed to preserve his candidacy for future elections.

It seems likely that the message behind Vance’s smooth performance wasn’t lost on Trump. As the debate was going on, Trump posted: “The GREAT Pete Rose just died. He was one of the most magnificent baseball players ever to play the game. He paid the price! Major League Baseball should have allowed him into the Hall of Fame many years ago. Do it now, before his funeral!” 

Former Cincinnati Reds baseball player Rose died yesterday at 83. 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Zack Beauchamp at Vox:

By any reasonable metric, Vice President Kamala Harris soundly beat former President Donald Trump in Tuesday night’s presidential debate. She did it by demonstrating superior knowledge not only of policy, but also of her opponent’s psychology. Harris figured out exactly how to get Trump angry, how to trick him into veering off course, and how to keep the debate on favorable terrain. To put it more bluntly: Harris manipulated Trump into spiraling at several points during their first (only?) debate. Let me give you an example. Early on in the debate, the moderators tried to press Harris on President Joe Biden’s unpopular immigration record, asking her if she would have done anything differently from her current boss — a topic favorable for Trump. Harris answered the question — but then took a seemingly unrelated shot at Trump’s rallies.

“I’m going to invite you to attend one of Donald Trump’s rallies because it’s a really interesting thing to watch. You will see during the course of his rallies he talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter. He will talk about [how] windmills cause cancer. And what you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom,” the vice president said. This gave Trump a choice; either prosecute Harris on immigration, an issue where she’s weak, or go on a rant in defense of his vaunted rallies. You can guess what he chose. “Let me respond as to the rallies,” Trump said. “She said people start leaving. People don’t go to her rallies. There’s no reason to go. And the people that do go, she’s busing them in and paying them to be there.” That began a tailspin: a series of weird tangents, including a humiliating rant about the completely fake problem of Haitian migrants supposedly eating dogs in Springfield, Ohio, punctuated by immense concern about the honor of Trump rallies. He never really got back to what he should have been doing — attacking Harris on migration across the southern border.

By needling Trump where it hurts — the rallies he cares about so much — Harris managed to get him off balance, and he honestly never really recovered. Harris deployed this strategy again and again.

Last night at the debate, Kamala Harris successfully took command of the proceedings like a prosecutor by baiting Donald Trump into being a human trainwreck on the stage with millions of eyes watching.

See Also:

The Advocate: Kamala Harris triumphs in debate as unhinged Trump lies about transgender surgeries & immigrants eating pets

HuffPost: Debate Disaster: Trump’s Seething, Unhinged, Incoherent Onstage Meltdown

[lifewithchronicpain]

I said live/vote because some people are registered to vote in one place but are not living there for various reasons such as being military posted abroad.

I’m from a deep blue/red state, why should I vote?

I live in Massachusetts, my state will undoubtedly go blue for Harris and re-elect Senator Warren. Still, I will happily vote, not only to show my support for Harris and Warren, but also because there is so much more on your ballot and it’s just as important as the presidential election. You should vote because:

1) The House of Representatives is up for reelection every 2 years. While gerrymandering helps the GOP gain a majority, there are still many districts where they could flip blue if more left leaning voters turned out. In order for Harris to implement many of her promises, she needs a Democratic House to pass them.

2) 1/3 if all Senate seats are up for reelection. Once again, Harris needs a Democratic Senate to pass the bills with her plans in them.

3) Every state has local elections where maybe you won’t influence congress or the presidency, but you can still help elect progressive local candidates. In fact, these are some of the most important races. They pass laws that directly affect you, and for things like Secretary of State, they handle all elections. If your state is gerrymandered to hell and back, a progressive Secretary of State would be one way to combat voter suppression by the GOP.

4) Every state has ballot questions that directly impact your lives. Right now, 10 states have abortion questions on the ballot: (AZ, NV, CO, MD, NY, FL, MO, MT, NE, & SD) Ohio has a referendum that could end gerrymandering. They are one of the direct ways you can impact life in your state.

5) Last, but not least, even if you’re not in a swing state, every single vote still counts towards a popular vote. While it doesn’t decide the election, Trump is such a self absorbed ass that a huge popular vote against him will hurt just as much as losing the election via the electoral college. Vote to bruise is massive ego.

Vote.org is a wonderful site that can help you register, check that you are registered (been a lot of voter purges lately), see what’s on your ballot and more. Remember, if your vote didn’t matter, then the GOP wouldn’t be trying so hard to stop you from voting!

[mightyflamethrower]

Former president Barack Obama, the man who salvaged Joe Biden from the ash heap of political history (an unfortunate move which in turn sadly revived Kamala Harris’ DOA career), continued with his unifying ways Thursday by shaming black men who don't think that Harris is a great choice for commander-in-chief.

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urn:uuid:157f4cf5-30fb-404a-82c5-1dda2565dea0

It reminded me of Joe’s infamous line, if you don’t vote for me, then “you ain’t black.” Obama:

And you're coming up with all kinds of reasons and excuses, I've got a problem with that. Because part of it makes me think -- and I'm speaking to men directly -- part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren't feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you're coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that… That's not acceptable. 

He sounds like a mob boss.

Just disgusting, divisive rhetoric from the man who said in his first acceptance speech, “We have never been a collection of red states and blue states; we are, and always will be, the United States of America.”

Unless you disagree with him, of course.

Do it my way or hit the highway: 

Turns Out Those Obama Remarks Got Worse—He Even Insults Black Men Who Are on the Fence About Kamala Scott Jennings Cooks Obama for Chastising Men Over Harris, Reveals Big Issue for Democrats

I’ve always hated the left’s use of the word “community.” The “black community,” the “LGBTQ community.” As if, just because people have one thing in common, they all have the same viewpoints on everything. Is there a “white community?” A “heterosexual community?”

Sure enough, it turns out that plenty of blacks were capable of their own thoughts and found the former president’s remarks to be belittling and deeply obnoxious. Former football great and one-time Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker was less than impressed, calling it a step backward:

We need unity brother, not division!

Well said.

Meanwhile, as a RedState man, I’m obviously not a Bernie Sanders fan, but his former campaign co-chair and former Democratic Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner nevertheless had it right when she asked, "Why are Black men being belittled?"

She absolutely nukes Obama’s race-baiting narrative and stuns the CNN hosts in the process:

"Now, a lot of love for former President Obama, but for him to single out Black men is wrong, and some of the Black men that I have talked to have their reasons why they want to vote a different way, and even if some of us may not like that, we have to respect it," she said. Turner explained further, "So unless President Barack Obama is gonna go out and lecture every other group of men from other identity groups, my message for Democrats is don’t bring it here to Black men who, by and large, don’t vote much differently from Black women."

The reactions from the CNN crew are some of the most priceless I've ever seen. Truth is being spoken to them, and they absolutely cannot handle it.

These are just two examples, but there are plenty more out there of people who were deeply insulted by being told they had to vote a certain way just because of their skin color. (As of this writing, a search on the social media platform X for "Obama" turns up an untold number—but an unquestionably large number —of black people angrily teeing off on "hopey-changey" Barack's comments.)

Obama has been one of the smoothest politicians in the land since his meteoric rise from obscurity in the mid-2000s, but there was always a darker presence lurking underneath his big Hollywood grin.

He showed it loud and clear with this belittling speech, and he lost a lot of his luster in the process. Kamala Harris is 100 percent correct: we need “a new way forward,” but that way should not include race-baiting, the failures of Obama-style progressivism, or the constant attempts by leading Democrats to divide the nation.

[thingsiwishihadknownsooner]

FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: What they have done to our country by allowing these millions and millions of people to come into our country. And look at what's happening to the towns all over the United States. And a lot of towns don't want to talk -- not going to be Aurora or Springfield. A lot of towns don't want to talk about it because they're so embarrassed by it. In Springfield, they're eating the dogs. The people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating -- they're eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what's happening in our country. And it's a shame. As far as rallies are concerned, as far -- the reason they go is they like what I say. They want to bring our country back. They want to make America great again. It's a very simple phrase. Make America great again. She's 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.

DAVID MUIR: I just want to clarify here, you bring up Springfield, Ohio. And ABC News did reach out to the city manager there. He told us there have been no credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community --

FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, I've seen people on television

DAVID MUIR: Let me just say here this ...

FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The people on television say my dog was taken and used for food. So maybe he said that and maybe that's a good thing to say for a city manager.

DAVID MUIR: I'm not taking this from television. I'm taking it from the city manager.

FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: But the people on television say their dog was eaten by the people that went there.

DAVID MUIR: Again, the Springfield city manager says there's no evidence of that.

(Harris Trump Presidential Debate Transcript)

[andthemoonsingswisely]

ok I never thought it would get to this, but I’m gonna say it: I’m not old enough to vote yet, but if I was, I’d vote blue. I’m a centrist at best and some would even consider me to be conservative economically speaking, I think, even though both of them suck, that Harris is a much better candidate. I know some of y’all are skeptical, but let me break it down for you.

The economy: the main reason why so many people think Trump will be better is that the economy was good under Trump and bad under Biden, but studies show that Trump didn’t “make America great again”; rather, he inherited an America that was already great. this study shows that during the last 33 months of the Obama administration, non-farm job growth averaged 224000 per month. During the first 33 months of the Trump administration, it was 34,000 jobs per month less. Moreover, it also shows that during the last two years of the Obama Administration, annual median household income increased by $4800, more than three times the amount under the first two years of Trump. I’m too tired to quote the entire statistic, but if you read the study, you can see that the stock market increased at a greater pace under Obama as well.

Patriotism: Trump has repeatedly made anti-American statements, from his mocking of veterans to his “joke” on 9/11 that now his building was the biggest (a time when the entire country was grieving and shocked). Moreover, Trump has made racist statements against Mexican, Chinese, and Black people; with his father, he has historically discriminated against Black people when renting out buildings. Moreover, I see the claim that he increased funding for historically black colleges get thrown around a lot, but the truth is that the funding actually stayed the same as what Obama gave . The same source also confirms that the record low unemployment for black people under the Trump administration didn’t come because of trump’s policies, and instead only decreased at the same rate at which it had been decreasing before. Lastly, I’d like to talk about Springfield, a town in Ohio which’s economy was weakened due to the decline in manufacturing jobs, but was revived thanks to the Haitian immigrants. With his running mate, JD Vance, Trump spread baseless rumors of Haitian immigrants eating locals’ pets. Trump disrespects all of America, whether it be veterans, minorities, or immigrants, which is why I argue that he’s not the patriot that he claims he is.

Lastly, I’d like to say that I understand why people turned to Trump in 2016 (not talking about the people who voted for him out of bigotry here, I’m talking about people who genuinely thought he was the best for America). Manufacturing and industrial jobs had been lost to other countries, and Trump, with his MAGA campaign, promised to bring back those jobs. I know that Biden, with his incompetency, has made life harder for a lot of you. But you need to ask yourself: does Trump genuinely care about the American people? Because based on the evidence I listed above, I can very confidently assert that no, in fact, he does not. Trump cares about himself, and he’s obsessed with the attention he gets. It’s why Harris was so easily able to goad him during the debate by insulting his rallies: that man is obsessed with gaining an audience, and needs to believe that he is admired and liked. He feeds off of being worshipped. Personally, I say that this is not the type of person I want to represent me or my country. This is not a man I ever would trust to make decisions to benefit everyone.

this was longer than I expected. I’m not claiming I know everything, I’m not even claiming that Harris will be a good president. I could write an entire essay dissecting the flaws in her policy ideas and her candidacy. However, I’d still choose her over the man who ruined America’s history of peaceful transfers of power. I’d still trust her over the man who posts “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT” in all caps like a middle schooler. Then again, maybe that’s just me.

[usafphantom2]

Did you know that a Russian left communist Russia with a MIG 25? He left because he wanted to see the United States when he got here he was shocked at what he found. It wasn’t like what the communist propaganda had told him.

Lt Viktor Belenko with very low fuel landed his Mig-25 at Hakodate Airport in northern Japan, running off the end of the short runway. His defection to the West gave the United States the opportunity to closely examine the Mig-25. The aircraft was completely dismantled and then carefully inspected by aviation scientists and engineers from both Japan and the United States. President Ford granted Belenko asylum in the United States and the pilot underwent five months of questioning and interrogation. The United States Government established a Trust Fund for him and the interest alone afforded Belenko very comfortable living in the U.S. He was a free man, at last, to do as he pleased.

Upon dismantling the Mig-25, the data was analyzed by the Foreign Technology Division of the Air Force at Dayton, Ohio. There were many surprises:

The Mig had been manufactured in February 1976 and thus was one of their latest most sophisticated production aircraft.

Transistor circuitry was not used but instead the Soviets relied on vacuum tubes for most of their electronics. The Soviets reasoned the vacuum tubes were less affected by EMP waves in the case of nuclear attack; were more resistant to temperature extremes and they were easy to replace in remote airfields where transistors may not be readily available if repairs were needed.

Pilot forward vision was highly obstructed.

With huge Tumansky R-15D-300 engines the Mig was considered almost a rocket.

Pilots were forbidden to exceed Mach 2.5.

There was a total of three engine instruments and the airspeed indicator was redlined at 2.8 Mach.

Above Mach 2.8 the engines would overheat and burn up. The Americans had clocked a Mig-25 over Israel at Mach 3.2 in 1973.

The combat radius is 186 miles.

Without using afterburner; staying at optimum altitude and not maneuvering, the Mig can fly in a straight line for 744 miles.

The plane was so heavy at 64,200 pounds, that according to early rumors Soviet designers had to eliminate a pilot ejection system. However this was disproved. Most MiG-25s used the KM-1 ejector seat. The last versions used an early variant of the famous K-36 seat. The speed record for the fastest successful ejection (Mach 2.67) is held by a KM-1 equipped MiG-25.

Maximum altitude of missiles: 88,588 feet.

Maximum G load: With full fuel tanks 2.2 G's is max; with near empty fuel tanks, 5 G's is dangerous. The Mig-25 cannot turn inside a U.S. F-4 Phantom fighter!

Belenko states the Mig-25 cannot intercept the SR-71 for several reasons: The SR-71 fly too high and too fast; the Mig cannot reach it or catch it. The missiles lack the velocity to overtake the SR-71 and in the event of a head on missile fire (The Golden BB), the Guidance system cannot adjust to the high closure rate of the SR-71.

The Mig-25 has a jam proof radar but cannot distinguish targets below 1,640 feet due to ground clutter. The radar was so powerful it could burn through jamming signals by approaching bombers.

The pilot duties were to take off, turn on the auto pilot and await instructions to fire the missiles from ground controllers. The Mig-25 had a superb auto pilot and digital communications from an onboard computer to ground controllers. Credit is given to the Soviets for building a high altitude Interceptor in a short period of time with the materials and engines available to them in 1967 in order to counter the perceived threat of the XB-70.

On November 12, 1976, sixty-seven days after the defection of Belenko and his Mig-25 to the West, the United States and Japan returned the Mig-25 to Russia...in dismantled pieces. I strongly recommend reading his MiG Pilot I bought my copy on Amazon, but they were running low on copies even though the book is 30 years old.

Linda Sheffield

@Habubrats71 via X

[handeaux]

Desperate Boozehounds Eyed Cincinnati’s Cornerstones Thirstily During Prohibition

Have you excavated any cornerstones lately?

As Prohibition slithered through the 1920s, Cincinnati’s landmark buildings faced a serious threat from cornerstone thieves. With the legal sale of alcohol no longer an option and bootlegging growing dicier by the day, a lot of old-timers remembered that it was once customary to plunk a bottle of booze into the cornerstone of a new building.

Cincinnati’s beer taps had hardly been stoppered before the barflies started hunting for easily accessible cornerstones. According to the Cincinnati Post [16 January 1920] they weren’t having much luck.

“Cornerstones in Cincinnati buildings have attracted an interest traceable to Prohibition. Recollection of a reported custom in ‘the good old days’ of putting a quart of good booze in some cornerstones, along with newspapers, coins, stamps and other things, is the reason. But diligent search so far has failed to uncover any clew. There are plenty of cornerstones, but the owners of all the buildings deny there is any liquor in them.”

Perhaps the building owners protested too much. They certainly didn’t want to find a chunk of their façade missing because some lush got curious. Strangely, some of the local experts denied that cornerstone liquor was ever a thing. Judge John Caldwell told the Post:

“A man would have been foolish to put good liquor he could drink himself into a stone for the benefit of somebody he would never see.”

County Clerk Fred Wesselmann argued the same point from the opposite direction.

“Booze was so common 75 or 100 years ago, that probably no one thought of putting it away as a curiosity for future generations.”

Up in Montgomery, Ohio, however, village historian William Swaim claimed that the cornerstone of the landmark Universalist Church (with the brick pillars) contained a quart of liquor. Or maybe, he averred, it was only a pint. Whether Mr. Swaim was correct or not remains a matter of conjecture, because no one has excavated the cornerstone to check. Yet.

The “History of Montgomery, Ohio” edited by Mary Lou Rose for that city’s 1995 bicentennial, recounts the liquor rumor, but suggests the hootch is ensconced in one of the pillars, not the cornerstone.

“These four round brick pillars have a greater circumference at the bottom than at the top, and stories have been told that one pillar holds a bottle of whiskey.”

J. Stacey Hill, president of the Gibson Hotel Company, energetically pooh-poohed the idea that a bottle of anything was hidden in the “century box” incorporated into a lobby pillar in 1913. His denials were supported two years later as workmen demolished the neighboring Johnston Building to make way for a Gibson Hotel expansion. A laborer sank his pick into a hollow stone several feet below the pavement. Inside the stone was a large box made of zinc. The box was hauled up for examination and found to contain an Enquirer from 1875, a May Festival program, a handful of coins and a dossier full of facts about the now-demolished building. But no liquor.

At about the same time, according to the Commercial Tribune [16 June 1922] a demolition team in Covington also came up dry:

“Workmen tearing down the old Parker Building, East Pike street, to prepare a site for the new Covington Theater, are looking for treasure. A quart of whisky. The liquor has been buried in the cornerstone of the old building for nearly forty years. It is said, the liquor was nine years old when placed in the cornerstone. Ben Vastine, contractor, kept a close watch on the workmen to avert the possibility of one of them finding it and converting it to his own use. The liquor had not been found at quitting time.”

With all these dry runs, how did rumors about immured booze get started anyway? It appears that alcoholic cornerstones, although uncommon, were actually a thing. Over in nearby Vernon, Indiana, the local high school yielded a quart of whiskey when it was demolished in 1927. The bottle rested serenely next to an old Bible and the usual miscellany of newspapers and coins. All of the discovered contents were allegedly reinterred in the cornerstone of the new high school erected on the same site.

Up in Hamilton, Ohio, back in 1907, the Globe Opera House produced a bottle of whiskey when the cornerstone was moved during remodeling. That bottle was cradled in a stack of Hamilton and Cincinnati newspapers dating from the 1860s. The wrecking crew drank it.

In other words, the thirsty souls eying the downtown cornerstones weren’t totally off the mark. It’s just a good thing they didn’t expand their research beyond cornerstones. Heaven knows what would have happened if they learned about Samuel Behymer over in Withamsville. His last wishes might have inspired grave robbing. According to the Cincinnati Post [14 October 1978]:

“Samuel Behymer, who had been a part of the Ten Mile Baptist Church, became the first man to be buried in the cemetery. On his death bed, he had requested that he be buried with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a plug of tobacco in the other. ‘You see,’ he explained, ‘I only got two sins. One of them is terbaccy and the other is whiskey so when I go through them pearly gates I want to be honest and have one of them in each hand.’ So they buried him with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a plug of tobacco in the other.”

Although most of the memorialized whiskey dated from the mid-1800s or earlier, as late as 1902, builders were still asking clients whether they wanted to set aside a bottle for posterity. In that year, Garry Herrmann, one of Boss Cox’s lieutenants and President of the Cincinnati Water Works Commission, reviewed plans for the city’s new Western Pumping Station. That building had a perfectly round footprint, so Herrmann decreed that there would be no cornerstone in a building that lacked corners. The Cincinnati Post [3 November 1902] predicted future frustration:

“As a compromise with sentiment, a bronze tablet, like on a burial vault, will grace the building when finished, and in 2082, when it is razed to make room for more skyscrapers, the workmen will look in vain for a cornerstone with a pint bottle of 1902 whisky concealed in it.”

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Christ Britt

* * * *

Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter

September 17, 2024

I am not going to take the bait dangled by JD Vance about the lack of assassination attempts on Kamala Harris. Trump and Vance have leaned into their anti-immigrant and “blame the liberals” for the assassination attempts and have succeeded in diverting the conversation from the fascistic threat posed to America by Project 2025. Every day that Project 2025 is not at the top of the news cycle is a day that the media has failed democracy.

To recap, Trump and Vance plan to do the following using the blueprint of Project 2025 (per Democracy Forward)

·      Impose a national abortion ban.

·      Restrict access to contraception

·      Remove medical privacy protections for people seeking reproductive healthcare

·      Engage in mass deportations of 20 million immigrants

·      Roll back protection for same sex marriage and LGBTQ rights

·      Remove prohibitions on discrimination on the basis of race or sex

·      Allow the president to use the DOJ to target political enemies

·      Cut funding to the FBI

·      Eliminate the Department of Education

·      Eliminate the Department of Homeland Security

·      Disband the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

·      Fire thousands of civil servants whose expertise keeps the wheels of government turning

·      Slash corporate income taxes

·      Eliminate the ability of the federal government to drive down drug costs by negotiating prices of Medicare drugs

·      Restrict access to food assistance by imposing work requirements on disabled and single parents

·      Eliminate Project Head Start

·      Cut funding for green energy and encourage reliance on fossil fuels

·      Expand offshore drilling and drilling on public lands

·      Eliminate funding for public transportation projects

·      Grant parents control over school curricula

The above list does not include Trump's economy-killing a 10% tariff on all imported goods and a 60% tariff on goods imported from China (which provides 16% of all goods imported into the US).

Nor does Project 2025 account for the impact of anti-vaxxer RFK Jr. controlling federal healthcare policy, Aileen Cannon being appointed to the Supreme Court, or Elon Musk overseeing an “efficiency commission” to cut alleged government “waste” (read: programs that help people). Finally, Project 2025 does not account for the compounding effect of the Supreme Court’s grant of prospective criminal immunity to the president.

Many of the issues above—standing alone—should be cause for Americans to rise up and vote en masse to defeat Trump. Taken together, they should drive Americans to the polls to deliver a historic defeat to Trump. And yet, the election remains close.

Part of the reason the election remains close is because Trump and Vance have been able to divert attention from Project 2025 by making evermore outrageous and dangerous statements.

I do not mean to diminish the hateful attacks on immigrants by referring to them as “cat memes.” I use that term because JD Vance over the weekend said that it was the plan of Trump and Vance to “create stories” (“memes”) to focus the media’s attention on immigration—one of the few subjects on which Trump has a polling advantage over Kamala Harris.

Indeed, JD Vance’s deliberate use of “cat memes” to incite anti-immigrant animus is resulting in real-life harassment and intimidation of Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio—including numerous bomb threats that have shut down city hall, primary schools, and a college. NBC News, Baseless rumors about Haitian immigrants threaten to unravel Springfield, Ohio.

Trump and Vance plan to ratchet the racial tension in Springfield by holding a “town hall meeting,”—which will undoubtedly feature hand-picked frustrated white residents and exclude Haitian immigrants who are helping to revive Springfield. See Vanity Fair, Trump Reportedly Has Super-Helpful Plans to Visit Springfield, Ohio, the City He and JD Vance Continue to Spread Baseless Lies About Re: Haitian Migrants Eating Pets.

JD Vance is also pushing the right-wing claim that the two assassination attempts on Trump are the result of allegedly irresponsible Democratic rhetoric about Trump—like saying that he is an existential threat to democracy and a wannabe dictator (his words, not mine).

The hypocrisy is so thick it is viscous. Hours before the assassination attempt, Trump blasted a Truth Social post saying, “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT.” He regularly refers to Kamala Harris and Joe Biden as “enemies” of the state and describes them as “fascist Marxists” and “extreme leftists” who are intent on “destroying our country.”

Neither Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, nor Tim Walz has used such extreme language to describe Trump. Rather, it is Trump and Vance who are using the violent rhetoric that is resonating with sick and impressionable males with access to weapons of war. See Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo, Yes. Trump Started The Fire. And Everyone Knows It.

Per Marshall,

Republicans are now predictably demanding that Democrats in essence stop campaigning against Trump because they’re inciting their supporters to try to assassinate Trump. That’s absurd. Neither of these men is in any sense a supporter of Democrats or even of more marginal groups that could in any sense be identified with “the left.” But on a broader level, Donald Trump is simply himself a source of unrest and conflagration. [¶¶] He’s a vortex of violence. His rhetoric is violent. He has friendly paramilitaries like the Proud Boys that he encourages to come to his aid. He was the one who incited a violent mob to storm the U.S. Capitol. He’s provoked numerous supporters to acts of mass violence, from Pittsburgh to El Paso. The mix of bomb threats and marches in Springfield over the last week are only the latest example.

JD Vance took the violent rhetoric to another level on Monday evening by stating

the big difference between conservatives and liberals is that no one has tried to kill Kamala Harris in the last couple of months, and two people now have tried to kill Donald Trump . . . .

JD Vance’s statement is reprehensible on many levels. The two would-be assassins were both mentally ill men who supported Trump and had access to weapons of war. The notion that they were “liberals” is the false; the opposite is true.

Second, JD Vance’s ambiguous statement suggests that Kamala Harris is overdue for an assassination attempt—much like Elon Musk’s statement on Monday that “And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala.” Musk deleted that comment by Tuesday morning, claiming that it was a joke. He wrote,

Turns out that jokes are WAY less funny if people don’t know the context and the delivery is plain text. Well, one lesson I’ve learned is that just because I say something to a group and they laugh doesn’t mean it’s going to be all that hilarious as a post on [Twitter].

On Tuesday, the Secret Service said it was “aware” of Musk’s tweet after the White House issued a statement saying that the tweet was “irresponsible.” BBC, Secret Service 'aware' of Elon Musk post about Harris and Biden.”

The shocking difference between Elon Musk and JD Vance is that Musk has a few shreds of self-awareness and capacity to be shamed such that he removed the tweet while JD Vance will simply double down on his grossly irresponsible comment. Every major media outlet should condemn JD Vance on Tuesday.

Michelle Obama reminded us at the convention that it would get ugly. Wow! Was she ever right!

We need to stick with the issues that will help Democrats persuade the few remaining persuadable voters that they need to vote for Kamala Harris. While we should condemn Trump and Vance with every ounce of our being, we must also speak to voters about the issues that affect them in the coming election. Framing Trump and Vance as the proponents of the dangerous Project 2024 is a strong, winning message.

[emptymanuscript]

Black Men Read "Project 2025" And Share Their Unfiltered Reactions

I feel like this is a really good campaign video. It doesn’t feel like a campaign ad. It feels like a documentary. It feels like it will belong in one if we continue to document history instead of fairy tales.

But for some reason, I feel like this video finally clarified the redundancy problem for me.

I’ve heard people complain that every election they hear that

 “This election is the most important election ever.” 

They’re tired of the same talking point and are starting to feel like it is the boy who cried wolf story playing out in reality. It can’t always be the most important election.

I think what this really clarified for me, and I can’t exactly explain how - other than the guy mentioning it - is that the issue is a matter of history vs the moment. 

Each moment, each THIS election, does not literally carry the same weight and importance, when considered independently of each other. In that sense, those considering the talking point the political equivalent of crying wolf, are correct. Even this year, me voting for Adam Schiff (D) vs Steve Garvey (R) to represent California in the Senate, is simply a less weighty matter than people in Ohio voting between Sherrod Brown (D) and Bernie Moreno (R). Adam Schiff is going to win. The race is not even remotely close or competitive. It’s going to keep things pretty steady state in that regard. It is simply not too big a deal considered independently of other factors. Brown and Moreno are polling closer together than statistical error. The outcome will come down to careful, individual vote counting. It’s going to be days, possibly weeks, after the election before the result is known because it is so close. Brown is an important Democratic Senator. He is chair of the Banking, Housing, and Urban development committee. He campaigns within the senate to move the Democratic Party, as a whole, to the left. He is a constant lightning rod for Republican funds to try and oust him, his strength keeping the full weight of the Right’s purse from devouring less powerful left-leaning candidates. And, the Senate is extremely vulnerable this year - making holding incumbent seats an extreme necessity because the status quo is a tie, making things essentially sit at a standstill favoring the President’s Party (since the current VP is allowed to vote in order to settle a tie). Brown vs Moreno is an IMPORTANT election merely to hold the line, forget improving things.

While I would argue that THIS election is still the most important one in our lifetimes, even considering it as independent of history. Once you consider elections as a product of historical trends, the redundancy problem suddenly stops being about redundancy and becomes a problem of progress. This is the most important election BECAUSE the last election was the most important one and we were only able to advance far enough to advance, not to outpace the opposition. We are running the same election again, policy trend wise. We’re simply tacking back and forth. And if we only advance enough to merely advance again, that’s good, but we’ll be right back to the most important election ever, AGAIN, the next time, BECAUSE we won’t have outpaced the other side’s capabilities to tack back to their direction.

This continually creates the circumstances of most important election ever. Because overall, considered as a historical trend from the election of 1968, Republicans have been winning the overall movement. They manage to tack just a little more to the Right each time than Democrats manage to tack to the Left when it is “their turn.” This has dragged the entire nation Rightward, inch by inch, politically even as the general society of just the average citizens has done the opposite and very slowly drifted Leftward, centimeter by centimeter, since the election of 1960 - which is exactly what lead to the election of 1968 and on. Many of the senior players today are the last remnants of the people who got started in the Nixon administration and especially his re-election campaign of Nixon in 1972. Their political trend - of which Project 2025 and a final Trump term is a fairly naked declaration - was a reaction to 1960 and realizing they were going to lose the public and had to take steps to keep power in the face of ever diminishing societal support. There simply isn’t the right leaning population to support the right’s intended policies. So, they had to figure out how to rule with necessarily only minority support.

Project 2025 is a way to institutionalize many of their worst measures for ensuring that minority support will be sufficient to hold power well into the future. Essentially for the foreseeable future of the nation.

That voting is dumb and a waste of time is a previous plan of theirs that has worked very well.

The next time you run into someone who thinks voting is meaningless and a waste of their time because both sides are nothing but shit stains. Ask them to imagine a magical scenario.

The will get a magic ballot. 

The Ballot has a blank space, Harris, and Trump. That’s it. Nothing else. No cheats. No casting a regular ballot, too, this time around. It’s all they get.

The ballot will only allow them to write in one name in the blank space and to erase one name out of Harris or Trump. That’s it. No abusing the ballot. No writing more names. No erasing both names. All they can do is fill it out as directed and cast it. The Ballot will not work at all if you put the erased name into the blank space to reduce it back to the same choices.

But then, the magic of the ballot WORKS.

Something goes wrong with this election - it’s magic, what, why, and how don’t matter. It simply happens, the magic works. 

There has to be an entire do-over Election in December. A whole new quick emergency election that will be decided by January 10th so a new president from that second election can take office on January 20th.

The second election WILL be 100% fair. No one will be able to cheat. The majority vote will be the electoral vote. Everything will work right. No magic can affect the second election. It’s entirely normal and works.

That second election WILL be between the Person they write in the blank on their magic ballot AND whoever is left after they erase a name. No third choices. Just a weird impossible run off. Don’t question it. It simply happens.

What name do they put in? What name do they erase?

The name they put in is a pipe dream. It doesn’t really mean anything. If they’re smart, they put in themselves. Or their best friend. Or the smartest person they know. The surest way to get power aligned with their belief system. But it really doesn’t matter. They can put God in there. By the rules of magic, yeah, God can be president. Or Aang from Avatar who can consult all his incarnations. Fiction. Someone dead. Washington can rise from the grave and have two more terms but he’ll still step down because he just is like that. Whatever. Sky is the limit. It could happen. It’s a test of imagination more than anything.

The really important name is the one they erase when they’ve got no choice except to pick one.

How many erase Trump, to make sure he has no chance AND they can reduce the likelihood that Harris will be President, too?

How many erase Harris, to make sure she has no chance AND they can reduce the likelihood that Trump will be President, too?

If you manage to ask more than one person, is there agreement on who gets erased?

Is there any similarity of logic to who gets picked to be erased?

I’d bet you what you want that there is a general trend line. That the majority of people who are interested in this magic ballot because they can’t make up their minds about the real one, are generally more liberal socially than the Republicans allow AND don’t trust Democrats to follow through or be up to the job. Oh, they may say they’re to the right, and hate Trump, as a person, politician, or candidate and just want Ronald Regan again... but - again - I’ll bet it’s Trump’s name most of them erase and not Harris’.

Because it’s always been about reducing the number left leaning voters and their influence. The idea that it doesn’t matter who you vote for came out of Right Wing Think Tanks. It does effect people to the Right of center but it’s affecting those who would still, overall, be dragging the party leftward of where it is actually sitting. The idea has ALWAYS been to make the majority less meaningful as a measure than the desired minority.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Amanda Marcotte at Salon:

MILWAUKEE — As recently as 2021, the newly announced Republican candidate for vice president, Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, had harsh words for Americans who divorce, including those who did so to leave abusive marriages. Divorcees, Vance argued, are quitters who ruin their children's lives.  "This is one of the great tricks that I think the sexual revolution pulled on the American populace, which is the idea that like, 'Well, OK, these marriages were fundamentally, you know, they were maybe even violent, but certainly they were unhappy. And so getting rid of them and making it easier for people to shift spouses like they change their underwear, that's going to make people happier in the long term," Vance told the audience at Pacifica Christian High School in Southern California. 

The 39-year-old Vance went on to argue that kids "who grew up in my generation" ended up with "family dysfunction" because couples are no longer "doggedly determined to stick it out." The "Hillbilly Elegy" author held up his grandparents as role models, because they "were together to the end," despite "an incredibly chaotic marriage." But while Vance may sneer at women who prefer safety rather than "’til death do us part," he conveniently has no quarrel with Donald Trump, who has been divorced twice, has children with three women and a lengthy history of chronic adultery. Vance glowed with excitement at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee Monday evening as delegates chanted his name. The freshman senator's months of bowing and scraping had paid off, when the thrice-married Trump, famous for bragging about sexual assault, named Vance his running mate. 

[...] But perhaps that's because it's not really hypocrisy that drives the MAGA movement. It's an attachment to traditional hierarchies that allow such appalling double standards to flourish. Violence from Republicans, such as on January 6, is acceptable because it's enforcing the social order they support. But the attempted murder of Trump is beyond the pale because it's an assault on the only leader they accept as legitimate.  [...] In that light, it's not hard to see what holds Vance's seemingly disparate views together. It's not a faith in marriage, but an allegiance to male domination.

While he was carefully gender-neutral in his 2021 comments, the larger context suggests Vance's grievance is with women. No-fault divorce is the result of years of feminist organizing. Women initiate 70% of divorces. And while there are certainly male victims of domestic abuse, the vast majority of people who need to escape violent marriages are women. Vance can play all the word games he likes, but when he's deriding "people" for not having good enough reasons for ending marriages, there's little doubt it's women he's mostly thinking of. It's usually women who are being chastised in these right-wing laments about divorce. Women have always been the ones expected to suffer adultery, abuse, or just plain unhappiness to hold a marriage together. Divorced men like Trump don't get rebuked, especially by the Christian right, even when it's their adulteries and abuses that caused the divorce. Ultimately, the blame is placed on the wives for not working harder to save the marriage.  This sexist double standard explains why Trump's biggest base of support is divorced men, as pollster Daniel Cox demonstrated last week. 

In his slightly jokey response to this report, Jonathan Last of The Bulwark wrote, "There is a particular type of mental break," which he calls "Divorced Dude Energy," which he feels explains "the way some middle-aged men went cuckoo for Trump." Many, even most divorced men are not like this, he hastens to add. Still, we've all seen these cases where "a seemingly normal guy’s marriage breaks up and suddenly he’s a different person. Angry. Resentful. Superior. Kind of agro."

[...] Divorced Dudes of the sort Last describes will not hear Vance's lament about divorce and feel insulted. They will take it in the spirit intended: As an attack on their ex-wives for leaving them. That's also why Trump likely doesn't care. He knows that when Vance criticizes divorced people, he means divorced women. 

In 2021, Trump VP pick J.D. Vance decried those who divorced, because he believes that abusive marriages are better than a person choosing to flee an abusive partner.

[deadpresidents]

Do you think Biden would have beaten Trump had he run in 2016? I know Biden stepped aside because because of his son, but it also seems likely he stepped aside for Clinton.

Yes, I do think that Biden would have beaten Trump in 2016. I don't know how Biden would have handled a campaign at that time with the death of his son having taken place much more recently, but if he could have emotionally handled the rigors of a full-on Presidential campaign at that time, I think he would have beaten Trump in the general election.

The question to me is whether or not Biden could have won the Democratic nomination in 2016 if he had run against Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Obviously, Biden was younger at the time than he is now and still a much better retail campaigner than Hillary ever was, but I don't know if a Biden campaign in 2016 would have had the same energy as the Sanders campaign that year -- either from the grassroots or from the top-down. It would have been a much different campaign than 2020, as well, because that one took place during the pandemic and Biden was able to run against an historically unpopular incumbent in the midst of botching the worst public health crisis that every voter in America had ever lived through.

The other big question if Biden had run in 2016 is the role of Barack Obama. In 2016, Biden was the incumbent Vice President, finishing his second term of a partnership with President Obama that ended up being one of the closest personal and political relationships that a President and Vice President ever had. But it is no secret that President Obama did not believe that then-Vice President Biden was the best choice to succeed him. Biden's emotional well-being after the death of his son in May 2015 certainly worried Obama, but in books and reporting since that time, it's been apparent that Obama believed that Hillary Clinton made more sense as his successor in 2016 than Biden for a number of reasons. That ultimately resulted in some hurt feelings on the Biden side at the time when Obama seemed to be urging Biden to step aside in 2016 while the Vice President was still considering a potential run. It never impacted Biden's loyalty to the Obama Administration or truly got personal, but it was especially troubling to Biden because he still had not made a final decision about a potential 2016 campaign and one of Beau Biden's dying wishes was that his father would run for President. Obama never directly discouraged Biden from running in 2016; he thought that Biden earned the right to make his own decision about the race, but he was worried about Biden's emotional state in the wake of Beau's recent death, he worried that Biden wasn't the right candidate to defeat Hillary or Bernie for the nomination, and he worried that a potential Biden loss -- either in the primaries or the general election -- would tarnish Biden's overall political legacy and possibly come across as a repudiation of the Obama Administration eight years in the White House.

Of course, Trump's victory over Hillary in 2016 gave Obama's successor the opportunity to immediately start reversing many of Obama's accomplishments and reset the hope and change represented by Obama's successful 2008 campaign. And the irony is that the crucial, traditionally-Democratic blue-collar voters that Hillary Clinton's campaign tended to overlook in 2016 are the same voters that Biden has spent a significant portion of his political career representing and connecting with. So in 2016, Trump won battleground states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Ohio that Obama had won in both 2008 and 2012. Without those states in 2016, Trump wouldn't have defeated Hillary Clinton, and when Biden did run against Trump in 2020, his victories in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania (Trump once again won Ohio and Iowa) were crucial in the Electoral College.

[misfitwashere]

Friends,

With less than 40 days until Election Day, how can it be that Trump has taken a small lead in Arizona and Georgia — two swing states he lost to Biden in 2020? How can he be narrowly leading Harris in the swing state of North Carolina? How can he now be essentially tied with her in the other key swing states of Michigan and Wisconsin? 

More generally, how can Trump have chiseled away Harris’s advantage from early August? How is it possible that more voters appear to view Trump favorably now than they did several months ago when he was in the race against Biden?

How can Trump — the sleaziest person ever to run for president, who has already been convicted on 34 felony charges and impeached twice, whose failures of character and leadership were experienced directly by the American public during his four years at the helm — be running neck-and-neck with a young, talented, intelligent person with a commendable record of public service?

Since his horrid performance debating Harris, he’s doubled down on false claims that Haitian migrants are eating pets in Ohio. He’s been accompanied almost everywhere by right-wing conspiracy nutcase Laura Loomer. He said he “hates” Taylor Swift after she endorsed Harris; that Jewish people will be responsible if he loses the election; that the second attempt on his life was incited by the “Communist Left Rhetoric” of Biden and Harris. And so on.

He’s become so incoherent in public that Republican advisers are begging him to get back “on message.”

So why is he neck-and-neck with Harris?

Before we get to what I think is the reason, let’s dismiss other explanations being offered.

One is that the polls are understating voters’ support for Harris and overstating their support for Trump. But if the polls are systematically biased, you’d think it would be the other way around, since some non-college voters are probably reluctant to admit to professional pollsters their preference for Trump.

Another is that the media is intentionally creating a nail-bitingly close race in order to sell more ads. But this can’t be right because, if anything, more Americans appear to be tuning out politics altogether.

A final theory holds that Harris has not yet put to rest voters’ fears about inflation and the economy. But given that the American economy has rebounded, inflation is way down, interest rates are falling, wages are up, and the job engine continues, you’d think voters at the margin would be moving toward her rather than toward Trump. 

The easiest explanation has to do with asymmetric information. 

By now almost everyone in America knows Trump and has made up their minds about him. Recent polls have found that nearly 90 percent of voters say they do not need to learn more about Trump to decide their vote.

But they don’t yet know Harris or remain undecided about her (more on this in a moment).

Trump is exploiting this asymmetry so that when it comes to choosing between Trump and Harris, voters will choose the devil they know.

This requires, first, that Trump suck all the media oxygen out of the air so Harris has fewer opportunities to define herself positively. 

Americans who have become overwhelmed by the chaos are tuning out politics altogether, especially in swing states where political advertising is nonstop. And as they tune out both Trump and Harris, Trump is the beneficiary, because, again, he’s the devil they know.

In other words, Trump is running neck-and-neck with Harris not despite the mess he’s created over the last few weeks but because of it. 

Trump's strategy also requires that he and his allies simultaneously flood the airwaves and social media with negative ads about Harris, which are then amplified by the right-wing ecosystem of Fox News, Newsmax, and Sinclair radio.

Trump’s campaign has given up trying to promote him positively. The Wesleyan Media Project estimates that the Trump team is now spending almost zero on ads that show him in a positive light. There’s no point, because everyone has already made up their minds about him.

Instead, the ads aired by Trump and his allies in swing states are overwhelmingly negative about Harris — emphasizing, for example, her past support for gender transition surgery for incarcerated people.

Researchers on cognition have long known that negative messages have a bigger impact than positive ones, probably because in evolutionary terms, our brains are hard-wired to respond more to frightening than to positive stimuli (which might explain why social media and even mainstream media are filled with negative stories).

Finally, Trump’s strategy necessitates that he refuse to debate her again, lest she get additional positive exposure (hence he has turned down CNN’s invitation for an October 23 debate, which she has accepted).

Behind the information asymmetry lie racism and misogyny. I can’t help wondering how many Americans who continue saying they “don’t know” or are “undecided” about Harris are concealing something from pollsters and possibly from themselves: They feel uncomfortable voting for a Black woman.

Having said all this, I’m cautiously optimistic about the outcome of the election. Why? Because Trump is deteriorating rapidly; lately he’s barely been able to string sentences together coherently. 

Harris, by contrast, is gaining strength and confidence by the day, and despite Trump’s attempts to shut her out, more Americans are learning about her. As she gets more exposure, Trump’s “devil-you-know” advantage disappears.

Perhaps it’s more accurate to say I’m nauseously optimistic, because, to be candid, I go into the next five weeks feeling a bit sick to my stomach. Even if Harris wins, the fact that so many Americans seem prepared to vote for Trump makes me worry for the future of my country. 

What do you think?