The Only Panic Trump Worried About Creating Was on Wall St.
Trump in 2016: Us Against Them. Trump in 2020: Us Against Us.
It took almost four years but here we are.
Trump used to rally his base with innuendo about shadowy others who threatened America: Mexicans are rapists and members of obscure, violent gangs. A Muslim travel ban would keep out terrorists. Orphaning the children of parents fleeing Central America by locking them away and concealing them from their families would ensure that only Americans would receive benefits from paying taxes.
Where we are now was a gradual and incremental shift but it’s easy enough to look back and see it coming. After all, Trump made his mark on the political scene by questioning Pres. Obama’s legitimacy and refusing to acknowledge that Obama was born in Hawaii, not Kenya.
We know the cascading inflection points ever since. Good people on both sides. Pardoning Sheriff Joe Arpaio before he could be sentenced for what the U.S. Dept. of Justice called “sadistic punishments” of Latino inmates. Trying to shut down the NFL because Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the national anthem in response to police killings of Black people. Calling Elizabeth Warren Pocahontas. Labeling a free press the enemy of the people. Saying the members of “The Squad,” four Democratic congresswomen, should go back to their countries although all but one were born in America. Calling Jews who vote for Democrats “disloyal.” Retweeting white supremacists. The list is endless and neither of us has that much time.
Now, as Poltico’s Michael Kruse, Renuka Rayasam, and Myah Ward note, Trump is no longer talking about us versus them. He’s ginning up the base by making it us against us. […]
A Picture Is Worth …
Outside the White House, just after President Trump concluded his speech accepting the Republican presidential nomination.
Vox: “It’s a moment that encapsulates what amounted to a week of gaslighting on Covid-19 by Trump and the Republican convention — an attempt to make America think that a president who had so clearly failed was in fact a victory for the US.”
The Real Republican Platform Is too Scary to Publish
David Frum has a brilliant piece in the Atlantic that outlines in 13 points the actual platform of the Republican Party and explains why the GOP won’t be rolling it out during its convention. It’s red meat for a minority and too scary and cynical for a majority of Americans.
The points are all discoverable in the behavior of Republican politicians and the titular head of the party — Donald Trump. We’ve seen them implemented over the past 3.5 years on the border, in the environment, on Capitol Hill, in the White House and on the Supreme Court.
Five of the Biggest Falsehoods of the First Night of the Republican Convention
Au contraire, mon frere, they do have a platform. It’s called LYING.
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From Forbes:
On the first night of the GOP Convention on Monday, Republicans warned of dark, dire consequences should Democrats assume power, and sought to portray President Trump’s record as one of unalloyed success in ways that seemed to rewrite history, including claiming that his response to the pandemic was swift and effective.
And what was going on with Don Jr.’s eyes?
27 Prominent Republicans, Including Jeff Flake, Announce They’ll Endorse Joe Biden
From Forbes: More than two dozen former Republican members of Congress officially announced on Monday, mere hours before the start of the Republican National Convention, that they are endorsing Joe Biden, who aims to build a wide-ranging coalition in hopes of defeating President Donald Trump in November.
Fox News and the Drudge Report praised Biden’s ‘barn burner’ DNC speech, despite attacks from Trump
From Business Insider: Joe Biden is winning rave reviews for his speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination on Thursday night — even from usually critical pundits in conservative media.
After Biden’s speech aired on the final night of the Democratic National Convention’s first virtual conference, Fox News anchors, hosts, and analysts delivered their verdict, and it was one likely to rile President Donald Trump.
The “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace described the speech as “enormously effective.”
Why the Controversy Over the Postal Service and the Election Is a Tempest in a Teacup
Despite the worst intentions of Postmaster General and Trump flunky Louis DeJoy, the United States Post Office can handle the volume of mail that will be generated in the 2020 presidential election. It’s a simple matter of mathematics.
There are approximately 156 million registered voters in the United States who are eligible to vote in the 2020 presidential election. In the 2016 presidential election, about 75% of eligible voters cast a ballot. If that percentage holds true for 2020, that would mean about 117 million people are likely to vote.
Systems are in place to allow up to 180 million Americans to vote by mail in the presidential election. The USPS processes 425 million pieces of mail every day, so, if we consider that most mail-in ballots will be mailed in the two weeks before Nov. 3, the Postal Service’s capacity during those 14 days is 5.95 billion pieces of mail.
To overload the system, then, every eligible voter would have to send 38 pieces of mail during the second half of October.
Trump on Putin’s Bounties on US Troops: ‘I Have Never Discussed It with Him’
Trump has had eight conversations with Vladimir Putin since he learned that Russia paid Taliban militants to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan. But during an interview with Axios’ Jonathan Swan on Tuesday Trump admitted that in all these conversations with Putin he never broached the subject of the bounties.
