As if you weren’t feeling great enough this morning following the incredible event last night featuring our new president-elect and the country’s first female vice president-elect. Maybe we’re still giddy but the posts on Twitter following Trump’s announcement of a big press conference at the Four Seasons — no, not THAT Four Seasons…well anyway, see for yourself.
Steve Schmidt of the Lincoln Project wrote on Twitter: “This is the first time the music of the great Ray Charles has been used in a political ad. Thank you to the Ray Charles Foundation.”
Although the word has been used in other contexts, “Covidgate” is now the suspicion that the White House could be covering up that Pres. Trump himself is the one who spread the disease to so many in his inner circle, at Republican fundraisers, and countless numbers of those people’s contacts. The facts remain to be proven but reporters, who have also been exposed, are investigating.
There is no question that Trump continued to expose others after he had the virus.* The only question is did he mean to? When did he know he had COVID and how many lives did he choose to put at risk?
CNN’s Jake Tapper posted a Twitter thread that asks repeatedly when Trump last tested negative. This is a question the White House, and Trump’s medical team, including his osteopath, Navy Commander Sean Conley, is refusing to answer. It’s an alternate way of asking when Trump tested positive.
We know Trump arrived for the first debate too late to be tested before taking the stage with Biden. Was this on purpose to cover up because they already knew what the test results would be, or was it simply typical of his chaotic movements? And why is the White House refusing to do contact tracing after the superspreader event for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett? Is it because they already know who the results will trace back to?
Trump had famously been tested multiple times a day, as had those allowed to enter his airspace at the White House. Why did this abruptly stop? Check out Tapper’s musings on the subject.
I’m not a pollster. My observations are just that: the most elemental of research, what I see and hear around me.
The day of the debate, I heard Trump supporters talking about recording the show like it was a ball game their team was likely to win. I heard laughter about Biden. On a neighborhood walk, I saw mostly Trump/Pence signs. They appeared early and continued to outnumber Biden signs.
The day after the debate, I heard no chortling about how well Trump did. In fact no one mentioned the debate at all, the subject just too painful. When I came home, it seemed that my neighbors’ yards filled with Biden signs overnight. No matter where my eyes fell, there was a Biden/Harris sign in view.
The official polls reflecting post-debate sentiment won’t be out for awhile. But I’m cautiously optimistic they’ll back up what I’m seeing and show that Trump is sliding just a bit, losing support every time he opens that tight, pursed mouth to let all that anger out.
Watching Trump live-tweet Biden in person was hard. But it might be what it takes to turn enough Americans away from his nightmare presidency.
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. […]
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.”
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.
Au contraire, mon frere, they do have a platform. It’s called LYING.
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?
Science says climate change causes California’s fire woes.
Science says climate change has got us all in its throes.
We believe the science,
But Trump remains defiant.
His idiotic response is, “I don’t think science knows.”
