We may be getting a glimpse into how emblematic Donald Trump’s 39-minute music gap was at his town hall appearance with Kristi Noem the other night. Less than an hour into the event, as he and Noem were waiting for paramedics to help a woman in the audience who had fainted, Trump called a halt to everything, telling the crowd, “Let’s just listen to music.
He's also cancelling lots of appearances. What do you expect from a 78-year-old obese man who's too afraid to release his health stats?? The strength needed in the final weeks of a campaign would challenge someone half his age. He simply cannot do it. If he wins we will have a President in absentia and Vance, who is far more dangerous than Trump, will be running the show.
I think that anyone who is truly undecided at this point in time is either in a coma or doesn't plan to vote anyway. A sad commentary on 21st century Americans is that a lot of them (70 million in 2020) don't even take the time to really get the facts about what is going on in America. That is certainly true in Northeast Pennsylvania.
Or is stupid, or a liar and is not really undecided, but just do not see their life changing for the bad either way, so they don't care. That explains it for most of the Millennial men I know who don't vote, but they all spend a lot of time on YouTube, and care about earning money.
When I was younger and naïve, I was busy earning a living and saving enough to send my 2 kids to a decent college. I am likely guilty of what you say Millennial men are today. But I did watch the news and was informed but I always assumed that when someone running for president said something, or when a sitting president addressed the nation, they were telling the truth. Turns out that now as a retired baby boomer, I had my head up my ass. It is a shame that I had to finally realize the error of my thinking from historians looking back on past presidents and their actions and reading about what really happened. A sad commentary on politics in general. There needs to be some kind of truth in campaigning laws that prevent outright lies. Hitler showed the world it was possible and now his playbook is being re-run.
I was busy earning a living too, but I always voted. I will assume you are a White male, so had the luxury of not worrying too much about how you or your family would do with either party. Now that the radicals have taken over, it becomes more important. I come from a very politically active family, but my mom, being an immigrant and not a citizen, did not vote. She was very politically active in other ways. I am a dual citizen and I vote in both countries.
My mom raised me, and my teachers did too, that part of participating in a democracy is voting. I instilled this in my students too, because our grade would hold mock elections each year, where we had 2 candidates with gender neutral names, and the children in each class would be divided up into 2 groups and they would develop the platforms, and then campaign for their candidates (including learning how to make tv ads, developing slogans, logos, buttons, hats, t-shirts etc... jingles, and then debates, and finally voting. We would create voting booths and ballots and have mail in voting, or vote in person and match it with US election day.
Once the winner was announced we would spend the rest of the year implementing the things on the winning platform. This instills in them a deeper understanding of the elections.
In my family my daughter grew up with a dad who cannot vote in the US, but she has been involved in every election I have voted in, until voting now from abroad. Still, when she voted in the EU elections in June, she is 19, we spent some days looking at all of the political parties. In Germany there is a website that has you fill out a questionnaire with about 40+ questions. Then, in the end it will list parties who most closely align with your values, and who least align. We then looked at all of the websites of the ones that fit her. Ultimately she made a choice and then voted. Still, she does not spend that much time on politics, counting on me to do it and to inform her where need be.
"I was busy earning a living too, but I always voted". I always voted, my first election I could vote in was in 1969. And I never missed an election since, or a midterm election. I do remember when I was in college I had a bumper sticker that read "Dick Nixon......before he dicks you!" My dad wouldn't let me in the house unless I peeled off that sticker. He was a republican, but an Eisenhower republican......... not even close to what the party has morphed into as MAGA republicans. The fact that I believed all politicians for what they said and never delved into what they actually did vs. what they said they would do, was what duped me for many years.
You mean you voted for Nixon??? I can understand being fooled by Reagan, he made his reputation on being a phony, but Nixon was a crook from Day 1. (If she was alive, she'd tell you that, only more politely.) I apologize for California and I assume you live somewhere else.
I believe a large number are feeling hopeless. About two months ago, I began telling all my friends that Trump would not be elected President. I'm an intutive and it feels like I may have been right!
I have zero trouble understanding why many people don't vote: because they see no connection between voting and their daily lives. That connection isn't intuitive. It has to be taught -- first by decent civics education in school and then by the various media. In many, many places neither one is happening, and often that's been the case for decades.
Hot-to-vote evangelists like to blame the non-voters for their "apathy," but consider the possibility that the non-voters have accurately assessed the situation and that the hot-to-vote evangelists are the self-deluded ones.
Civics education in the US has been decimated over the past few decades by the revanchist right wing. A majority of American adults cannot name the three branches of government. Fox News and Facebook are where many Americans get their "news." The apathetic voters don't get that democracy is a participatory process, not a popularity contest. Ping-ponging between parties for control of the White House and Congress virtually assures that nothing changes in the long run, and their lives remain the same.
I noticed that Kristi Noem had a look of concern sometimes about her dance partner, The Donald.
"Some people" told me that the whole dance party and end of questions from the audience was because the next question was going to be "Governor Noem, do you eat the pets that you shoot?"
LOL. On the MAGAmerch table, next to the hats, shirts, and other wearables, the new Kristi Noem Cookbook. Especially noteworthy, the sauce chapter. No self-respecting MAGAmeatmasticater would use the same sauce on a German Sheperd as on a French Poodle.
For me, the predominant look on Noem's face was less concern, more "get me the fudge out of here!". She was so far out of her competence zone she didn't know what to do, one minute trying to nudge the Dancing Fool off the stage, the next minute mimicking his toddler-style moves, the next just desperately trying to keep the shizz-eating grin on her face by imagining hauling him down to the gravel pit...
Her face and movements were hilarious, showing an actress' great range. Apparently, she believes she should be on the National stage, rather than just her Dakota tiny one. And, she also thinks that everyone has forgotten the infamous Gravel Pit. That was so f'n weird, taking your pets to this special place to execute them in full view of workmen. So sociopathic/psychopathic. Forgive me for thinking it, but when I read how and where she killed them, I thought of the ravine outside of Kiev, Babi Yar, which was proudly filmed by the Nazis. They don't equate at all, but the mind-sets are the same. Deeply sick.
I'm starting to feel like we're all at the point in 1984 where we do start to doubt the evidence of our own eyes and it's tempting to shut them and accept the Word of Big Brother. After watching parts of the Trump town hall music fest I looked forward to news stories admitting Trump had again shown us all his unfitness for office. Instead the both sides news reports were extolling his musical taste and the great time his cult had swaying along. I watched Trump's speech last night at the Al Smith dinner and saw a rambling, sad, angry figure boring the crowd with the same lies, and the next morning the news is about his winning performance and Kamala losing the election by not bearing witness. We've been subjected to nine and a half years of psychological torment. People have to stay strong and resist the Winston Smith compulsion to give in and love Big Brother.
I watched Gaffigan’s shtick as well. Much of it was puzzling to me. He seemed to almost be publicly making a case for a second (and Final!) tRump administration. He couldn’t have sucked up to him more....and, by extension, whoever tRump’s fans were in that well-heeled audience. Also, he kept referring to the seditious traitorous bastard with the honorific “Mister President,” which is something that has really infuriated me since January 6th and forever after. I did not see the Donald’s speech.
Please name the candidates consistently. If he is Trump, she is Harris. If she is Kamala, he is Donald. It is traditionally dismissive to refer to the woman in the less professional way.
In my job my male colleagues are all “Dr ***,” whereas I and my female colleagues are frequently called by our first names.
That's part of it, but why did she have to do that? Because she was wearing his name. From time to time she was referred to as Hillary *Rodham* Clinton, sometimes with respect but other times with contempt. This is not the case with Harris, who goes by the surname she grew up with. (Interesting aside about my senior senator, Elizabeth Warren: she's known by the surname of her first husband, Jim Warren, to whom she was married 1968–1978; she's been married to Bruce Mann since 1980. My hunch is that she kept "Warren" because her two children by Jim Warren grew up with that name.)
Trump's campaign didn't submit a statement for Oregon's statewide Voters Pamphlet, so he's not in the booklet every voter receives; and now Republicans are lying that Oregon is keeping him off the ballot. Trumpsters are flooding the state's phone lines with outrage based on lies. He's on the ballot.
His campaign is based on lies, and his attorneys are already writing their briefs for lawsuits about the election. If Trump's plan (and the GOP's) is to cheat to win and to win by cheating, then it's not necessary to campaign, do interviews, or tell the truth.
What happens if trump becomes incapacitated between now and Election Day? Does automatically move to the top of the ticket and gets voted in as president? What happens if tRump wins the election but becomes incapacitated before he can take the oath of office?
I guess JD Vance will take the oath since he is the number 2. Let us hope that Mike Johnson of Seven Mountain Magic infamy (The New Apostolic Reformation Charismatic Christian Nationalist), is not still the speaker of the house then. I can imagine that things will get ugly with that scenario as well. People can pretend that JD Vance is more mentally fit than Trump to run the country, but as a CN, he is planning on turning us into a Christian Nationalist Theocracy that I want less than no part of. It has been pretty obvious that Peter Thiel wants to rule the US through JD Vance as his proxy president, whereas I see Kevin Roberts wanting to rule it through Trump's Chief of Staff. If you read the first chapter of The Mandate for Leadership (Project 2025) The White House Office, you will see the the COS is running everything and the gatekeeper to the president.
I'm not at all sure of that. Does the VP-elect have official standing before he's sworn in? before the electors meet? before the electoral votes are delivered to Congress? Remember January 6, 2021!
Funny thing: Sen. Claire McCaskill became Senator when appointed by the Governor after her husband died, remained on the ballot, and won. Yes, people in Missouri preferred to elect a dead man rather than the horrible John Ashcroft. Who can blame them?
Good questions. With voting already underway, ballots already printed, mail in ballots already mailed, I wonder what the logistics would entail? JD is probably counting on the latter or hoping to just get through January 20.
This *is* an interesting question. My guess is that nothing happens automatically: consider that the Biden -> Harris transition was much easier because Biden wasn't already the Democratic nominee. And what does "become incapacitated" mean legally? He becomes literally unable to manage his own affairs? (This might have happened already.) Passing power of attorney and all the rest of it is complicated enough for ordinary citizens when all parties are willing. AFAIK the vice-presidential candidate doesn't have constitutional standing until after s/he's sworn in, but I don't know for sure. We could be in for a crisis that makes Bush v. Gore look easy.
Thanks I was afraid this would get us into strange waters. Incapacitated either mentally or physically and based on the maga gop’s playbook I think we could have a potential constitutional crisis. The thought of this somehow getting in front of the Corrupt Six Supremes scares the heck out of me. Hopefully all this line of worry is for naught and it will be a massive blue wave that will sweep the country.
Since the law likely does not rule clearly on this situation, I expect the Supreme Nazgul Court would abrogate to themselves the power to choose who will be anointed President. And take a guess who that would be in your scenario?
Our Constitution is so messed up... months after election until inauguration, Electoral College, meaningless impeachments, "immunity, " Supreme Court deciding it makes the law and not the vote of the people, two senators for every state no matter the population, filibusters, pardon powers -- the list goes on and on.
And yet, this manifestly criminal man, this know-nothing, this con-man, this king of mendacity, this owner of multiple bankruptcies, this instigator of deadly riots, this monstrously bigoted maniac still holds sway over a huge number of voters in our country.
The video from this promises to be epic - where's Leni Reifenstahl when ya need her? Or Thomas Mann or Dorothy Thompson? Lucian does a great job, though, and we can be grateful for that.
Excerpt:
"For the apotheosis of his entire “poisoning of the blood” campaign, Donald Trump has planned a spectacular extravaganza in Madison Square Garden on 27 October, a week before the election. When JD Vance sings Trump’s fulsome praises to introduce him, his ominous tribute will not inspire comparison to the night in the Garden of 19 May 1962, when Marilyn Monroe sang Happy Birthday, Mr President to John F Kennedy.
Trump’s climactic rally will not be in the spirit of any past presidential event ever held there. His gathering for the great racist replacement theory will be the culmination of his spiraling descent since the Charlottesville rally in 2017 when neo-Nazis chanted, “Jews will not replace us.” “Fine people on both sides,” Trump said then. Now, at his night at the Garden, Trump will revive the memory of the infamous American Nazi mass rally held there on 20 February 1939 through his reflected Hitlerian rhetoric.
In the last week, Trump has pledged to deploy the military against “the enemy within”, domestic opponents he claims are worse than foreign adversaries – those Hitler called “Feind des Volkes”, or “enemy of the people”. Trump has threatened to destroy CBS, ABC and the New York Times. About ABC, after it conducted the debate in which he performed disastrously, he called to “take away their license”. After Kamala Harris’s 60 Minutes interview, having refused his own, he tweeted on 10 October: “TAKE AWAY THE CBS LICENSE.” About the Times, he said on 9 October: “Wait until you see what I’m going to do with them.” He has singled out by name journalists for the Times and the New Yorker as “FAKE OBAMA LOVING ‘JOURNALISTS”. At every rally he denounces the “fake news”, a drumbeat for years, echoing Hitler’s pejorative slur, “die Lügenpresse” – “the lying press”.
Donald Trump’s Hitlerian logic is no mistake
Trump traveled on 11 October to Aurora, Colorado, where he claimed a Venezuelan gang had seized control, “scum” and “animals” who have “invaded and conquered” and “infected” the town, a description dismissed as false by its Republican mayor. “We have to clean out our country,” said Trump. His language represented the Nazi idea of “Rassenhygiene” – “race cleansing” that required purification, not an academic interest in genetics but a program of eugenics for designating inferior races to be isolated or eliminated." - {Much more}
“Trump will revive the memory of the infamous American Nazi mass rally held there [New York’s Madison Square Garden] on 20 February 1939 through his reflected Hitlerian rhetoric.” Point of order for a little Historical accuracy. That old MSG was located on the west side of Eight Avenue between 49th & 50th Streets in Manhattan. It was demolished in 1968. I had gone to that one several times when I was a child living in the Bronx and afterwards when our family moved to northern NJ. The current MSG is located above Penn Station between 7th and 8th Avenues from 31st to 33rd Streets . Sadly, the old Pennsylvania Station built in 1910 was a remarkable and magnificent structure which should never have been destroyed. The current MSG is the fourth iteration of the arena. The original opened in 1879 and was located on Madison Square, down on East 26th and Madison Avenue, as was the second one which was built on the same site in 1890, replacing the first one. As for the infamous Nazi rally in 1939, it drew a packed throng of 20,000 in support of Hitler and fascism. The event featured a large portrait of George Washington on stage. George was depicted in his Revolutionary uniform surrounded by Nazi flags. (Ugh!) You can see ‘highlights’ (ahem!) of the rally on YouTube.
Even though it's a different station, all I can think of is watching North by Northwest again, simply because I am not George Kaplan and I don't know what you're talking about!
To clear up any confusion, then: Penn Station still has the tracks, the trains, and all the infrastructure to maintain the actual service of delivering commuters into & out from “the City” from New Jersey, PA, CT, and NY state, as well as being a stop for AMTRAK in the busy Baltimore/DC-NYC-Boston dash, and....of course connecting with other cities across the country & up north to Albany and Canada via the AMTRAK grid. What is gone is the magnificent edifice that made the transition from the street to the interior something wondrous and unforgettable. You can ‘Google’ the old Penn Station and check it our for yourself. Many years ago there was a plan afoot to essentially do the same thing to Grand Central Station which sits astride Park Avenue at 42nd Street. That was a Bridge Too Far for most New Yorkers who had already seen way too much of their beloved old architectural and cultural touchstones fall to the wrecking ball in the name of “Progress.” I should add that a certain brash, stupid, vainglorious grifter of a real estate developer from Queens was responsible for more than a few of those desecrations of landmark buildings. Just saying.
However, my point was just to inform fellow readers of Lucian’s Substack that DJT’s upcoming appearance at Madison Square Garden will not be at the same physical location where the celebration of Hitler and the Nazis took place in February 1939. A minor point, perhaps, but...there you are.
Age, medical issues, mental stress, legal issues, dementia - multiple possibilities, but he should be realizing at this point he is simply in over his head. He can't answer simple questions, read and follow a teleprompter speech, express any emotions besides anger or debasement. He has decompensated from just the start of this campaign season - his language, word choices. speech patterns and episodes of freezing have all increased in frequency and severity. I don't expect he will appear at many rallies or public events, nor schedule many interviews between now and election day. He just does not seem up to campaigning.
"He should be" -- but if you've ever dealt with narcissists or people who are non compos mentis, you'll know that self-awareness isn't all that common.
I am sadly very familiar with dementia. I took care of my Dad for 15 years before he passed from Alzheimers. Medication helped for for about half of that time and he still had his self-awareness, but not for the long haul. I performed Alz MRI research scans for a decade and watching the same patients decompensate over the years was a sad part of the process.
I worry VERY much that the Dirty Tricks Gang has something nefarious up their sleeves… They have done outrageous things in the past, including working against the interests of the United States to cement their own power …. I hope ALL the Democratic leadership and LEGAL teams and their Rational Republican allies {there are still a few} have their eyes on the ball, have their ears to the grapevine to hear any “chatter” about tricks [they can’t spy on Trump — but they can keep their eyes and ears open in the politisphere}], and are ready to respond, if the Trumpy’s try to pull a fast one. Sadly, history tells us some in the Republican Party of today will stop at NOTHING to get control of the United States.
Great closing statement about the rest of the campaign being volatile as a meth lab. Why is no one suggesting that Trump may be on such drugs when he digresses and sways to the music?
I do not believe he has a real chance of winning, despite what the flood of polls suggest. I just cannot see him expanding his total number of supporters since 2020 because he’s become far more toxic. Plus a lot of his supporters died in Covid. Plus enthusiasm among women and young people is off the charts, as early voting in swing states kicks off. Plus the number of young people now eligible to vote is huge. Plus, plus, plus.
We Democrats still have ptsd from 2016. I get it, I’ll never forget that night. But over focusing on it does not seem rational.
Yes, we should not underestimate the fact that many of his voters died of Covid. When I hear of someone carry on about vaccinations, I think, "Oh, good, maybe they won't live to the next election."
I wish I didn't. On the upside, it's because Trump is so awful that we're about to elect our first (1) woman, and (2) woman of color president and hardly any sane person is making a fuss about it. I can't imagine this happening if the GOP candidate were a reasonably sane white man. Lucky for us, the GOP has driven all the reasonably sane white men -- and reasonably sane individuals of other colors and/or genders -- out of the party.
If I found out say in the middle of November, after Harris had won the election, that her campaign had had 20,000,000 Trump votes thrown out and she would have lost if they hadn't? And I knew I was the only person who could expose this fraud but if I did the presidency would be awarded to Trump?
I wouldn't say a damn word. And I would have no problems living with that.
This is the reason these Trump supporters don't seem to be that concerned about 1/6 and all that goes with it. The ends justify the means. It's not the cheating that bothers me. It's that they think the "ends" being Trump in power is worth cheating for.
He's also cancelling lots of appearances. What do you expect from a 78-year-old obese man who's too afraid to release his health stats?? The strength needed in the final weeks of a campaign would challenge someone half his age. He simply cannot do it. If he wins we will have a President in absentia and Vance, who is far more dangerous than Trump, will be running the show.
FAR more dangerous, that Vance.
And, the Horror, Steven Miller!!!
Oh, it gets even worse than that: Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Harlan Crow, Leonard Leo, etc., etc., etc.
I've seen a hed in the past few hours that said in effect that trump now is merely those guys' Trojan horse to place vantz in the presidency.
Glad someone's caught on! Now the question turns to "Who is Vance a proxy for?" Because he sure ain't qualified to be president.
His benefactor Peter Thiel.
No, Steven Miller will be, if that doesn't scare everyone...
Far more dangerous than Trump does not exist on earth.
good point
😣😣😣😣😣😣😣
I think that anyone who is truly undecided at this point in time is either in a coma or doesn't plan to vote anyway. A sad commentary on 21st century Americans is that a lot of them (70 million in 2020) don't even take the time to really get the facts about what is going on in America. That is certainly true in Northeast Pennsylvania.
Or is stupid, or a liar and is not really undecided, but just do not see their life changing for the bad either way, so they don't care. That explains it for most of the Millennial men I know who don't vote, but they all spend a lot of time on YouTube, and care about earning money.
When I was younger and naïve, I was busy earning a living and saving enough to send my 2 kids to a decent college. I am likely guilty of what you say Millennial men are today. But I did watch the news and was informed but I always assumed that when someone running for president said something, or when a sitting president addressed the nation, they were telling the truth. Turns out that now as a retired baby boomer, I had my head up my ass. It is a shame that I had to finally realize the error of my thinking from historians looking back on past presidents and their actions and reading about what really happened. A sad commentary on politics in general. There needs to be some kind of truth in campaigning laws that prevent outright lies. Hitler showed the world it was possible and now his playbook is being re-run.
I was busy earning a living too, but I always voted. I will assume you are a White male, so had the luxury of not worrying too much about how you or your family would do with either party. Now that the radicals have taken over, it becomes more important. I come from a very politically active family, but my mom, being an immigrant and not a citizen, did not vote. She was very politically active in other ways. I am a dual citizen and I vote in both countries.
My mom raised me, and my teachers did too, that part of participating in a democracy is voting. I instilled this in my students too, because our grade would hold mock elections each year, where we had 2 candidates with gender neutral names, and the children in each class would be divided up into 2 groups and they would develop the platforms, and then campaign for their candidates (including learning how to make tv ads, developing slogans, logos, buttons, hats, t-shirts etc... jingles, and then debates, and finally voting. We would create voting booths and ballots and have mail in voting, or vote in person and match it with US election day.
Once the winner was announced we would spend the rest of the year implementing the things on the winning platform. This instills in them a deeper understanding of the elections.
In my family my daughter grew up with a dad who cannot vote in the US, but she has been involved in every election I have voted in, until voting now from abroad. Still, when she voted in the EU elections in June, she is 19, we spent some days looking at all of the political parties. In Germany there is a website that has you fill out a questionnaire with about 40+ questions. Then, in the end it will list parties who most closely align with your values, and who least align. We then looked at all of the websites of the ones that fit her. Ultimately she made a choice and then voted. Still, she does not spend that much time on politics, counting on me to do it and to inform her where need be.
"I was busy earning a living too, but I always voted". I always voted, my first election I could vote in was in 1969. And I never missed an election since, or a midterm election. I do remember when I was in college I had a bumper sticker that read "Dick Nixon......before he dicks you!" My dad wouldn't let me in the house unless I peeled off that sticker. He was a republican, but an Eisenhower republican......... not even close to what the party has morphed into as MAGA republicans. The fact that I believed all politicians for what they said and never delved into what they actually did vs. what they said they would do, was what duped me for many years.
Hah! I remember another slogan “Don’t change Dick’s in the middle of a screw, vote for Nixon in ‘72!
You mean you voted for Nixon??? I can understand being fooled by Reagan, he made his reputation on being a phony, but Nixon was a crook from Day 1. (If she was alive, she'd tell you that, only more politely.) I apologize for California and I assume you live somewhere else.
I believe a large number are feeling hopeless. About two months ago, I began telling all my friends that Trump would not be elected President. I'm an intutive and it feels like I may have been right!
I have zero trouble understanding why many people don't vote: because they see no connection between voting and their daily lives. That connection isn't intuitive. It has to be taught -- first by decent civics education in school and then by the various media. In many, many places neither one is happening, and often that's been the case for decades.
Hot-to-vote evangelists like to blame the non-voters for their "apathy," but consider the possibility that the non-voters have accurately assessed the situation and that the hot-to-vote evangelists are the self-deluded ones.
Civics education in the US has been decimated over the past few decades by the revanchist right wing. A majority of American adults cannot name the three branches of government. Fox News and Facebook are where many Americans get their "news." The apathetic voters don't get that democracy is a participatory process, not a popularity contest. Ping-ponging between parties for control of the White House and Congress virtually assures that nothing changes in the long run, and their lives remain the same.
I noticed that Kristi Noem had a look of concern sometimes about her dance partner, The Donald.
"Some people" told me that the whole dance party and end of questions from the audience was because the next question was going to be "Governor Noem, do you eat the pets that you shoot?"
LOL. On the MAGAmerch table, next to the hats, shirts, and other wearables, the new Kristi Noem Cookbook. Especially noteworthy, the sauce chapter. No self-respecting MAGAmeatmasticater would use the same sauce on a German Sheperd as on a French Poodle.
😂😂😂
Good one, so witty!!
For me, the predominant look on Noem's face was less concern, more "get me the fudge out of here!". She was so far out of her competence zone she didn't know what to do, one minute trying to nudge the Dancing Fool off the stage, the next minute mimicking his toddler-style moves, the next just desperately trying to keep the shizz-eating grin on her face by imagining hauling him down to the gravel pit...
"Like"
Her face and movements were hilarious, showing an actress' great range. Apparently, she believes she should be on the National stage, rather than just her Dakota tiny one. And, she also thinks that everyone has forgotten the infamous Gravel Pit. That was so f'n weird, taking your pets to this special place to execute them in full view of workmen. So sociopathic/psychopathic. Forgive me for thinking it, but when I read how and where she killed them, I thought of the ravine outside of Kiev, Babi Yar, which was proudly filmed by the Nazis. They don't equate at all, but the mind-sets are the same. Deeply sick.
I'm starting to feel like we're all at the point in 1984 where we do start to doubt the evidence of our own eyes and it's tempting to shut them and accept the Word of Big Brother. After watching parts of the Trump town hall music fest I looked forward to news stories admitting Trump had again shown us all his unfitness for office. Instead the both sides news reports were extolling his musical taste and the great time his cult had swaying along. I watched Trump's speech last night at the Al Smith dinner and saw a rambling, sad, angry figure boring the crowd with the same lies, and the next morning the news is about his winning performance and Kamala losing the election by not bearing witness. We've been subjected to nine and a half years of psychological torment. People have to stay strong and resist the Winston Smith compulsion to give in and love Big Brother.
The Al Smith was hilarious and sad...a room full of Catholic women haters and Moron Trump...
I just about got through Jim Gaffigan's bit. I commend you for watching Trump's speech
I watched Gaffigan’s shtick as well. Much of it was puzzling to me. He seemed to almost be publicly making a case for a second (and Final!) tRump administration. He couldn’t have sucked up to him more....and, by extension, whoever tRump’s fans were in that well-heeled audience. Also, he kept referring to the seditious traitorous bastard with the honorific “Mister President,” which is something that has really infuriated me since January 6th and forever after. I did not see the Donald’s speech.
Please name the candidates consistently. If he is Trump, she is Harris. If she is Kamala, he is Donald. It is traditionally dismissive to refer to the woman in the less professional way.
In my job my male colleagues are all “Dr ***,” whereas I and my female colleagues are frequently called by our first names.
It’s rude.
I know it’s unintentional, but please fix it.
It bugs me too. In 2016 it was Hillary v. Trump. In 2020 it was Biden v. Trump. Funny how that works.
I see your point, but wasn't that sort of Hillary Clinton's way to sell herself as "not Bill?" The Other Clinton, but Different?
That's part of it, but why did she have to do that? Because she was wearing his name. From time to time she was referred to as Hillary *Rodham* Clinton, sometimes with respect but other times with contempt. This is not the case with Harris, who goes by the surname she grew up with. (Interesting aside about my senior senator, Elizabeth Warren: she's known by the surname of her first husband, Jim Warren, to whom she was married 1968–1978; she's been married to Bruce Mann since 1980. My hunch is that she kept "Warren" because her two children by Jim Warren grew up with that name.)
Yeah as far as I'm concerned this is Herr Gropenfuehrer and Shady Vance versus Harris and Walz, our state's governor here in Minnie-SOH-tah.
So sue me.
Trump's campaign didn't submit a statement for Oregon's statewide Voters Pamphlet, so he's not in the booklet every voter receives; and now Republicans are lying that Oregon is keeping him off the ballot. Trumpsters are flooding the state's phone lines with outrage based on lies. He's on the ballot.
His campaign is based on lies, and his attorneys are already writing their briefs for lawsuits about the election. If Trump's plan (and the GOP's) is to cheat to win and to win by cheating, then it's not necessary to campaign, do interviews, or tell the truth.
What happens if trump becomes incapacitated between now and Election Day? Does automatically move to the top of the ticket and gets voted in as president? What happens if tRump wins the election but becomes incapacitated before he can take the oath of office?
I doesn't matter because Harris is going to win whether Trump is incapacitated, which he already is, or not.
I guess JD Vance will take the oath since he is the number 2. Let us hope that Mike Johnson of Seven Mountain Magic infamy (The New Apostolic Reformation Charismatic Christian Nationalist), is not still the speaker of the house then. I can imagine that things will get ugly with that scenario as well. People can pretend that JD Vance is more mentally fit than Trump to run the country, but as a CN, he is planning on turning us into a Christian Nationalist Theocracy that I want less than no part of. It has been pretty obvious that Peter Thiel wants to rule the US through JD Vance as his proxy president, whereas I see Kevin Roberts wanting to rule it through Trump's Chief of Staff. If you read the first chapter of The Mandate for Leadership (Project 2025) The White House Office, you will see the the COS is running everything and the gatekeeper to the president.
I'm not at all sure of that. Does the VP-elect have official standing before he's sworn in? before the electors meet? before the electoral votes are delivered to Congress? Remember January 6, 2021!
I am not sure. Something to ask a constitutional lawyer.
Funny thing: Sen. Claire McCaskill became Senator when appointed by the Governor after her husband died, remained on the ballot, and won. Yes, people in Missouri preferred to elect a dead man rather than the horrible John Ashcroft. Who can blame them?
"Appointed by the Governor" is significant here. What would be the equivalent when we're talking about the president and vice president of the U.S.?
Good questions. With voting already underway, ballots already printed, mail in ballots already mailed, I wonder what the logistics would entail? JD is probably counting on the latter or hoping to just get through January 20.
Just in time for an insurrection when Harris wins!!!
This *is* an interesting question. My guess is that nothing happens automatically: consider that the Biden -> Harris transition was much easier because Biden wasn't already the Democratic nominee. And what does "become incapacitated" mean legally? He becomes literally unable to manage his own affairs? (This might have happened already.) Passing power of attorney and all the rest of it is complicated enough for ordinary citizens when all parties are willing. AFAIK the vice-presidential candidate doesn't have constitutional standing until after s/he's sworn in, but I don't know for sure. We could be in for a crisis that makes Bush v. Gore look easy.
Thanks I was afraid this would get us into strange waters. Incapacitated either mentally or physically and based on the maga gop’s playbook I think we could have a potential constitutional crisis. The thought of this somehow getting in front of the Corrupt Six Supremes scares the heck out of me. Hopefully all this line of worry is for naught and it will be a massive blue wave that will sweep the country.
Hear, hear! If only it could take 2/3 of the Supreme Court with it!!
Since the law likely does not rule clearly on this situation, I expect the Supreme Nazgul Court would abrogate to themselves the power to choose who will be anointed President. And take a guess who that would be in your scenario?
Our Constitution is so messed up... months after election until inauguration, Electoral College, meaningless impeachments, "immunity, " Supreme Court deciding it makes the law and not the vote of the people, two senators for every state no matter the population, filibusters, pardon powers -- the list goes on and on.
Oh I wish!
The House, in all its wisdom …
?????Good questions
Already there, based on results.
And yet, this manifestly criminal man, this know-nothing, this con-man, this king of mendacity, this owner of multiple bankruptcies, this instigator of deadly riots, this monstrously bigoted maniac still holds sway over a huge number of voters in our country.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/18/donald-trump-madison-square-garden-rally
The video from this promises to be epic - where's Leni Reifenstahl when ya need her? Or Thomas Mann or Dorothy Thompson? Lucian does a great job, though, and we can be grateful for that.
Excerpt:
"For the apotheosis of his entire “poisoning of the blood” campaign, Donald Trump has planned a spectacular extravaganza in Madison Square Garden on 27 October, a week before the election. When JD Vance sings Trump’s fulsome praises to introduce him, his ominous tribute will not inspire comparison to the night in the Garden of 19 May 1962, when Marilyn Monroe sang Happy Birthday, Mr President to John F Kennedy.
Trump’s climactic rally will not be in the spirit of any past presidential event ever held there. His gathering for the great racist replacement theory will be the culmination of his spiraling descent since the Charlottesville rally in 2017 when neo-Nazis chanted, “Jews will not replace us.” “Fine people on both sides,” Trump said then. Now, at his night at the Garden, Trump will revive the memory of the infamous American Nazi mass rally held there on 20 February 1939 through his reflected Hitlerian rhetoric.
In the last week, Trump has pledged to deploy the military against “the enemy within”, domestic opponents he claims are worse than foreign adversaries – those Hitler called “Feind des Volkes”, or “enemy of the people”. Trump has threatened to destroy CBS, ABC and the New York Times. About ABC, after it conducted the debate in which he performed disastrously, he called to “take away their license”. After Kamala Harris’s 60 Minutes interview, having refused his own, he tweeted on 10 October: “TAKE AWAY THE CBS LICENSE.” About the Times, he said on 9 October: “Wait until you see what I’m going to do with them.” He has singled out by name journalists for the Times and the New Yorker as “FAKE OBAMA LOVING ‘JOURNALISTS”. At every rally he denounces the “fake news”, a drumbeat for years, echoing Hitler’s pejorative slur, “die Lügenpresse” – “the lying press”.
Donald Trump’s Hitlerian logic is no mistake
Trump traveled on 11 October to Aurora, Colorado, where he claimed a Venezuelan gang had seized control, “scum” and “animals” who have “invaded and conquered” and “infected” the town, a description dismissed as false by its Republican mayor. “We have to clean out our country,” said Trump. His language represented the Nazi idea of “Rassenhygiene” – “race cleansing” that required purification, not an academic interest in genetics but a program of eugenics for designating inferior races to be isolated or eliminated." - {Much more}
“Trump will revive the memory of the infamous American Nazi mass rally held there [New York’s Madison Square Garden] on 20 February 1939 through his reflected Hitlerian rhetoric.” Point of order for a little Historical accuracy. That old MSG was located on the west side of Eight Avenue between 49th & 50th Streets in Manhattan. It was demolished in 1968. I had gone to that one several times when I was a child living in the Bronx and afterwards when our family moved to northern NJ. The current MSG is located above Penn Station between 7th and 8th Avenues from 31st to 33rd Streets . Sadly, the old Pennsylvania Station built in 1910 was a remarkable and magnificent structure which should never have been destroyed. The current MSG is the fourth iteration of the arena. The original opened in 1879 and was located on Madison Square, down on East 26th and Madison Avenue, as was the second one which was built on the same site in 1890, replacing the first one. As for the infamous Nazi rally in 1939, it drew a packed throng of 20,000 in support of Hitler and fascism. The event featured a large portrait of George Washington on stage. George was depicted in his Revolutionary uniform surrounded by Nazi flags. (Ugh!) You can see ‘highlights’ (ahem!) of the rally on YouTube.
Even though it's a different station, all I can think of is watching North by Northwest again, simply because I am not George Kaplan and I don't know what you're talking about!
To clear up any confusion, then: Penn Station still has the tracks, the trains, and all the infrastructure to maintain the actual service of delivering commuters into & out from “the City” from New Jersey, PA, CT, and NY state, as well as being a stop for AMTRAK in the busy Baltimore/DC-NYC-Boston dash, and....of course connecting with other cities across the country & up north to Albany and Canada via the AMTRAK grid. What is gone is the magnificent edifice that made the transition from the street to the interior something wondrous and unforgettable. You can ‘Google’ the old Penn Station and check it our for yourself. Many years ago there was a plan afoot to essentially do the same thing to Grand Central Station which sits astride Park Avenue at 42nd Street. That was a Bridge Too Far for most New Yorkers who had already seen way too much of their beloved old architectural and cultural touchstones fall to the wrecking ball in the name of “Progress.” I should add that a certain brash, stupid, vainglorious grifter of a real estate developer from Queens was responsible for more than a few of those desecrations of landmark buildings. Just saying.
However, my point was just to inform fellow readers of Lucian’s Substack that DJT’s upcoming appearance at Madison Square Garden will not be at the same physical location where the celebration of Hitler and the Nazis took place in February 1939. A minor point, perhaps, but...there you are.
Age, medical issues, mental stress, legal issues, dementia - multiple possibilities, but he should be realizing at this point he is simply in over his head. He can't answer simple questions, read and follow a teleprompter speech, express any emotions besides anger or debasement. He has decompensated from just the start of this campaign season - his language, word choices. speech patterns and episodes of freezing have all increased in frequency and severity. I don't expect he will appear at many rallies or public events, nor schedule many interviews between now and election day. He just does not seem up to campaigning.
"He should be" -- but if you've ever dealt with narcissists or people who are non compos mentis, you'll know that self-awareness isn't all that common.
I am sadly very familiar with dementia. I took care of my Dad for 15 years before he passed from Alzheimers. Medication helped for for about half of that time and he still had his self-awareness, but not for the long haul. I performed Alz MRI research scans for a decade and watching the same patients decompensate over the years was a sad part of the process.
I worry VERY much that the Dirty Tricks Gang has something nefarious up their sleeves… They have done outrageous things in the past, including working against the interests of the United States to cement their own power …. I hope ALL the Democratic leadership and LEGAL teams and their Rational Republican allies {there are still a few} have their eyes on the ball, have their ears to the grapevine to hear any “chatter” about tricks [they can’t spy on Trump — but they can keep their eyes and ears open in the politisphere}], and are ready to respond, if the Trumpy’s try to pull a fast one. Sadly, history tells us some in the Republican Party of today will stop at NOTHING to get control of the United States.
Great closing statement about the rest of the campaign being volatile as a meth lab. Why is no one suggesting that Trump may be on such drugs when he digresses and sways to the music?
If it's not cognitive impairment, it certainly appears to be something. He is less normal than usual.
AB Normal, according to Igor!
Another theory is incompetently administered and now covered up medical treatment:
https://www.osmosis.org/answers/tertiary-syphilis
I do not believe he has a real chance of winning, despite what the flood of polls suggest. I just cannot see him expanding his total number of supporters since 2020 because he’s become far more toxic. Plus a lot of his supporters died in Covid. Plus enthusiasm among women and young people is off the charts, as early voting in swing states kicks off. Plus the number of young people now eligible to vote is huge. Plus, plus, plus.
We Democrats still have ptsd from 2016. I get it, I’ll never forget that night. But over focusing on it does not seem rational.
Yes, we should not underestimate the fact that many of his voters died of Covid. When I hear of someone carry on about vaccinations, I think, "Oh, good, maybe they won't live to the next election."
More and more it seems he's just going to be a placeholder for the profoundly uncharismatic but dangerous, misogynistic, racist *sshole JD Vance.
How is this election within even 40 points? I don't get it...
I wish I didn't. On the upside, it's because Trump is so awful that we're about to elect our first (1) woman, and (2) woman of color president and hardly any sane person is making a fuss about it. I can't imagine this happening if the GOP candidate were a reasonably sane white man. Lucky for us, the GOP has driven all the reasonably sane white men -- and reasonably sane individuals of other colors and/or genders -- out of the party.
If I found out say in the middle of November, after Harris had won the election, that her campaign had had 20,000,000 Trump votes thrown out and she would have lost if they hadn't? And I knew I was the only person who could expose this fraud but if I did the presidency would be awarded to Trump?
I wouldn't say a damn word. And I would have no problems living with that.
This is the reason these Trump supporters don't seem to be that concerned about 1/6 and all that goes with it. The ends justify the means. It's not the cheating that bothers me. It's that they think the "ends" being Trump in power is worth cheating for.