US Politics, September 2024 -- “I’m Not Going to Apologize For Posting a Joke”

And also the media here do an outstanding job sanewashing what he says (ie rewriting it so it makes syntactic sense and sounds reasonable).

Most of the people voting for Trump are seeing him on a screen not reading his words translated by journalists

Basically no one broadcasts his rallies at length anymore. It’s all second hand analysis.

The currency of sanewashing, putting a succinct label on the insidious work the press has been doing for Trump, is important I think. It won't end the practice, but having the concept out there and in the mind of journalists will have (some) effect on how his incoherent lunacy is reported.

the most lmao thing is that the vast majority of people who watched the debate aren't really plugged into this like we are, Trump saying "they're coming to eat your dogs and cats" must sound totally insane to people who didn't know that was a story

It sounds insane to lots of people, sure. But there are still people who are like, "huh? I didn't hear about that; that's awful," and then they look and see that it's being reported on, so there must be something there.

Phrases that sound more fun than they are: "spin room."

“Mr. President, you may address the press as soon as you start pedaling on the stationary bike”

It sounds insane to lots of people, sure. But there are still people who are like, "huh? I didn't hear about that; that's awful," and then they look and see that it's being reported on, so there must be something there.

― stone cold jane austen (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, September 11, 2024 7:14 AM (thirty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Doubt this tbqh

kamala did really good last night but running as not trump is always going to have limited appeal, when she pivoted to talking about what she was gonna do it was like small business loans help with down payments, typical small bore dem things, not anything thats gonna get anyone off the couch, full throated defense of fracking is just he most transparent political bs, repeating israeli war propaganda verbatim is pretty bad and not unlike trumps claims re eating pets, totally abandoning medicare for all, no mention of the minimum wage, vowing to solve the housing crisis is good but even theres doesnt seem to be a lot of passion or depth no feel for the injustice of the situation, the one big issue that shes really hitting is abortion which is great will have real positive impact on peoples lives if she wins and will help her win, but overall were getting another not trump campaign like clinton and biden, which is pretty dicy as far as winning and clearly doesnt have much ambition to change the conditions that helped foster trumpism

Insightful post, thanks

I don’t disagree but I think Trump lost a lot of his shine and his element of surprise and may have a ceiling in terms of true believers. I think this may be an election where, like 2020, “I’m normal and I’m not Trump” could be enough to win. Especially considering how poorly he’s coming off lately.

She definitely did not offer much in the way of policy and said a lot of tone deaf stuff like thinking anyone on the planet would be moved by a Dick Cheney endorsement or acting like Camp David was some hallowed ground. Her responses were vague and canned. I can’t really blame candidates for doing that because anything specific you say just gets spun against you.

People say they watch debates for policy but they watch'em like they do a football game: it's vibes and a good time and sticking it to the other side. But lag00n otm.

Yeah, it ain’t gonna go back to the Lincoln-Douglas days.

i think calling this stuff policy isnt quite accurate its more showing what you stand for, the intersection of vibes and policy, saying the rent is too damn high will get people fired up, saying were going to solve the housing crisis will not

Yes, hence why her abortion answer was the most human.

Trump's frequent 'thank yous' to absolutely no one

President Biden, Vice President Harris, former President Trump, Sen. JD Vance and Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg at 9/11 Ceremony in New York. pic.twitter.com/nK19YKABjB

— CSPAN (@cspan) September 11, 2024

I hope she starts taking questions and doing interviews now

ok maybe that was Rudy shouting

i think she really believes in abortion as a cause which is great huge contrast to the last two candidates, and shes really believes that trump sucks shit which is also great, past that pretty much yr standard centrist afaict kinda punting on things like the economy and foreign policy

I think a lot of it also boils down to how many voting people actually agree with Trump that the US has become some kind of hellscape, whether based on their own lives or just whatever they see on tv.

It was good that the abortion question was in the first few minutes and the camp David bs was after most people had stopped watching.

if thats true then i would suggest offering to make things better xp

Yeah but a lot of the hellscape narrative is about like riots in Minneapolis or child traffickers streaming across the border or Chicago crime or schools turning kids trans - stuff that you can’t really “address” or “make better” inasmuch as they’re at least part mythology, if not entirely.

The best real issue for Trump is probably inflation. That’s the one that impacts the most people and the hardest for her to answer.

i personally wouldnt spend too much time figuring out why a dem is acting like a dem its just how they are

*checks headline* “Inflation Slows to 2.5%” Think I have an answer!

i think she really believes in abortion as a cause which is great huge contrast to the last two candidates, and shes really believes that trump sucks shit which is also great, past that pretty much yr standard centrist afaict kinda punting on things like the economy and foreign policy

Yep. Kind of what you'd expect based on her priors, right? I did not have grand hopes for Harris to enter the race and turn out to be a savior of the left. I mostly hoped she'd be able to put Trump on his ass. That job's not done yet, but she made some good headway last night.

i thought there was room for her to be less wedded to centrist orthodoxy but nope nothing there

I wasn’t thrilled with some of her answers too but let’s face it she’s basically speaking directly to like 5000 undecided PA voters and in that I think she said what she had to say

John Ganz:

So, she won. But does any of it really matter? It’s very hard to say. The electorate is so polarized that changing minds at this late date is difficult. But there are still undecided voters out there. Unfortunately, I believe they are more likely to respond to Trump’s style of rhetoric than Harris’s. The fact is they are really speaking to two different electorates: they aren’t often competing for the same voters. A recent poll showed that Trump was winning among almost everyone except those most likely to vote. He’s the candidate of alienation and anger, of people who may express their political will with a protest vote or may just sulk at home. He needs to rile up those people. It could be that last night’s performance still did a good enough job of that.

"it could be"

ok

I wasn’t thrilled with some of her answers too but let’s face it she’s basically speaking directly to like 5000 undecided PA voters and in that I think she said what she had to say

― frogbs, Wednesday, September 11, 2024 9:25 AM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

i dont think this is true, motivating people predisposed to vote for her is prob more important, and also this is just the stuff shes into theres no secret agenda if there were centrists wouldve been doing good stuff once they got elected, the corporate centrists are still driving thats just where were at

"it could be" is the operating principle of the press and also this thread

I really don’t buy that

I read John Ganz's When The Clock Broke last week. Good stuff but I often roll my eyes when a writer uses a contemporary problem as proof positive of the thesis of the book he's promoting.

tbf, I omitted the next two sentences from the Ganz post:

"On the other hand, Harris won by not totally depressing her people. By showing that she was serious about fighting to the end and staying on course."

i dont think this is true, motivating people predisposed to vote for her is prob more important, and also this is just the stuff shes into theres no secret agenda if there were centrists wouldve been doing good stuff once they got elected, the corporate centrists are still driving thats just where were at

― lag∞n, Wednesday, September 11, 2024 8:30 AM (fifty seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

Definitely true but I do think it’s prob the right strategy for this particular debate

DJT stock is down 15% already today if you wanna know how the people dumb enough to invest in him think he did

Trump's frequent 'thank yous' to absolutely no one

Pretty sure he’s saying Trump to those people yelling “We need you President Trump”

Definitely true but I do think it’s prob the right strategy for this particular debate

― frogbs, Wednesday, September 11, 2024 9:32 AM (fifty-nine seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

strategy for the debate is driven by strategy for the campaign right, if shd been running on the rent is too damn high and insurance companies are scoundrels then we wouldve heard about it and people would like it too

Wow this trend map — during last night’s debate “abortion” was the top searched issue in every single state in the country but Ohio, because Trump bought into refuted tall tale that immigrants in Ohio are eating pets. pic.twitter.com/SG59Eiwysc

— Amanda Becker (@AmandaBecker) September 11, 2024

She is definitely running on “Trump is a great big dummy”, I think it would be foolish to argue otherwise, but I also think telling the electorate “look at how easy it will be for foreign leaders to manipulate him” while spending 90 minutes manipulating him into transforming into the live version of his social media account is de facto time wasted

strategy for the debate is driven by strategy for the campaign right, if shd been running on the rent is too damn high and insurance companies are scoundrels then we wouldve heard about it and people would like it too

― lag∞n, Wednesday, September 11, 2024 8:37 AM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

It’s hard to make a case for that when your party held the office for the last 4 years though. She’s still Biden’s VP, I don’t think people are gonna buy that she’d be that different

well it doesnt matter cause shes not

i do think people would buy it people like it when you say things that they agree with, you do have to say it with your whole chest tho

There’s definitely room for manoeuvre on price gouging of food/shrinkflation which is something everyone moans about regardless of politics.

“You get less Doritos now” is Biden’s line though

Clinton (Bill) showed that "I feel your pain" can be a winning strategy. DJT may be a different kind of out-of-touch than HW was, but I think the majority of American voters, if they don't already view him as out-of-touch, are at least willing to entertain the idea.

Trump is an "I can channel your anger" candidate.

Tentatively thinking there will be another debate: for Trump, to try making up for last night's debacle, for Harris, because he's Trump (and because, if it stays really close for another month, she probably needs another one more). I'm hoping--no facts here, just feelings--that this ends up being like 1980, where it's close for a long time, and then a feeling of "enough" shifts to Harris in the end. Obviously a 1980-type landslide is science-fiction now, so I guess I mean a feeling of "enough" in two or three key states (Pennsylvania obviously), enough to win.

I forgot her exact description of the people leaving his rallies was last night, but "exhaustion" was part of it. The "enough" of exhaustion, underscored by the debate(s), felt by just enough people in Pennsylvania.