Friday Open Thread

12 thoughts on “Friday Open Thread”

1. "Sundowning in America." Brad DeLong.

   "What more is there to say? Yes. Donald Trump is a fascist, attempting to generate stochastic terrorism to scare his political adversaries and the risk-averse into not opposing him. It doesn’t work with Liz Cheney, but it has already worked with a very large number of Republican office-holders, and a surprising—to me at least—number of plutocrats. Or should it be surprising to me?:"

   First, Donald Trump is a fascist, attempting to generate stochastic terrorism to scare his political adversaries and the risk-averse into not opposing him. Saying that Liz Cheney should be put in front of a firing squad doesn’t work with Liz Cheney, but it has already worked with a lot of other people. 

   Second, the Trump Supreme Court is profoundly illegitimate and in the tank. The only question is how far they will dare to go. 

   Third, I did not expect Trump to manage to get Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) to denounce his Madison Square Garden event. 

   Fourth, Donald Trump could not keep Madison Square Garden filled. 

   Fifth, yes, the idea behind that line at the event was that it would be really funny if somebody were to murder Taylor Swift…

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   1. Tony Hinchcliffe:

      "Travis Kelce might be the next OJ Simpson."

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   2. "I presume it is not being covered because editors are telling their reporters “it’s not really the policy” and Republican tax-policy worthies are unwilling to comment because they claim “it’s not really the policy”. But why are those things determinative?"

      Normative: It is so, so bizarre that the core of Trump’s policy agenda is based on just lying about how tariffs work at the most basic, 101 level imaginable. It’s not controversial. It’s not even complicated. It’s just a lie. It’s like saying income taxes are paid by leprechauns. I know he’s been lying about this for years so it’s hardly “news” but given it’s his one core policy idea other than “police state for mass deportation,” it should be a prominent feature of all coverage that it’s based on a straightforward lie. And look, it HAS to be a lie. Yes, he’s a moron. Yes, he’s not a very good businessman. But it is not possible to be in business for five decades, however ineptly, and not understand that importers pay tariffs, or that the cost gets passed on. It just isn’t…

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2. “Elon Musk’s Machine for Fascism: A One-Stop Shop for Disinformation and Violence.” EmptyWheel.

    In 2020, Trump’s role in the bullshit disinformation was overt.

   Trump, his sons, and his top influencers were all among a list of the twenty most efficient disseminators of false claims about the election compiled by the Election Integrity Project after the fact.

   …

   Meanwhile, the far right, including Elon, started using the Nazi bar that Elon cultivated to stoke right wing violence here on my side of the pond, first with targeted Irish anti-migrant actions, then with the riots that started in Southport. I’ve been tracing those efforts for some time, but Rolling Stone put a new report on it out, yesterday.

   Throughout, the main forum where right-wing pundits and influencers stoked public anger was X. But a key driver of the unrest was the platform’s owner himself, Elon Musk. He would link the riots to mass immigration, at one point posting that “civil war” in the U.K. was inevitable. He trolled the newly elected British prime minister, Keir Starmer — whose Labour Party won power in July after 14 years of Conservative rule — for supposedly being biased against right-wing “protesters.” After Nigel Farage, the leader of radical-right party Reform U.K. and Trump ally, posted on X that, “Keir Starmer poses the biggest threat to free speech we’ve seen in our history,” Musk replied: “True.”

   Anything Musk even slightly interacted with during the days of violence received a huge boost, due to the way he has reportedly tinkered with X’s algorithm and thanks to his 200 million followers, the largest following on X. “He’s the curator-in-chief — he’s the man with the Midas touch,” says Marc Owen Jones, an expert on far-right disinformation and associate professor at Northwestern University in Qatar. “He boosted accounts that were contributing to the narratives of disinformation and anti-Muslim hate speech that were fueling these riots.”

   Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, one of Trump’s most gleeful supporters, someone with troubling links to both China and Russia, has set up a one-stop shop: Joining false claims about the election with networks of fascists who’ll take to the streets.

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3. More explaining from Colorado officials

   https://www.coloradosos.gov/pubs/newsRoom/pressReleases/2024/PR20241031ElectionSecurity.html

    

    

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   1. I hope every one of these mostly unnecessary password updates went smooth as butter. I also hope every county clerk sees this as a team effort and does this password change just like every other clerk in Colorado.

      I am comforted by fact that Tina Peters' conviction could be an example to anyone in Colorado who might try shady shit. I'm looking at you, Dallas Shroeder in Elbert County!

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4. Voting Democrat is a Sin?!". "Christian" Dale Partridge. H/T Heather Cox-Richardson.

   Former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA), who famously cheated on both of his first two wives, expressed dismay at the idea that a woman might need to keep her vote secret from her husband. “For them to tell people to lie is just one further example of the depth of their corruption,” he said. “How do you run a country…saying wives should lie to their husbands, husbands should lie to their wives? I mean, what kind of a totally amoral, corrupt, sick system have the Democrats developed?”

   On the Fox News Channel’s The Five this morning, host Jesse Watters said that if he found out his wife “was going into the voting booth and pulling the lever for Harris, that’s the same thing as having an affair…. That violates the sanctity of our marriage.” Christian pastor Dale Partridge posted: “In a Christian marriage, a wife should vote according to her husband’s direction. He is the head and they are one. Unity extends to politics. This is not controversial.” But, he added, “submission does have limits. A wife doesn’t need to submit to her husband in sin (in this case voting democrat).”

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5. Do something.  It's not too late. In fact it's the best time to do something.  I'm canvassing for Yadira Caraveo whose district is one of a dozen Democratic tossup races in the country.

   What are you doing?

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   1. Just to tag on, you're absolutely right that now is the time to do something. Ballot returns are down about 505,000 compared to the same time in the election cycle from 2020. Maybe people are taking more time to figure out the ballot measures this year. But there should be a whole lotta people out there who will vote but haven't yet.

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   2. I took next Tuesday off work and have a full schedule of driving my fellow old fucks – the ones who don't drive themselves and don't trust mail or drop box voting – to the polls. Got some phone banking scheduled for tomorrow.

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6. I am doing phone calls to remind people to vote, plus recruiting others to call.

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7. I guess the whole "let's tone down the political rhetoric because it can lead to violence" thing has been suspended for the time being?

   “She’s a radical war hawk," Tr*mp said of (Liz) Cheney… "Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, okay? Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face.”

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