I’m beginning to believe that it’s no longer possible to have any sort of national discussion or debate with the media we have today.

There are only a few major American news outlets dedicated to reporting directly to voters, and they’re all right-wing propaganda.

The rest—the ones supposedly trying to be objective—simply report to each other and ignore anything they mistakenly believe “everyone already knows.” As a result we have only sports-style coverage of elections, with the occasional condescending feature story explaining what’s going on in “heartland” diners, with an incredulous narrative that these rubes aren’t aware of the basic things that no one has ever bothered to report.

Because of these abject failures, the largest audiences now all tune into other media— TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, and podcasts for their news. This is not the fault of the viewers—they want something interesting that goes into enough depth to hold their attention, and they don’t want to be lectured. So now we have a fractured media landscape that has no responsibility to truth or facts, or anything really other than entertainment and personal branding.

Facts are dead. American news is dead. And a democracy will not survive under these conditions. Frankly, it’s a miracle it has lasted this long.

This case could have massive implications for US democracy that extend far beyond the 2024 election, even if Harris wins in a landslide.

Back in 2016, Trump called out Ted Cruz by claiming that Cruz’s father killed JFK.

It seemed obvious to many of us that he was referring to the old conspiracy theory that George HW Bush personally killed Kennedy when he was in the CIA. There’s quite a bit online about it; apparently a lot of people believe in it. But Trump, being Trump, mixed up Jeb and Ted.

Our media, of course, inexplicably focused on Cruz’s reaction instead of Trumps obvious mental oblivion. I don’t understand why, but at the time I assumed that they were afraid of touching the conspiracy theory.

But based on the past eight years of rambling and incoherent speeches that get very little to no coverage, or worse, are entirely sanewashed, it seems more likely that they simply don’t want to talk about Trump’s mental decline.

Now, seeing Trump’s obsession with Hannibal Lecter and conflation of him with immigrants somehow, he appears to be confusing an insane asylum with seeking asylum.

There are only a few more days left until the election and we’re finally hearing small mentions of his “weave,” his name for his stream-of-consciousness word salads. These are too little. Hopefully they are not too late as well.

It's not about illegal immigration

Trump railed about illegal immigrants and the border before, during and after his presidency, and his party has used it as a campaign tool during that entire period as well. But Trump and the Republicans didn't cut it at all. He talked a lot about it, and he deliberately separated families to terrorize them into not trying to come here. But he didn't actually have an impact on illegal immigration numbers.

He did, however, cut legal immigration in half.

If you listen to Trump’s recent speeches and sound bites, in the middle of the all the confused rambling and bizarre tangents, the written rhetoric is now almost entirely about demonizing and deporting legal immigrants.

Trump is now promising to use the Alien Enemies Act for the first time in the modern era. That law was written to target residents here legally.

The Haitian immigrants he and Vance are attacking in Springfield are here legally.

Further, in his latest speeches, Trump has picked back up on talking about the genes of the immigrants. “Bad genes,” he says, as if they determine behavior or cause crime. They don’t, of course, but they do determine skin tone.

It’s not about illegal immigration. It never was, but his campaign is making it so much more obvious now. It’s about race. It has always been about race.

Y’all remember when UK MP’s were all over Twitter complaining about Trump asking them for campaign donations? I do.

I’m glad Eric Adams is being indicted for soliciting foreign donations, but he’s not the only one who should have been.

Republican officials and (supposedly) Trump campaign advisers are begging their candidate to focus on policy. They claim it will help him with voters. This raises an interesting question.

What policy?

There’s a party platform thats basically a leaflet. That does exist. Then the only other internal Republican policy paper out there is Project 2025. Despite the fact that his advisers created it, he’s running as fast as he can from talking about that.

There is no policy Trump can promote that doesn’t scare voters away. He cannot win on policy. Voters hate Republican policies when they actually hear what they are.

Trump’s popularity has never had anything to do with policy; it is entirely grievance-based. Trump knows this, and we have to suspect his advisers do too. He’s simply uninterested in that sort of difficult work, so it’s an afterthought in everything he does and says. Imagine him being asked something like, “how does Medicare work? How do your proposals change that?” He would short-circuit or answer a different question, because he would have no idea.

I’m beginning to think that the calls for him to discuss policy are nothing more than a head fake. He refuses to do it, he can’t do it, and he keeps asking crowds to tell him not to do it. Every time someone points out that he once again didn’t discuss policy as planned, or that he went off script, they are subtly reinforcing the idea that he has some popular ideas to share. Even if he did have them, he doesn’t have the interest or intellect required to discuss them.

It’s the blank pile of documents all over again. Just like then there are real documents hidden away that he and his team desperately do not want to share.

It’s important to look at why the GOP held this inquiry in the first place and why the committee is releasing this report now.

This was a clear attempt to level the playing field during the election. When Trump’s impeachments were mentioned to focus groups of independent or undecided voters, they had a major impact on his support. Voters take the impeachments seriously and they actually do hurt him in the polls. Combine that with the true stories of Trump’s personal corruption and that could lose him a point or two. Every point matters in a close election and this one is no exception.

The Republicans believed, perhaps correctly, that if they could paint Biden with the same brush, this would neutralize the impeachment issue. This isn’t some wild theory—it has been openly discussed by the Republican committee members. And with nearly four decades in public office, they were fairly certain they could pull up some dirt.

That turned out to be harder than they expected. In fact, the report focuses on an alleged $27m total that Biden’s son and brother were paid by foreign governments for work they performed during the 39 years Biden was an elected official, with none of that money tied to Joe himself.

That’s a lot of money, to be sure. For perspective, here’s how that number compares to Trump’s family.

Keep in mind that the Trump family members who received this money worked in the White House, and that an estimated $200m went to Donald Trump’s own companies. This is a massive distinction: none of the Biden family members were working in government and Joe Biden himself isn’t alleged to have received any foreign money at all.

(The numbers above are dominated by the $2b that Trump White House staffers Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner received from Saudis Arabia. Removing that amount leaves the Trump family with “only” about 25x the amount noted in the report for the Biden family. Frankly, I’d love to know if anyone has a similar chart for the past 5 to 10 presidents’ families. It would be interesting to see.)

In sum, the entire boondoggle was an embarrassment for Republicans and only underscored how wildly corrupt the Trump term was.

Which is why they’ve released it now. It gives their media something to discuss while the DNC is going on and while Democrats themselves are focused on bigger things. They can promote the bottom line of this chart without mentioning the top line. And just in case, this timing during the convention also allows Republicans to move away from the report quickly if turns out to be as embarrassing to them as it deserves to be.

If the Harris campaign can keep this enthusiasm and drive until November (and that’s a big IF), she can exceed 300 electoral votes.

There’s nothing a bully hates more than being teased, and there’s nothing a wannabe strongman thrives on more than looking strong. Trump doesn’t look strong. He looks like a loser right now because he is one; he lost to Biden and wanted a rematch, but losers rarely ever rebound in politics. Their moment has passed. He’s a washed up entertainer who got very lucky in 2016 because his only message aligned with what specific republicans wanted to hear. He can’t shift it, he doesn’t have another one, and he doesn’t know how.

A Harris-Walz landslide is possible, but even a simple win isn’t guaranteed. Keep it up, keep it going, keep it positive, fun, and strong.

Donald Trump has been out of his mind since well before ran for office.

Back when he was the butt of jokes at real estate conferences, we all knew Ivanka ran most things and that he couldn’t do any work without her or (perhaps) his sons. She appeared to be the business heir, especially in the hotel side of things, and friends in the industry have told me that she was good to work with. We also knew she would have to follow him to the White House. He had no one else that he trusted to make important decisions for him. As a result, there was some valid expectation that she might be making many of those decisions herself.

Ivanka & Jared were both appointed, and it became painfully obvious that both were horribly unqualified for politics, diplomacy or national policy. Thats without even clearly spending too much of their time making their own business deals from inside the executive branch. Career flatterers and sycophants made quick work of undermining these two newcomers, even as Trump tried to put them in charge of initiatives and programs.

So even though Ivanka often appeared to be the only person who cared that Trump might have an unembarrassing legacy, she wasn’t as much of a tempering influence as we might’ve hoped. Ultimately, her father was the man in charge, and she didn’t have the education or experience to handle him, the far right, or (especially) the country. Frankly, none of the Donald Trump heirs have shown themselves to be any better (morally or in business) than him, and Jared might be one of the worst of the entire bunch.

But here’s the thing.

In a 2nd Trump term, should there be one, there won’t be anyone as “normal” as Ivanka or even Jared. There will be no one there aside from the suck ups, the opportunists, and the extremists. We could end up with a genuinely empty-headed puppet who only cares about looking tough, surrounded entirely by some of the absolutely worst people the US has to offer: a literal rapist who is primed to quickly and easily give in to the most base and violent suggestions that his extremist advisors have to offer.

Kamala was my first choice in 2020. Im happy to vote for her in 2024.

I’m surprised that the delegates have fallen so quickly behind her. These are democrats we’re talking about here, and the political media has made fun of her ever since she became VP. From how she said “the” in a speech, to her quick laughter, to coconut trees, they just pile on the irrelevancies.

It’s still gonna be an uphill battle to beat Trump, but I’ll be thrilled to be wrong about my prediction that this will become a vicious fight among Dems. And even more thrilled if the GOP can’t file suits that keep her off the ballot.

- ​First proven rapist nominated for president.

- First convicted felon nominated for president.

Number one in so many things!

AOC: If you think a lot of the folks who are in charge of swaying this position are defaulting to the VP, you are mistaken. That is not something to be taken for granted. That would have to be a fight too. So all you folks who are coconut-pilled in the comments, buckle up!

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Biden isn’t being derided and challenged because he’s too old or feeble. It’s because Kamala is too black and too female.

There isn’t even an alternate candidate being proposed. Remove Biden and Trump will win. That’s the play here. That’s always been the play here.

Thiel, Musk & Lavrov have made their pick, and they bought JD Vance. They don’t care about Trump’s health and utter incompetence because they want Vance. The main reason elite Dems aren’t lining up behind Biden right now is because they do not want Harris.

They tried to push her off the ticket for four years. They failed, so now they’re going for the full ticket instead, and they will not mind if Trump wins because of it.

Regarding the Trump shooting.

I don't believe rapists and child molesters should be attacked by their cellmates in prison, and I don't find it funny when people joke about it. I don't worry about their recovery or mourn for the loss, but it does make me sad that we as a society allow it to happen.

An attack on Trump is emotionally no different to me.

I don't think anyone should feel bad for him in the slightest, and I certainly don’t. I DO feel bad that things are this fucked up, and I’m sad for the families of those killed. Trump has used violent rhetoric encouraging this behavior since before he entered politics, and if a disaffected supporter has turned on him, well, we reap what we sow.

He won’t gain support from this. No one is going to suddenly say, “he’s a rapist, a cheat and a conman but I feel sorry for him so he’s got my vote.”

The biggest effect is that the RNC next week is going to be unhinged and over the top, and the far right’s violent rhetoric is going to soon be even more out of control.

Be careful out there.