Sunrise — 7:12.

If Trump on the Joe Rogan show was not enough for you...

 ... get ready for JD Vance on the Tim Dillon show — here — in 26 minutes.

"But I’m beginning to think students who don’t read are responding rationally to the vision of professional life our society sells them."

"In that vision, productivity does not depend on labor, and a paycheck has little to do with talent or effort. For decades, students have been told that college is about career readiness and little else. And the task of puzzling out an author’s argument will not prepare students to thrive in an economy that seems to run on vibes. Recent ads for Apple Intelligence, an A.I. feature, make the vision plain. In one, the actor Bella Ramsey uses artificial intelligence to cover for the fact they haven’t read the pitch their agent emailed. It works, and the project seems like a go. Is the project actually any good? It doesn’t matter. The vibes will provide...."

Writes Jonathan Malesic, in "There’s a Very Good Reason College Students Don’t Read Anymore" (NYT).

I remember "vibes" as a hippie word, so I have trouble seeing how it functions these days in the speech of the young, and so, it annoys me. I wish I'd made a tag for it long ago, so I could could keep track of how it annoys me — at least in its usage by mainstream media. Do non-media young people go around saying it? I don't know. It just irks me when I see it in media.

For example... 

"Everybody’s constantly looking for the next job, and it’s incredibly cynical and transactional and, now, dysfunctional."

"I’ve been disappointed on the reality of that part of it. And it’s just also astonishing. I can’t understand why there’s people that are willing to spend tens of millions of their own money to try to hold that office. ’Cause then you can get there and be like, Hmm, look at the glamour: I’m sitting in a 500-square-feet apartment, and I’m on Grubhub and watching bad TV on Netflix or whatever. I like to ask all of my colleagues, Hey, is there some kind of secret society or like a social life or something glamorous? Even [Mitt] Romney, I mean, he’s incredibly wealthy, and he has a nice house, but I read that he sits on his nice chair and watches Netflix and eats salmon from his friend, and actually puts ketchup on it. So I haven’t met that one person that’s having that quintessential glamorous life. It’s been elusive for me, but it’s not one that would even appeal to me. I think people all think life is like 'The West Wing' or something, where it’s snappy dialogue. But a lot of it comes down to just really bad performance art."

Said John Fetterman, asked to explain why he doesn't consider himself a politician, in "The Interview/John Fetterman Fears Trump Is Stronger Than Ever" (NYT).

Here, you can watch the interview:

ADDED: The headline may make you think there's something valuable about Trump. I'll cherry-pick it for you:

Last night's Homecoming Parade.

"Trump... took the stage to ominous instrumental music. He stood on stage for several minutes as it played out."

Writes Jake Traylor (of NBC News) on X, inviting the world to look upon Trump and wonder at his weirdness...

Trump (who was 3 hours late to his rally this evening) took the stage to ominous instrumental music.

He stood on stage for several minutes as it played out. pic.twitter.com/Ruwlyg1idG

— Jake Traylor (@jake__traylor) October 26, 2024

... which is going to feel different to different people, perhaps depending on whether the music has any context for you. Me, I know the music is called the "Undertaker" theme, and though I know what an undertaker is — and I don't think you want the leader of your country analogized to a professional who disposes of the dead — I don't know who "The Undertaker" is — some movie/TV/video game character? Just off-hand, I'm reading Trump's message there as a threat to his antagonists, the so-called "enemy within," to whom he's going to say "You're fired" when he wins, which he wants them to believe he will. It's some scary music for them, but it's delightful to his admirers.

Joe Rogan talks to Donald Trump for 3 hours.

I'm one hour into it, and the 2 men have great rapport.

The NYT headline is designed to make people think that nothing worthwhile happened and it's all a stupid distraction for young guys: "6 Takeaways From Donald Trump’s 3-Hour Podcast With Joe Rogan/The former president repeated his debunked claims of election fraud and speculated that there could be life on Mars in an interview aimed at young male voters."

He courted the show’s young male audience by floating the idea of eliminating the income tax, talking about mixed martial arts fighters, praising the military skills of Gen. Robert E. Lee and speculating that there was “no reason not to think” there could be life on Mars and other planets....

Why not say he "courted" the old women (like me) by talking about the length of the bed in the Lincoln bedroom and how badly depressed Mary Todd Lincoln was after her son Tad died?

Mr. Rogan seemed to back Mr. Trump’s questioning of election processes, at one point likening those who raised concerns over elections to those who questioned coronavirus vaccines.

“You get labeled an election denier,” Mr. Rogan said. “It’s like being labeled an anti-vaxxer if you question some of the health consequences that people have from the Covid-19 shots.”...

What I thought was so interesting was the first topic: how Trump felt when he found himself suddenly President. If that's not a topic for women, I don't know what is, especially when Trump centered the description on his interest in seeing the Lincoln bedroom and imagining the feelings of Abe and Mary. I loved Trump's (seeming) openness, as he repeatedly described his subjective experience as "surreal."

Sunrise — 7:37.

"The ad... could be the final shot in an extremely negative campaign. It puts the spotlight on [Tammy] Baldwin’s personal life..."

"... in an attempt to turn a low-key Midwesterner into a high-flying East Coast elitist. And it also tries to invert one of Democrats’ most effective criticisms of [Eric] Hovde, the extremely wealthy chairman and chief executive of a bank in Utah."

I'm reading "In Wisconsin’s Senate Race, the Republican Highlights Baldwin’s Sexuality/Eric Hovde is closing out his challenge to Senator Tammy Baldwin, a low-key Midwesterner, with a new attack ad that appears to want to make sure voters know she’s gay" (NYT).

Is Hovde just fighting fire with fire on the issue of who really lives in Wisconsin or should this be considered some sort of gay baiting?

IN THE COMMENTS: Bushman of the Kohlrabi gives what I think is the correct response to the NYT's accusation:

Tammy is openly gay. She has been praised for her gayness by major state and national media outlets for years. She has been openly celebrated and supported by LGBT groups since she was first elected to the Senate. Every Wisconsinite with a pulse knows she’s gay. Is she now saying she’s embarrassed to be gay? More likely she just doesn’t want voters to know if her partner benefited financially from her Senate gig.

All this likening of Trump to Hitler has got me looking back to my 2011 posts, when Wisconsinites likened Governor Scott Walker to Hitler.

From March 19, 2011: "Scott Walker is like Hitler because 'he doesn't do nice things'" (the quote is from a young protester, in a video interview by Meade). 

From February 17, 2011: "Scott Walker compared to Hitler" (with video of Meade questioning a woman who is carrying a sign portraying showing Walker with a Hitler mustache).

Also from February 17, 2011: "I asked the woman if she thought Scott Walker was like Hitler, and she said 'Yes.' So I said, 'Are you saying that you think fascism could come to America,' and she said, 'It's what's happening.'" Here's the photo I took of the woman — hiding her face — and the Walker-as-Hitler poster:

"The Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election. Nor in any future presidential election."

 "We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates. As our Editorial Board wrote in 1960: 'The Washington Post has not "endorsed" either candidate in the presidential campaign. That is in our tradition and accords with our action in five of the last six elections. The unusual circumstances of the 1952 election led us to make an exception when we endorsed General Eisenhower prior to the nominating conventions and reiterated our endorsement during the campaign. In the light of hindsight we retain the view that the arguments for his nomination and election were compelling. But hindsight also has convinced us that it might have been wiser for an independent newspaper in the Nation's Capital to have avoided formal endorsement.'" 

That's "A note from the publisher," William Lewis, of The Washington Post, "On political endorsement."

Great! I prefer this policy, especially if it is based on a real commitment to professional, high-level journalism. There's a crazy amount of bias, which drives me away from whatever they are hoping to push. My sympathy for Donald Trump, the target of so much unfairness, is a bit absurd. I'm supposed to hate him? You idiots have made me love him. But somehow now you are drawing the line. What game is this?

Goodbye to Phil Lesh.

I thought he would live forever.

Very sad to see "Phil Lesh, Bassist Who Anchored the Grateful Dead, Dies at 84/One of the first rock bassists whose instrument regularly took a lead role, he also had a hand in writing some of the band’s best-known songs" (NYT).

In addition to providing explorative bass work, Mr. Lesh sang high harmonies for the band and provided the occasional lead vocal. He also co-wrote some of the band’s most noteworthy songs, including ones that inspired adventurous jams, like “St. Stephen” and “Dark Star,” as well as more conventional pieces, like “Cumberland Blues,” “Truckin’” and “Box of Rain.”

Key to the dynamic of The Dead was the way Mr. Lesh used the bass to provide ever-shifting counterpoints to the dancing leads of the lead guitarist Jerry Garcia, the curt riffs of the rhythm guitarist Bob Weir, the bold rhythms of the drummers Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, and, in the band’s first eight years, the warm organ work of Ron McKernan, known as Pigpen. 

A source of particular excitement was the relationship between Mr. Lesh’s instrument and Mr. Garcia’s. At times they mirrored each other. At other times they contrasted, in the process widening the music’s melodic nuances while helping to create the kind of variety and tension that allowed the band to improvise at length without losing the listener.

"As prisoners arrived, they were stripped, searched and deloused, a process overseen by Dr. Zimbardo, who played the role of prison superintendent."

"Initially there were a few giggles among the participants, but as the guards began enforcing rules, the mock prison began to feel very real. Though critics have accused Dr. Zimbardo of coaching the guards to act sadistic, he told the guards only to 'create feelings of boredom, frustration, fear and a "sense of powerlessness,"' according to a defense of the study on his website. They were, he said, given no 'formal or detailed instructions about how to be an effective guard.' Within a day, the guards had become abusive and were engaging in psychological torture: making the prisoners defecate in buckets, waking them up repeatedly through the night, forcing them to simulate sodomy. Several prisoners suffered emotional breakdowns. But Dr. Zimbardo kept the study going...."

From "Philip Zimbardo, 91, Whose Stanford Prison Experiment Studied Evil, Dies/ His provocative research made him a popular figure on campus. But his exploration of how good people can turn evil raised ethical questions" (NYT).

"Harris’s closing argument is dishonest, desperate and hypocritical/Trump isn’t a fascist, and he didn’t say he would use the military against his political opponents."

Writes Marc A. Thiessen, in The Washington Post. That's a gift link, so you can read the whole thing. Excerpt:

In their miasma of outrage, Democrats seem to have forgotten that they have been demonizing Republicans as “enemies” for years. During his noxious 2022 speech in Atlanta, President Joe Biden accused Republicans who opposed his proposed federal takeover of our elections of standing with traitors such as Confederate president Jefferson Davis and explicitly called them “enemies” of America, thundering: “I will defend the right to vote, our democracy against all enemies — foreign and, yes, domestic.” Barack Obama famously declared “We’re gonna punish our enemies, and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us” (He later conceded that he should have used the word “opponents” instead.)

Asking AI to make a beautiful face more and more beautiful ends up in the same place as a person who gets too much plastic surgery.

But you'll have to go to TikTok to see it: here.

"Once considered revolutionary, the notion of empathy and advocacy for the poor is now a central tenet of Roman Catholic social teaching."

"Once considered revolutionary, the notion of empathy and advocacy for the poor is now a central tenet of Roman Catholic social teaching.... Father Gutiérrez’s theology was not without its detractors. It was criticized by scholars living in capitalist countries for its use of Marxist social analysis to expose unjust political systems in the third world, many of them supported by first world powers.... More recently, his theology found favor with Pope Francis.... [T]he pope declared that liberation theology can no longer 'remain in the shadows to which it has been relegated for some years, at least in Europe.'... [Father Gutiérrez wrote:] 'Latin American misery and injustice go too deep to be responsive to palliatives.... Hence we speak of social revolution, not reform; of liberation, not development; of socialism, not the modernization of the prevailing system. "Realists" call these statements romantic and utopian. And they should, for the rationality of these statements is of a kind quite unfamiliar to them.'"

From "Gustavo Gutiérrez, Father of Liberation Theology, Dies at 96/Once considered revolutionary, his notion of empathy and advocacy for the poor has become a central tenet of Catholic social teaching" (NYT).

"How brilliant is Donald J. Trump?"

Brilliant enough to call in to a JD Vance town hall and ask "How brilliant is Donald J. Trump?"

WATCH: JD Vance is currently doing a Town Hall hosted by Chris Cuomo, and Trump surprised them with a call to ask a question

Trump: "How brilliant is Donald Trump?" 😂

Vance: "This is supposed to be for undecided voters. I would hope that I have your vote, of all people." 😂… pic.twitter.com/qvy5l0aWlX

— George (@BehizyTweets) October 25, 2024

And speaking of how women feel about politics, let's hear from Mika Brzezinski:

It's finally happened. Mika has *SNAPPED* live on airpic.twitter.com/EeiNzwopeb

— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) October 24, 2024

She's so earnest — or phony-earnest — about wanting women to wake up and start paying attention, but I've been paying attention every day, and I didn't think one thing in her parade of horribles was true.

You know, I said a long time ago that I thought the Democrats should put aside all the Trump-is-evil theatrics and simply engage with him on the substantive merits... if they can. Maybe they know that would be the better strategy but they lack the material to fight on the merits.

ADDED: I'm trying to find old posts of mine where I begged Democrats to fight on the substantive merits, and the first thing that turned up, from December 14, 2023, was "Predicted Electoral College vote: 312 Trump, 226 Biden" ("Here's the Electoral College interactive map, where I generated the numbers used in my post title").

I invite you to look at the Real Clear Politics "No Toss-Ups" Electoral College map right now:

I got it right on the nose! 312 to 226. 

And here's what I wrote last December:

The demonization of Trump has not worked for Democrats. I think Glenn Greenwald put it aptly (reacting to the polls I've displayed above): 

"The more Trump is indicted, the more he rises in the polls. That correlation doesn't prove causation, but what it does prove is that most Americans have so much distrust in the justice system and DOJ that even felony indictments don't undermine Trump's standing with the public."

My advice, not that I think Democrats would or even could follow it: Fight Trump on the substantive merits of the issues. Show us that you deserve the power you seek.

I was right all the way down to the prediction that they wouldn't do it and the belief — which I still hold — that they couldn't do it even if they wanted.

If you had to take the over/under on Trump 312/Harris 226, you'd take the over.

"'If it takes Vice President Harris to elevate the voices of women in Houston so they are heard in Madison and Kalamazoo and Pittsburgh, that’s what we’re going to do'..."

"... said Trey Martinez Fischer, the Democratic leader in the Texas State House. Just about everything related to Ms. Harris’s Houston trip is engineered to create news that will reach voters in the battleground states. Before the rally with Beyoncé and [Willie] Nelson, she is scheduled to record a podcast interview with the popular podcaster Brené Brown, a University of Houston professor and vulnerability researcher who has an audience of millions that skews heavily female.... No Democrat has won a statewide election in Texas since 1994. Ms. Harris’s Houston rally appears to be the first for a Democratic presidential nominee in Texas this late in a campaign since President Bill Clinton went to San Antonio in the final days before the 1996 election."

From "Why Harris (with Beyoncé in tow) is heading to solidly red Texas" (NYT)

Meanwhile: "Mr. Trump is planning his own Texas sojourn on Friday, heading to Austin to record Joe Rogan’s podcast...."

What ever happened to Harris's "talks" with Rogan? Here's what I wrote about that 10 days ago:

Somehow the first 2 articles I click to read in the NYT this morning both bring up Theodore Roosevelt.

1. "The Election Is Happening Too Soon" by David Brooks: "By the time Theodore Roosevelt came to the presidency in 1901, society was heaving with change. The legislative program that we call progressivism — cleaning up local government, breaking up the monopolies, regulating clean food, water and air — grew out of the cultural and civic change that was already underway. The pattern was cultural change first, then civic revival, then political reform. Today we face another great civilizational question: How can we create a morally cohesive and politically functional democracy amid radical pluralism and diversity?"

2. "It Sounded Like Dancing, Drinking and Sex. It Blew People’s Minds" by John McWhorter: "We moderns can’t feel ragtime as the hip, naughty thing it was to people when Theodore Roosevelt was president. Jazz, rock, hip-hop and so much else came in ragtime’s wake, all of them syncopated (and hip-wiggly) to degrees beyond anything [Scott] Joplin, who died in 1917, ever knew." (Interesting use of language: "hip, naughty... hip-hop... hip-wiggly....")

***

I sense a reaction to the immersion in 2024 electoral politics. Those who'd been hoping to leap forward are drawn instead into the past, and when they look back, the human marker of time who stands out is Theodore Roosevelt.

"I'm dying for some action... I need a love reaction...."

Bruce Springsteen has been dying for that action for so long. "This gun's for hire," he sings to us, in that puzzlingly straining voice he's been foisting upon us since the 1970s.

And here he is, last night, at the Democratic Party rally....

 

"You can't start a fire/Worrying about your little world falling apart...."

Now, there's a political slogan.

But who's the best candidate for those of us who do worry about our "little world" falling apart?

Sunrise — 7:27, 7:39, 7:39.

The last photo — of me, me and the trees — is by Meade.

"The Progressive Moment Is Over/Four reasons their era has come to an end."

Writes Ruy Teixeira (at Liberal Patriot).

The 4 reasons:

1. Loosening restrictions on illegal immigration was a terrible idea and voters hate it...

2. Promoting lax law enforcement and tolerance of social disorder was a terrible idea and voters hate it....

3. Insisting that everyone should look at all issues through the lens of identity politics was a terrible idea and voters hate it....

4. Telling people fossil fuels are evil and they must stop using them was a terrible idea and voters hate it....

That made me think of this TikTok I saw today, a woman describing what she thinks is "a new breed of conservatives": 

"Usha and J.D. made a memorable pair. The legal writer David Lat remembers attending a poker night with the couple in 2011..."

"... at the neo-Gothic home of [Amy] Chua and her husband, fellow Yale law professor Jed Rubenfeld.... At the time, Chua was mainly known for her book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, a gaily provocative paean to achievement-oriented parenting. Chua was a kind of den mother to certain student protégés, known on campus as 'Chua pets,' and J.D. was central among them. According to another former friend of the pair, Chua was not a fan of Usha. 'Probably because she didn’t engage in her bullshit,' the former friend said. 'You have to gossip and drink. J.D. loved that shit.' Usha did not. Lat happened to ride the Metro-North up from New York for the poker game with the soon-to-be Vances. He told his husband later that night that they’d reminded him of another famous Yale Law couple, Bill and Hillary Clinton. 'They had a kind of energy to them,' Lat said. 'They seemed very confident and successful. One thing that struck me as Hillary-esque was that Usha seemed to have more polish than J.D.'"

From "What Is Usha Vance Thinking? The veep candidate’s wife is the child of immigrants, a former Democrat, a highly skilled lawyer — and a total mystery" (NY Magazine).

The Mystery of the Waterfowl.

This morning, at sunrise, we analyze the birds.

"When I look at Kamala, I look at my aunt. I mean, we've got this black lady, strong, who stands on business, who means what she says, is relatable."

"I see the empathy, that's just, like, in their heart, the nature of a female. She shows a lot of empathy when she speaks. Her actions — Kamala's strong, she's powerful. She stern, she means everything that she says. This November, I'm standing with Kamala."

According to Ed O'Keefe, at CBS News, this ad is aimed at black men in the Philadelphia area.

Maybe Philadelphia is full of guys who think: You know who should be President? My aunt!

And maybe in the Philadelphia area, among black residents, they still speak of "empathy" by calling it "the nature of a female." But all of us can see this ad. And to me, it seems as though the Harris campaign looks upon black men as sexist — Obama let it show the other day — and wants to meet them where they are and is therefore calling women "females" and describing their "nature" in old-fashioned, stereotypical terms — "empathy, that's just, like, in their heart, the nature of a female."

RFK Jr. and Tucker Carlson and Tulsi Gabbard each take a quick turn touting Trump.

RFK Jr: "Don't you want a President who's going to get the chemicals out of our food and don't you want a president who's going to get the corruption out of Washington and don't we deserve a president of the United States that's going to make America healthy again?"

Tucker Carlson: "The single biggest lie that Donald Trump has exposed is that this is a functional democracy when in fact it's a country oppressed by a small group of its unhappiest citizens for their own benefit, and the promise of this campaign is that Donald Trump will return this country to its owners...."

Tulsi Gabbard:  "We have seen from the very beginning how much President Trump has been attacked, smeared, censored — the government weaponized against a candidate for President and a former President in ways that have never been seen in our country before. The reason why this has happened is because he is the sole person who has had the courage to stand up against the uni-party War Machine in Washington and has the audacity to call for peace and an end to war. While he has challenged the swamp creatures in Washington, all of you have resoundingly nominated him for President 3 times in the last 3 presidential elections. We know whose side he stands on. He stands on the side of the people. He stands on the side of peace and prosperity and freedom for all Americans...."

Kamala Harris, asked if she's made a mistake that she's learned from, could have nailed it by ending her painful fumbling by saying...

Oh. My. God.

That Kamala town hall is it

Holy fuck

Listen and SHARE THIS pic.twitter.com/r7sq3lfWR8

— Tim Pool (@Timcast) October 24, 2024

... after "It's a mistake not to be well-versed on an issue and feel compelled to answer a question" — she just needed to add: And that's exactly what I'm in the middle of doing right now, so here I am, learning from a mistake in real time, and that's the end of my terrible answer. Learning!

Everyone's talking about whether Trump meets "the definition of a fascist," after John Kelly "read aloud a definition of fascism that he had found online."

I saw that Kamala Harris, doing a town hall on CNN last night, "agreed" that Trump meets "the definition of a fascist," but she did not, herself, define "fascist," so I wondered what she was doing, embracing a conclusion, calling names. I live in a city where you can get called a "fascist" for venturing that Justice Scalia wrote a well-reasoned opinion. Among left-wingers, the definition of "fascist" is: right-wing. It's a shibboleth. To call someone a "fascist" is to identify yourself as on the left.

So it's a good thing to interpose the idea that a definition is needed, and it's interesting to see that Anderson Cooper did not ask Harris is Trump a fascist. But he did not task her with providing a definition. He just asked her whether Trump met the definition of a fascist. What's a home viewer to do? 

I didn't watch the town hall live. Frankly, I didn't know it was on. Which is odd considering that I read the news all day yesterday and it was a 90-minute CNN extravaganza. Hard to hide, one would think. And yet it was hidden from me.

The first headline I saw this morning was "Harris says in CNN town hall she agrees Trump is a fascist" (WaPo). Agrees? Who is she agreeing with? It was confusing, because the article only says that the moderator, Anderson Cooper, asked her if she believed Trump is a fascist. Who is she supposedly agreeing with? I don't think Cooper expressed an opinion. (That would be wrong. He was the moderator. Whatever he may think, he can't properly say it.)

I quickly figure out that this traces back to an October 22 article in the NYT, by Michael S. Schmidt: "As Election Nears, Kelly Warns Trump Would Rule Like a Dictator/John Kelly, the Trump White House’s longest-serving chief of staff, said that he believed that Donald Trump met the definition of a fascist." Boldface added.

In response to a question about whether he thought Mr. Trump was a fascist, Mr. Kelly first read aloud a definition of fascism that he had found online.

Good for Kelly for sensing that a definition is required. Bad for Kelly for just finding something on line and reading it out loud... 

“Well, looking at the definition of fascism: It’s a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy,” he said.

... and quickly concluding that the definition is met:

Mr. Kelly said that definition accurately described Mr. Trump.

“So certainly, in my experience, those are the kinds of things that he thinks would work better in terms of running America,” Mr. Kelly said.

He thinks... but didn't do in 4 years in office? When did Trump ever say that the better way to run America is through "centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition [and] belief in a natural social hierarchy"? 

Are you wondering where on line Kelly found his definition? Make the most obvious guess and you will be right:

Sunrise — 7:03, 7:05.

"And in quiet conversations, some female Harris supporters can’t shake the uneasy feeling that men in their lives are struggling to support a woman — especially a Black and South Asian woman — even if they don’t want to admit it."

That's the 5th paragraph of the New York Times article "Why Gender May Be the Defining Issue of the Election/The issue is rarely directly addressed by either Vice President Kamala Harris or Donald Trump. But the 2024 contest is, in ways overt and subtle, a referendum on the role of women in American life." 

I wonder how the NYT heard the "quiet conversations" and how, assuming you could hear them, you would know that the interlocutors had a particular feeling and it was unshakable, and how, assuming you would know that, the feelers of the unshaken feeling felt that they knew the contents of the mind of the man in her life, that he both wants to support the woman and doesn't want to admit he's having trouble doing what he thinks he is trying to do.

“If she were a man, would this race be this close?” Gov. Janet Mills of Maine asked a clutch of Democratic women after campaigning for Ms. Harris in suburban Pittsburgh. Joyce Reinoso, one of those women, shot back, “Oh, she would’ve won three weeks ago.”...

If Kamala Harris were a man, she would not have been chosen for Joe Biden's Vice President, and if she were not Vice President, she would not have been the one that the nomination that was stolen from him got handed to. She wouldn't be anywhere near the presidency.

Is Obama helping Kamala by vocalizing about vomit on his sweater?

I'm reading "Obama raps lyrics to Eminem’s ‘Lose Yourself’ at Detroit rally/'Love me some Eminem,' Obama said after rapping lyrics to the hit song 'Lose Yourself; during a rally in Detroit as Michigan begins early voting" (WaPo)(free-access link so you can watch the video).

“I have done a lot of rallies, so I don’t usually get nervous,” Obama said as he took to the stage to promote Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday. “But I was feeling some kind of way following Eminem.... I notice my palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy, vomit on my sweater already, mom’s spaghetti, I’m nervous but on the surface I look calm and ready to drop bombs but I keep on forgetting,” Obama rapped as the crowd cheered. “Love, love me some Eminem,” he added.

I'm not sure who he hopes to influence with that, but what do I know? I'm only an undecided voter in Wisconsin. I'm not awed by celebrities, and everyone acknowledges that Kamala is the candidate with the most celebrities. Does it augment or diminish her? 

But I just want to say that I do not like the picture of mom's spaghetti vomited onto Obama's sweater. I can barely picture Obama wearing a sweater — as opposed to a beautifully ironed shirt with a casually unbuttoned collar and rolled up sleeves. 

And I don't like thinking about spaghetti-vomit on that sweater. I get Eminem's lyric about his pathetic self, who's not only vomiting onto his bad clothes but stuck eating his mother's home-cooked food. I saw the movie "8 Mile" when it came out. I understand the context of the lyrics

But Obama is not so in thrall to Eminem that the thought of encountering Eminem would physically overwhelm him. Obama was President and had to go head-to-head with Putin and Xi, and he's supposed to be vouching for Kamala, who's asking to do the same, so I don't want to hear about his getting weak-kneed over a pop star.

And most of all, I don't like "mom's spaghetti" as a marker of wretchedness. Many of us are bereft of a mother — including you, Barack Obama. To have mom's spaghetti, even upchucked, would be to experience one's mother alive in the world again.  

"State media has... suggested the new campaign intends to target even benign-sounding puns" — like "rainy girl without melons" (yǔ nǚ wú guā) for "it’s none of your business" (yǔ nǐ wú guan)."

I'm reading "China cracks down on ‘uncivilised’ online puns used to discuss sensitive topics/Campaign targets wordplay and memes that are often used by people to get around censorship controls" (The Guardian).

China’s internet regulators have launched a campaign cracking down on puns and homophones.... The “clear and bright” campaign is targeting “irregular and uncivilised” language online, particularly jokes, memes, and wordplay, the Cyberspace Administration of China and the ministry of education announced this month....

“For some time, various internet jargons and memes have appeared frequently, leaving people more and more confused,” said an editorial by the Communist party mouthpiece, the People’s Daily.... 

The People’s Daily noted the quick turnover for online memes, and urged authorities and social media platforms to not allow “obviously ambiguous” new words to spread quickly without “rectification.”

"So OK," Nathan Silver will "tell you. My gut says Donald Trump. And my guess is that it is true for many anxious Democrats."

Quoted in "Nate Silver: Here’s What My Gut Says About the Election. But Don’t Trust Anyone’s Gut, Even Mine" (NYT).

Silver intuits that the polls reflect a "nonresponse bias": "It’s not that Trump voters are lying to pollsters; it’s that in 2016 and 2020, pollsters weren’t reaching enough of them."

Sunrise — 7:06, 7:09, 7:14, 7:29.

I perceive a lull.

My usual method of blogging is turning up nothing this morning. It all looks like stupid fake filler right now. Interpret that as you will. I'll just put up a sunrise picture — from 6:54 this morning — and declare this a "café." Say what you like or just rest for now. That's what I'm doing.

Obama's in Madison today — with Tim Walz in tow — but where is he appearing?

I've been seeing Facebook ads for this event for days and getting email, but it all lists the location as "TBA." Example:

"Exact address to be announced."

Why the big secret? Security? I'm going to guess that they'd like to use a big arena, but only if there's going to be the right size crowd. It can't be allowed to be seen that Obama does not draw in the masses.

Sunrise — 7:31.

"I fear that Harris is every bit as vacuous behind the scenes as she seems to be on the public stage."

"I fear she will be tested early by a foreign adversary and stumble badly, whether it’s in stopping Iran from building a nuclear weapon or China from blockading Taiwan or Russia from seizing a portion of a Baltic country. I fear she will capitulate too easily to her party’s left flank, especially when it comes to identity politics, economic policy or polarizing cultural issues. I fear she’ll have no domestic policy ideas that don’t involve mindlessly expanding the role of government. I fear she’ll surround herself with mediocre advisers, like her embarrassingly bad veep pick. I fear she won’t muster the political will to curb mass migration. And I fear that a failed Harris presidency will do more to turbocharge the far right in this country than to diminish it."

Said Bret Stephens, endorsing Kamala Harris, in "Kamala Harris Has an Unexpected Ally" (NYT).

"Once European fashion houses stopped pretending that they were ignorant of Black culture, they began to openly feed on it."

"Sagging had made young Black men objects of scorn, particularly by the paternalists—Bill Cosby, the father; Barack Obama, the politician; and Eric Adams, the cop—who had each done their separate campaigns admonishing the brothers for not pulling up their pants. The derision was predicated on protection. Black man, make them respect you by your dress. Black man, hold yourself high. Legislation against sagging—modern morality ordinances, passed in municipalities in states such as New Jersey, Illinois, and Michigan, and across the South—became a possible pretense for arrests. In February, 2019, in Shreveport, Louisiana, Anthony Childs died while being chased by police, who pursued him for a 'saggy pants' violation. They engaged in gunfire, and although the coroner ruled Childs’s death the result of a self-inflicted wound, he was killed in a confrontation that never should have happened in the first place. Did Balenciaga care? The brand’s sweatpants, looked at through the prism of death and disrespect, were a real problem and a sort of social evil, conjuring bodies in effigy."

Writes Doreen St. Félix, in "Girl, What Waist? How the waist became the site of enduring race panic" (The New Yorker).

Fox News challenges JD Vance to deal with the media potshots at Trump's McDonald's french-fry stunt.

"Is this rightward drift among young men simply a short-lived, Trump-inspired episode or a more permanent transformation?"

"The answer lies partly in Ms. Harris’s ability to connect with and motivate young voters as the campaign nears its end.... But to win more votes from young men, Ms. Harris must address their fears head-on and present a bold vision that speaks to their desire for purpose and strength.... Ms. Harris needs to go big.... Ms. Harris should make a sweeping national call to both military and civilian service — name it the Generation Z Compact to Rebuild and Renew America. Such a plan would offer a sense of identity, community and patriotism, while providing economic stability and skill-building — things many young men feel they are missing...."

Writes John Della Volpe, the director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics, in "Trump’s Bro-Whispering Could Cost Democrats Too Many Young Men" (NYT).

It's a little late for that sort of thing!

"The book’s first sentence now feels brutally prescient: 'Dying really didn’t hurt,' Navalny wrote."

He later described his decision to return to Moscow, knowing that he could be arrested and killed. 'There are 1,001 simple ways you can be killed in prison,' he wrote. When Navalny flew back to Moscow from Berlin in January 2021, he was arrested at the airport, and later faced a series of trials on charges of extremism and other offenses that his supporters say were manufactured by the state. He wrote the rest of the memoir in prison.... 'I had to devise a whole clandestine operation to bamboozle the guards, involving the substitution of identical notebooks bought specifically for the purpose.'..."

From "How Aleksei Navalny’s Prison Diaries Got Published/In his posthumous memoir, compiled with help from his widow, Yulia Navalnaya, Navalny faced the fact that Vladimir Putin might succeed in silencing him. The book will keep 'his legacy alive,' Navalnaya said" (NYT)(free-access link).

"Each time we argue my girlfriend will go away and discuss the argument with chat gpt, even doing so in the same room sometimes."

"Whenever she does this she’ll then come back with a well constructed argument breaking down everything i said or did during our argument. I’ve explained to her that i don’t like her doing so as it can feel like i’m being ambushed with thoughts and opinions from a robot. It’s nearly impossible for a human being to remember every small detail and break it down bit by bit but AI has no issue doing so. Whenever i’ve voiced my upset i’ve been told that 'chat gpt says you’re insecure' or 'chat gpt says you don’t have the emotional bandwidth to understand what i’m saying.' My big issue is it’s her formulating the prompts so if she explains that i’m in the wrong, it’s going to agree without me having a chance to explain things. Am i the asshole for asking her to stop using chat gpt in this context?"

From "My girlfriend uses Chat GPT every time we have a disagreement. AITAH for saying she needs to stop?" (r/AITAH). Via "Couples are using AI to fight — and win — arguments: 'ChatGPT says you’re insecure'" (NY Post).

I think it's sad that they live in such a way that she can "go away" and still be "in the same room sometimes." Just agree to use the AI together, alternating who puts in the next prompt or using your own device in parallel fashion. Have fun with it, and if you can't, you're not doing anything right. 

"There were way too many kids and it seemed to her that since they didn’t speak the language, or didn’t understand what was going on, they were getting more attention."

"And so she and the other kids who grew up here who were having issues or struggling in certain things weren’t able to get the attention that they needed — the help they needed from the school.... You can’t just focus all your resources on one group of children and everybody else is falling behind...."

Said the mother of a 16-year-old who dropped out of public school and enrolled in an "online homeschool," quoted in "In Logansport, Indiana, kids are being pushed out of schools after migrants swelled county’s population by 30%:/'Everybody else is falling behind'" (NY Post).

The numbers are confusing. We're told that 2,000 Haitian migrants may have been added to a city of 18,000 and also that 11,000 may have been added to a county of 38,000. There are also claims of being "verbally accosted" and stared at ("It’s not safe. They just stare at you and won’t talk to you. They stand there staring at my house with cameras on their phones. I don’t know if they’re recording, what they’re doing"). The mayor objects to the attention: "Stop playing politics with the smaller communities. We don’t like this. We don’t appreciate this. We would rather you do your job and actually do something instead of talking about this."

The Washington Post Editorial Board pushes Kamala Harris to pay attention to the upcoming 250th anniversary of the United States.

I was surprised to see the Board highlighting the semiquincentennial, but here's the column featured on the front page today — 2 weeks before Election Day — "America has a big birthday coming. Kamala Harris should talk plans. The celebration is a chance to renew our nation’s commitment to the promise of its founding."

Is this an issue the people are clamoring for attention to be paid to? Donald Trump paid attention to it... a year and a half ago. He thought about it on his own and made a dignified speech detailing his multi-part plan for a full-year celebration. So for the WaPo editors to bring this up is to put pressure only on Kamala Harris. Is she supposed to jump at their prodding? There's zero hope of her sounding sincere responding to this one-sided demand. 

The editors say — in a tellingly passive voice:

Efforts are already underway to plan the semiquincentennial, but they got off to a slow start, mirroring much of the country’s political dysfunction.

In other words, the Biden Administration hasn't been doing enough?

The federal commission appointed to oversee the proceedings, writes the Atlantic, “swiftly descended into a morass of charges and countercharges over process, favoritism, hiring, gender discrimination, and budget decisions.”

So here's what cued up the issue. There's an article in The Atlantic, published a week ago: "America Is Suffering an Identity Crisis/In two years, the U.S. will mark its 250th birthday, and the left doesn’t seem to care—giving up on America’s symbols and its very meaning."

The left doesn't seem to care. But if Trump is elected he will preside over the occasion, and he certainly seems to care. I can now understand the WaPo editors' decision to forefront this issue. There's a horror of the Donald Trump Birthday of America Extravaganza and a chilling realization that his Make-America-Great-Again theme fits enragingly perfectly with the occasion. Quick! Present a left-wing alternative vision!

The WaPo editors lamely suggest that Kamala Harris "try to persuade skeptics on her side of the political spectrum that the United States is indeed something worth celebrating." It's a little late for that. But the editors say she's "well-positioned to make this pitch, because as the child of immigrants and a woman of color, she represents in her very candidacy the progress the country has seen." As if this big occasion should revolve around her: Celebrate me! Because I embody what's worth celebrating!

The Atlantic article says that Biden dealt with the "meltdown" at the commission by appointing Rosie Rios as the commission chair. Under her, the key concept seems to be a "radically decentralized" social-media concept called "America's Stories" — a website where anybody/everybody writes anything. This would be inclusive, but it would include all the hostility against America that we expect from the left. Would they resort to censorship? They would have to! 

The Atlantic writer, the Yale historian Beverly Gage, says:

For the past 60 years, much of American historical scholarship has been about exposing a darker story behind self-congratulatory myths.

Next time you propose a toast at a birthday party, try exposing a darker story behind the self-congratulatory myths.

As a believer in that effort, I have long shared the left’s ambivalence about patriotic symbols: the flag, the Founders, the national anthem, the Fourth of July. Today, though, I feel an urgency to reclaim and redefine all these things, lest they be ceded to those darker forces historians like to write about.

So you and your fellow historians devoted yourself to telling the "darker story" and now, as the people look to celebrate a big birthday, you are worried that they aren't going to frame the event around your dark story but will look to the kind of characters — the "darker forces" — that you've been disparaging all these years? People are drawn to the good — to an uplifting idea of what the country means — and you see that very optimism as an embrace of the darkness.

Nearing the end, the historian comes out with: "[N]ow that I think of it, why not wear the hat and fly the flag?" Well, for one thing, flying a U.S. flag at your house is regarded as equivalent to having a Trump yard sign.

We have a U.S. flag at our front door. But I'd consider bringing it inside for the next few weeks, because I don't like exacerbating the anguish in the neighborhood as the impending Make-America-Great-Again victory comes into focus.

Sunrise... with autumn colors.

Who better than Alec Baldwin to play the role of Bret Baier as a complete jerk in last night's "SNL" cold open?

And I liked this "Weekend Update" segment that I think was designed to make the audience hold Trump in contempt... but might make them love him:

"We expect our would-be tyrants to command a certain gravitas, to be earnest, play it straight. But Donald Trump almost never does."

"He’s always smirking, acting coy, camp, or just plain bizarre. The effect can be deflating, confusing, bathetic. Can a man this ridiculous really pose an existential threat to our democracy?... [I]n Oaks, Pennsylvania... [Trump] spent 39 minutes mostly silent, standing, rocking side to side, and occasionally dancing to his campaign playlist.... Pundits were quick to call the musical interlude inexplicable and to attribute the choice to Trump’s congenital weirdness and possible mental deterioration. They seemed to have hope that this was the type of moment that might wake up the electorate. But I didn’t find his performance particularly jarring. The sentiment he expressed — who the hell wants to keep doing this shit — brought to mind a wistful indiscretion from the grinding days of the 2020 campaign. 'By the way, nice trucks,' Trump said to a crowd in Allentown, Pennsylvania, which included a contingent of Truckers for Trump. 'You think I could hop into one of them and drive it away? I’d love to just drive the hell out of here. Just get the hell out of this. I had such a good life. My life was great.'"

Writes Sam Adler-Bell, in "The Music Man/Trump’s kitschy nostalgia is the point" (NY Magazine).

Sounds like the final scene in "Five Easy Pieces":

Trump said Abraham Lincoln was only "probably" a great president, because "Why wasn’t that settled?" ("That" = the Civil War.)

A kid asked Trump who was his favorite President when he was a kid, and, after talking about Reagan, his favorite President, who didn't become President until Trump was 35, he said:

"Uh, great presidents — well, Lincoln was probably a great president. Although I’ve always said, why wasn’t that settled? You know? I’m a guy that — it doesn’t make sense we had a civil war."

This remark fits with his determined insistence that if he'd been President, Russia would not have invaded Ukraine and the October 7th massacre would never have happened. War can be avoided, we'd all like to think, but who are the peacemakers? Trump would like you to think he's the one. 

I'm reading that quote in a NYT article called "Four of Trump’s Most Meandering Remarks This Week/The former president says that his style is to 'weave' from one subject to the next. Others see something more worrisome in his ramblings."

I love the Abraham Lincoln quote. Why do we see war Presidents as the great ones? If there was a war, why don't we fault him for not saving us from it? And who, this time around, will save the world from war?

But let's not talk about that. Let's talk about the extent to which Trump is meandering. Let's worry about what are pointless ramblings.

The other article about Trump on the front page of the NYT is "At a Pennsylvania Rally, Trump Descends to New Levels of Vulgarity." He's speaking in a way that can be characterized as unpresidential. He said 1. "Such a horrible four years, we had a horrible — think of the — everything they touch turns to —" and the audience yelled "Shit!" 2. (about Harris) "We can’t stand you, you’re a shit vice president," and 3. (about Arnold Palmer) "This is a guy that was all man.... And I refuse to say it, but when he took showers with the other pros, they came out of there, they said, 'Oh, my god, that’s unbelievable.'... I had to tell you the shower part of it because it’s true... We want to be honest.'"

Meanwhile, there's only one article about Kamala Harris on the front page of the NYT at the moment, and it's not about problems with the way she speaks. It's not that she said "It's real," when someone asserted that Israel is committing genocide. It's not that she taunted "You guys are at the wrong rally" when somebody yelled "Christ is Lord."

No, readers are left to assume Harris is speaking in the normal, presidential manner, while Trump is in worrisome decline.

The article the NYT gives us about Harris is news of a weak blip in one question on a poll: "Harris May Be Catching Up on a Key Polling Question: Which Candidate Helps You?"

The NYT seems to be saying: Please be encouraged about Harris, though there's nothing positive that she's said or done that we can elaborate for you today. Leave the Harris door shut, and look at Trump. Isn't he terrible in the same way we've considered him terrible for an entire decade... or, uh, no, at some new more worrisome and ever lower level of descent into hell?