Trump is down to his last 4 rallies.

He's just now arriving on stage at the first of his last 4 rallies. Raleigh, North Carolina, followed by Reading, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and — the last of the last, at 10:30 PM — in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

I expect to hear a lot of anticipatory nostalgia. He's done a hell of a lot of campaign rallies. No one had ever done so many and, probably, no one else ever will:

"I've gone 62 days without a day off. Every single day."

Kamala Harris seems to have 2 rallies planned: "Harris will spend the day in Pennsylvania and start the day in Scranton before delivering remarks in Allentown. Joined by her husband, First Gentlemen Doug Emhoff, she'll attend rallies and concerts in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia with Lady Gaga, Kate Perry, Ricky Martin, The Roots, and remarks by Oprah Winfrey." (Since when is Doug Emhoff called "First Gentlemen Doug Emhoff"?)

The delightful subjectivity of money in politics.

Funny that she has never said a word about Soros, who has cumulatively put a hundred times more money into elections than I have 🤔

If I can figure out 🚀science with SpaceX and 🧠 surgery with Neuralink, then maybe I can figure out politics too 🤷‍♂️ https://t.co/cW9sKHGgs3

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 4, 2024

"If what you're selling is let's get back to normal, be normal. We know Trump isn't normal, but if you lose this election..."

"... it's because a sizable number perhaps a majority think you're not normal in fundamental ways either, and, you know, I know the left — the far left — hates me for always noticing this, but I'm going to continue to notice it because it's true: It's not traditional old school liberalism. It's something very different, and you can't have that word. You are woke — or whatever the word is—  but it's different and you can't, like, merge them when they're very often opposite." 

Said Bill Maher, on his podcast.

The guest, Ben Shapiro, takes over from there: "I think the Democratic party has also done something where they they've been intoxicated by the, you know, wonderful high of being able to just say Trump over and over and over — and Trump is Hitler over and over — and that's excused them to basically believe they can do whatever it is that they want, say what it is they want. The weird thing about this election cycle is that positionally Trump is the most moderate candidate in Republican history...."

"I'm a sign guy. I notice signs...."

“Don Lemon left this interview practically in tears 😭 — he tried talking to a Pennsylvania resident and got a major reality check. Turns out, in Pennsylvania, it’s Trump signs 10 to 1 over Kamala 😂” pic.twitter.com/0VwTTMw2Bn

— 1776 (@TheWakeninq) November 3, 2024

My curiosity about the term "permission structure" pays off.

I'd never noticed it before, but I heard it twice, in rapid succession, in the new NYT "Daily" podcast that I was listening to on my sunrise run:

[This ad] employs this device of the disillusioned Trump voter as a stand-in for the viewer. It's a permission structure for the small sliver of undecided voters who might have voted for Trump before to say: It's okay, there are other people just like you, other people who don't think that Donald Trump is good anymore.... 

Here is a Harris supporting celebrity saying he is disillusioned with what she Harris has said. It's the same permission structure for Harris. You have a white lady saying: You know what? Maybe I can actually vote for Kamala Harris. 

"Permission structure" was used as if it's a standard term, so I wanted to get up to speed. 

I can see that Obama used it back in 2013, but I'm interested in its repeated use in the last few days. I'm seeing it first in Ms. Magazine, on November 1: "New Ad Creates ‘Permission Structure’ for Men to Support Harris":

"NBC is giving former President Donald Trump’s campaign free commercial time in response to Vice President Kamala Harris' appearance on Saturday Night Live..."

"... including an unusual ad during Sunday’s NASCAR coverage, a source familiar with the matter says. Harris appeared on Saturday’s SNL for one minute and 30 seconds.... [T]he sketch drew a rebuke from FCC commissioner Brendan Carr, who is seen as a potential FCC chair if President Trump is re-elected. Carr wrote that the sketch was 'a clear and blatant effort to evade the FCC’s Equal Time rule,' because it came just two days before election day, within the seven-day window the FCC gives campaigns to request equal time...."

Hollywood Reporter reports... without embedding the ad. I'll embed the ad here if I find it. 

A First Amendment montage.

pic.twitter.com/0hebJPsbX0

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 4, 2024

"Quincy Delight Jones Jr. was born on the South Side of Chicago on March 14, 1933, to Quincy Sr. — a carpenter who worked for local gangsters..."

"... and Sarah (Wells) Jones, a musically talented Boston University graduate. At one point in the late 1930s, Quincy and his brother, Lloyd, were separated from their mother, who had developed a schizophrenic disorder, and taken by their father to Louisville, Ky., where they were put in the care of their maternal grandmother, a former enslaved worker...."

From "Quincy Jones, Giant of American Music, Dies at 91/As a producer, he made the best-selling album of all time, Michael Jackson’s 'Thriller.' He was also a prolific arranger and composer of film music" (NYT).

The name Michael Jackson makes the headline of this obituary, but there are so many other names in this incredibly rich life story. What a life in music!

A morning walk in the rain.

"I also think it’s important to acknowledge that, as much as I detest Trump the man, there are sides of the MAGA movement that deserve respect."

"I don’t think of it as a collection of unadulterated bigots. Most Trump voters I know are decent people who don’t like being condescended to by a morally smug and self-serving elite that fails to see the many ways in which the federal government fails ordinary people. I also think Trump’s voters see things that too easily escape the notice of Trump’s haters, whether it was the farce of many of the Covid rules and restrictions or the double standards by which Trump’s opponents claim to be defending democracy while using every trick in the book to put him in prison."

Said Bret Stephens, in "A Second Trump Term? Three Conservative Columnists Unpack What Could Happen" (NYT). The other 2 columnists are Ross Douthat and David French.

Douthat invites French to say something nice about MAGA. French says:

"Japan stole our Halloween magic that tracks cause it died here about 10 years ago."

"I live in japan... you know... walkable cities and all. Halloween is BOOMING here! I handed out candy to 500 kids in just a mid-sized town here (went through ten 50-pack boxes) and my friends went to Nagoya and said there were THOUSANDS of people dressed up this year and it's only getting bigger because people hear about how fun it is and CAN ACTUALLY GET TO THE EVENTS!"

From a Reddit post asking what millennials did (supposedly) that ruined Halloween.

Interesting about Japan. As for America, it might be that millennials think they need to escort their kids from door to door, but if they do that, who will be home to give out candy to the kids that come to their door? I think you need lots of 2-parent families. Leaving out a bowl of candy doesn't work, because there's no one to see the costumes (and it's not surprising that kids dump the whole bowl). 

Other issues: "trunk or treat" format is replacing the door to door approach. And: "Was giving out Halloween candy in my neighborhood and not a single kid said the phrase 'trick or treat.' Literally not a single child."

Yeah, I can imagine it. I didn't tell anyone. And I don't even have a bad relationship.

"Can you imagine a wife not telling a husband who she's voting for? Did you ever hear anything like that? Even if you had a horrible -- if you had a bad relationship, you're gonna tell your husband."

That's Trump:

 

Trump: "Can you imagine a wife not telling a husband who she's voting for? Did you ever hear anything like that? Even if you had a horrible -- if you had a bad relationship, you're gonna tell your husband." pic.twitter.com/gd5of817VY

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 2, 2024

He's talking about that Julia Roberts ad I was laughing at 2 days ago, here. I said: "I don't believe many men are bullying their wives about voting the 'right' way. I think it's a lot more likely that a woman might see how important the election is to her husband and simply choose not to cast a vote that effectively cancels his vote."

Pointing my fingers... pointing my fingers... at you....

ADDED: And Trump already replicated the mirror routine — here, with Jimmy Fallon, back in 2016. The Mick Jagger routine happened in 2001. There may be earlier examples of this routine, or similar things, like Harpo and Groucho in "Duck Soup," and, replicating that, Harpo and Lucy on "I Love Lucy."