Sunrise — 6:31, 6:33, 6:55.

We'll forget how to agonize about money in politics if it keeps getting spent with such ineffective and hilarious profligacy.

"The Harris campaign paid Oprah $1 million to do that interview, and she spent $100,000 building the set of the Call Her Daddy podcast so Kamala Harris wouldn’t have to fly out to LA to film it."

The Harris campaign paid Oprah $1 million to do that interview, and she spent $100,000 building the set of the Call Her Daddy podcast so Kamala Harris wouldn’t have to fly out to LA to film it. pic.twitter.com/rg0dthCR7c

— Insurrection Barbie (@DefiyantlyFree) November 9, 2024

ADDED: "How Kamala Harris plowed through $1 billion" (Washington Examiner).

How Trump tweets.

wait trump just says shit out loud in a room full of people logged into his social media accounts who post it for him i can't even begin to describe how much i need this set uppic.twitter.com/Or0C5Rfbfe

— manny (@mannyfidel) November 8, 2024

"One day, she was noodling around on an electric piano with a chord sequence... 'Do that again,' he said."

"Two hours later, they had written their magnum opus, which became the opening track of their debut album.... [W]ith its imagery of a 'white bird in a golden cage' who 'must fly, or she will die,' the song encapsulated a longing by the flower-power generation to escape a conformist life and soar toward a loftier plane of existence. The song lived on, but the romance between the LaFlammes did not.... 'What we didn’t realize,' Ms. LaFlamme once said... 'is that we were connected so musically that we were not connected in the sense that you would say, married people had this love....'"

From "Linda LaFlamme Dies at 85; Her 'White Bird' Reflected a Hippie Fantasy/With her husband, David LaFlamme, she founded the rock band It’s a Beautiful Day and wrote a soaring paean to a generation’s dreams of escape" (NYT).

What was the "loftier plane of existence" described in that song? Meade and I had entirely different impressions (dating back half a century). Tell me yours and I'll fill you in on ours later.

"Those hours of standing also turned out to have their own downsides, increasing people’s likelihood of developing serious circulatory problems, including varicose veins, abnormally low blood pressure and blood clots..."

"... compared with people who rarely stood.... In theory, being upright should stave off this harm, since it’s the postural opposite of sitting.... But surprisingly little credible science supports all this verticality, and some studies have raised doubts.... [A]s you stand still, blood flows through your legs sluggishly at best and often pools there, potentially contributing to circulatory disease. You also barely raise your heart rate, which is necessary to improve cardiovascular health...."

From "Your standing desk isn’t making you any healthier/A large new study found that standing for more than two hours a day doesn’t protect against the cardiovascular risks of too much sitting" (WaPo).

I have a motorized stand/sit desk. I recommend switching from sitting to standing and from standing to sitting whenever you notice that you feel a bit uncomfortable. Be in touch with your own feelings. 

And by the way, is standing "the postural opposite of sitting"? I was going to say no, but then I remembered...

"This week, the notion of Trump as the leader of a distinctively white movement became harder to defend...."

"Although exit-poll data can be unreliable... [his coalition is] unusually nonwhite.... For instance, Trump became the first Republican in more than a century to win Starr County, along the Mexican border in Texas, which is almost entirely Hispanic; he did similarly well throughout the state’s majority-Hispanic border counties.... Late in the campaign, during a Trump rally at Madison Square Garden, one of his opening acts, the antagonistic comedian Tony Hinchcliffe... made a joke about Puerto Rico being a 'floating island of garbage,' which for a time became the campaign’s top story.... But... Osceola, a majority-Hispanic county in Florida with a large Puerto Rican population, swung from a fourteen-point Biden victory in 2020 to a narrow Trump victory this year.... [P]erhaps Trump’s coalition will help Americans rethink the assumption that 'white' and 'Hispanic' are mutually exclusive categories, and will boost a new version of the old white identity. But, as far as we can tell, Trump’s America is a place that is more polarized by education than it used to be and less polarized by whiteness and non-whiteness—by race, broadly understood...."

I'm reading "How Donald Trump, the Leader of White Grievance, Gained Among Hispanic Voters/In 2016, the idea that Trump was a cloaked white supremacist made him seem like a fringe character. What does it mean that his popularity has increased?" by Kelefa Sanneh, in The New Yorker.

I don't know how much postmortem I'm willing to read. If your perception and analysis are so good, why didn't you see this before the election? I guess that's another way of saying hindsight is 20/20. But I chose this little essay to quote because it's not purporting to understand what happened and it is pretty modestly conceding confusion. That's appropriate. I would like to see much stronger criticism of Democrats. They were boosted by mainstream media, which either pretended not to notice how awful they were or just didn't see.

By the way, is "antagonistic comedian" a standard term? I've heard "insult comedian."

Anyway, to escape from elite media for a moment — I mean for 3 hours — I listened to Joe Rogan and Dave Smith talking about Tony Hinchcliffe (go to 00:04:00):

"In a world of steel eyed death, and men who are fighting to be warm/Come in, Walz said, I'll give you shelter from the storm."

A Redditor gives the right answer to the question:

 

"Republican Kari Lake took yet another bite out of Democratic U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego’s lead in the race for Arizona’s open U.S. Senate seat on Friday evening."

"After cutting nearly 13,000 votes off Gallego’s lead on Thursday and Friday morning, Lake gained about 2,100 more votes when Maricopa County released the results of nearly 100,000 ballots just before 7 p.m. The state’s largest county is expected to release another update Saturday morning.... Gallego... was ahead 5.4 points in the initial results posted after the polls closed on Election Day...."

KTAR News reports on the only Senate race that is still not yet determined.

Sunrise — 6:43, 6:45.

"President-elect Donald J. Trump spoke on Wednesday with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and during the call handed the phone to Elon Musk..."

Writes Maggie Haberman, in the NYT.

It is not clear what the three men discussed or whether they touched on any change in U.S. policy toward Ukraine in the wake of Mr. Trump’s election.

I'm going to guess it was a perfect phone call.

"It just seems to encompass literally everything. It bleeds into everyday life and every interaction you have with other people, and so that’s very stressful."

Said Mallory Roelke, 35, from Dallas, about presidential election politics, quoted in "Exhausted by the Election, Some Americans Are Catching Flights Abroad/For some voters, the campaign season has felt draining. Some are recharging by heading to Mexico City, Barbados or the English Cotswolds, to name a few," in the NYT, which seems to be ever on the alert for new ways to promote travel.

The banality of the photographs at that link is enough to make a sensitive person swear off foreign travel forever. Sample caption: "Mallory Roelke traveled to the Greek island of Santorini in late October, just as the Election Day in the United States was approaching." Don't go to the link and look. You know exactly where Roelke is standing. Other Roelke photos include her standing in front of the Parthenon and a closeup of a glass of white wine held aloft in front of a vineyard in Sicily.

Credit..."

"What happens on this show is so much more intelligent and thoughtful and deep than anything that's going on at CNN."

"You just can't... tell me that you sitting down with Elon Musk for 3 hours and then compare that to like Wolf Blitzer with all his graphics behind him talking for 30 seconds before he goes to a pharmaceutical commercial and then coming back and having the dumbest left winger yell at the dumbest right winger. Really? And you guys are going to act like you're the grownups in the room? It's just, it's too ridiculous.... So the entire young generation has, they've all turned that off.... None of them are getting their news from from CNN anymore. And look man, that's I think the most beautiful part of this election is that mainstream media's dead.... I don't think [CNN has] a show that regularly cracks a million views....."

Said Dave Smith to Joe Rogan (actually the words "mainstream media's dead" are inserted by Joe):

Compare this bit from the NYT "Daily" podcast this morning. The episode is "Inside Trump World as the Next Chapter Begins." Jonathan Swan says:

"The news media in the eyes of many Americans is discredited. More than half the country have tuned out the mainstream media. We are now in little information silos, so it's almost impossible to overstate how much Donald Trump has defeated the system and how favorable the current composition of the system is for Donald Trump."

Did Swan even consider that mainstream media could be the "little information silos" and people are breaking out?

"Three men have been indicted in alleged Iranian plot to kill President-elect Donald Trump while he campaigned for a second term in office..."

"... according to a criminal complaint filed in the Southern District of New York."

WaPo reports.

There's nothing to the report other than that 2 of the 3 men are in custody, but there is a comments section, with idiocy I won't quote but you can easily guess.

"The bells of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris rang out this morning for the first time today since 2019's fire."

"The Cathedral reopens with Mass on December 8th."

WE ARE SO BACK

The bells of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris rang out this morning for the first time today since 2019's fire

The Cathedral reopens with Mass on December 8th pic.twitter.com/roQS22b0t7

— Catholic Arena (@CatholicArena) November 8, 2024

"His decision to choose someone in his inner circle is a sharp contrast to his choice after first winning the presidency in 2016."

"Then, he selected someone with whom he had little history for the chief of staff role: Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee at the time. Most members of Mr. Trump’s extended orbit wanted to see Ms. Wiles as chief. She has close relationships with Vice President-elect JD Vance and with Mr. Trump’s family, including his two older sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric...."

From "Trump Names Susie Wiles as His White House Chief of Staff/The president-elect turned to his top political aide to fill a key post managing the White House when he returns to office" (NYT).

"I'm not leaving anyway. This is my country. You leave."

😂🤣Michael Cohen keeps getting trolled during a livestream about fleeing the USpic.twitter.com/ZodVV17rG7

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) November 8, 2024

The NYT still has the Electoral College race stalled at 295 to 226...

... with Nevada and Arizona lingering, endlessly unreported.

But Real Clear Politics shows all the states decided, with a final score of 312 to 226. We know where Nevada and Arizona are going — into the big landslide.

So I just want to declare my victory as the one who predicted the final score on December 14, 2023: "Predicted Electoral College vote: 312 Trump, 226 Biden."

I mean, the word "Biden" is wrong, but 312 to 226 was right on the nose.

I gave some good advice then too: "The demonization of Trump has not worked for Democrats.... 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."

That advice is still good advice. Especially now that it's a landslide. 

"Cozy, whimsical novels — often featuring magical cats — that have long been popular in Japan and Korea are taking off globally."

I'm reading "In Tumultuous Times, Readers Turn to 'Healing Fiction'... Fans say they offer comfort during a chaotic time" (NYT).

[Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s series, “Before the Coffee Gets Cold,”] — set in a magical cafe in Tokyo where customers can travel back in time while their coffee cools — centers on ordinary people struggling with loss and regret who wish they could change the past....

Recent releases of cozy Japanese novels include Mai Mochizuki’s “The Full Moon Coffee Shop,” set in a magical coffee shop run by talking cats.... [There's also] “The Travelling Cat Chronicles,”.... “The Goodbye Cat,” and... “We’ll Prescribe You a Cat,” [and] “We’ll Prescribe You Another Cat”....

Cats are such a staple in healing fiction that Kawaguchi’s publishers in the United States and Britain added a fluffy brown cat to the covers of “Before the Coffee Gets Cold,” even though, in a break from tradition, cats are not central to his novels....

No mention of Trump (or Vance) in this article, published yesterday, but it's featured at the top of the home page like this... 

... so it's pretty obvious that the NYT is offering this Japanese fantasy material as self-care for its readers suffering from the Democratic Party's blistering defeat. The election that's come to such a bad ending for them featured cats — Trump said "They're eating the cats" and Vance had said "childless cat ladies." So maybe cat offers some charming help for the suffering Trump haters, some balance for that awful squirrel that controlled the American election from the afterlife (as depicted charmingly in a cool fantasy novel to be counted among my unwritten books).

And, yes, I see the headlines on the left-hand side of the page. They're really important, but I'm not blogging in order of importance.

ADDED: I love the framing of Donald Trump inside the coils of barbed wire. It's all that's left of the dream of imprisoning him.

She is still the Vice President. She could concentrate on being the best darned Vice President ever.

Start doing that border control job effectively — coordinate with incoming President Donald J. Trump and incoming VP JD Vance.

Or just do the obvious things: 1. Rest and enjoy whatever it is you enjoy (you, the "joy" person), and 2. Oversee the pursuit of money through a ghost-written book and scripted personal appearances.

I just saw the headline at the NYT: "What’s Next for Kamala Harris? Here Are Six Options. Her friends, aides and political allies say it’s too soon for her to even contemplate her next career move. But the speculation has already begun."

6 options, eh? I only thought of 2. It's hard to care long enough to think of 4 more options. Wear comfortable clothes? Get drunk? Divorce Doug? I don't know. Run for Governor of California in 2026 (Newsom is term-limited)?

Let me, at long last, read the actual article:

Where are all the protests of the election?

"Well, there was a group of about 30 to 50 people..."

Explanations:

1. Wait until Saturday. Protesting is a weekend activity.

2. Trump antagonists really believe in democracy and calmly accept the results of the election. 

3. No one wants to pretend to like Kamala Harris anymore.

Sunrise — 6:39, 6:42, 6:43.

"Nearly two years ago, I wrote that Democratic prosecutors’ lawfare campaign against Donald Trump would make the 2024 election the single largest jury decision in history...."

"The 2024 election will come to be viewed as one of the biggest political and cultural shifts in our history. It was the mainstream-media-versus-new media election; the Rogan-versus-Oprah election; the establishment-versus-a-disassociated-electorate election. It was also a thorough rejection of lawfare. One of the things most frustrating for Trump’s opponents was that every trial or hearing seemed to give Trump a boost in the polls.... In the end, Trump read the jury correctly. Once the lawfare was unleashed, he focused on putting his case to the public and walked away with a clear majority decision...."

Writes Jonathan Turley, in "Donald Trump just won the greatest jury verdict in American history" (The Hill).

"Merchan doesn’t have the stomach to imprison a former president or president-elect. Now that Trump has won, his criminal problems go away."

Said former prosecutor Neama Rahmani, quoted in "Judge in Trump’s ‘hush money’ trial considers tossing felony conviction after election win" (NY Post).

Waiting for Biden to speak.

 It’s not a concession speech. It’s… perhaps something graceful and inspiring.

So now comes the postmortem.

I see this little collection of chastened musings on the edge of the NYT front page...

... but I don't have to read this stuff. For you, though, I'll power through it super-quick and say...

1. "In this new era, in which supporting Palestinian freedom has become central to what it means to be progressive, the Palestinian exception is not just immoral. It’s politically disastrous."

2. "In the longer term, we’ll need liberal politics that are about more than just fending off the right."

3. "Instead of proposing sweeping new programs or even taking a stand, as Ms. Harris did, in defense of the status quo, [Democrats] could try to redefine themselves as responsible reformers."

4. "She spoke in the foamy blather of a corporate human resources manager. She pandered to low-information, single women voters by appearing on podcasts like 'Call Her Daddy' and goofballing along to her 'brat' label. She often came across as fake and scripted... seeming to parrot whatever her political consultants told her. The act wore thin."

"Democrats across the ideological spectrum are quickly seizing on this raw moment to try to redefine the party in their image."

From "Democrats start clawing each others' eyes out" (Axios).

"[Jack] Smith could proactively withdraw the charges himself, or simply resign..."

"... and allow the current leaders of the Justice Department to shutter them. He could continue to pursue the cases for the next two and a half months and essentially force Trump, or his appointees, to pull the plug. Or, with Garland’s blessing, he could release a comprehensive final report detailing the evidence against Trump.... Smith also has more deeply personal concerns to consider. Trump, who has vowed to use the presidency to seek retribution against his adversaries, has repeatedly accused Smith, without any basis, of criminality. Last month, Trump said Smith should be 'thrown out of the country.' And on Wednesday, Trump’s allies signaled quickly that Smith should prepare to face consequences. 'Dear Jack Smith: Lawyer up,' said Mike Davis, a bomb-throwing Trump ally considered to be in the mix to be a top legal adviser in the incoming administration...."

From "Trump’s biggest courtroom nemesis is looking for an exit strategy/The special counsel is expected to wind down the federal criminal cases he has spent the past two years building" (WaPo).

Sunrise — 7:08.

Waiting for Kamala Harris to come out and give her concession speech.

Here's a link to the YouTube live feed. 

It was scheduled for 4 PM ET, and it's running more than 20 minutes late.

"A Party of Prigs and Pontificators Suffers a Humiliating Defeat."

A good headline for a new column by Bret Stephens (in the NYT).

[L]iberals thought that the best way to stop Trump was to treat him not as a normal, if obnoxious, political figure with bad policy ideas but as a mortal threat to democracy itself.... [T]his style of opposition led Democrats... into their own form of antidemocratic politics — using the courts to try to get Trump’s name struck from the ballot in Colorado or trying to put him in prison on hard-to-follow charges. It distracted them from the task of developing and articulating superior policy responses to the valid public concerns he was addressing. And it made liberals seem hyperbolic, if not hysterical, particularly since the country had already survived one Trump presidency more or less intact....

Yeah, I wanted Democrats to campaign on the substantive merits. Maybe they'll change their ways now that this over-the-top attack on the man, Trump, failed so badly. But for that, they'll need to come up with some good substantive merits. They'd better get to work.

"This Time We Have to Hold the Democratic Party Elite Responsible for This Catastrophe."

Writes Jeet Heer in The Nation. Subheadline: "Trump won because the opposition party is committed to ancien régime restoration in a country that desperately wants change."

The key to understanding the Trump era is that the real divide in America is not between left and right but between pro-system and anti-system politics. Pro-system politics is the bipartisan consensus of establishment Democrats and Republicans: It’s the politics of NATO and other military alliances, of trade agreements, and of deference to economists (as when they say that price gouging isn’t the cause of inflation). Trump stands for no fixed ideology but rather a general thumbing of the nose at this consensus....

Democrats... need... to embrace radical policies to change that status quo. This is the only path for the party to rebuild itself and for Trumpism....

"That little thing called special."

I liked that locution in Trump's victory speech last night.

Context, from the transcript:

"We're gonna turn our country around. Make it something very special. It lost that, lost that little, it lost that little, that little thing called special. We have to make it, so we're gonna make this so great. It's gonna. It's the greatest country, and potentially the greatest country in the world by far and right now we're gonna just work very hard to get all of that back. We're gonna make it the best it's ever been. We can do that. We just, if we had to wait longer. I don't know. It was going bad and it was going bad fast...."

"I’m worried that if the Harris campaign wins on an abortion, abortion, abortion, presidential message, that the Democrats will take the lesson..."

"... that the way to win is to divide America along gender lines and convince young women that the essence of their political identity should be focused on making sure that they have the right to terminate their unborn children in the womb. That, I think, would be a very depressing future for American liberalism and would make me unhappy for my daughter’s future."

Said Ross Douthat, on November 1, in "This Election Is the Tiebreaker Over Trumpism/The hosts dig into what they got right, and what they got so wrong, about this campaign season," an episode of the NYT "Matter of Opinion" podcast.

The Democrats, most emphatically, did not win the election, and I wonder: Did they learn that it's not a winning strategy to divide us along gender lines?

Scanning the headlines of columns this morning, I get the impression that the response is to double down on gender division. I'll just link to Maureen Dowd's "It’s This Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World":

"Mr. Vance will become the nation’s youngest vice president since 1953, when Richard M. Nixon..."

"... who celebrated his 40th birthday just days before inauguration, was sworn in as Dwight D. Eisenhower’s vice president. John C. Breckinridge, who was 36 when he assumed office in 1857 as James Buchanan’s vice president, holds the record for the nation’s youngest vice president."

From "JD Vance, Trump’s MAGA Successor, Will Be One of America’s Youngest Vice Presidents/Mr. Vance’s victory caps his ideological reversal from anti-Trump author to pro-Trump senator" (NYT).

With Trump limited to one last term, Vance embodies his hope of continuing his vision and influence into the future. We've just seen a Vice President fail to acquire the distinction needed to convince American voters that she was presidential material. You could say she was tapped awfully late and suddenly thrown into the arena. But it was obvious from before the start of Biden's term that he lacked what it takes. I thought, when he was sworn in, that within a few months he'd be out and Harris would be President.

"As long as the roots are not severed, all is well. And all will be well in the garden."

About that dead horse.

Sorry to beat a dead horse, but can we go back to what happened here? pic.twitter.com/FkScNHivuU

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) November 6, 2024

"... and quietly just do whatever we want."

Lil X and Elon Musk with Tucker Carlson.

The best video you'll see on the internet today. 🫶🏻 pic.twitter.com/fnCTOqO4R5

— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) November 6, 2024

I heard Dana Bash say it at 1:15 a.m. on CNN: “We’re all living in the manosphere now.”

I can't find anyone else quoting that — I quoted it here, in real time. And I want it preserved.

And let's see who else was talking about the election in terms of the "manosphere." 1. November 5, 6:15 AM, in The Washington Post: "Into the nervy climax of the 2024 elections/Our columnists are trying to keep calm as this year’s immensely consequential vote wraps up." The columnist James Hohmann speaks of the "manosphere"... disparagingly:

The party’s coalitions are changing. We’re going through this realignment that Trump has hastened. And Republicans are now much more dependent than they really ever have been in our lifetimes on low-propensity voters. They’re counting on the "Manosphere," the Joe Rogan listener, the crypto bro, “the guy who vapes.” And these are not high-propensity voters.

2. November 5, 8:09 AM: "Joe Rogan Reminded of His Own Brutal Words After Trump Endorsement/Joe Rogan just endorsed Donald Trump. Here’s what he once had to say about the former president":

The king of the manosphere has spoken. Celebrity podcast host Joe Rogan officially endorsed Donald Trump in a lengthy post Monday evening on X. Receipts immediately followed... Fans were quick to point to the many times Rogan has criticized Trump....

3. November 1, at NPR: "America's Next Top Scapegoat; plus, Inside the Black Manosphere":

Then, Brittany is joined by Code Switch's Gene Demby to explore the roots of a corner of the conservative internet that may have surprising effects on the election: The Black Manosphere.

ADDED: There's also, from September in Atlantic: "How Joe Rogan Remade Austin/The podcaster and comedian has turned the city into a haven for manosphere influencers, just-asking-questions tech bros, and other 'free thinkers' who happen to all think alike" (previously blogged here).

And, to go back to August 2016, something from The New Yorker — previously blogged here — there's "WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE DECIDE EVERYONE ELSE IS A NARCISSIST," a New Yorker article by Jia Tolentino, who quoted "An Essay on the Fear of Narcissism" by Kristin Dombek:

"'If you are an especially giving person, warns the Internet, you are a prime target for narcissists,' Dombek writes. The narcisphere has a gendered inverse, which some call the manosphere and which is dedicated to teaching men how to dominate women by feigning self-confidence. This is the realm of pickup artistry. It is much worse than the narcisphere...."

And here's something I blogged in November 2018:

"What I was surprised to find was the extent to which [the 'manosphere' is] using ancient Greek and Roman figures and texts to prop up an ideal of white masculinity," said Donna Zuckerberg, interviewed in "Donna Zuckerberg: ‘Social media has elevated misogyny to new levels of violence’/When the academic, sister of Mark Zuckerberg, began exploring online antifeminism, she discovered far-right men’s groups were using classical antiquity to support their views" (The Guardian).

"Baldwin officials said the numbers were not final but that she has taken the lead and the margin is too large for Hovde to make up."

It says here in "Tammy Baldwin declares victory in Wisconsin Senate race in 2024 election over Eric Hovde" (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel).

With 97.3% of the votes counted, Baldwin led Hovde by 49.2% to 48.7% — a margin of nearly 16,000 votes — in a race that drew attention and big bucks from around the country. Absentee ballots had not yet been counted in Racine and Oshkosh and votes had not all been counted in various places in Oshkosh.... The Democratic incumbent outperformed Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, who was losing to former President Donald Trump by more than 41,000 votes.

Control of the Senate doesn't hinge on this race: "Republicans Clinch Control of the Senate/After picking up seats in West Virginia and Ohio and winning an unexpectedly close race in Nebraska, the G.O.P. had enough for a majority. Tight races in swing states will determine their margin" (NYT).

Just now: The NYT observes that Trump has won.

 

It was the calling of Wisconsin that put him over the numerical line, chez NYT:

ADDED: I saw — at 6:03 Eastern — that the NYT called it at 6:03 because my son Chris texted me the image of that map above. It was funny that I — who'd been clicking around — got the NYT news from Chris, because last night he texted me that he was going to look away from the reporting of the returns. Going off to read last night, he said: "I predict I will find out the outcome of the election even if I try to avoid it."

It's Election Night at last, and the results are almost in.

I hope to hear The Big Answer before I fall asleep, and that is not an expression of hope for insomnia. I hope there's a nice big juicy clear result that comes in early. A good brisk dose of reality. And then we can all stop fighting, come together, and get some rest.

I'll update this as we go along... if I've got anything to say and I don't conk out.

But, please, get the comments started. The first polls close in about half an hour. 

ADDED, at 12:37 AM: Just woke up after sleeping 3 hours. I see I got what I wanted, a nice clear outcome. Hope you’re happy… or at least keeping your wits about you. 

AND: Dana Bash, on CNN at 1:15: “We’re all living in the manosphere now.”

Morning rain walk — 9:42, 9:44.

Write about anything you want... except the election results. I'll put up a dedicated post for that.

"You can read Ivanka’s inane musings below, but they’re not the real point. She turned 43 on October 30."

"There is no reason to post this thread on November 4, the night before Election Day, other than to emphasize that she’s not even thinking about Donald Trump’s reelection bid. Ivanka basically found a way to tell her dad, 'I really don’t care, do U?' via Twitter thread, rather than donning an ugly jacket...."

Writes Margaret Hartmann in New York Magazine, reacting to Ivanka's stoicism-studded thread on X.

What's up with Ivanka? Who knows? She was the favored child, it always seemed, or at least the favored daughter. Maybe you're wondering Should I care? Just consult Marcus Aurelius — "You have power over your mind—not outside events" — or Epictetus — "Anyone capable of angering you becomes your master."

"Our ruling class is disgusting."

Hear Tucker narrate this ad. It captures the truth and emotion. Chills. 👇🏻🔊✊🏻

pic.twitter.com/qTAlLQcsRh

— Sheri™ (@FFT1776) November 4, 2024

"Trump and allies have primed supporters to falsely believe he has no chance of losing."

That's the headline at NPR for a piece by political reporter Stephen Fowler.

What does "primed" even mean? It seems to admit that Trump never said he has "no chance of losing," but he said something that has caused a belief. And then what's the evidence that Trump supporters believe that? No chance of losing — who believes that? And then to ding these people for "falsely" believing this thing Trump never said... well, the "falsely" ought to be appended to this NPR article: NPR political reporter falsely believes Trump somehow caused his supporters to believe he has no chance of losing.

Am I being unfair to Fowler? As Shakespeare put it: "Fair is foul, and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air."

Okay, let's hover. Fowler writes:

Republicans pounce... on Peanut.

I'm reading "How the Death of a Celebrity Squirrel Became a Republican Rallying Cry/After P’Nut and a raccoon named Fred were taken by wildlife agents and euthanized, Donald Trump and local candidates accused New York Democrats of 'state overreach'" (NYT).

In the frantic last days of an election when candidates are scrabbling for any edge, the death of P’Nut (who also went by Peanut) has been pounced on by some Republicans as something of a fur-covered November surprise.... 

Trump's final campaign rally — in Grand Rapids, beginning after midnight and continuing until after 2 a.m.

It was his 4th email of the 24-hour period, and it looked like this:

"The great and powerful @elonmusk . If it wasn't for him we'd be fucked. He makes what I think is the most compelling case for Trump you'll hear..."

"... and I agree with him every step of the way. For the record, yes, that's an endorsement of Trump. Enjoy the podcast."

Writes the great and powerful Joe Rogan on X.

Full interview:

The things I miss when I go to sleep at 7:45.

I'm listening now and will add some quotes as I go.

ADDED: Here's what Trump said about that, at his final rally, after midnight, in Grand Rapids. Go to 1:35:58:

"You know I did a thing a couple of weeks ago with a very smart guy and a very special talent. He's got the number one podcast they say by like four times. Joe Rogan.... And I said Joe I got a rally of this size waiting for me in a very far away place. I'm going to be very late, like 2 and 1 half hours late, but we kept talking. It went 3 hours and 15 minutes or something, then when I got up there, it was cold little bitter, and everybody waited nobody left, and I explained to him, look, Joe is the number one guy he kept me late but I'm doing it because we have to win, and not one person was unhappy. We had a great time, and I said we're going to devote a lot more time. It was pretty late at night. It was worse than this, okay, I can tell you. But Joe Rogan just announced and he doesn't do this at all I don't think he's ever done it but he just announced that he's giving me his complete and total 1:37:07 endorsement.... Wow. Wow...."

"It was worse than this" = later at night. 

Sunrise, 6:38... Rainwalk, 12:24...

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."